The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 19

I 18 Ptrt Nov. 13, 1978 Cofl AttJjddJ lines story, "He hardly ever checks anything out," says one publicist. "You go to him when you can't get into Army's column. Unlike Army, he doesn't dig for stories; he just rewrites press releases most of the time. Even when he does get a story on his own, it's often wrong." Grant's column sometimes wishes happy birthday to dead people, reports romances that don't exist and "breaks" stories on non-existent deals.

In August, he wrote that Herald-Examiner gossip columnist Caroline Cushing was among several Britishers who had received death threats, It turned out he'd meant another Britisher, actress Jane Seymour. Four days later, Grant announced that Raquel Welch's 17-year-old daughter, Tahnee, would make her screen de-Please Turn to Page SO, Col. 1 ave Wide Influence raoes when he returns, he writes flattering columns about these studios' movies. He books talent for the annual "People's Choice" television show. "Army calls me and says he wants a couple of my clients for 'People's says one prominent publicist.

"I think the show's a dog. I don't want my clients wasting their time on it. But I know if I say no to Army, he might not mention any of my clients in his column the rest of the year. I can't afford that. So I say, 'Yes, of course, Army; they'll be Although Variety management takes a laissez-faire attitude toward such matters as free gifts to staff members "I don't accept any, but I leave it up to the individual reporters to decide for themselves," Pryor says Pryor firmly opposes most junkets and all compromising outside activities for his staff.

What bout Archerd then? "He was hired on terms set down long before I was hired," says a distinctly uncomfortable Pryor, Pryor says he's "heard the charges" about Archerd, but that he does not think Archerd actually uses his column to promote any of his own activities. But Pryor grudingly admits that he occasionally has to cut potentially self-serving items from Archerd's column and has talked to Archerd about seemingly ignoring a prominent entertainer who may have slighted Archerd. (Archerd would not comment on any of this. He is involved in a lawsuit over a disturbance in a Beverly Hills boutique and says his attorney has advised him to give no interviews at this time.) If Archerd is, in many ways, atypical of Variety, Hank Grant is, in many ways, typical of the Reporter. Television gossip-monger Rona Barrett was quoted in Los Angeles magazine recently as calling Grant "the disgrace of the century" and those words were mild compared to the comments voiced by people throughout Hollywood about Grant in the course of interviews for this Continued from 16th Page more than 25 years.

The current editor, hired in 1959, is only the third in the paper's 45 years. At the Reporter, editorial turnover is almost constant. "They change editors the way you and I change underwear," says one publicist. In 48 years, the paper has had 23 editors nine in the last eight years (the last of whom was fired Oct. 4 two days before the advertising director quit).

Reporters come and go even more frequently. "There's a purge about every seven months," says one former Reporter staffer. "They hire young, inexperienced people, pay them peanuts and when they leave or get fired, the paper starts over with the same kind of green kids. No one ever gets to establish good sources or learn the business," One reason for the frequent staff changes at the Reporter, say several sources, is that Mrs. Miles is in one former employe's words "always listening to this management consultant and that (person) and changing things all around on their 'brilliant' advice, instead of following her own instincts-which are actually pretty damned good." At Variety, in contrast, Editor Tom Pryor not only has good instincts, he follows them.

He is, most people agree, the biggest single reason why Variety is so highly regarded. Not that Variety is without shortcomings. Like the Re-porter-though less frequently-it makes embarrassing mistakes: In February, after five top executives left United Artists, Variety ran a page-one story that they would align with Paramount. That day, the five announced their alliance with Warner Brothers. Other common criticisms of Variety: It is often dull and predictable; it covers the intricate intramural organized labor squabbles of Hollywood as if this were still the 1930s; it so badly underestimated the rock music revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s that even Pryor concedes, "I'm ashamed to say we've never really gotten a handle on the music business." Even more discomfiting to Pryor, Variety (like the Reporterand the Los Angeles Times, too, for that matter) was badly beaten by the East Coast press on the scandal involving Begelman's financial irregularities at Columbia Pictures.

Pryor denies, however, that this was because Variety is reluctant to print stories that make people in the industry look bad. "We just couldn't get anyone to talk," he says. But these failings notwithstanding, Variety has a solid reputation in Hollywood largely because of Pryor. Pryor, now 65, came to Variety after 29 years with the New York Times, and he has tried within the limitations of the trade paper genre to establish professional journalistic standards at Variety. Although the Reporter occasionally beats Variety on a big story-on Fred Silverman moving from ABC to NBC 'Sprinkle the claim with salt and file it on the hook marked BEVERLY HILLS SINCE 1 930 III IP II See your own diamonds remounted.

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22 The Broadway 351 NORTH BEVERLY DRIVE BEVERLY HILLS ORDER BY MAIL OR PHONE 273-4741 272-9334 VALIDATED PARKING SHOP MONDAY 'TIL 9 PM i. Foursome Special earlier this year, for example Variety consistently has stories a day before the Reporter. More importantly, Variety is usually best as well as first. Variety reporters are encouraged to check stories out before printing them, to ask probing questions, to dig beneath the surface. Although Variety like the Reporter often publishes stories about movie deals that, somehow, never materialize, Variety occasionaly blows the whistle on itself (and on the industry) over such stories.

Last year Variety ran a long story about pictures that had been announced but never made-films with such titles as "Lunatics, Lovers and Poets," "Sunshine, the Hap-py-Go-Lucky Sea Otter" and "Eggplants From Beyond Time." "We like to stick it to the industry once in a while," says one Variety reporter. Thus, in September, when ABC touted its fall television ratings as the highest in 18 years. Variety suggested, on the front page, "Sprinkle the claim with salt and file it on the hook marked 'hype'." One simply does not read anything like that in the Reporter. "Variety just has a damn fine editor and some damn fine reporters," says one studio executive. "The Reporter is a bad joke." Perhaps the most widely respected of the Variety reporters is A.

D. Murphy, an ex-Navy man with a master's degree in operations and systems analysis. Murphy is the financial wizard at Variety "better at what he does than the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or anyone," says one studio chief. "He knows more about my company than I do. "You try to hide something in a footnote on page 83 of your financial report and he'll find it and stuff it down your throat on page one the next day." Several years ago, Murphy did just that with a Warner Brothers financial statement that made it seem the company's motion picture division was doing quite well.

Murphy pulled out a footnote, did a little homework and found out that 89 of the profits had actually come from the company's record division. (Murphy left the full-time employ of Variety this fall to develop a graduate program in film management at USC, but he will continue to write occasional financial analyses for the paper.) Variety has several other highly regarded reporters-Jim Harwood, Will Tusher and Dave Kaufman among them but the paper also has at least one who is not so highly regarded: gossip columnist Army Archerd. Archerd, who has been with Variety 25 years, is one of only two staffers who pre-date Pryor, and while Pryor won't quite say so, he gives the impression that he would like to kill Archerd's column. But Archerd is too popular. Over the years, Archerd has developed a network of reliable sources, and he knows how to mine those sources.

He often beats every reporter in town to good Hollywood stories. "Army's a good reporter," says one critic of the trades. "He asks intelligent questions, and he's tough to fool." But Archerd is not likely to write anything critical of anyone at anytime. "To Army," says one publicist, "every sneak preview is a rousing success even if the audience walks out jeering." Archerd also is open to conflict of interest charges because: -Studios that he writes about pay him to be the host at movie premieres. He and his wife act in movies themselves.

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