By Helen Lawrenson Viva August 1978 When Joan Crawford invited me to visit her in California, I should have had sense enough to refuse. However, curiosity led me to accept, although if I had known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn’t have done so. This was in...
By O’Connell Driscoll The Los Angeles Times October 19, 1986 The man stopped the silver BMW 3.0CS in the middle of the narrow street. He emerged dressed in khaki pants, boat shoes and a bright green polo shirt with thin, yellow, horizontal stripes. He absent-mindedly...
By E. Graydon Carter Smart January/February 1990 The show was over, Saturday Night Live had just celebrated a milestone on television with an awards ceremony for itself—a live, clip-heavy, two-and-a-half-hour prime-time special. NBC’s Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center,...
By Nicholas Pileggi New York/World Journal Tribune December 25, 1966 The majority of New York City’s 44,000 licensed taxicab drivers are amateurs. They are men who smoke cheap cigars, support in-laws, write novels, handicap horses, buy wheat futures, educate children...
By Charles P. Pierce The National Sports Daily August 9, 1990 It’s a fact of life in this great land that very few clerics commit capital crimes and that very few choirboys punch people senseless for sport. If you choose to bring the law to the people who commit the...
By Michael Sragow SF Weekly September 30, 1998 In 1974 Robert Towne was seething about the lot of his script for Chinatown, now considered his most famous work. Released that same year, the screenplay won an Oscar for Towne. When I interviewed him at the time, he was...
By Ring Lardner The American Magazine August 1915 What kind of a pitcher was he? Where do you get that “was” stuff? When he’s through it’ll be time enough to talk about him like he was a dead corpse. Oh, yes, I’ve heard all that junk they been pullin’, but wait till...
By E. Jean Carroll Outside July/August 1983 “Uh, Jean?” “Yes?” “Are you awake?” “Yes.” “What the hell is that?” “What?” “That funny glare outside.” (Pause.) “The moon, Fran.” We are in a tent. Fran Lebowitz is lying on my right; George Butler on my left. Fran lights...
By James Wolcott The Village Voice September 6, 1976 Has any writer since Boswell possessed a shrewder sense of careermanship than Truman Capote? Gore Vidal expertly packages his arch, marcelled aphorisms for television consumption, Norman Mailer at his most combative...
By Julie Baumgold New York Magazine October 28, 1984 Inside Mortimer’s on the day of Truman Capote’s New York memorial service, two small segments of society were in tumult. In the side room, C.Z. Guest was holding a luncheon for twenty-four of Truman’s good...
By Alex Belth The Stacks Reader January 22, 2024 When Carl Fischer passed away last year, there were a handful of appreciations that gave us a sense of his accomplishments, especially in the world of magazine photography and art direction. Fischer is most closely...
By Joe Flaherty New York Magazine March 20, 1978 The common canard is that New Yorkers are without heart, but as one watches the public agonize over the impending demise of Radio City Music Hall, there is evidence our denizens throb with the fervor of a newly minted...
