W. Russell Barry ’57
W. Russell Barry ’57 died August 26 of pulmonary fibrosis at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Russ graduated from Westbury (New York) High School. He majored in English and was a member of Chi Phi. He landed a job in 1961 selling radio ads for CBS Chicago, then went on to New York City to supervise network AM stations during their conversion to all-news. He moved to Los Angeles in 1972 as general manager of KNX-TV. In 1973 he earned an advanced management degree from Harvard. From there he joined Fox as vice president of network sales and became president of 20th Century Fox Television with the shows MASH, Paper Chase, and Trapper John, M.D. Russ moved to Playboy Enterprises in 1981 as president of its production company, negotiating a joint venture with Cablevision to launch the Playboy channel. Two years later he was president of Taft Entertainment Television, producing movies. In 1986 Russ became president of Turner Program Services, where he was responsible for worldwide marketing and distribution of TBS programming, including the MGM film and TV library, first-run productions from National Geographic, the Cousteau Society, and CNN. He brokered the deal that put CNN into airports and hotels around the world. Russ ended his career as a senior executive at Time Warner following the 1995 merger between Time Warner and Turner. His hobbies were tennis, reading, and travel. He is survived by wife Cynthia and their daughter as well as former wife Phyllis and their three children.
