Bob Daly: Last News

Tatiana Siegel 2024 can’t come fast enough. When the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1, Hollywood will close the book on arguably the most tumultuous 12 months in a generation, with the town roiled by devastating strikes, the implosion of the superhero movie and deep divisions on everything from AI to Israel.

This is a dark moment for frazzled members of the writing fraternity.

Michaela Zee editor Carl Samrock, former VP of publicity at Warner Bros. Pictures who started out as an entertainment photographer for the New York Times, died Saturday night of pancreatic cancer. He was 81. The news of his death was confirmed by his wife, Carol Andelman Samrock. Samrock served as Warner Bros. Pictures’ vice president of national publicity under chairmen Bob Daly and Terry Semel. He joined the company in 1982 as West Coast publicity director, in which he later oversaw a 16-member staff that handled the publicity on nearly 30 films in production or release annually.

Carl Samrock, a former VP National Publicity for Warner Bros Pictures and home video executive who also was a photojournalist for The New York Times, died October 1 of pancreatic cancer. He was 81.

EXCLUSIVE: First Lady Jill Biden will visit Los Angeles on Friday with an itinerary that includes a fundraiser hosted by writer-producer and Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman.

“Welcome to the 48th, 49th, and 50th AFI Life Achievement Awards,”  American Film Institute President and CEO Bob Gazzale stated as he began his welcoming remarks for Thursday night’s long awaited and long pandemic- delayed tribute to Julie Andrews, the 2022 honoree at a ceremony originally  set to take place in the spring of 2020 that now finally happened with all style and warmth so familiar to these AFI evenings ever since AFI founder George Stevens Jr. came up with the idea in 1973 when director John Ford was the first honoree (Stevens, now 90, was there and acknowledged from the stage last night). Since then there has never been a “gap” between cereomonies but now there is between 2019 honoree Denzel Washington and Andrews, but it was well worth the wait, and congratulations to the AFI, Board Trustees Chairs Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Daly as well as Gazzale (who is also Executive Producer of the show which will air on TNT June 16 at 10pm) for not letting Covid diminish the event, even if it had to come a little later than usual,and every member of the audience at the Dolby Theatre (transformed into a banquet setting for the elegant dinner) had to take a PCR test at least 48 hours before entering the building. Other than that it was just like old times and you could tell the industry crowd was thrilled to be there for a genuine show business legend. The only sad part was that Andrews’ The Sound Of Music co-star Christopher Plummer was not there. The Oscar winning actor had actually been set to appear at the tribute when it was originally to take place before the pandemic had other ideas. He died in Feburary of last year at age 91.