Conway, Jack

(1888-1928)

   Born John White Conway in the vicinity of Albany-Troy, New York, Variety's master of slang grew up in the Bronx and hung around newspaper offices as a boy. Later he tried streetcar conducting, baseball, performing in vaudeville, and assisting a Navy doctor during the war . In the 1910s a friend got him a job selling ads for Variety. When that did not work out, Conway tried reviewing vaudeville in his own voice—Broadway slang—and, except for a brief stint as a Hollywood title card writer, remained an influential Variety critic for the rest of his life. The tall, handsome denizen of Times Square signed all his pieces "Con." In an essay for Variety on his use of slang (quoted in Besas 2000, 109), he noted that slang paid for his "seven flops weekly and three scoffs daily" and allowed him to avoid "the three-syllable racket." Con invented a host of words, including "bimbo" and "palooka," and did not hesitate to use them even in reviews of highbrow shows. When the popular mug died suddenly at 40, Variety published a full-page obituary (10 October 1928).