Nikki Finke has linked to an old LA Weekly item about Gordon “Gordy” Crawford, a.k.a. “The Pope on Hope [Street],” on the occasion of his imminent retirement. The Capital Group VP is exiting the downtown LA firm tomorrow after 41 years, during which time the firm’s assets grew from $2 billion to $1.1 trillion.

Crawford nurtured close relationships with media moguls and his fingerprints were all over many of the biggest transactions involving the likes of Time Warner, News Corp, DirectTV and Disney. From Finke’s 2003 piece:

Crawford is soft-spoken in a sea of screamers, he’s low-profile in a realm of egotists and he’s nice in a nexus of nasties. Besides, it’s hard to say a harsh word about someone who in 1993 suffered such a profound personal tragedy: the death of his 21-year-old son Brett during a hiking accident in Taiwan while enrolled in a semester-at-sea program. Crawford has told friends: “I’d give up all the money I ever made for one hour with him.”

Read more

Dan Cox, on special assignment for FishbowlLA, covering the 2008 Sun Valley Media Conference.

All’s quiet on the Western Front for Sun Valley. The conference doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, but hundreds of executives, moguls and their families are dribbling in today. A conference shuttle driver said they’re expecting 395 people on the hotel grounds, which is nearly double the number from years past.

Already the few execs at the conference are buzzing about the LiveNation $70 million deal with Canadian rock band Nickelback, which was announced today.

One Allen & Company employee said he was eager to see an interview by Tom Brokaw, who, in between stints on “Meet the Press,” has been invited back again this year. And Gordon Crawford of Capital Research and Management is reportedly thinking about backing Carl Icahn‘s bid for a Yahoo! deal with Microsoft. Crawford’s company owns 16.3% of Yahoo! Crawford is a regular the Sun Valley soiree.