By FRANK SEGERS
(Or, can you get that damned quarter-page ad in the paper past deadline?)
Call me crazy if you wish – and many do, regularly – but it occurs that Variety publisher Syd Silverman never felt as comfortable or more at ease working with anyone at the old 46th St. office in Manhattan as he did with Abie Torres.
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By MORT BRYER
(former Advertising Manager of Variety)
I don’t recall Abie Torres every making an error, even while putting together some of those obese, nay, fat, 500 and 600 page issues.
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by PAUL ROSOVSKY
As a Variety newbie decades ago, I was lucky enough to come under Abie Torres’ generous wing (after he had come under Syd’s, Murray Rann’s and Jimmy Antinori’s) and learned more from him than I had learned in school. We toiled away on those gargantuan issues and got into our share of trouble in the off hours (the tale of the places the production manager of Screw got us into is another story).
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by FRED LOMBARDI
When I first met Abie Torres what struck me was what seemed his mocking tone towards just about everything and everybody. He didn’t seem like someone to whom you’d want to confide.
Yet when I was very green and had to manage various miscellaneous services, most notably our messenger staff, Abie was the one person who patiently sat down with me and gave me very sound advice.
Abie gave the impression of complete insouciance, not rebelliousness but imperviousness to all the slings and arrows of authority that left him unruffled. But both from the quality of his work and from conversations with him, I realized that no one could have had more personal loyalty than he did to Jimmy, Mort and Syd.
Under his different masks, I know that Abie had his share of emotional scars. I hope that his last years in Florida were happy and tranquil but know that he always enjoyed the hurly-burly of Variety, 46th Street style.
Longtime Variety mugg David Stratton has just published his recollections of a life in film, titled “I Peed on Fellini” (Random House, Sydney), and has kindly sent us an autographed copy.
David’s book is an autobiography, which in his case means that it is chock full of references to people, places and films he came in contact with over a lifetime dedicated to viewing and reviewing films throughout the world. Hundreds of people, from Paris Variety scribe to Federico Fellini, are mentioned (unfortunatley there is no index), and occasionally sections pop up relating to the old Variety and some of its staffers.
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