SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 2014

In this Oct 6, 1954 file photo, Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas (center) and other media wait outside the Beverly Hills house of Marilyn Monroe, after In this June reports that the movie 1950 file star’s marriage to photo, Bob baseball star Joe Thomas DiMaggio was breaking accompanies up. — AP photos Lucille Ball as she practices the part of a door-to-door saleswoman Bob Thomas, in Los Angles. dean of Hollywood reporters, dies

ob Thomas, the longtime Associated Press writer and dean of table to table at the Polo Lounge, Musso and Frank and other Hollywood reporters who covered a record 66 Oscar cere- favored Hollywood hangouts of the day. The gentlemanly, soft-spo- Bmonies, reported on the biggest stars, from Clark Gable to ken reporter with the wry sense of humor rarely had trouble getting Tom Cruise, and filed AP’s bulletin that Robert F Kennedy had been people to talk to him and enjoyed access to the stars that modern shot, died Friday. He was 92. Thomas, a last link to Hollywood’s stu- journalists rarely attain, whether visiting with Nicholson at his home dio age who retired in 2010, died of age-related illnesses at his long- or chatting on the set with Tracy and Hepburn. time Encino, Calif, home, his daughter Janet Thomas said. Although he insisted he never became friends with the people A room filled with his interview subjects would have made for he covered, Thomas did strike up close, long-lasting acquaintance- the most glittering of ceremonies: Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn ships with many, and he had the anecdotes to prove it. There was Monroe, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Groucho Marx and the time he tried, unsuccessfully, to match the hard-drinking Richard , and Fred Astaire. He interviewed rising Burton drink for drink on the set of the 1964 film “Night of the stars (James Dean), middle-aged legends (Humphrey Bogart, Jack Iguana.” Nicholson) and elder institutions (). Thomas’ career began in 1944, Measuring success when Hollywood was still a small, cen- Another time, he showed up for an interview with tralized community, tightly controlled armed with a tape measure. He had been sent, he told the actress, to by a handful of studios, and contin- determine if her figure had suffered during her recent pregnancy. ued well into the 21st century. During Grable good naturedly let him measure her. “Can you imagine doing his nearly seven decades writing for that with Michelle Pfeiffer today?” he once asked. “In those days, it the AP, Thomas reviewed hundreds of really seemed like a playground.” films and television shows, compiled In this 1945 file photo, actress Hedy Lamarr shoots pinball Thomas even received fan mail from the stars. Soon after her hundreds of celebrity obituaries and accompanied by Bob Thomas. marriage to actor John Agar in 1950, Shirley Temple wrote: “John wrote numerous retrospective pieces and I want you to know that we are very grateful to you for the man- on Hollywood and how it had recalled. “I jumped onto a pile of ner in which you handled the story on our wedding.” Some sent changed. kitchen trays and saw Kennedy lying telegrams: “Thanks for sending the article to me; I got a kick out of He was the author of nearly three on the floor, his head bloody.” He ran reading it,” Jimmy Durante wrote via Western Union in 1951. “Boy, dozen books, including biographies to a phone and delivered the bulletin you’re great.” But Thomas also had his share of run-ins. Doris Day of Disney, Brando and Crawford and to The Associated Press. As the son of and Frank Sinatra went months without talking to him after he In this Feb 22, 2009 file an acclaimed portrait of studio mogul a newspaper editor turned Hollywood quoted them candidly in stories, and Tracy cut off contact for years photo, Bob Thomas Harry Cohn, “King Cohn.” He wrote, press agent, Robert Joseph Thomas when something Thomas said about him offended the Oscar-win- attends the 81st produced and appeared in a handful seemed destined to become an enter- ning actor. The fiercely private Brando never spoke with him again Academy Awards in of television specials on the Academy tainment writer from his earliest days. after Thomas published the biography “Marlon.” the Hollywood section Awards and was a guest on numer- In junior high school and high school His encyclopedic knowledge of the industry was well appreciat- of . ous television programs including he wrote entertainment columns for ed by his colleagues. A former AP editor, Jim Lagier, would recall “The Tonight Show,” “Good Morning the campus newspaper, and in col- that Thomas had a filing system at his home that rivaled that of any America” and “Nightline.” His biographies of reclusive billionaire lege his favorite reading was the news bureau. “Because if you call Bob Thomas at two o’clock in the and the comedy team of Abbott and Costello were industry trade paper Daily Variety. But morning and say, ‘Bob, Mary Smith has died,’ he would say, ‘Mary made into television movies. He is listed twice in Guinness World when he joined the AP in Los Angeles Smith,’ and then, suddenly you could hear the filing cabinets were Records, for most consecutive Academy Awards shows covered by in 1943, it was with aspirations of opening. He would start dictating the lead,” Lagier told the AP in an entertainment reporter and for longest career as an entertain- becoming a war correspondent. 2008 during an oral history interview. ment reporter (1944-2010). Instead, the wire service named him Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP, worked with Thomas its Fresno, Calif, correspondent, a job in the Los Angeles bureau in the early 1980s. “Bob was an old-fash- In this 1945 file photo, ‘So damn hot in Fresno’ he gave up after little more than a ioned Hollywood reporter and he knew absolutely everyone,” she Bob Thomas measures In 1988, he became the first reporter-author awarded a star on year. “It gets so damn hot in Fresno in said. “He had a double-helping of impish charm with the stars, but the waist of legendary Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. But one of his biggest stories had noth- the summer and nothing much ever back at the office, he was the quiet guy who slipped into a desk at pinup queen Betty ing to do with entertainment. Helping out during the 1968 presi- happens there,” he once told a col- the back and poked at the keyboard for a while, then handed in a Grable. dential election, Thomas had been assigned to cover Sen Kennedy league. He returned to the AP’s LA crisp and knowing story soon delivered to movie fans around the on the night the New York Democrat won the primary. bureau in 1944 and was soon named world. “Some days, you’d even get a smile out of him before he head- Minutes after declaring victory, Kennedy was shot to death in the its entertainment reporter. He was also told that the byline he’d ed out the door again.” Through the years, Thomas’ enthusiasm for kitchen of Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel. been using - Robert J Thomas - had to go. “Too formal for a young his profession never waned. “I get to interview some of the most “I was waiting in the press room for Kennedy to arrive when I guy who’s going to work the Hollywood beat,” he said the AP’s beautiful people in the world,” he said in 1999. “It’s what I always heard what sounded like the popping of balloons in the hotel bureau chief told him. “From now on your byline is ‘Bob Thomas.’” wanted to do, and I just can’t stop doing it.” Thomas is survived by his kitchen,” Thomas would recount years later. “I rushed into the Soon he would become a ubiquitous presence in Hollywood, wife of 67 years, Patricia; daughters Nancy Thomas, Janet Thomas kitchen where men were screaming and women sobbing,” he attending awards shows, wandering studio back lots or going from and Caroline Thomas; and three grandchildren. — AP