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...
By Pete Dexter Playboy August 1986 There is an old man sitting on a folding chair behind the green on the 12th hole at Perdido Bay. His name is Archie. He is wearing a plaid shirt, buttoned at the neck and wrists, and is absently holding a cigar against the cuff of...
By Diane K. Shah Inside Sports May, 1980 “The truth is, those are not Soviet troops in Afghanistan. They’re ABC technicians, sent by Roone, dressed in Russian uniforms.” — Don Ohlmeyer Don Ohlmeyer wishes. Usually what Ohlmeyer wishes, he gets. As a young production...
By Helen Lawrenson Cosmopolitan February, 1970 Ever since his first film (Splendor in the Grass) ten years ago, Warren Beatty has been one of the most talked about figures in Hollywood—and the least understood. It is an open secret that the reason Bonnie and Clyde...
By Alex Belth The Stacks Reader March 30, 2023 Bill Zehme, who chronicled the lives of show business personalities in the ’80s and ’90s, died last weekend after a ten-year battle with cancer. He was 64 and one of the most personable and likable people you’d ever want...