The brief news was sent on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, by Miami-based David Nuñez, son of the late TV pioneer, Armando, Sr. “Regrettably, I have to report the sad news of my father Armando Nuñez passing away of natural causes this morning.” He was 96 years old.
Nuñez’s career began in 1953 at Fox’s theatrical division in Cuba, after he graduated from Havana Business University. He recalled that, “at that time, there was no television and I was booking 16 mm films to 27 theaters around Cuba.”
That job lasted up until October 1960 —10 months after Fidel Castro entered Havana — when Nuñez and his eight-months-pregnant wife Clara Jo (née Webb) fled Cuba with only $10 in cash ($82 in today’s dollars), the amount they were allowed to take with them.
Nuñez’s most recent attendance at a television industry event was in 2013, when he received MIP-TV’s Medaille d’Honneur, but he fondly remembered his first TV trade show. It was NATPE 1966 in Chicago and the peculiarity of that event was that “it was only domestic and it had a lot of radio business,” he recalled.
In addition to David, Armando leaves son Armando Jr., who was also very close to his father. He’s the former president of CBS Global Distribution, and lives in Los Angeles.
Dear Armando and David sorry to hear the passing away of your father , whom I knew very well and was my friend , please received my deepest condolescenses.