Army Archerd

As the “Town Crier of Hollywood,” Army Archerd made two simple requests of the celebrities he covered: “Give me a call” and “Don’t let me read about it.” Archerd, who died Sept. 8 at 87, spent more than half a century chronicling the industry’s élite for Daily Variety. He interviewed Humphrey Bogart on his deathbed, Marilyn Monroe (below, with Archerd) in her dressing room, Charlie Chaplin in the director’s chair and nearly every other star in Tinseltown. For nearly 50 years, he also served as the official greeter at the Academy Awards–a role that helped earn him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984.

Though Archerd never thought of himself as “part of the scene,” he counted among his friends screen legends like Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier. “I told him at an Oscar ceremony he was the most famous person here,” says director Steven Spielberg. “He blushed.” When longtime bachelor Warren Beatty finally tied the knot in 1992, Archerd got the exclusive in a call from the newlywed himself. His column was short on sensationalism, but in 1985 Archerd broke what he later called “the biggest show-business story ever”–the news that actor Rock Hudson was dying of AIDS. The delicately worded item introduced a disease that most Americans had never heard of.

But he did not consider himself a gossip columnist; he preferred fact over rumor and straightforward prose over snark. His staccato dispatches almost always began with a cheerful “Good Morning.” Toward the end of his career, after Archerd had traded in his typewriter for a computer, Variety rechristened him “Hollywood’s original blogger”–a title that perhaps best describes his tireless approach to covering what he called “the most exciting city in the world.”