The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  “Oh, I’m sure it has. That’s quite apparent from the wonderful success she’s made of it. She’s devoted nearly a third of her life to Mode, even at the expense, I suppose, of her own son—though I shouldn’t say that, since I don’t know her son. But I’m sure the magazine is the one true love of her life.”

  “She worked hard to get the terms of the contract she has now,” he said. “And she feels—rightly, I think—that the terms of that contract should be honored.”

  “Oh, I do agree. But I think these things can be sorted out without bloody lawyers lining up on both sides, and driving a deeper wedge between members of the family. There are human ways to settle differences without bringing in barristers and their briefs. It’s like national differences, isn’t it? Isn’t it better to solve national differences through diplomacy, rather than all-out war? It was a war that cost me my young husband’s life.”

  “Well, I’ll speak to her,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not sure anything I say will change Alex’s mind. She’s very angry at Herb Rothman. She feels Herb’s trying to double-cross her, and I tend to agree.”

  “Oh, would you speak to her? That would be so kind. Even if it did no good, it couldn’t hurt, could it—if she’d agree to let us settle this as human beings, without the lawyers? I’d be so grateful if you’d speak to her, because I’d do anything—anything—to see this bollix sorted out. I suppose I was naïve, but when I accepted Herbert’s offer, I was so thrilled—I’d no idea of the kind of bollix I’d be walking into. These last few days have been terribly hard on me. You’ve no idea of the stress I’ve been under. The press have been hounding me. I’ve become a virtual prisoner in this hotel.”

  “I saw your interview in Mona Potter’s column.”

  “That was the only interview Herbert wanted me to give, because Mona is his personal friend. And now, on top of everything else, all this publicity has meant that my father has found out where I am. He’s threatening to send detectives after me. Everybody, it suddenly seems, is out to get me—including Alex Rothman, whom I’ve always admired so much. Mel, you’ve no idea what it’s been like for me. It’s been utter hell.”

  “Yes, I imagine it has been,” he said.

  “I’m not really frightened. I’m sure my father can’t touch me in America. Still, it’s worrisome—terribly worrisome. The thought of detectives after me. On top of everything else.”

  “Let me just ask you one question, Fiona.”

  “Yes?”

  “If all this has turned into such a nightmare for you—”

  “It has! It has!”

  “Then why not just back out gracefully? Why not say it was all a misunderstanding on your part? That you had no idea of the complexity of the situation, but now you do, and so you gratefully decline Herb’s offer. That way, Herb’s famous pride would be intact, and you’d come out looking like a perfect lady. You could move on to something else.”

  “You mean go back to England? And the horrors that await me there?”

  “Perhaps Herb Rothman could find something for you on one of his other magazines.”

  She hesitated. “There are several reasons why I can’t do that,” she said at last. “For one thing, I gave Herbert my word that I would take this job. This is the job Herb specifically wanted me to do, and I gave him my word that I would do it. And I am a woman of my word. Then there is the fact that I have always wanted to work for Mode. It has been my singleminded ambition—to work for the world’s leading fashion magazine. This is an opportunity I have waited for all my life, and when Herbert offered it to me, I felt I simply could not turn it down. Then, aside from my personal ambition, there is my belief that I could bring a lot to Mode. I hope you won’t mind my saying that I believe in my talent, and that Mode is the best—the only—place where I can use that talent. I think Mode is a wonderful magazine, but I believe I can make it even more wonderful, and Herbert believes that too. And I feel I can’t in good conscience betray Herbert’s belief and trust in me. But finally, of course, there is little Primrose.”

  “Little Primrose?”

  “My daughter, Primrose. I deliberately didn’t tell you about Primmy, because—because it’s such a painful thing to tell about. But you see, when Eric was killed in the Falklands, I was six months pregnant. Primmy was born three months after that. Primmy is a sweet child, but she was born hopelessly retarded. The doctors blamed my shock at Eric’s death. Primmy now goes to a special school in Switzerland. For years, nearly every sou I earned went for Primmy’s care. But when Herbert Rothman offered me this post at Mode, I had very nearly run out of sous! That’s why Herbert’s offer seemed a gift from heaven! If it hadn’t come when it did, I would have had to take her out of her special school. And the only alternative would have been to bring Primmy back to my father’s house. And there—there—I would have always lived in terror that my father might have tried to do to little Primmy what he did to me.” She brushed aside a tear. “And so—and so—that is why I need this job the most. For Primmy. I know you have two daughters, Mel. I think you understand. I need the money, Mel. I desperately need the money for Primmy’s care.”

  His eyes moved around the Westbury Hotel suite, and she seemed to sense his question, for she said, “These glamorous digs are being rented for me by Rothman Publications. It was part of the arrangement when Herbert brought me over here. I wanted just a tiny basement flat, but Herbert insisted that I should live the way a glamorous fashion editor would, and Herbert is a very determined man. Oh, and I know all about the gossip, the rumors—that I’m Herbert’s mistress, or something. Which is too ridiculous, since Herbert is even older than my father, and I personally don’t find him physically at all attractive. But this was the way Herbert insisted on setting it up. And so here I am, sitting here, waiting for my first paycheck, because Primmy’s tuition is already three weeks overdue.” She dabbed at her eyes with a hanky.

  She moved closer to him on the sofa now, and as she did so one thin shoulder strap of her long green chiffon hostess gown slipped from her shoulder, exposing a pale expanse of her upper breast, and it was a moment before she put it back in place. Once more, he was suddenly aware of the heavy odor of gardenia from her perfume. “I’m glad I told you about Primmy,” she said. “I’ve told so few people about her. I’ve never even told Herbert Rothman about her. But you’re different, Mel. Somehow I can tell you things I’d never tell another soul. I think it’s because you’re the kindest man I’ve ever met. And may I tell you that you are also one of the most attractive men I’ve ever known? And shall I tell you of the terribly naughty thing I did that night we met? That night you came to my rescue, and drove me home—the overdressed damsel in distress at the Van Zuylens’ beach party?”

  “What was that, Fiona?”

  She laughed softly, and touched his sleeve. “It was really very naughty,” she said. “And probably you’ll think me quite mad. But after you dropped me off at the hotel, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to see you again. Suddenly I desperately needed to see you again, and to talk to you again—the urge was overpowering. I called a taxi, and asked him if he knew where your house in Sagaponack was. It seems that everybody in the Hamptons knows Mel Jorgenson’s house in Sagaponack! I took the taxi to your house, and told the driver to wait. I walked across the dunes to your house, but then—through the glass—I saw that she was there. I should have known that. So it was a totally crazy thing to do. But I had this absolutely uncontrollable desire to be with you, to talk to you, to have you hold me in your arms the whole night long, to have you make love to me.” She lowered her cheek to his shoulder, and whispered, “Mel—I’ve never felt this way before. I felt I had to be honest with you. I felt I had to share my feelings with you. I can’t help my feelings, can I?”

  “No, Fiona. I suppose you can’t help yourself.” He started to rise.

  “Please don’t go, my darling,” she said. “Let me freshen your drink.”

  “No, thanks,” he sa
id. “I’d really better go.”

  “Oh, please! I’m so alone!”

  “Good night, Fiona.”

  “You won’t forget your promise, will you?”

  29

  When Ho Rothman purchased Mode in 1961, it was widely assumed that his aim was to add status and respectability to his family of publications which, at that time, had a somewhat tawdry reputation. “ROTHMAN SEEKS TO ERASE SLEAZE IMAGE,” said the New York Times at the time. This was only partly true. Ho’s son Herbert, then thirty-eight, had just been given the title of president of the Publications Division of Rothman Communications, Inc., and Herbert Rothman and his wife Pegeen had hoped that the acquisition of a magazine such as Mode would help them gain acceptance and position in the social world of New York. Even more important to Herbert and Pegeen was the notion that publishing a venerable fashion magazine like Mode would help them attract a fashionable wife for their only son, Steven, who was then a freshman at Princeton. Debutantes still left Foxcroft and Porter to work in vaguely defined positions for insignificant salaries at Mode, where the magazine’s headmistresslike spinster editor, Consuelo Ferlinghetti, had announced that she could tell how much a girl knew about fashion by the way she tied a scarf.

  Of course, if the family had not acquired Mode, Steven and Alex would surely never have met. But Alexandra Lane was not at all the Social Register sort of wife Herbert and Pegeen had had in mind for Steven. By then, however, certain circumstances had caused Steven’s parents to lower their sights considerably.

  At the time, in addition to the string of small-city newspapers, Ho Rothman’s Publications Division included Homemaker, a do-it-yourself magazine for young housewives; Outdoors, a sports magazine for men; Teen, a magazine, as the name implied, for teenage girls; Teeing Off, for golfers; Your Wheels, a magazine for car enthusiasts; Dream House, a shelter book on interior design, which had a sister publication called Dream Garden; a number of romance magazines variously titled Strange Romance, Foreign Romance, Mature Romance (for seniors), Dark Romance (for a black audience), Illicit Romance, and Forbidden Romance; and Beefing It Up, for bodybuilders. The company also published a Romance Comics series for young girls, Adventure Comics for boys, and a children’s magazine called Tiny Tots. All these titles were extremely profitable.

  Mode, on the other hand, had not shown any black ink for several years, which was why it had been put up for sale. Ho had originally opposed the purchase, though not necessarily for that reason. He disparaged the publication as “a little sissy fashion book. You want pipple to think we are a bunch of sissy pipple?” In fact, when the purchase was announced, one of Ho’s lunch-mates at the Harmonie Club greeted him with mincing gestures, uplifted pinky-fingers and lisping speech—which so infuriated Ho that he resigned from the club that afternoon and never set foot in it again.

  Mode, however, had a long and distinguished history. It had been in existence since 1872, and had published exclusive pictures of every American First Lady’s inaugural ball gown since that worn by Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes. It had introduced American women to the vogue of the bustle. It had pioneered the lady’s “duster” coat in the early era of the motor car. It had been first to publish the drawings of Charles Dana Gibson, and had thus launched the Gibson Girl look, which featured ruffled shirtwaists, and was therefore at least partly responsible for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911, where 146 young sweatshop seamstresses lost their lives. Mode had been first to present American women with Christian Dior’s “New Look” in 1947.

  But by the 1960s Mode had begun to seem largely irrelevant. Circulation and advertising revenues had fallen. Its readership was mostly in doctors’ and dentists’ offices, beauty parlors, and a few country clubs. As far as being a fashion force was concerned, the magazine had become a little like the Bible—nobody ever really read it, but it was considered a good idea to have a copy around the house, even if it was one of last year’s issues.

  Needless to say, the acquisition of a classic publication such as Mode by the raffish and upstart Rothmans was greeted with consternation by the men and women who then edited and staffed the magazine, including Consuelo Ferlinghetti, its editor-in-chief, who had for years proclaimed herself the unquestioned High Priestess of American Fashion. “I don’t see how I can possibly edit a magazine for these peculiar people,” Miss Ferlinghetti announced at the time. “They’ll probably want to turn it into something called Fashionable Romance.” Ho Rothman countered by repeatedly referring to Mode as “Mud,” and to Miss Ferlinghetti as “Mrs. Spaghetti.”

  Consuelo Ferlinghetti’s name led a petition signed by forty-nine of the magazine’s other editors, staffers, and contributors protesting the sale, which read in part:

  We, the undersigned, find it intolerable to contemplate the sale of a magazine of Mode’s distinction and reputation to a publisher of sensational yellow journalism whose known disregard for editorial integrity flouts the very traditions and standards of excellence upon which Mode was founded.

  We unilaterally denounce …

  We unilaterally demand …

  Of course the petition had no potency whatsoever, since the sale of the magazine was already an accomplished fact. But it was widely assumed that the much-publicized signing of it would be followed by a mass exodus of editors and staffers. In fact, there were no immediate defections. The editors and staffers stayed on, albeit grumblingly and complainingly, and Consuelo Ferlinghetti’s famously painted eyebrows arched skyward, and she placed a lace hanky to her nostrils, as if gasping for smelling salts, whenever the Rothman name was mentioned in her presence.

  But such was the outcry of indignation over the magazine’s sale that Herb Rothman felt it necessary to issue a statement to the press:

  Both my father, H. O. Rothman, and I are getting a little tired of hearing Rothman Publications referred to as publishers of sensationalist journals, pulp magazines, and comic books.

  True, we publish comic books, and we also publish a few magazine titles that might be described as pulps. But we also have two distinguished entries in the shelter field, Dream House, and Dream Garden, which are highly regarded by decidedly upscale audiences. It might be of interest to our detractors to know that both these magazines are personally subscribed to by First Lady Mrs. John F. Kennedy; that a subscription to our Outdoors goes to Prince Philip of England; and that our Tiny Tots recently received the distinguished Helen J. Pritzl Award for Outstanding journalism for Juvenile Readers.…

  We are an organization constantly expanding our publishing horizons, constantly on the lookout for products of higher and higher quality. When Mode was offered to us, we saw an opportunity to extend our outreach further into the field of high fashion.

  Mode is a distinguished publication, with a long and proud history. We contemplate no changes at the magazine that will in any way tarnish, or alter, that reputation. In a series of meetings and conversations with Miss Ferlinghetti, we have assured her that she will continue to have complete editorial autonomy at the magazine, running it and producing it as she and only she may wish.

  With the acquisition of Mode, the motive of cupidity has been ascribed to the Rothman family. Though the purchase price has not been disclosed, none other than the New York Times has asserted that we bought Mode “at a garage sale price.” Let it be clearly stated that Mode is not now, nor has it been for many years, a money-maker. Nor do we expect it to become one in the future. With an expensive four-color printing process, it is a costly magazine to produce. Its editorial staff, and its contributors, are among the highest-salaried and highest-paid in America. Its circulation is small (less than 200,000) and select, and its advertising pages have been traditionally limited to ten percent of content.

  We intend to respect and continue these long traditions and policies. We intend to continue to serve that small, select audience of readers, and that select group of advertisers.…

  There was a certain amount of misinformation in Herbert’s statement. Mode’s staff
was far from high-salaried and, in fact, the staff, from Miss Ferlinghetti down, had recently agreed to a twenty percent salary cut in an effort to bring overhead down—a fact that had made the idea of buying the magazine much more attractive to Ho Rothman. As for contributors, there were none at the time of the purchase. They had all been notified that the magazine would henceforth be staff written, in another attempt to reduce costs. The ten percent advertising-to-editorial ratio was immediately abandoned by Ho in order to increase revenues. Regular advertisers in other Rothman publications were offered deep discounts if they would also advertise in Mode. And any advertiser who spent more than $100,000 a year in other Rothman publications was given four full-color pages in Mode a year, free, as a bonus—a ploy designed to make the magazine quickly look fatter, healthier, and more desirable—to readers, as well as to advertisers and their agencies. A word-of-mouth campaign quickly spread along Madison Avenue to the effect that any agency media director who was able to persuade a client to buy a full-page color ad in Mode could expect a two-week paid vacation for himself and his family in the Poconos, courtesy of Ho Rothman. A full-page black-and-white ad was worth one week. As for Jackie Kennedy and Prince Philip, both received free “comp” copies of the magazines mentioned, and could not honestly be called subscribers.

  And as for Consuelo Ferlinghetti’s tenure in the top editorial chair, she was then eighty-three years old, and Nature could probably be counted on to terminate her stewardship of the magazine. Indeed, four years later she walked out of her Fifth Avenue apartment, wearing a raincoat (“Well, after all, it was raining,” someone commented at the time) and absolutely nothing else except a pair of Ferragamo slippers, and was arrested for exposing herself in front of a group of Buckley schoolboys near the Alice in Wonderland storytelling statue in Central Park. It was then that Herbert Rothman’s son, Steven, just out of Princeton, was assigned the editor-in-chiefship of the magazine.