Muggs
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.
(more…)Labor-beat maven Dave Robb passes
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.
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.
John Willis
April 25, 2023
We were sad to hear of the passing on April 16 in London of former Variety sales topper and one-time bureau chief John Willis. John had been admitted to a hospital a few days earlier, but then developed pneumonia. He died quickly and peacefully surrounded by members of his family. He was 86.
