Variety had been founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman, Syd’s grandfather. A year later, in 1906, a London office had been established and freelance correspondents in Paris and other European cities followed in the following decades, making Variety a truly international show biz trade paper, the only one of its kind covering vaudeville and live performances. The first ever recorded reviews of two short one-reel films appeared in the January 19, 1907 issue. In later decades, sections on radio and television were added, as these new media came into existence. Later, a short section on the legitimate theatre ran at the back of the paper, as well as night club reviews, a “chatter” catch-all column and – importantly – obits of those in the entertainment field.   

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This first trip to Latin American would be taken in November – December, before the Christmas holidays. January and February were the summer months in the southern hemisphere when many of those that needed to be contacted would be away, thus the issue would have to be published in late March, with a nominal deadline for advertising and editorial copy to be in  New York by March 1, 1976, which would give me time to put the final touches on the issue and update information I had culled during my swing through Latin lands. As a truly generous gesture, Syd agreed to let my wife, Lucy, accompany me on the trip, including her air fare. She would join me in Rio and remain with me as far as Lima. She could be a kind of secretary, phoning key companies from the hotels we were lodged in to set up appointments for me. 

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We landed in Rio on Sunday, November 2, and checked into the Leme Palace. The next morning I started calling some of the contacts on my list to make appointments. My knowledge of Portuguese was of the most rudimentary sort, but in the course of the week in Brazil I managed to get along in Spanish when my contacts did not know English. However, setting up appointments from the phone in our hotel room proved to be a major chore. One of the puzzlements was when I was given a phone number for a client and was told, for example,: um, sete dois, meia, sete, oito, um. I looked through my pocket dictionary but could find no number listed at “meia”. It took a while before I realized that in Brazil it was the word used for six, deriving from “media” or “half”.

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My swing through Latin America then continued with stops in Lima, Bogotá, Caracas and finally Mexico City, after which I headed to New York to spend Christmas with my family. 

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Once back in Madrid, most of January and February were spent converting the ample notes taken during my trips into articles and typing follow-up letters to the many contacts I had made during my trips. I composed a house ad that ran in Variety announcing the date of the upcoming Latin issue, announcing that it would have a special “bonus” distribution at the MIP television market in April and at the film festival in May, both held in Cannes. I also contacted film and television companies in Spain, using my twin editorial and advertising hats. At the same time, I urged other European Variety offices, especially London, to contact companies that had dealings with Latin America.