Thomas Spillman Dawson, a longtime resident and realtor in Pacific Palisades, died on July 5 at the age of 76. Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, on November 18, 1934, Tom was the son of Thomas Delos and Gertrude Spillman Dawson, both natives of Jackson, Louisiana. Tom attended Glen Ridge High School, graduating in 1952, and the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, Class of 1956. He started his career at the Statler Hilton in Boston, but the job was short-lived. He was drafted by the U.S. Army in late 1957 and spent his second year with the MAG forces in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Following his discharge, Tom returned to Hilton’s Eastern Division, taking on regional responsibilities managing food and beverage operations and booking night club and cabaret entertainment for a number of properties, including the Boston Statler and the Waldorf-Astoria and Plaza Hotel in New York. In 1962, Hilton promoted Tom to executive assistant manager with major responsibilities for food and beverage operations at the new San Francisco Hilton, which was still under construction. Three years later, New York-based InterContinental Hotels offered him a position as Food and Beverage Director. He developed concepts for, and created and opened nearly 100 restaurants, bars and coffee shops for company hotels worldwide. His travels took him to Ghana, Cote d’ Ivoire, Kenya, Rhodesia, Zambia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Thailand, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico, plus various countries in Europe, Scandinavia and Central America. In 1969, Tom relocated to Minneapolis, where, as Assistant to the President of Radisson Corporation, he helped pioneer the start-up of the fledgling Radisson Hotel chain. In 1971, he joined Los Angeles-based Continental Airlines as Vice President/Hotels responsible for developing hotels in Micronesia and Guam. He retired from Continental just prior to that airline’s hostile takeover by Texas Air in the early 1980s. Tom began his 25-year real estate career in mid-1984, working first with George Elkins in Brentwood and later with Coldwell Banker and Sotheby’s International in Pacific Palisades. In 1968, Tom met Barbara Magan, a New York writer/editor whose resume lists Good Housekeeping and Restaurants and Institutions (a hospitality industry trade publication headquartered in Chicago). They were married in 1975, shortly after she moved to Los Angeles to become R&I’s West Coast editor. They moved to Pacific Palisades from Brentwood in 1988. Tom loved to cook and was proud of his vintage cookbook collection, which was featured in a New York Times article in 2006 and as a full-page feature in the Palisadian-Post (May 28, 2009). Services for Tom will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, July 29, at Corpus Christi Church, corner of Carey and Sunset. Donations may be made in Tom’s name to VAGLA, Hospice Program, Voluntary Service (135) VA Hospital, 11301 Wilshire, Los Angeles 90073.
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