Peter Bart

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Peter Bart, an American journalist and film producer born July 24, 1932 (some reports claim 1930), has been the editor-in-chief of Variety since 1989. Bart also serves as vice-president and editor-in-chief of Variety, Inc., and presides over its sister publications Daily Variety and Daily Variety - The Gotham Edition. Bart also appears on a weekly AMC television program, Shootout (formerly Sunday Morning Shootout) with film producer Peter Guber.

Bart worked at Paramount Pictures as a producer from 1967 to 1974. He played a key role in developing and supervising films including The Godfather, Paper Moon, Harold and Maude, True Grit and Rosemary's Baby. In 1977, Bart became president of Lorimar Films. He later served as senior vice president of MGM/UnitedArtists.

Bart has published seven books: Shoot Out: Surviving Fame and (Mis) Fortune in Hollywood, co-authored with Peter Guber, Dangerous Company: Dark Tales from Tinseltown, Who Killed Hollywood?, a compilation of Bart's Variety columns, The Gross: The Hits, The Flops, The Summer that Ate Hollywood, Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM and two novels, Destinies and Thy Kingdom Come.

Bart was educated at Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics. He lives in Los Angeles. He has two daughters, Dilys Bart, a doctor, and Colby Bart-Centrella, a writer.

Since May 2005 he's been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

[edit] Controversy

A 2001 article and interview with Bart published by Los Angeles magazine (no longer available online, but excerpted in Slate magazine [1] and summarized elsewhere [2]) reported that Bart lied, disparaged minorities, gays, and women, and sold a script titled "Power Play" to Paramount in violation of Variety policy.

After the article was published, Bart was suspended for three weeks, apologized, and was directed to attend diversity training [3].