I landed at CBS in the mid 80s thanks to some college connections and my willingness to do anything to get in the doors at TV City. And it was grunt work, the entire first year I was there all I did was walk through the adjacent tourist trap the Farmer's Market on Fairfax and Third Streets looking for unsuspecting tourists to drag inside to have them watch a pilot for a series and then tell us what they thought about it.
One of the people I was dragging them in to see was a very nice guy named Bob Rado who went about the business then of explaining the process and making sure you understood what difference between the red and the green buttons were, what the network was looking for on the questionnaire and then he'd lead a bit of a focus group, the tourists would all get pens with the "eye" on them and they'd be released into the wild again.
From what I wrote at the guest book attached to his San Diego Union-Tribune obituary:
I immediately felt shock but then was just flooded with all these great memories of that time, my early days in Southern California and this great guy that made all the long hours of grunt work at Television City in Hollywood a much less demeaning experience. He created an esprit de corps that got us through two pilot seasons together.
I hadn't seen Bob since, but according the the U-T he spent the rest of his career in the food and beverage industry here in the San Diego area at The Charthouse chain of restaurants to the legendary Hotel Del Coronado to the University of San Diego.
He's survived by his wife, Karen, two stepdaughters, two other daughters and two sons with Karen, and two brothers and sisters of his own.
And countless friends.
There's a funeral mass tomorrow at 11 in Ocean Beach, CA (San Diego area), details by clicking the obit link above.
Bob was the kind of guy who made sure the new guy in the group felt like he belonged, and I will always appreciate that.
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