Remembering Hal Scott

Madrid Nov. 18, 2024

By Peter Besas

Hal Scott

Just yesterday I was surprised to receive an email from a certain Sam Wasson, but I quickly saw it was not a Spam message since it was titled “Bravo and Hal Scott”.

Hal, as former muggs doubtless know, was the Daily Variety sales manager for many years, known to some at the time as “Mr Hollywood”. Hal handled many of the big film accounts on the Coast and, I was told, at one point drove about the city in a Rolls Royce.

On my first visit to the City of Angels he was kind enough to chaperone me around the city and take me and my wife to some of its iconic restaurants. He was always gracious.

The writer of the email I received was Hal’s grandson, Sam Wasson, who had come across a book that I had published in 2000 called “Inside Variety” in which several sections appear based on interviews I made with Hal when I was researching the book. Sam queried me to see if I might still have the original recording of the interview with Hal so that he could hear his grandfather’s voice.

I thereupon rummaged through one of my closets, which are piled high with Variety memorabilia, including about 30 of the old cassette tapes from the time I was preparing my book, and sure enough came across the one from Hal that contains two interviews with him that I had done in Beverly Hills in 1994. On the same tape was an interview with former Daily Variety scribe Mike Kaplan.

In the interview with Hal, he recounts several anecdotes, one of which concerns the producer and showman Mike Todd who had recently completed his film “Around the World in 80 Days” and was married to Elizabeth Taylor. As a result of the meeting between Hal and Todd, the latter gave Hal a watch as a present which was inscribed “Because you’re a lousy salesman”, now in the possession of Sam. The anecdote, along with others concerning Hal and Variety can be found in “Inside Variety”.

The rear of a watch given to Hal Scott by Mike Todd inscribed "Because you're a lousy salesman but thanks for being a lousy salesman"
The watch given to Hal Scott by Mike Todd

Tomorrow I shall mail the cassette from Madrid to Sam in LA for the delectation of his mother and Hal’s brother.

end

Simesite Year’s End Wrap

Madrid, Jan. 1, 2024

Another year has come to its close and we have managed to beat last year’s number of entries from the muggs, now totalling 20!

There were a few no-shows, such as the Fainarus, Mike Evans, Bill Grantham, Semantha Stenzel, Paul Rosovsky, and Mike Malak, but we hope that their absences have not been due to misfortunes.

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Labor-beat maven Dave Robb passes

Los Angeles, Dec. 11, 2023

The dean of Hollywood trade newspaper reporters on the labor beat for decades, David Robb, 74, died Dec. 8 of inoperable brain cancer at his Los Angeles home. He was a mugg who worked at Daily Variety for a decade starting in 1982 covering labor unions, legal (especially labor law) and employment matters. 

Photo: Michael Fleming/Deadline
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Abel’s Style Sheet

By Peter Besas                                      

Madrid, Sept. 13, 2023

As I was rummaging through piles of old papers and back issues of Variety in one of the rooms in my apartment, aside from chancing upon a playbill from Tony Pastor’s Theatre at 585 Broadway, with one of the dozen attractions being Miss Lillian Russell, and a 22-page 1912 program of the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street for a “musical comedy deluxe” called The Pink Lady that included display ads for such restaurants as Shanley’s on Broadway, featuring an “exceptional Cabaret”, Cavanagh’s Restaurant and Grill on 23rd St. (“vocal and instrumental music, shell fish a specialty”), Murray’s “Cabaret in Roman Gardens” on 42nd St., Wallicks new Broadway restaurant on 43rd St. and Bustanoby’s on 39th Street (dinner $1.50, Parisian specialties, dancing, select performance, Tel.6780 Greeley”, I came across a Style Sheet that the former Variety editor Abel Green had printed in 1960 for the guidance of old and new muggs.

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Ninety and still punching

By Robert Marich

While many muggs hang up their Underwoods with retirement, our Peter Besas celebrated his 90th birthday in Madrid with a self-printed booklet “Never Say, ‘The Last One.’” Besas (sig “Besa”) served as Madrid stringer and later bureau chief and Latin American Director of Operations for Variety from 1969 to 1999.

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