Robert J. Dowling, who made hollywood reporter culminating in 17 years of running as editor-in-chief and elite publisher of the trade newspaper, has passed away. He was 83.
Dowling died Friday at his home in Santa Monica after a short illness, a family spokesman announced.
Dowling joins CHEAP September 1988, takeover from Tichi Wilkerson, widow of the newspaper’s founder, William R. Wilkerson, after she sold the company to BPI Communications for $26.7 million.
Publishing has seen tremendous growth under Dowling amid a media boom that covers Hollywood, and he has helped reshape CHEAP become a fierce, incompetent competitor to the industry’s other five-day-a-week trading, Daily variety.
CHEAP‘S The Key Art Awards (now known as the Clio Awards), the annual breakfast for Women in Entertainment, and the Next Generation initiative have flourished under his leadership and remain a important part of today. CHEAP.
Other innovations under his management include the introduction of CHEAP to the Internet in 1995 and went digital CHEAP East, serving readers on the East Coast via PDF edition; Daily Oscar Screening Guide; a production database to track the progress of movies and TV shows; and THR, Esq.a legitimate blog once led by Matthew Belloni.
He has also written influential Page 1 editorials under the banner “Winds of Commerce,” a tradition that began with Billy Wilkerson, and embraced the technological changes that have rocked Hollywood. during his tenure.
December 2005, with CHEAP owned by Dutch media group VNU, the New York native resigned to become a consultant and chairman of his own Bob Dowling Group. He was succeeded by Tony Upphoffwho has been working for less than a year. CHEAP in its everyday form will never be the same.
“During the planning process for the next five years, they looked around the room and when they came to me it was still not clear,” he told the newspaper. LA time. “No one is the catalyst; it’s just kind of got to that spot.
tpersonnelsince 1930, Hollywood’s first commercial daily, published its final daily print edition on October 29, 2010 and switched to glossy weekly.
Robert J. Dowling with honorary major Hollywood major Johnny Grant (left) and City Councilman Eric Garcetti on September 22, 2005, when Hollywood Boulevard was renamed “Hollywood Correspondent Avenue.” in recognition of the newspaper’s 75th anniversary.
Image of Matthew Simmons/Getty
Robert Joseph Dowling was born on Long Island on September 16, 1939. He was abandoned by his biological mother and spent the first three years of his life in a series of foster homes before being finally adopted. He says the discomfort this creates will boost his lifelong ability to recognize motivations and instinctively assess situations quickly.
As he described in his 2019 memoir “My Life… And Then Some,” selling has become second nature to him because of his ability to empathize with those on the other side. of the agreement.
He attended Villanova University, then served as president, editor-in-chief and publisher at Technical Marketing Corp., which he founded. High-tech marketing and Sports Marketing News. He was also involved in the publication of several other journals, including Men clothes, International sportswear and American pharmacist.
Stephen Galloway, longtime CHEAP writer, editor and now dean of the film school at Chapman University, says Dowling is motivated by endless curiosity and a desire to understand things better and deeper. He calls him “a person of great integrity,” which he discovered shortly after starting full-time at CHEAP in the mid-1990s.
“I heard that the co-director of a large company was leaving the company but didn’t know why,” he said. “It turned out that the reason was that he was caught having sex under the table at the office party, and now his wife is threatening to take half of his property.
“When the agent found out I was asking questions, he insisted on meeting Bob, storming into our building and demanding that I be fired. I was only there for four months, but Bob stood by me, even when the company made half a million dollars in advertising dollars, and he never mentioned it again, except with a smile.”
In 2001, CHEAP Editor Anita M. Busch, labor reporter David Robb and executive film editor Beth Laski quit after Dowling decided not to publish a story about allegations of unethical behavior by Dowling. CHEAP party columnist George Christy.
Dowling said he thought the matter was best handled by human resources, and wrote that Busch and Robb had “personal agendas that ultimately led to an apparent lack of objectivity in their investigation. ” CHEAP finally published a story about Christy, who was suspended; he resigned five months later.
Survivors include his 56-year-old wife, Juanita, and sons Michael, Matthew and Jobe. He is a longtime member of the Bel Air Country Club.
Dowling expressed great pride in the achievement of CHEAP group led by editor Howard Burns on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “On the most tragic day in American history, an employee of hollywood reporter published one of the most unforgettable issues in its history,” he said. He posted a photo of Page 1 on Facebook every September 11th.
In August 2020 on a CHEAP Alumni page on Facebook, Dowling wrote: “In my more than 40 years of career, I have never worked with such an amazing, professional, talented and dedicated person. [group of] Everybody. I feel we are a family and the newspaper is our child, and we have a responsibility to protect it, respect it and make it grow. As a family, we can’t be beat. I will forever keep all my friends from Reporter in my heart.”
Editor’s Note: Mike Barnes begins at CHEAP on the copy desk in 1993 when Dowling was in charge. “You couldn’t ask for a nicer, more supportive guy to work for,” he said.
