By Pete Dexter Esquire September 1983 The old man was hurt at Pearl Harbor and moved to Florida to mend after they processed him out of the service. He’s been there, and in his wheelchair, ever since. Forty-two years. He lives in Miramar now, just across the line in...
By Pete Axthelm Inside Sports September 1980 Yes, I am a pirate, Two hundred years too late. The cannon’s don’t thunder, There’s nothing to plunder… Jimmy Buffett wrote the song, A Pirate Looks at Forty, in honor of a familiar character around the treasure-dreaming...
By Pat Jordan Southern Magazine October 1987 “We had to get David out of the Klan. He was seducing all the wives.” —Ku Klux Klan member, July 1986 It was a stroke of genius. The Presidential candidate had been denied a platform to announce his candidacy by two...
By David Halberstam Inside Sports April 1980 They are slow this day at the baggage counter at the Seattle airport, and the players—up too early for the flight after a game the night before, anxious to get on with it, to get to the hotel so they can practice and then...
By Michael Sragow The Boston Phoenix October 11, 1983 Rear Window is more than one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest comedies of terrors. Set in a Greenwich Village apartment and its adjoining courtyards, this urban variation on the backyard-murder story is a...
By Pat Jordan GQ September 1987 The constable who arrested her stands in the witness box, his eyes lowered to his notebook, and in a monotonous voice describes her act for the Provincial Court of Windsor, Ontario. “She pushed her breasts together and pulled them out...
By Diane K. Shah New York Magazine April 21, 1980 I’m in a taxi, trying to get to Yankee Stadium. I’m late and I’ve got my uniform on. But when I get there the guard won’t let me in. He doesn’t recognize me. So I find this hole in the fence and I’m trying to crawl...
By Gary Smith Inside Sports March 1982 THE COACH—Why should I win? Why should I feel fine tonight? Why should my friends and the ones who think they’re my friends stand out there pretending to wait for the traffic to thin when they’re really waiting to pump my hand...
By Tony Kornheiser Inside Sports July 1981 He came straight from Florida, and in black tie the combination of the tan and the tux glistened in the heat of the night. His eyes were bright, gorgeous green, and the shadings of brown in his hair were caught, then polished...
By Pete Dexter Esquire March 1984 The first day the fighter came into the gym he went two rounds with a weight lifter from New Jersey who was just learning to keep his hands up—and he tried to hurt him. I didn’t know if it was something between them or if the fighter...
By Pauline Kael The New Yorker December 26, 1988 Michelle Pfeiffer tells Mel Gibson how sorry she is that she hurt his feelings. He replies, “C’mon, it didn’t hurt that bad,” pauses, and adds, “Just lookin’ at you hurts more.” If a moviegoer didn’t already know that...
By Richard Price American Film December 1982 Over the marquee of a beat-up two-dollar movie house in Times Square, there’s an ancient faded sign: “Get More Out of Life—See a Movie.” The visual contrast between that sentiment and the desperate seediness surrounding it...
