Steve Brennan

Too much death. Too much celebrity death. Too many people we know. Now we find today that death has taken one of Tabloid Baby's most longstanding and talented pals.

Steve Brennan is dead of cancer at 57.

Cancer.

Enough already.

Steve's been a reporter and editor at The Hollywood Reporter for more than twenty years. He's not only been one of the best, most hardworking and accurate entertainment writers around, he's one of the most colorful characters of the Tabloid Baby generation. He wrote about us. Put our names in headlines. He could write a story. he could drink with the best of them (and we were). He could spin a yarn. And he could sing a song. Steve was from Dublin. He got his start as a beat reporter in Ireland, covering the troubles in the North. Two years ago, Steve and his wife Bernadette O'Neill published "Emeralds in Tinseltown: The Irish in Hollywood," a book about Irish screen legends. Steve was a legend. Steve was a gem.

Damn, we'll have to be raising another toast.