Thomas M. Pryor; Editor of Daily Variety Presided Over 29 Years of Major Growth

Longtime Daily Variety editor Thomas M. Pryor, a newsman known for his integrity, died Monday at his Los Angeles-area home. He was 85.

Pryor ran the five-day-a-week paper for 29 years--from 1959 until 1988--retiring shortly after the founding Silverman family sold the business to Cahners Publishing Co. For decades before that, Pryor was a newsman for the New York Times, moving to Los Angeles 50 years ago as that paper’s Hollywood bureau chief.

Pryor had a front-row seat for the evolution and explosion of the entertainment industry. He started writing about the nascent film business during the lean Depression days of 1931 and began reviewing films in 1934.

“It was a different era,” Peter Pryor, his son, said Tuesday. “He grew up in a time when film moguls were entertainers and showmen, and now it’s become a business of agents and attorneys.”

The ruddy-cheeked Irishman was a Golden Gloves boxer who could play the violin. Those skills would serve him well in Hollywood, where Pryor was widely credited with raising the standards and professionalism of Hollywood’s trade journals.

“He established the separation of church and state. He demanded that advertising keep completely separate from the editorial section,” said Howard Brandy, a Hollywood press agent for 45 years. “That was a remarkable accomplishment.”

Trade publications draw their advertising revenues from the people and companies they cover.

Under Pryor’s leadership, the eight-page tabloid with a circulation of less than 8,000 in 1959 swelled to more than 22,250 circulation and averaged 32 pages. In 1960, the year after he took over, a page of advertising cost $250 and by the time he retired it was $1,350.

“The one thing my old man taught me was to never confuse reporting on the entertainment industry with being in the entertainment industry,” said Pryor, who followed his father as Variety editor, and is now executive news editor at the rival Hollywood Reporter. “He always knew the difference between personal friendships and business relationships.”

And he knew film legends and studio chieftains like Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Carl Laemmle and Samuel Goldwyn. He covered the opening of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” in 1940. And he chronicled the rise of a singing waiter from New Jersey, Frank Sinatra, and his later career stumbles.

Pryor guided Daily Variety through a sea change in the entertainment industry, from the days of “Father Knows Best” on black-and-white television to the advent of satellite and cable television, videocassette recorders and MTV.

“You can say that Tom Pryor maintained the tradition of keeping Variety the bible of show business,” said Army Archerd, a Variety columnist for 47 years. “He had a great respect for the founders of the industry while also maintaining enthusiasm for those who were building its future.”

Still, when Pryor retired 13 years ago at the age of 73, he didn’t have much use for a computer. He was still pecking away on the keys of his upright typewriter.

“When he left, it was the end of an era,” said Peter Bart, editor of Variety, who learned of Pryor’s death from a Los Angeles Times reporter. “He was a gritty [New York] Irishman who talked tough and definitely had a great loyalty from his staff. He was just an outstanding editor. He rigorously protected the wall between ads and editorial.”

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Encino. He is also survived by son Thomas, a film editor; a daughter, Virginia, a Realtor, of Washington; two sisters, and eight grandchildren.