Passages
Gail Sheehy’s non-fiction book Passages, written in 1976, was published in part in New York magazine. Sheehy’s latest book, a memoir, Daring: My Passages, published in the fall of 2014, is a chronicle
of her work as a journalist, biographer, and lecturer and includes her time
from 1968 to 1977 at New York (and other publications) and of her
initial relationship with and later marriage to Felker. As one of the original
contributing editors to New York she
describes the start-up of the magazine and the build-up to and hostile takeover
of it by Rupert Murdoch. Reading it recently rekindled memories of my own days at New York, which overlapped with Gail’s.
I recall just one major head-to-head personal interaction with the tempestuous
Felker.
During
the September 1976 New York Film Festival, The
New Yorker’s film critic Pauline Kael jumped the gun to gush over a film (I
can't remember the title) that had its premiere during the Festival but had not
yet opened—nor was scheduled to
open—to the public. The
unwritten courtesy about reviewing a film was that a pan could not be published
before the film opened. A positive review was allowed more leeway in that it
could appear in print a few days prior to the film's release.
Clay
was angry when he read the Kael review and realized that New York had nothing to say about the film. He roared that we (the
critic John Simon, really) needed to change gears and replace at the last
minute the scheduled piece by Simon of another film with his take on the film
that Kael reviewed. I forget what evidence or source I had at the time (maybe
it was John himself or P.R. man Bill Kenly of Paramount), but I nervously
marched up to Clay at the front of the office to tell him it would be a mistake
to follow The New Yorker’s lead and review the film since
it had no distributor and, according to sources, was unlikely to find one.
There was no storm, no cavalier dismissal of an assistant editor. He listened
quietly and agreed. I can't remember another conversation I ever had with him.
John Simon vs. The Broadway League
I
do, however, remember a separate and more incendiary incident that led to a
different type of confrontation I had with another New York editor-in-chief, John Berendt. He had been brought in by the
magazine’s publisher Joe Armstrong to replace Jim Brady, who had been installed
temporarily by Murdoch to replace the deposed Felker. John Simon had just
appeared on the Stanley Siegal morning TV show in the spring of 1977. When the
host asked John what he thought of the new play The Shadow Box, by
Michael Cristofer, John said it was "a piece of shit." The
one-sentence denunciation went out over the airways uncensored.
What
an outcry after that! The Broadway League, which represented New York theater
owners and producers, was furious. Its principals took this as the final straw
in their dealings with Simon, whose often scathing theater reviews they were
frustrated by, seeing in Simon an adversary to their promotional and commercial
efforts and, ultimately, their bottom line. The League decided from then on to
withhold John's opening-night seats. (Each of the city’s drama critics always
received a pair of opening-night tickets to the latest Broadway productions.) Because
I regularly requisitioned those seats for John from each production's P.R. people,
I was involved in the dispute.
Armstrong
and Berendt and Murdoch's lawyer, Howard Squadron, naturally were brought in on
the case. As I recall, the argument went something like this: The League could
not legally withhold Simon’s first-night tickets and thus compel him to
purchase them while it provided the complimentary tickets to his theater critic
colleagues. It was discrimination in that it unfairly denied only Simon access
to do his job.
After whatever backstage wrangling took place
to restore Simon’s seats, Squadron called to advise me of the settlement and
to relay the message to Simon that the League, as a symbolic way of showing its
disapproval of him, would henceforth hold the seats not in Simon's name but in
the magazine's. Squadron then told me parenthetically, "You know, he
[Simon ] just brings this on himself."
"That's
not for you to say," I replied.
I'm
still somewhat amazed that the 24-year-old me had the sang-froid and the
political uncorrectness to say that to him, but in my naiveté I was defending my
colleague. And then Squadron started yelling at me. How dare I speak to him
like that! Who did I think I was? Did I know who I was talking to...? In
his agitated state, he hung up and immediately called Berendt to complain about
me. Berendt, somewhat awkwardly, then came down to my desk to offer a
half-hearted chastisement. Order was quickly restored but the incident gave new
meaning at the time to the Lively Arts department and it cemented my relationship with Simon.
To be
continued
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