Dave Robb of Deadline, 74, was the Dean of Hollywood Labor Reporters.
Dave Robb, a longtime correspondent for Deadline, went away at the age of 74. Robb, who is regarded as the Hollywood labor beat’s dean, learned recently that he has brain stem cancer that is incurable.
In late October, this diagnosis was made. Robb suffered from what was initially thought to be a mild stroke. In follow-up visits, he and his wife Kelly discovered that it was far more serious. Just before Thanksgiving, he was placed under hospice care, and on Friday night, he passed away quietly in his Los Angeles home with his wife by his side.
Dave was the first man in the ring to right a wrong, therefore I always referred to him as my “cage fighter.” In addition to his unmatched expertise in the Hollywood labor game, developed over 45 years of writing from Los Angeles, Dave would frequently astound us with in-depth pieces on a wide range of subjects that we were unaware of until he submitted them.
Aside from his final bylined piece about an NRA-funded government program that teaches children to shoot guns, the subjects ranged from tracking down convicted pedophiles who lived in a home that was frequently used to house child actors in town on productions, to the annual pile of bodies from mass shootings, many of which are carried out by young people with emotional problems.
