Sad news, late last Friday night, Curvin O’Reilly passed away after a mercifully short fight with cancer. Besides being a friend, regular commenter on AdScam, and an all round good guy, Curvin was one of the original Mad Men, starting at Y&R in the sixties, followed by Ammirati, Ogilvy, Ally/Gargano, -
Where he helped drag Saab back from the grave - BBDO, McCann, and Riney – Where he did most of the great early campaigns for Saturn. All in all, a tremendous body of work, accompanied by a commensurate number of Martinis. Several of which were imbibed in my company. He said many many wise and erudite things, but my favorite was his “Homage” to this Hunter S. Thompson quote… “The entertainment (advertising) industry is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also the negative side.” Ha, fucking perfect. The last time I saw Curvin was when he, Tom Messner, and I were dispensing pearls of wisdom at a psfk conference at the SoHo Club down in the village.
We gave a damn fine presentation, then retired to the billiards room to smoke cigars and get completely wasted. “Cos real Mad Men don’t fuck about. Fond memories. I shall miss Curvin. There aren’t many of us left.
Curvin making sure Piers is going to cover our humungous bar bill. I think psfk is still paying it off!