While in New York, he occupies a luxurious nine-room Westside apartment with 18-foot ceilings that formerly belonged to Leonard Bernstein. Here, in a vast living room with a complete wall of mirror, a fireplace and a virtual forest of green plants, I thank Short for the glass of wine that he offers me from a crystal decanter, and I begin our interview by asking about the show he's co-producing for the Newport Jazz Festival. Titled ASalute to Black Broadway, 1900-1945, it will take place in Avery Fisher Hall at 8 p.m. on June 24, and is one of the highlights of the 26th annual jazz festival, which runs from June 22 to July 1.
"It's the chance to try my wings at something new," says the jovial musician, in a somewhat gravelly, high-pitched voice marked by flawless diction. "Also, it's a chance to inform. I suppose I'm a frustrated professor of sorts. This show is a way of stating that, in fact, there were blacks involved in productions on Broadway as far back as 1900 — perhaps even further back. Many were performers who wrote their own material. Others were composers and lyricists whose writing was not confined to black performers. Some of them wrote for the Ziegfeld Follies."
As co-producer with Robert Kimball, Short has been "researching material to find out what's good, what's bad, what's important, and also who's around today that was in those shows." Among the performers to be featured: famed jazz singer Mabel Mercer, a longtime friend of Short's; Adelaide Hall and Edith Wilson, two of black Broadway's original stars; Nell Carter, the Tony Award-winning star of Fats Waller'sAin't Misbehavin'; Eubie Blake, still an active pianist in his 90s, whose currently runningEubie!is the fourth Broadway show he has written; special guest artist Diahann Carroll; and the Dick Hyman Orchestra. Of course Bobby Short will be on stage too; he'll do at least five songs out of his repertoire of 1,000-plus.
Slender, debonair, and looking more like 40 than his actual 54 years, Short has been playing and singing in public ever since he made his debut at the age of 9 while growing up in Danville, Illinois. From the age of 12 to 14 he was a child star on the vaudeville and nightclub circuit. Then he returned to Danville, completed high school at 17, and began his second career. Producer/songwriter Anna Sosenko got him a job at the Blue Angel in Manhattan; after that he worked in California and France before settling permanently in New York in 1956.
A perennial name on the best-dressed list, Short says that "today I've got a tailor in New York, a tailor in London, and I buy a lot of things in between. But I've grown more sensible over the years. I no longer buy all I can get my hands on."
His secret for staying young? "Be sensible. If you use the most intimate parts of your body to make a living — like your throat — you can't abuse it. You can't drink too much, and you simply cannot smoke." Extremely knowledgeable about restaurants, he lists the Russian Tea Room and Pearl's Chinese Restaurant as his favorites.
His "Charlie" commercial for a cologne by Revlon has made Short one of the most recognized figures on the streets of New York, yet he doesn't mind being approached by strangers. "It's part of what I do for a living," he muses with a smile. "It never stops. You have to learn to live with it or get out of show business. Fortunately, I'm a very social person and I like people. I understand the need to say hello to someone on the street — so I can't knock somebody for speaking to me."
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WESTSIDER BEVERLY SILLSOpera superstar
9-30-78
Probably no opera singer since Caruso has made so great an impact on the American public as Beverly Sills. Even today, the mention of her name can automatically sell out a concert hall anywhere in the U.S. She has become bigger than her art, for while a few younger singers can reach the notes more easily, Sills generates a certain intense excitement into all her roles that makes every show she appears in not just an opera, but an event.
Her star vehicle this fall is an early 19th-century opera,Il Turco In Italia(The Turk in Italy), written by Gioacchino Rossini prior to his masterpiece,The Barber of Seville.
Il Turco, presented by the New York City Opera for eight performances in September through November, is a subtle comedy about a flirtatious, Sophia Loren-type character (Sills) with a jealous husband. The audience will miss none of the Italian humor because this production ofIl Turcois in English.
"I love to do English translations," said Miss Sills last week in a telephone interview. "I believe the whole art of opera is based on communication. I don't see how people can appreciate a comedy in a language that four fifths of the audience doesn't understand. There's only snobbery about foreign languages in this country — not in Europe. In America, an opera is like a museum piece. But I think the great classics likeBohemeandTraviatadon't need to be translated because everyone knows what they're about."
She performs regularly with the New York City Opera even though the State Theatre-based company is able to pay only a tiny fraction of what singers receive at other great opera houses around the world. "I made my career with them," she explained. "I sing there because of loyalty, and because I love to." She has already made plans to retire from singing in 1980 and to become codirector of the New York City Opera with Julius Rudel, the present director.
Right now she is busy studying three other roles. On December 7 she will headline the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Donizetti'sDon Pasquale, which will run until January 20. In March she will star in a world premiere for the New York City Opera,Miss Haversham's Fire, based on the Charles Dickens novelGreat Expectations. In June she will go to San Diego to perform in yet another world-premiere opera,Juana La Locaby Gian Carlo Menotti.
Last season, Beverly hosted a popular television program calledLifestyles. This year, she said, "I'm doing something much bigger, as a result of that show's success. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it is, because CBS will be making an announcement in mid-October."
Miss Sills said she has no plans for another book. Her first, the self portraitBubbles, has sold 130,000 copies in hardcover and many times that figure in paperback since it came out a year ago. "Bubbles" was her childhood nickname. She was born Belle Silverman in Brooklyn a few months before the stock market crash of 1929. At 3 she did her first radio broadcast; at 7 she was the star of a regular weekly radio show. In her early teens she joined a touring musical company and spent the next 10 years on the road. Then she was accepted by the New York City Opera.
In her first few seasons with the fledgling company, she showed few signs of the fame that was to come. Meanwhile, she and her husband, newspaper publisher Peter Greenough, had become the happy parents of two, a girl named Meredith (Muffy) and a boy, Peter Junior.
Then the heartbreak struck. When Muffy was 2, it was discovered that she suffered from a serious hearing impairment. A few months later, the couple learned that their son was severely mentally retarded.
For the next year and a half, Beverly abandoned her singing career and spent all her time at home. When she returned to the New York City Opera, people noticed a distinct change. Somehow she seemed to have acquired a new dramatic power. In such roles as Cleopatra in Handel'sJulius Caesarshe dazzled both critics and public, and has done so ever since. In 1969, when she made her debut at La Scala in Milan — Europe's foremost opera house — the Italian press labeled her "La Fenomena."
Because of a long-standing disagreement with Rudolph Bing, the managing director of the Metropolitan Opera, it was not until 1975, after Bing's retirement, that she made her debut at the Met. The occasion caused the largest advance ticket sale in the company's history.
For the pat eight years, Sills and her family have lived on Central Park West. "I just feel that we get all the sunshine here," she said. Muffy has just started her freshman year at college in upstate New York and plans to become a veterinarian. Beverly's husband Peter divides his time among various business projects and the National Foundation for the March of Dimes.
Her advice for young singers trying to break into opera? "Keep auditioning," Beverly replied emphatically, "no matter how many times you're turned down. I tried out for the New York City Opera nine times before they took me. And auditions themselves are valuable: they give you the experience of a performance."
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GEORGE SINGER 46 years a doorman on the West Side
12-20-77
It's a wet, stormy night on the West Side; rain is pelting down without mercy, and the wind is whipping along the edge of the park like a tornado in a canyon. A taxi pulls up in front of the Century Building at 25 Central Park West, and at the same moment a man in uniform emerges from the building holding an umbrella to escort the woman passenger to safety. Anyone watching the scene would hardly guess that the doorman is 75 years old. But his age is not the only remarkable thing about George Singer.
During his 46 years at the Century — longer than any other employee or tenant — George has seen the entire history of the city reflected in the people who have come and gone through the entrance. He has gotten to know world-famous celebrities who have lived in the building, and has met countless others who came to visit — from prizefighters to presidents. He has watched the enormous changes of fashion, custom and law. And from the start of the Great Depression to the beginning of the Koch administration, George has remained the same calm, good-natured observer, seeing all but criticizing no one.
"I've been here since this was a hole in the ground," he says matter-of factly, puffing on a cigar in the outer lobby of the building, keeping one eye on the door. "It all started in 1930, when they tore down the old Century Theatre to put up a luxury apartment building. I got a job as a plumber's helper, lugging big pipes across the ground. After it was finished in 1931, I went to the superintendent and told him I helped build the Century and asked for a job. I simply had to get work, because it was during the Depression and I had my wife and two kids. … I started as an elevator man and I worked up to the front door within a year."
In 1929 George had been earning $125 a week in a hat factory; in 1931 his wages were $75 a month for a 72-hour work week. "Our suits had to be pressed, our hair combed, shoes shined. We had to wear a white bow tie, white gloves. … If you looked cross-eyed at a tenant and he reported you to the office you were fired in those days."
During the 1930s, only about one-fourth of the apartments were rented. Among the residents was a Mrs. Gershwin; her sons George, Ira and Arthur made frequent visits. By the early 1940s the Century Building had become one of the most exclusive addresses in New York. Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, Ethel Merman, Nannette Fabray, Mike Todd and theatre magnate Lee Schubert moved in during those years, along with many celebrities whose names are less familiar today — singer Belle Baker, sports announcers Ted Husing and Graham McNamee, and world champion welterweight boxer Barney Ross.
George recalls "sparring around" with Dempsey in the lobby at night. "He had a great sense of humor. When he came in late and found the elevator boy asleep he'd give him a hot foot." Ethel Merman, he remembers, "had three or four husbands. In between her husbands she used to go out with different men. She used to smooch with them in the lobby.
"In those days we took in Louis Lepke, with his wife and family," says George with a smile. "He always had three or four bodyguards with him. When he was here, he behaved himself." At other times, of course, Lepke was not so well behaved. He headed a group known as "Murder Incorporated," popularized the term "hit man," and was sent to the electric chair for his crimes.
More recent tenants include Robert Goulet, singer/Playboy playmate JoeyHeatherton, and Ted Sorenson, a former presidential advisor who in thepast year has been visited at the Century by both Jimmy Carter and WalterMondale. Did George get a chance to shake the president's hand? "Yes.What's the big deal?"
George Singer and Estelle, his wife of 53 years, live in Trump Village near Coney Island. They have seven grandchildren and one great grandchild. George could easily afford to retire — in fact, he is sometimes jokingly referred to as "the richest man in the building" — but he chooses to keep working. "Why not work till 75 or 80 if you're able?" he says. "I think it's good for a person. Mr. Chanin, who owns this building: he's in his 80s and he goes to work most every day."
George continues to do the night shift as he always has — "I'd rather work nights. There's more money at nights. And you don't have the bosses around. … At night people are more in a free spirit."
How does George explain his continued success and good health? Does he have a secret he would like to pass on? "I smoke two cigars a day," he answers immediately, with a gleam in his eye. "That keeps the cold germs away. I never catch cold. It's the best medicine in the world."
Is George looking forward to Christmas? Aren't all doormen!
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WESTSIDER GREGG SMITHFounder and conductor of the Gregg Smith Singers
1-28-78
What might you guess about a man who has composed 60 major choral works, toured the world with his singing group, and recorded 50 albums including three Grammy Award winners?
If you didn't know anything else about this man, you would probably guess, first, that he is rich. Then you might imagine that his door is constantly bombarded by recording agents trying to enlist his talents. And third, you would probably think that his name is a household word.
But Westsider Gregg Smith has all of the qualifications listed and none of the imagined results. This is because his music happens to be classical — a field in which, he says, "a record that sells 10,000 copies is considered a good hit." Conducting his choral group, the Gregg Smith Singers, who usually have anywhere from 16 to 32 voices, he performs works spanning the last four centuries of the Western classical tradition. Gregg writes most of the arrangements himself. Last year his sheet music sales reached 60,000 copies.
The Gregg Smith Singers specialize in pieces that have been infrequently performed or recorded. But a more lengthy description of their music can only tell what it is, not how it sounds. Music speaks for itself better than any words can describe.
"None of the American composers of today are making a living," says Gregg, shaking his head. We're sitting in his spacious but unluxurious apartment near Lincoln Center. "It's a terrible struggle. When people talk about ghetto areas, let me tell you, no one is more in a ghetto than the American classical composer. We have more great composers in this country right now than any other country in the word, and the United States supports its composers less than any other country. … They want so desperately to perform their music. A composer does a piece and gets a performance in New York, and that may be the last performance it ever gets."
He leads me to a room lined with shelves, boxes and cabinets filled with sheet music, some of it in manuscript. This is where Gregg chooses each new selection for his group. He shrugs at the enormity of the task.
"There are at least 400 new American compositions here, waiting to be looked at. Probably at least 100 of them are of the highest quality. … When we record this type of material, we don't expect to make a profit, even with the royalties over the years. Classical records are made because the music needs to be heard. It's a second form of publication. We do it as a means of getting this music out."
The same economic rule holds true when the Singers do a concert. Because of the large size of the group and the vast amount of rehearsal time needed to perfect new works or new arrangements, the box office receipts don't come close to meeting the expenses. The grants they receive from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council for the Arts are not always sufficient. "Like every one of the arts, it's a constant deficit operation. At this point, we're not nearly as strong in fund-raising as in the other aspects."
In spite of the financial pressures, Gregg does manage to provide his Singers with about 25 weeks of full-time work per year. His group has gone on a national tour for 15 consecutive years so far. The Singers have performed in every state except Alaska. They have made four tours of Europe and one of the Far East. Their typical New York season included four concerts at Alice Tully Hall and a contemporary music festival in one of the local churches. This year the three-day festival will be held in St. Peter's Church located in the Citicorp Center starting on April 20.
A native of Chicago, Gregg attended college in Los Angeles and founded the Gregg Smith Singers there in 1955. His talent as a conductor and arranger soon came to the attention of the late Igor Stravinsky, the Russian-born composer who was then living in California. The pair eventually recorded more than a dozen albums together. When Stravinsky died in 1971, Gregg was invited to Venice, Italy, to prepare the chorus and orchestra for the rites in honor of the late maestro.
In all his travels, Gregg and his wife Rosalind have found no place where they would feel so much at home as the West Side. "It's a great, wonderful community for the classical musician," he says. "It's one of the most vibrant, alive, sometimes terrifying but always exciting, places to live."
Perhaps Gregg's rarest quality is his unselfishness toward other American composers. His biggest concern seems to be: how will be manage to get all their works recorded?
"I have enough important recordings to do," he says in a voice hovering between joy and frustration, "to keep me busy for five years. That would mean literally hundreds of thousands of dollars." The money may come or it may not. But the worth of Gregg Smith, gentleman artist, is beyond price.
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EASTSIDER LIZ SMITHQueen of gossip
3-8-80
Like most of the kids she grew up with in Fort Worth, Texas during the Great Depression, Liz Smith was star-struck by the movies. "They told me there was a whole world out there where people were glamorous, where men and women drank wine with dinner and wore white tie and tails and drove cars with the tops down and danced on glass floors," she recalls, smiling dreamily. Her soft, languid accent, dripping with Southern charm, echoes through the coffee shop at the NBC building in midtown. Despite her cordiality, she somehow gives the impression of being in a great hurry. And for good reason: Smith is probably the hardest-working — and certainly the most successful — gossip writer on the East Coast.
Unlike Rona Barrett, the queen of Hollywood gossip, Liz Smith does not have a large staff, but relies on a single full-time assistant and part-time "leg man" in California. Nevertheless, she manages to turn out, each week, six columns for theNew York Daily News(syndicated nationally to more than 60 newspapers), five radio spots for NBC, and two television spots for WNBC'sNewscenter 4.
"The minute I get up, I go to work. I get up at about nine, and go right to work," says Liz. "I look at the paper right quick, and go right to the typewriter, and work till I finish the column at one. I work in my apartment because I would never have time to get up and dress and go to another place. I would never get to meet my deadline. … I work all the time. I work a lot on the weekends because that's the only time I can even vaguely make a stab at catching up. … I just about kill myself to get everything done. I don't know if it's worth it."
For all her complaints, Liz believes that gossip-writing is well suited for her personality. "I can't help it. I'm just one of those people who likes to repeat a tale," she explains. "I'd be reading every newspaper in America that I could get my hands on and every book and magazine anyway, even if I weren't doing this job."
When she was hired by theDaily Newsin February, 1976 to start her column, Liz was no stranger to the New York celebrity scene; she had already been in the city for 26 years, working mainly as a free-lance writer. "I made a lot of money free-lancing. Even 15 years ago, I never made less than $25,000 a year." Besides writing for virtually every mass market publication in America, she spent five years ghostwriting the Cholly Knickerbocker society column in the oldJournal American. Her many contacts among the famous, and the resurgence of interest in gossip, also helped persuadeDaily Newseditor Mike O'Neill that the paper could use a gossip column in which the personality of the writer came through.
Within weeks of her debut, Liz broke some of the sensational details of Woodward and Bernstein'sThe Final Days, which was about to be excerpted inNewsweek. She added the TV and radio broadcasts to her schedule in 1978, and avoids duplicating items whenever possible.
Her best sources, says Liz, are other journalists. "Because they know what stories are. I know a lot of very serious and important writers who have a lot of news and gossip and rumors and stuff that they don't have any place to put, so they're apt to give it to me. They have impulses to disseminate news; I think real reporters do feel that way."
Liz says that, generally speaking, she prefers writers to all other people.Asked to name some favorites, she bubblingly replies: "Norman Mailer.I just think Norman is a genius. Oh God, I love so many writers. Myfavorite novel recently was Peter Maas' book,Made in America. …There's Tommy Thompson, who just wroteSerpentine. Nora Ephrom,Carl Bernstein are friends of mine. Norman Mailer is a friend of mine.Oh, I could go on forever."
An author in her own right, Liz wroteThe Mother Booktwo years ago; it sold approximately 65,000 copies in hardcover and 200,000 in paperback. "It kind of wrote itself," she says modestly of the acclaimed collection of anecdotes about mothers. Someday she would like to try fiction; at present she is working on a book that she describes as "a history and philosophy of gossip and what it is and what it's all about."
An Eastsider for half her life, Liz says her neighborhood "has the lowest crime rate of any police district in New York." Most of the restaurants he frequents are on the Upper East Side. They include Le Plaisir, Gian Marino, Szechuan East and Elaine's.
For years she saw her therapist at least once a week; now she pays him just occasional visits. "It helped me enormously in writing. I quit having writer's block. I quit putting things off. I quit making myself miserable. I accepted my success, which was hard, because a lot of writers: they don't want to succeed. They don't think they deserve it. It's like people who don't want to be happy.
"Well, I mean you can be happy, you know, if you let yourself, and if you do your work. The most important thing in the world, I think, is to do your work. If you do your work, you'll be happy: I'm almost positive about it."
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EASTSIDERS TOM & DICK SMOTHERSStars ofI Love My Wifeon Broadway
2-17-79
As the Smothers Brothers, they were perhaps the funniest, most original American music and comedy team to come out of the 1960s. Their 10 albums sold in the millions, and for three seasons they had the most controversial show on television,The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. When CBS abruptly canceled their contract in 1969 for seemingly political reasons, they became a cause celebre by suing the network and winning a million dollars in damages. After 18 years of performing together as a team, they retired their act in December, 1976, saying that their brand of satire had been "stated," and that repetition would bore them. The brothers parted on friendly terms, each determined to make his mark separately as an entertainer.
This past Labor Day, they were reunited as a comedy team — not on television or in a nightclub, but on the stage of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on West 47th Street, where they instantly breathed new life into the long-running musicalI Love My Wife. Cast in the roles of two would-be wife swappers from Trenton, New Jersey, they insisted on being billed not as the Smothers Brothers, but as Dick and Tom Smothers. However, anyone who laments the demise of the Smothers Brothers act should catch the show before the six-month contract runs out on March 4. Dick Smothers, as Wally, a smooth-talking pseudo-sophisticate, and Tom Smothers, as his naive, bumbling friend Alvin, a moving man, wear their roles as if they had been written for no one else.
"I like theatre and I'm going to do more of it," said Tom, 42, during a recent dressing room interview after a matinee performance. His brother Dick, 40, had other plans. "As soon as this show is over, I have to go back to California and do some bottling for my winery. And I want to do more auto racing. I race for American Motors. As far as making a career in acting on Broadway: no. I think I could work at it and become a fairly decent actor, but while I'm making wine, I want to play in cabaret theatre and dinner theatre. It's fun, and it keeps you sharp. Broadway isn't a place you should learn. What we're doing is apprenticing on Broadway.
"But that's how we got our television show," protested Tom. "We'd never done a television show before."
In spite of the box office success of their Broadway debut, Dick cannot help feeling disappointed that, as always, he is cast as the straight man. His character Wally is a foil to the lovable, slow-witted Alvin. "There's not a whole lot to do with Wally," said Dick, pouring me a glass of his Smothers white Riesling wine. "The fact is, everyone is pretty locked in except for Alvin. We're all dancing around him."
Tom's only complaint about the show is that it has put a strain on his health, and especially on his throat. "This is the first time I've been close to the edge of anxiety healthwise," he confided, sipping hot tea with lemon. "As soon as I arrived n New York I got tonsillitis. Now I have insomnia. Antibiotics really drain your body. I've lost 15 pounds so far. It's a very demanding part physically."
Both brothers seemed very serious offstage, although Tom went through his full range of marvelous mug expressions as he answered the questions and posed for photos. Asked about how his current salary compares to what he has earned previously, he replied: "Broadway you do for love of the craft. The money is nothing to what you can make in film. You do it because not many actors can do theatre." Dick commented: "Some of the big stars in Las Vegas get 20 to 30 times what we're making. It's the prestige and the experience."
Tom and Dick were born on Governor's Island in New York Harbor. Their father, an Army major, died in the Philippines near the end of World War II. Their mother then took them to the West Coast, and when Tom was 12, she gave him a guitar. "I wanted to be a bandleader first, then a comedian," he recalled. "At San Jose State, I was in a trio, and we needed a tenor. So I got Dickie to come to school." While still in college, they played their first professional engagement as the Smothers Brothers at San Francisco's Purple Onion nightclub and got four encores. Before long, Jack Paar invited them onThe Tonight Show, and their career was assured.
One thing that is particularly touching about Tom and Dick Smothers is the great affection they have for each other. They live in separate Upper East Side apartments about a mile apart, but Dick drives Tom to the theatre each day, and they frequently socialize together.
Tom's mind is currently on a 19th-century farce,Nothing but the Truth, which he plans to start rehearsing this fall and hopes to eventually bring to Broadway. Dick, meanwhile, is thinking more about the jeep he recently won in a celebrity auto race. "I'm going to drive it home to Santa Cruz," he commented, with obvious satisfaction. "It has four-wheel drive, bush guards, a roll bar, and heavy off-road tires. It's perfect for Manhattan."
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WESTSIDER VICTOR TEMKINPublisher of Berkley and Jove Books
1-26-80
Victor Temkin, who looks like a character out of Dickens and comes across with the gruff friendliness of television's Ed Asner, is sitting in his midtown office on Friday afternoon trying to deal with three things at once. The telephone is jangling, visitors are dropping by unannounced, and I'm throwing him questions about the publishing business.
What complicates matters is that Mr. Temkin is in the process of moving his offices to another floor; has ad and his staff of 80 are packing everything into cardboard boxes, and now it's impossible to find anything. But the short, pink-faced man with gold-framed spectacles takes it all in stride. He lights a Lucky Strike, props one hand against his chin, and explains how he got to be the head of Berkley Books, which has long been the paperback division of G.P. Putnam.
"I came to New York in 1960 as a lawyer. I became assistant U.S. attorney in '61. I stayed there till '64," he relates in short bursts of speech. "Then I went into private practice until September of 1967, when I got into the book business. I became house counsel at Bantam Books, and worked my way up, and later became a vice president. I came here in July of 1977 as president and chief executive officer.
"Since that time, we purchased Jove Books from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. It's another paperback house. … Berkley does largely reprints of hardcovers, but Jove does exclusively paperback originals. Together, the two companies put out about 300 or 325 books a year. Of these, 120 are from Jove."
Berkley Books, he admits, is one of the smaller paperback houses, perhaps sixth or seventh. But the company manages to get its share of best-sellers. At New Year's two were in the nation's top 10 —Mommie Dearestby Christina Crawford andNurseby Peggy Anderson.Mommie Dearest, says Temkin, "is the first time we've had a story of child abuse at that level off society, which I think is a great thing for the people to read. It isn't only poor kids that get beat up, it's the rich kids too — just as badly."
In terms of sales and profits, he says, "There's no such thing as an average book. It depends on what you pay for the advance and what the cost of manufacturing the book is. … I can have books sell 50,000 copies and make a profit, or I can have books sell a million copies and lose money. … It's not hard to spend a million dollars on a book. That's easy to do. The hard thing is to find a book likeNurse, where you didn't pay the million for it and you can sell a million and a half. We jumped in and bought it early on, before it was a hardcover best-seller."
Berkley's hottest author at present is John Jakes, whose seven-volume Kent family saga has sold 30 million copies. Jakes' new book,The Americans, is scheduled to be out in February 1980. "The first printing is over three million copies," says Temkin. "We expect it to be a number one best-seller.. … What a great success story. John has been around for many many years and he's written a lot of books but he's never had the commercial success until that came along. You can never tell in this business. That's why we're in it: You don't know what tomorrow's going to be."
Temkin, who anticipates losing money on seven out of 10 books he publishes, does frequently travels around the country on business, and makes it a point to observe what people are reading on buses and in bookstores. "I think kids today are coming back to books. Because it's the best form of entertainment there is for the money," he says. "I read a lot. I try to read two, three books a week. I have a rule that I don't read books by authors who are friends of mine that I am publishing, because I know it will be nothing but trouble. … I can't tell them I don't like a book, and if I tell them I do like it, they may not believe me. But I like writers. I enjoy being around them."
A native of Milwaukee, Temkin lives on the West Side with his wife Susan and their 8-year-old twins, Andrew and Peter. Susan has a busy career as a caterer who runs her own cooking school for kids.
In December, 1977, Berkley brought out a book about the Jonestown tragedy,The Guyana Massacreby Charles Krause, which was written, published and distributed in a single week. "It's instant journalism," Temkin explains. "We're going to do a book late in 1980 about the 1980 election, to tell how and why it happened."
He laughs when asked whether his skills as a lawyer have been helpful in his publishing career. "No, I think I've forgotten most of what I know about being a lawyer. It's not the same."
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WESTSIDER JOHN TESHAnchorman for WCBS Channel 2 News
2-3-79
"I've had a lot of luck in my career," says John Tesh of WCBS Channel 2 News."I enjoy working hard and I know exactly what I want. Who knows, 10 years from now I may not be that way. A lot of my friends are afraid I've gone too far too fast."
During the first 18 years of his life, when he lived in Garden City, Long Island, John was a top student, a star athlete, and a fine musician. After graduating from high school he left for North Carolina to attend the state university on a soccer scholarship. His goal — to become a doctor. But when John returned to the New York area in 1976 at the age of 24, it was not as a professional athlete or a physician, but as a television news reporter. Today, at 27, he is one of the most highly respected young broadcasters in New York. Throughout the week he appears regularly on Channel 2's 6 o'clock news as an on-the-scene reporter, and each Saturday and Sunday he co-anchors both the 6 o'clock and the 11 o'clock evening news. According to Tesh, his 6 o'clock weekend show is watched by more people than any other local news program in New York.
As if this job were not enough, last September John opened his own sporting goods store, Sports Stripes, located on Columbus Avenue at 75th Street, a few blocks from his apartment. The compact, brightly decorated store specializes in running equipment and is the only place in New York City where running shoes can be resoled on the premises.
When I stop by Sports Stripes one afternoon to talk with John over lunch, the first thing I notice is his sheer size. At 6 foot and 190 pounds, he makes a commanding presence. There is command in his voice as well; it is as deep and rich as a Russian bass-baritone's. He seems extraordinarily calm, and when I comment on this, he says that "there's not as much pressure in New York as there was then I worked in North Carolina. Here you're able to concentrate solely on your reporting. There you were concerned with logistical problems — shooting the film, developing it, editing it, selecting slides, producing the broadcast, and then anchoring it. … But I'm not as calm as I might appear. I think people at Sports Stripes and CBS think of me as frenetic."
His entry into broadcasting was totally unplanned. Halfway through college, he got a part-time job as a copy boy at a local radio station. One day the station's two newsmen called in sick, and John was asked to fill in. Instantly bitten by the broadcast journalism "bug," he decided to trade in his premed courses for television/radio production and political science.
"When I finished college," says John in his low-keyed manner, "I had the choice of going to medical school or continuing in broadcasting, so I felt l could go either way. I decided to stay in broadcasting for a while." After working at television stations in North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, he was offered a job at WCBS.
"I would say that most correspondents try to get to New York, because the production is a lot better here. … I wouldn't like the anchor job without the field work," he adds thoughtfully. "I have been told that my forte is breaking news. Last year I won an Emmy for that. The same year I won an Emmy for outstanding reporting.
"Unedited, live television is what it's coming to. It's interesting, because it's come full circle. At one time, everything was live. Then for some reason it went so heavily into tape, and now it's back into live journalism. As the public becomes better informed, so changes the news.
"When Fred Cowan was holed up in a warehouse in New Rochelle, and he had killed at least one police officer and was holding several hostages, I was in a house across the street from there. We were reporting as it was happening. There were shots fired; I didn't realize until afterwards how intense it was."
Asked about which skills are required for live journalism, John says: "I think it's being able to explain quickly and concisely the situation at hand without becoming too involved in the situation. Becoming the eyes and ears of the viewer. Being able to ad-lib is actually what it is. [Walter] Cronkite is one of the great all-time ad-libbers."
A bachelor who lives alone, John still finds time for sports and music: "I get enough excitement out of the store and work so that when it's time to go home I like to be quiet. I have an electric piano, which I play with headsets. … I've run two marathons here in New York. I'm too big to be a good marathon runner, but I do train hard. My ambition is to find some race to win."
John says he likes the West Side to much that "my friends have to drag me to the East Side. I do all my shopping on the West Side because I figure, why shouldn't I help out my friends who live here by shopping at their stores?" When John decided to open his own store, he called up his boyhood friend Paul Abbott to run it. The pair were classmates from grammar school through high school.
John says he hopes to eventually open his own seafood restaurant — "on the West Side, of course. This is where I plan to live for the rest of my life."
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WESTSIDER RICHARD THOMASJohn-Boy teams up with Henry Fonda inRoots II
2-17-79
Seven years ago, on Christmas Day 1972, CBS aired a holiday program titledThe Homecomingabout a family living in Appalachia during the Great Depression. All who were involved in the project went their separate ways after the filming, including a young actor from the Upper West Side named Richard Thomas. But it drew such a favorable response that CBS decided to turn it into a series. The rest is history:The Waltonsbecame a hit and made Thomas a television superstar.
For five years he charmed his way into American homes as the beloved John Boy. Then in 1976 he decided to leaveThe Waltonsin order to concentrate on his marriage, write poetry, do stage acting, perform ballet and make movies. On February 18, in what is certain to be his most closely watched performance to date, Richard will star in the first segment of ABCsRoots II, playing the son of a wealthy railroad lawyer (Henry Fonda) who marries a black schoolteacher. He will appear, to a lesser extent, on the two following evenings as well, before leaving the scene as a 54-year-old man.
In an interview at the New York School of Ballet at Broadway and 83rd Street — which is owned by his parents, Richard Thomas III and Barbara Fallis — he talks enthusiastically about his role in Roots II. "My character is an actual historical figure," says Richard. "He had just come back from college and didn't know what he wanted out of life. … Obviously in 1892 or 3, his marriage was considered a disaster. His wife Carrie was Alex Haley's first teacher. Her school is still in Tennessee today."
Sporting a newly grown moustache, casually dressed, and still boyish looking at 27, Richard carries an air of tremendous confidence about him. Yet his voice changes to one of awed respect when he speaks of Henry Fonda: "The thing about working with someone like Fonda is that his presence is so strongly felt that you get caught up in watching him. It's really uncanny. I had to pinch myself to get back into the scene. And Olivia de Havilland, who plays my mother — she's extraordinary, too. We got along great."
Earlier this year, Richard Performed in the Los Angeles production ofStreamers, and also made a TV movie for CBS,Getting Married, which was broadcast last summer. In the late fall, during one of his frequent trips to the West Side, he donned ballet tights to play the character role of Hilarion in the U.S. Terpsichore Company's production ofGiselle, starring his 19-year-old sister Bronwyn Thomas, one of the most highly acclaimed young ballerinas in the city.
Richard's parents are both former principal dancers for the New YorkCity Ballet. They were on tour in Cuba when he was born, and the firstlanguage he learned was Spanish. He began acting at the age of 7.Growing up on West 96th Street, he attended McBurney High School andColumbia University.
Although he moved to Los Angeles in 1971, Richard still considershimself a Westsider. "I just know it like the back of my hand," he says."I'm not sure I could live without LA anymore, but whenever I'm here,I feel completely at home. There's a kind of underground chic on theUpper West Side that I kind of respond to. I'm very comfortable aroundSpanish-speaking people. I speak Spanish, and my wife is part Mexican.I like the Latin flavor."
He and his wife Alma have been married since 1975; they have a 2-year old son, also named Richard Thomas. "He talks a blue streak," comments the proud father. "Sometimes he gets very blue. You have to watch what you say around him."
In 1994 the young actor published his first book of poetry. Titled simplyPoems by Richard Thomas, it won the California Robert Frost Award the following year. His second volume of poetry,In The Moment, is scheduled for publication by Avon early in 1979.
Another of his prime interests is music. "I'm a big operagoer," he says. "I'm really partial to Verdi and Wagner, if you have to get it down to two." He also plays the dulcimer. "When I go to Kentucky this week, I'm going to call on a man who's one of the great dulcimer makers in the United States."
The three-stringed mountain instrument, an important component in the folk music of Appalachia, caught Richard's fancy long ago, during a visit to his grandfather's Kentucky farm, where he spent many summers as a boy. Both of his grandparents on his father's side are still living. Like an episode fromThe Waltons, the family often gathers at the farm on Thanksgiving Day.
The originalRootswas seen by more people than any other program in the history of television, but Richard does not dwell on his important role inRoots II. He prefers to talk about the fulfillment he has found in marriage.
"I can't imagine not being married at this point," he says, the thick gold band gleaming on his finger. "If my marriage weren't happy, I couldn't make the right kind of career decisions. One supports the other. They're part of the same package." Does he expect to have more children? Richard smiles broadly and replies: "That's really my wife's department."
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EASTSIDER ANDY WARHOLPop artist and publisher ofInterviewmagazine
4-7-79
He is the great enigma of American art. Some of his most famous paintings are exercises in monotony. His movies often put the viewer to sleep. As a conversationalist, he can be low-keyed to the point of dullness: speaking softly in a slow-paced, emotionless voice, he relies heavily on short sentences, long pauses, and an abundance of "ums" and "uhs." However, he has one asset that overshadows everything negative that might be said or written about him: his name happens to be Andy Warhol.
The only time I met Warhol in person was at a book publication party several months ago. He came by himself, spoke to hardly anyone, and spent most of his brief visit flitting quietly about the room, avoiding people's eyes and taking snapshots of the more celebrated guests. With his pale complexion, narrow frame, and hair like bleached straw, he looked not unlike a scarecrow. Everywhere he went, heads turned to catch a glimpse. That has been the story of Warhol's life ever since he rose to international prominence in the 1960s.
Although he did not feel like talking when I met him, Andy — never publicity-shy — agreed to a telephone interview at a later date. Reached at the offices of hisInterviewmagazine off Union Square, he answered all my questions briefly, and in a voice so low that he could barely be heard.
Interview, the monthly tabloid-shaped magazine that he publishes, is Warhol's most visible creative project at the moment. "It's been going for about seven or eight years," he said. "I started it for Brigid Berlin. Her father ran the Hearst Corporation. She didn't want to work on it." The person on the cover of each issue is identified only on the inside, and many of the faces are difficult to recognize. Some are genuine celebrities, such as Truman Capote, who has a regular column. Others are young unknowns who have caught Warhol's fancy. The ultramodern layout includes many full-page ads for some of the most expensive shops in Manhattan. The interviews, interspersed with many photos, lean heavily on show business personalities, models, artists, writers and fashion people. In most cases, the "interviews" are actually group discussions — often with Andy himself taking part — that are printed verbatim. Even the most mundane comments are not cut.
The reason? "I used to carry a tape recorder with me all the time, so this was a way to use it," said Warhol. But in truth, the literal transcriptions are another example of the naturalism that characterizes much of his work. When he turned his attention from painting and drawing to filmmaking in 1963, he became notorious for such movies asSleep, which showed a man sleeping for six hours, andEmpire, which he made by aiming his camera at the Empire State Building and keeping the film running for eight straight hours.
According to Warhol, many people have turned down his request for interviews. "It's hard to get Robert Redford. … We choose people who like to talk a lot." The type of reader he seeks to attract is "the rich audience. People who go to places like Christie's and Fiorucci's. … It's fun to go to those places and get invited to parties. I love fashion parties. Shoe parties are even better."
His affection for shoes dates back to 1949, when, in his first year in New York, he got a job in the art department of a shoe store. His designs and magazine illustrations caught on so fast that within a year, he was able to purchase the town house on the Upper East Side, where he still lives with his mother. "But mostly I live with my two dachshunds. They've taken over."
Certain facts abut Andy Warhol's early life remain a mystery because he has always objected to questions that he considers irrelevant to an understanding of him as an artist. It is known that he was born somewhere in Pennsylvania, sometime between 1927 and 1931, to a family of immigrants from Czechoslovakia named Warhola.
By his mid-20s, Warhol was one of the most sought-after commercial artists in the field. His silk-screen prints of Campbell's soup cans made him famous with the general public, and by the mid-1960s he was clearly the most highly celebrated "plastic artist" — a title he relishes — in the English-speaking world.
In recent years, his creative output has been reduced somewhat, as the result of the severe wounds he sustained in June, 1968, when a deranged woman shot him in his office. Nevertheless, he continues to mount gallery exhibitions, write books and paint portraits. The Whitney Museum (75th St. at Madison Ave.) will have a show of his portraits in December.
Asked about the East Side, Warhol said that one of his favorite activities is to go window shopping. "When you live on the East Side, you don't have to go far. Because usually everything happens here." When he goes to the West Side, it's often to visit Studio 54. "I only go there to see my friend Steve Rubell. Afterwards, we usually go to Cowboys and Cowgirls."
About the only medium that Warhol has not worked in is television. "Oh, I always wanted to, yeah," was his parting comment. "It just never happens. The stations think we're not Middle America."
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EASTSIDER ARNOLD WEISSBERGERTheatrical attorney for superstars
9-29-79
What do Leonard Bernstein, Helen Hayes, Otto Preminger, CarolChanning, Truman Capote and George Balanchine have in common?
All are giants in the performing arts. And all are — or have been — clients of Arnold Weissberger, one of the world's foremost theatrical attorneys. Now in his 50th year of practice, the Brooklyn-born, Westside-raised Weissberger has been representing stars ever since a chance encounter brought Orson Welles to his office in 1936.
"Most of my clients are involved in making contracts that have to do with plays or films or television," says Weissberger on a recent afternoon. The scene is his small, richly furnished law firm in the East 50s. Dressed in a dark suit, with a white carnation in his buttonhole to match his white mustache, Weissberger looks very much like the stereotype of a business tycoon. "Part of my job," he continues, "is to be familiar with the rules of guilds and unions. And I have to know about the treaties between countries that affect the payment of taxes."
Smiling benevolently, his hands folded in front of him, the gentlemanly lawyer quickly proves himself a gifted storyteller. In his upper-class Boston accent, acquired during seven years at Harvard, he delights in telling anecdotes about his favorite performers. Not shy about dropping names, Weissberger drops only the biggest, such as Sir Laurence Olivier — a client who had invited him to lunch the previous day — and Martha Graham.
His work is so crowded that whenever he has to read anything that is longer than three pages, he puts it in his weekend bag. Yet Weissberger devotes an hour or two every day to one of several philanthropic organizations. At the top of his list is the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, of which he is co-chairman. "I consider her one of the three great seminal figures in the arts in the 20th century, and I prize her friendship enormously." The other two outstanding artistic figures of the century, he says, are "Stravinsky, who it was also my privilege to represent, and Picasso, who I did not represent."
He serves as chairman of the New Dramatists, a group that nurtures young playwrights; he is a board member of Fountain House, a halfway house for ex-mental patients; and he is chairman of the Theatre and Music Collection of the Museum of the City of New York.
On Monday through Thursday, Weissberger lives in a luxurious Eastside apartment that he shares with his longtime friend, theatrical agent Milton Goldman. Each Friday after work, Weissberger departs for Seacliff, Long Island, where he owns a house overlooking the ocean. Goldman and Weissberger, whose careers have run a parallel course during the 35 years of their acquaintance, travel widely each summer, generally spending a month in London, where both have many clients.
"Our interests are very similar, except that I am an opera buff, and Milton is not. He's a realist. I started going to opera when I was 10 years old, so I don't mind if a 300-pound soprano dies of consumption inTraviata, as long as she sings beautifully."
An avid art collector, Weissberger buys only what he has room to display on the walls of his home and office. For the past 30 years his chief hobby has been photography. He has published two volumes of his work —Close Up(1967) andFamous Faces(1971). Although he has never taken a photography course, and never uses flash, he captures the essence of his subjects through his rapport with them. "I have discussed the possibility of doing a photo book of children I've taken around the world," he notes. "And now, of course, I have enough photos for a second volume of famous faces."
His vigorous appearance to the contrary, Weissberger claims to get little exercise. "I have one of those stationary bicycles at home, but I've never gotten round to using it. And I've got to do so before I next see my doctor, or I won't be able to face him. … It's interesting how doctorial advice changes. I remember several years ago, it was not considered a good idea for people who were no longer young to climb stairs, and now my doctor says that climbing stairs is the best thing I can do for my constitution."
So closely connected are the various aspects of his life that Weissberger is able to say: "There's no demarcation between my workday and my play day. People ask me when I'm going to retire, and I say there's no need for me to retire, because I enjoy my work so much. I become part of people's lives. I become privy to their problems. It is, in many ways, an extension, an enhancement of my own life to be able to participate in the lives of my clients. I remember a few months ago, when Lilli Palmer was sitting right there, and I said, 'Lilli, what a lucky person I am. I'm having to do a tax return and I'm doing it for Lilli Palmer.' Because there sat this beautiful, charming, intelligent, lovely lady, and I was representing her professionally. For me, I can't think of any profession that could possibly be more rewarding."
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EASTSIDER TOM WICKERAuthor and columnist for theNew York Times
6-2-79
Something unusual was happening up ahead: that much he was sure of, although no sound of gunshots reached Tom Wicker's ears as he rode in a press bus in the presidential motorcade through the streets of Dallas on November 22, 1963. Gazing out the window, he observed crowds of people running about in confusion. Shortly afterward, outside Parkland Hospital, the full extent of the tragedy was announced to the world, and Tom Wicker, the only reporter from theNew York Timeswho was present that day, rushed off to write the biggest story of his career.
Working feverishly through the afternoon, he came up with a 106 paragraph account of the day's events that dominated theTimes'front page the following morning. In decades to come, students and historians will turn to Wicker's story on microfilm with perhaps a sense of wonder that it omits no facts of major importance, and contains virtually no errors.
Tom Wicker was writing for history that day, and largely as a result of his masterful performance, he was elevated the following year to the position of theTimesbureau chief in Washington. In 1968, he was appointed associate editor of the newspaper, and in 1971, he returned to New York in order to concentrate on his column, "In the Nation." For the past 13 years, the column has appeared three times weekly in the op-ed page of theTimes.
A tall, ruddy-complexioned, powerful-looking Southerner of 52 with a country-boy manner and a Carolina accent as thick as molasses, Wicker has managed to combine his lifelong career in journalism with an independent career as a book author. The most successful of his seven novels,Facing the Lions, was on theNew York Timesbest-seller list for 18 weeks in 1973, while his most recent nonfiction work,On Press: A Top Reporter's Life in, and Reflections on, American Journalism, was published last year by Viking and will soon be released as a paperback by Berkley.
In an interview at his office in theTimesbuilding, the affable, articulate Wicker responds to an opening question about whether journalists are less accurate today than in the past by saying, "No, I don't think they ever were very accurate. It's hard to get pinpoint accuracy under pressure. I think that's an inherent weakness of daily journalism. But you have to consider that there are something like eight million words a day coming in here. It's very tough to double-check all of that by deadline. I think of journalism as being kind of like an early alert system."
In his column, Wicker has never been told what to write, never had an article killed or edited, and never been urged to conform to theTimeseditorial policy.
Some of his pieces look best in retrospect — for example, the three columns he wrote in September and October 1977 about the dangers of storing nuclear waste. The sympathy with which he treated the prison death of convict George Jackson in a 1971 column caught the attention of inmates everywhere, and during the uprising at New York's Attica prison later that year, he was called in as a mediator and official observer. His book about the uprising,A Time To Die, (1975), won him two major literary awards and was made a Book of the Month Club selection.
An engaging public speaker who travels widely, he spent two months inAfrica last year. At present, he is preparing a long article on RichardNixon that will appear in theSunday Timesmagazine this August tocoincide with the fifth anniversary of the ex-president's resignation.
Asked for his opinion on the seeming resurgence of Nixon as a public figure, Wicker smiles and says, "I'm sure Al Capone could have drawn a crowd the day he got out of prison. I don't think Nixon has been revived. He never was dead in that sense. He left the White House under a cloud, yet he retained, I am sure, millions of people who supported him. … I myself have always discounted these reports that some future Republican president might appoint him a sort of roving ambassador. As far as his giving speeches at big colleges is concerned, I think that's all right. He may have made mistakes, but I myself would find it very interesting to read an article by Richard Nixon about foreign affairs. I think he's a man of intelligence and knowledge in this area."
For the past five years, Wicker has been married to Pamela Hill, vice president of ABC News and executive producer of the network's documentary productions. They live in a four-story brownstone on the Upper East Side. Though both enjoy cooking, their busy schedules call for many visits to local restaurants.
Wicker's next book is a historical novel about the American Civil War that he has been researching for several years. "It probably won't be completed until 1981," he says, "but I expect it to be the best book I have ever done. It's certainly the one I'm putting the most effort into. At the same time, the column is my first priority. That's the clock I punch. … My experience is, the more you write, the better you get at it. It's a business in which you keep sharpening your tools all the time."
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EASTSIDER TOM WOLFEAvant-garde author talks aboutThe Right Stuff
10-6-79
During New York City's newspaper strike of 1963, a 31-year-oldHerald Tribunereporter named Tom Wolfe visited California in order to write an article forEsquiremagazine about the souped-up, customized cars and the crowd they attracted. WhenEsquire'sdeadline arrived, Wolfe was unable to pull the article together, so he typed out his largely impressionistic notes and sent them to the editor, who decided to run "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby" exactly as written. Thus was Tom Wolfe established as one of the most important new talents in American journalism.
Today he is generally recognized as the foremost proponent of what might be called the nonfiction short story. The majority of his eight books are collections of factual articles written in the style of fiction. His latest effort,The Right Stuff(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $12.95), is about the seven Mercury astronauts and the world of military flying. Over cocktails at the Isle of Capri, a restaurant not far from his Eastside apartment, the slender, gentlemanly, and slightly bashful author spoke at length about his new book and a dozen other subjects. Dressed in a one-button, swallowtail, yellow pinstriped suit — "it's kind of an early Duke of Windsor" — he poured forth his colorful phrases in a rich, soothing, mildly Southern accent that rang with sincerity.
"I began this book in 1972, whenRolling Stoneasked me to go down to the Cape and cover Apollo 17. Somewhat to my surprise, I became quite interested in the whole business of: what's the makeup of someone who's willing to sit on top of a rocket and let you light the candle? And I ended up writing four stories forRolling Stone… in about a month. And I thought if I spent a couple of months in expanding them, I'd have a book. Well, it's now 1979 and here we are." He laughed heartily. "It was so difficult that I put it aside every opportunity I had. I wrote three other books in the meantime, to avoid working on it.
"I ended up being more interested in the fraternity of flying than in space exploration. I found the reactions of people and flying conditions much more fascinating. So the book is really about the right stuff — the code of bravery that the pilots live by, and the mystical belief about what it takes to be a hot fighter jock.
"Flying has a competitive structure that's as hotly contested as the world of show business. And the egos are just as big — in fact, in a way, they're bigger. … It's hard to top surgeons for sheer ego. I think surgeons are the most egotistical people on the face of the earth, but pilots usually make the playoffs: they're in there."
An excellent caricaturist who has published hundreds of drawings and mounted several major exhibitions, he confessed to being vain about his artwork because "I don't feel as sure of myself as I do in writing." A book of his drawings will come out in 1980. He also has a captioned drawing each month inHarper's, the magazine where his wife Sheila works as art director. Tom was a lifelong bachelor until they were married last year.
He arrived in New York in 1962, armed with a Ph.D. from Yale and three years' experience on theWashington Post. "I really love it in New York. It reminds me of the state fair in Virginia, where I grew up. … The picture of the East Side really is of the man living in the $525,000 co-op, leaving the building at night with his wife, both clothed in turtleneck sweaters with pieces of barbed wire and jeans, going past a doorman who is dressed like an Austrian Army colonel from 1870."
No relation to the novelist Thomas Wolfe, Tom Wolfe has written only one short piece of fiction in his life. He is now thinking about writing "aVanity Fairtype of novel about New York" as his next major undertaking. In the meantime, he is working on a sequel toThe Painted Word, his book-length essay abut modern art that appeared in 1975.
"Another thing I'd like to try is a movie script," he added. "I've done one — a series of vignettes about life in Los Angeles. … But many talented writers just go bananas in trying to write for the movies. Because they're not in charge of what they're doing. All that a good director can do is keep from ruining the script. He cannot turn a bad script into a good movie. He can turn a good script into a bad movie. And often, I think, it happens, because the director is given a power that he simply should not have."
Another possible project, said Wolfe, is a second volume ofThe Right Stuff, to bring the story up to the $250 million Soviet-American handshake in 1975. The 436-page first volume has been received with acclaim. In theNew York Sunday Timesbook review, C.D.B. Bryan wrote: "It is Tom Wolfe at his very best. … It is technically accurate, learned, cheeky, risky, touching, tough, compassionate, nostalgic, worshipful, jingoistic — it is superb."
* * *
An Interview with Tom Wolfe
fromThe Westsider, 11-22-79
Tom Wolfe, one of the most original stylists in American writing today, burst spectacularly on the literary horizon in 1965 withThe Kandy Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, a collection of articles about contemporary American life written as nonfiction.
Wolfe's adoption of stream of consciousness, his unorthodox use of italics and exclamation marks, his repetition of letters, and his effectiveness in inventing hip phrases with nonsense words and classical references, helped establish an entirely new literary form — the nonfiction short story.
His reputation was cemented by such books asThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,The Pump House GangandThe Painted Word, a lengthy essay on modern art. Wolfe sometimes illustrates his work with pen-and ink drawings.
His latest book,The Right Stuff, deals with the age of rockets, the early astronauts and the world of military flying. Published in September 1979, it is a critical and commercial success that has already hit the best-seller list.
A tall, slender 48-year-old transplanted Southerner with a rich baritone voice, Wolfe speaks softly, chooses his word carefully, and exhibits a kind of schoolboy bashfulness when discussing his own work. A New Yorker since 1962, he lives on the Upper East Side with his wife Sheila, the art director ofHarper'smagazine. On the day of our interview, Wolfe is wearing his customary one-button, swallow-tailed, yellow pin stripe suit, which he describes as "early Duke of Windsor."
Q: What made you decide to write this book?
A: Back in 1972, Rolling Stone asked me to go down to the Cape and cover Apollo 17. That was the last mission to the moon. … Somewhat to my surprise, I really became quite interested in the whole business of what's the makeup of someone who's willing to sit on top of a rocket and let you light the candle? And I ended up writing four stories forRolling Stonein about a month. And I thought if I spent a couple of months in expanding them, I'd have a book. Well, it's now 1979 and here we are." (He laughs.) It was so difficult that I put it aside every opportunity I had. I wrote three other books in the meantime, to avoid working on it.
I ended up being more interested in the fraternity of flying than in space exploration. I found the reactions of people and flying conditions much more fascinating. So the book is really about the right stuff — the code of bravery that the pilots live by, and the mystical belief about what it takes to be a hot fighter jock, as the expression goes. I became interested in people like Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier back in 1947. When the seven Mercury astronauts were chosen, they were not the seven hottest test pilots in America, although they were presented as such at the time. The arrival of the astronauts as a type completely upset the competitive hierarchy of flying.
Flying has a competitive structure that's as hotly contested as the world of show business. And the egos are just as big — in fact, in a way, they're bigger. . … It's hard to top surgeons for sheer ego. I think surgeons are the most egotistical people on the face of the earth, but pilots usually make the playoffs: they're in there.
Q: Speaking of your other books: how do you manage to know all the hip phrases of the day? Do you spend a lot of time with teenagers?
A: At one time, people thought I was some sort of medium who hung around with children to pick up what young people were thinking and doing. Well, that interested me very much in the '60s, when suddenly young people were doing extraordinary things — things they had never done, which really boiled down to living lives that they controlled, sometimes in a communal way, going with their own styles, rather than imitating that of their elders. So it was fascinating. I made a point of learning about it.
Sometimes now I turn on the radio and I don't recognize a single song on the charts. Right now I have no idea what any of the top 20 singles are. And I have the feeling that it's probably not worth finding out, because we're now in a phase where we're just filling in the spaces of what was introduced by rock and the Beatles and the Grateful Dead and so on. There's nothing very new, I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong.
Q: How do you choose your clothes?
A: Right now I'm in the phase of pretentiousness. During the late '60s I had a lot of fun by making mild departures in style — wearing white suits instead of blue suits, things like that. That was very shocking and unusual in 1963. Suddenly things reached a point beyond which it really wasn't worth going, as far as I was concerned, when Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman appeared on theDick Cavett Showin body paint.
There's one direction in which clothes can go that still annoys the hell out of people, and that's pretentiousness. If you wear double-breasted waistcoats, which I rather like, that annoys people. Spats more than annoy people: they infuriate people. Try it sometime if you don't believe me. They think that this is an affront. It stirs up all sorts of resentment. We're in a period now in which the picture of the East Side really is of the man living in the $525,000 co-op, leaving the building at night, both clothed in turtleneck sweaters with pieces of barbed wire and jeans, going past a doorman who is dressed like an Austrian Army colonel from 1870.