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| Sime Silverman |
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by PETER BESAS
Born on May 19, 1873 in Cortland, New York, the third child of Louis and
Rachel (née Ganz) Silverman, Simon J. Silverman, had his first brush with
journalism in 1903 when he got a job reviewing vaude acts for a Gotham sheet
called Daily America; thereupon followed a job on The Telegraph. After
panning an act as "N.G." (no good), but which had taken a half page ad, Sime
got the sack and a short while later launched his own "horizontal" sheet in
1905, VARIETY, which covered vaude, live acts, circus and other forms of
entertainment.
Sime's first office was in the Knickerbocker Theatre Building on Broadway,
between 38th and 39th Streets. Four years after launching VARIETY, in 1909,
when the paper had grown, he moved to a building overlooking Times Square,
corner of 45th Street and Broadway. Those were the buccaneering years, when
Sime and his sheet were fighting for survival, hiding from creditors and
using every ploy imaginable to keep ahead of the competition.
Stacked
against them were various other show biz papers such as The Telegraph, The
Billboard, The Dramatic Mirror and The Clipper. Other antagonists included the vaudeville "trust", headed by B.F. Keith and his main henchman, E.F. Albee, the ever quarrelsome Shubert Brothers, the White Rats thesps' association, as well as other power players of the era who weren't happy to
see a hard-hitting independent paper making headway.
In 1889 Sime had married Harriet "Hatty" Freeman, who hailed from Syracuse,
N.Y.
Near the end of that year their first and only son, Sid, was born. They
called him "Skigie", and even while still a child, Sime had him reviewing
moppet vaude acts, just to get another child's reaction.
By 1920, VARIETY had grown so much that Sime again moved into new quarters.
He bought a building at 154 West 46th Street, which had formerly belonged to
a modiste. It was in that rickety, five-flight walk-up building that the
paper reached the acme of its fame and influence. It is the building that
most of those o-o'ing this web page remember, and where so many of our lives
crossed.
Sime came in every day to edit and write copy, sitting on the dais in his
swivel chair that overlooked the street below. He was a man that lived hard,
smoking, drinking, womanizing, playing poker through the nights and
indulging in noctural sorties with his buddies to the vaude houses, theatres
and night clubs, hobnobbing with his pals, who ranged from Mayor Jimmy
Walker to Jimmy Durante, Walter Winchell, Jack Lait and Tom Mix. Many
cheered their spirits with him in his 5th floor den during Prohibition,
where Sime always kept a good stock of booze.
But Sime's first love was his paper. He cultivated an inner circle of muggs,
as the journalists were called, and strictly kept to the creed of
journalistic honesty and integrity he had proclaimed in the first issue, not
always an easy task when your advertisers were the very people whom you were
writing about.
Physically, Sime measured 5' 10" in height and weighed 210 pounds. He
dressed expensively but not ostentatiously in brown suits with no vests,
specially made shoes, a brown gabardine trench coat and brown slouch hat to
match. His prime personal extravagance was very fine linen, and over-sized
handkerchiefs. He was known for the bow-tie he always sported.
He took
little exercise, but looked physically fit, despite smoking Turkish-blend
Murad cigarettes all his life. He tended to mumble when he talked, and hated
having his picture taken. He also hated all kinds of job titles, so his
favorite expression for a "bureau chief" in Los Angeles, or London, or
Chicago was simply that he was "in charge" of the office. No one in the
office had titles, other than the editor, and in the pages of VARIETY top
execs were simply known as "toppers".
Sime's favorite haunt for luncheon was the old Astor Hotel on Times Square,
where he mixed with industry leaders, jotting down key words on a small
notepad he kept under the table. He then worked the jottings into
full-length stories upon returning to the office.
By 1930, competition was getting hot on the Coast, with Billy Wilkerson
launching The Hollywood Reporter on September 3. Although in ill health
(he had been battling TB for years), Sime followed suit, and launched his
own daily paper, DAILY VARIETY. The first issue came out on Sept. 6, 1933.
He put in charge of it an experienced, tough ex New York trade journalist,
Arthur Ungar. The launch came just in time for Sime to see it in L.A., because
two weeks later, on September 23, while in his suite at the Ambassador
Hotel, he succumbed to a major hemorrhage.
An estimated 3,600 friends showed up for the memorial service in New York's
Temple Emanu-El and 900 extra chairs had to be set up. Among those attending
was a who's who of show biz of the time. That evening, a large gathering
assembled in Sime's apartment on Central Park West to hear a 15-minute
nationwide NBC special salute, which opened by playing Give My Regards To
Broadway. By the end of the broadcast, there wasn't a dry eye in the place.
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| Sime - he started it all and became a legend |
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| Arthur Ungar - the first DAILY VARIETY editor |
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| Syd - the grandson who picked up the reins |
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