Word: sime
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...couple of months, he said, and short, swart, 210-pound Nat Kahn, eight years a mugg, would be boss. Out in Hollywood, Green will help Warner Bros, erect it's long-planned monument to the man who made slangy Variety the "showbiz" oracle it is: Founder Sime ("Mr. Broadway") Silverman...
Acid Upstart. Sime Silverman was fired from the old New York Morning Telegraph for panning a theatrical act that had bought an ad. He borrowed $1,500 from his father-in-law to push into the clamorous crowd of stage-door journalism. His maiden editorial in 1905 carried an acid promise: to print the news "without regard to whose name is mentioned, or the advertising columns...
...starveling years, while Silverman feuded with the powerful theatrical houses of Shubert and Albee, actors shied away from his columns (if they bought space, they might get fired). But in dingy dressing rooms and rocking tourist sleepers, Variety became the hometown paper of every vaudevillager whose slanguage it spoke. Sime Silverman kept it a jump ahead of the sheriff and ahead of the times, managed to shift its accent to the movies long before vaudeville died...
...parlor upstairs, Sime's thirsty intimates could get a drink or close a big deal in Volstead days. Today, beside its faded sofa, ancient radio with morning-glory horn, and murals of Charlestoning showgirls, stands a television set. Over the entrance is a neon sign (reading Chateau de L'ayem), a gift to Sime from Protégé Jimmy Durante...
Like most experts, Variety's muggs find it difficult to explain themselves. (A mugg, reviewing a picture, must report whether 1) it will sell; 2) it is worth seeing-with the accent on the former.) Sime tried to define the requirements 15 years ago: "To be a mugg you've got to fit. ... A mugg can be practical and idealistic at the same time. Maybe you got to be a little bit goofy to be that...