The cover of Variety magazine’s debut issue, published on December 16, 1905, advertised the “Review of the Week” by Chicot and Syme. These were the pen names of Epes W. Sargent and Syme Silverman. (Silverman, the publication’s founder, left the New York Morning Telegraph to start Variety after an advertiser gave him a negative review of the show he aired.)
Many things about business today would be unrecognizable to Silverman. But as our magazine turns 120 years old, and we celebrate the anniversary with this issue by looking back at the past 120 years of Hollywood, the spirit of honesty in the entertainment business lives on. Variety chronicled the rise of film, the subsequent rise of sound on film, cable TV, and the transformative impact of streaming. Woodstock and the Beatles, The Wizard of Oz and The Sopranos: They transformed our culture, and we documented that transformation. We’ve evolved, too, and learned how to break news at the speed of the Internet, injecting Silverman’s trade press with the rich photography and detailed reporting available in high-end magazines.
But as he looks back on 120 years of coverage of an industry that continues to entertain the world, and looks ahead to even more dramatic changes covered by the industry’s best journalists, he hopes Silverman would be proud of his insistence on reporting vaudeville as he sees it.
