By John Berendt From Telling It Like It Was 1969 In the summer of 1968, John Berendt, a young associate editor of Esquire, accompanied three members of that magazine’s unusual team of reporters to the Democratic National Convention, held that year in Chicago: Jean...
By Joe Flaherty The New York Times January 23, 1972 It’s a fact, sophistication aside, that the publishing industry is as trendy as the garment industry. And its real motive is the same—to sell. We have witnessed the Kennedy Season, the Black Season (basic or...
By Harry Stein The Stacks Reader July 1973 Harry Stein’s father, Joseph Stein, is most famous for writing Fiddler on the Roof; he also worked in the legendary writers room for Sid Caesar in the 1950s, which included Mel Brooks. In the summer of 1973, Harry found...
By Frank Rich New Times September 16, 1973 With his latest movie, The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman is once again asking for trouble—and once again there’s every reason to believe he’s going to get it. In the American film industry, this director is the ultimate...
By John Schulian The Stacks Reader June 17, 2024 I counted Mike Downey as a friend for 47 years, and the only time he let me down was Wednesday. He had as big a heart as the laws of physiology allowed, a 24-karat, 18-wheeling, let’s-go-to-the-circus thumper that was...
By Helen Lawrenson The Dial March 1981 I am not a devotee of that cult of nostalgia wherein practically anyone who was a Hollywood star in the ’30s receives instant apotheosis. To my mind the most egregious example is probably Katharine Hepburn, to whom everyone now...
By E. Graydon Carter GQ November 1985 A mile or so from the spot where Jackson Pollock came to a messy end on a lonely stretch of Long Island black-top, Jann Wenner is sliding his silver Dino 308 GT4 Ferrari through a long, graceful turn. Route 114, between Sag Harbor...
By Marcelle Clements New York Woman October 1991 The best thing about fall in an urban environment, aside from the sight of a few burnished leaves, must be those delicious attacks of nonspecific, free-floating, and undirected lust. It’s not an oft-mentioned...
By Lawrence Wright Rolling Stone July 14-28, 1988 To understand clearly that Jimmy Swaggart plotted his own destruction, you must stand here in the courtyard of the Travel Inn, that squalid rendezvous on Airline Highway in Metairie, Louisiana, just across the parish...
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,...