Remembering Our Friend and Variety Colleague Dave McNary

My heart breaks for the passing of our beloved Variety colleague and friend Dave McNary. No one was nicer, or as hard working. (Including his side gig organizing comedy shows at Pasadena's Ice House.) Sending my warm thoughts to his wife, KPCC's Sharon McNary, and their beloved dog Winnie during this truly sad time.

Dave and I joined Variety around the same time in late 1999, and he had to put up sitting next to Joe Adalian and I, these two young TV nerds. But I think we amused him greatly, LOL, and he was such a wonderful cubicle mate to have.

Dave owned the Hollywood labor beat. OWNED it. I remember my awe at seeing him back in the office, hard at work, after having camped all night at SAG or another HQ, waiting for vote results. He covered the WGA strike better than anyone. And no one wrote more stories for Variety.

The outpouring of love and tributes over the past few days has been astounding, and a tribute to how Dave's kindness touched so many people. Pat Saperstein and Cynthia Littleton wrote Variety's tribute:

In style and substance, McNary was every inch a reporter, right down to the fedora hats that he favored and the reporters notebook that was ever-present in his pocket. He doggedly covered the action in the corridors of the American Film Market in Santa Monica for many years. He was thrilled to be sent to France to cover the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In late 2007 and early 2008, he was Variety‘s lead reporter on the 100-day Writers Guild of America strike that up-ended the industry.

McNary had a busy second career in comedy. For three decades, he hosted a Sunday standup comedy showcase at the famed Ice House venue in Pasadena, where he auditioned and booked numerous comics who have gone on to careers in the industry. In the 1970s, he did some work with the Groundlings and with acting coach Gary Austin. He was part of a comedy troupe dubbed the Procrastinators, who made appearances on “The Gong Show” doing out-there acts such as the surf tune “Wipeout” on belly bongos or “Rawhide” on stick horses.

I'd love to see those clips. The Los Angeles Times also noted how Dave even changed the way box office was reported:

At UPI in the late ’80s and early ’90s, McNary saw an opportunity to scoop his competitors at the Associated Press by covering weekend box office more aggressively, Sharon McNary said. (The couple met at UPI.) Instead of waiting until Monday for the results, he’d call on Sunday. “He really made it his thing,” Sharon McNary said. “He realized if he just started calling people on Sunday, he could beat the AP and get his copy picked up in papers nationwide. Now it’s become a standard part of entertainment reporting: ‘Who won the box office that weekend?’ I think Dave’s work really elevated that to where it became something people just talk about.”

It's hard to believe we won't see Dave's smiling face in the office anymore, or get to experience his sharp take on the world. But he leaves a great legacy, and the thanks he's received from so many people who received a kind word of encouragement from him over the years inspires me to do more of that. Dave McNary was 69.