The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  “The money is peanuts, I’m afraid,” Lucille Withers said to her that day in the autumn of 1966. “All the Rothman publications are notoriously cheap. On the other hand, the exposure would be terrific, and it would look damn good on your résumé. Here, let me read you what their letter says.

  They were sitting in Lulu Withers’s office, and Lulu picked up the letter on her desk. “‘For a summer, 1967 feature on “That Fresh Midwestern Look,” we are looking for a particular girl, age range eighteen through twenty-two, to model the designs of the young Indiana-born designer Bill Blass. We are looking for a girl with a fresh, open face, preferably blonde, who will photograph well in Blass’s sporty designs, as well as in his more sophisticated evening clothes, and we would prefer that this be a “new” face that has not appeared previously in a national publication. We will be shooting outdoor college campus shots as well as elegant interior shots, and so we want a girl who will look right at a fraternity-house party as well as at a formal, seated dinner. Send composites, et cetera, et cetera. With the right young lady, this could be a cover feature.’ Anyway, I immediately thought of you, Lexy,” Lucille said, putting down the letter.

  “Midwestern Look,” she said. “Do I have that?”

  “That’s a lot of garbage,” Lucille said. “The Midwestern Look is no different from the Florida Look or the New England Look or the California Look. They’ve started doing these regional issues as a way of attracting regional advertisers who wouldn’t otherwise come into the book. Advertising is what the Rothmans are all about. Anyway, I sent them your composite, and—are you ready for this, Lexy? You’re one of ten finalists. Now they want an interview. I didn’t tell you about any of this before because it seemed so pie-in-the-sky. They canvassed fifty different agencies in twenty Midwest cities, and I wasn’t sure you had a chance. But now you’ve actually got a shot at it. Just think of it, Lexy. You’ve got a shot at the cover of Mode!”

  Alex sat very still, letting it all sink in. For the past four years, Lucille Withers had kept her quite busy, mostly posing for local retail advertising. She had done a number of posters for a local bank, and had done a certain amount of what was called runway work, modeling at fashion shows put on by such organizations as the Kansas City Junior League. She had also done some radio and television commercials and voice-overs for local advertisers and, since both her face and voice had become reasonably well known in the area, she had filled in as the girl who read the nightly weather report on television when the regular girl went on vacation. Lucille Withers had been gradually able to raise her modeling fees to thirty-five dollars an hour for black-and-white and forty an hour for color. She had taken a small apartment in Kansas City, and was able to support herself quite comfortably without having to touch the savings account, which she still regarded as Skipper’s money.

  “Anyway,” Lucille went on, “they’ll be in town on Monday, and I’ve scheduled your interview for two o’clock. Suite four ten at the Alameda Plaza.”

  “They?”

  “Some rather top brass, m’dear. The editor-in-chief himself, Steven Rothman. And the art director, whose name is Sigourney Frye. Sigourney Frye’s a woman, by the way. And one of their photo editors.”

  “What sort of questions will they ask me, do you think?”

  Lucille Withers laughed, and swung her pince-nez in a wide arc. “My dear, your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “This is as close as I’ve ever come to getting a girl into Mode. You’re going to be on your own, because they specifically asked that I not come with you. But if I were you, there’s just one word I’d think about between now and then, because that’s the one little word I’ll bet they’ll be looking for.”

  “What’s that, Lulu?”

  “Poise,” she said. “Between now and Monday, think poise.”

  “What do you think I should wear?”

  “I’ve thought about that. Why don’t you wear something you’ve designed yourself? What about that moss-green wool suit with the covered buttons? I thought that looked pretty snappy. And, during the interview, why not let it drop that you design most of your own clothes? Who knows? They might even shoot you in one of your own designs—along with the stuff by this Bill Blass, whoever he is.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of him,” Alex said. “He’s new, and he’s going to be big.”

  “Just don’t get your hopes up too high,” Lucille Withers said. “Remember there are nine other girls out there. They might not pick you.”

  “Oh, they’ll pick me,” Alex said with a smile. “Don’t worry. They’ll pick me.”

  “And one other thing. If they do pick you, there’ll be something called a morals clause in the contract. That’s standard for them. So—there’s nothing in your personal life, which is to say your sex life, that could be potentially embarrassing to the magazine, is there?”

  She hesitated. “No,” she said.

  “Good. Nothing to worry about there,” Lucille Withers said. “And don’t wear too much makeup. Just a light lipstick, and maybe a little blush. Don’t do anything with the eyes. Remember, they’re looking for a fresh, open face that says Kansas wheat fields on it.”

  “Maybe I’ll run up a dress out of grain sacks.”

  “Now don’t act smart,” Lucille Withers said.

  She had been doubtful about the wisdom of accepting his dinner invitation that night. Models often found themselves in awkward situations, and Lucille Withers had cautioned her about that. “Just a word to the wise,” she had said. “I can’t be a watchdog over my girls, but I can tell you to watch out for guys who offer to give you the big job if you’ll just give them a little something they want.” Several years earlier, Lucille had helped prepare a Miss Missouri for the Miss America pageant. The girl hadn’t won the crown, or even been a runner-up, but when she came back from Atlantic City she told Lucille that several of the male judges had promised to vote for her—if. “Always the big if,” Lucille said. “But putting out for the judges didn’t get Miss Missouri bullets.”

  And so, when Steven Rothman asked her if she would join him for dinner that night in the hotel’s restaurant, she had hesitated. But he had struck her immediately as a straightforward and decent young man. During the interview, his questions—about her hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes—had been intelligent and courteous. And he was extraordinarily good-looking—tall, slender, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with an almost imperceptible cleft in his chin, and a pleasant, slightly off-center smile. Later, she would learn that it had taken three generations for Rothman males to achieve any height; Steven was six-feet-two, and towered over his father and grandfather. Alex had liked Steven immediately, and he had also immediately made it clear that there was no big if involved—no if at all.

  “You’re the one,” he said with his crooked grin as he folded his napkin in his lap at the dinner table. “You’ve got the job. You’re exactly what we’re looking for. Everybody agrees. We’ll be notifying the other girls that we’ve made our choice. We’ll be back to shoot the story next month. Well, how do you feel about all this?”

  “Thrilled, of course.”

  “Mind you, I can’t promise you the cover. That will depend on what we get from the shooting. And I can’t promise you that we’ll feature any of your own designs. Bear in mind that this is a Bill Blass story. It’s got to be, because—but never mind the reasons why.”

  “Because you’re trying to get Bill Blass as an advertiser?”

  He gave her a quizzical look, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Now how did you know that?” he said. “Anyway, I will have a couple of my fashion editors look at your designs and tell me what they think. Me, I don’t know anything about fashion. I was an economics major.”

  He also struck her as remarkably young to be editor-in-chief of a magazine like Mode. He was, in fact, only twenty-two—her own age. She had remarked on that.

  He wrinkled his nose again. “I am a member of the Rothman family dynasty,” he said with mock seriousness. �
��There are pluses and minuses to being a member of a dynasty, and remember you heard that here. The Rothman dynasty was started by my grandfather, H. O. Rothman, often called Ho. It is being carried on by my father, Herbert Rothman. I am next in line. When I got out of Princeton, it was essential that I be given some sort of position with Rothman Communications, and so I was given the lowliest position of all—editor-in-chief of Mode.”

  “The lowliest?”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely. Mode has lots of prestige, but it makes no money for us whatsoever. In fact, it’s still losing money. Grandpa Ho is trying to turn it around, but that hasn’t happened, not so far. That’s why he wanted an economics major for this job. I said to him, ‘Cramps, I’m not an editor.’ He said, ‘Any damn fool can edit a magazine like Mode.’ So I’m the damn fool he picked. I hate my job.”

  “Really?” She stared at him, astonished.

  As they ordered and ate their dinner, he told her about it.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “I really hate it. I’m just treading water here, until the powers that be—my father and my grandfather—decide I’m ready to move on to something more important. You see, I’m not even interested in women’s clothes. Oh, I can help someone like Sigourney choose the right model for a fashion story. I’m certainly interested in beautiful women. But fashion? A woman should edit a women’s fashion magazine, don’t you think? Oh, of course we have a few old biddies on the staff who claim they know fashion. Me, I’d never even heard of this Bill Blass guy. In fact, at first I thought his name was Bill Bass, and I thought he was an Englishman. Turns out he’s from Fort Wayne.” His dark eyes grew distant, almost wistful, for a moment. “It’s a sissy sort of a job for a man, isn’t it? Running a magazine about women’s clothes? My grandfather thinks Mode is a sissy magazine. So does my father. In fact, I sometimes think they gave this job to me to punish me.”

  “Punish you? For what?”

  He gave her a distant look again. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe for not being smarter than I am.”

  “But what if you were able to make the magazine bigger and more profitable?” She remembered asking him that naïve question. That was how young she was.

  He held up his hands. “Circulation can be bought,” he said. “There are all sorts of gimmicks—discounts, coupons, special offers, even under-the-counter payoffs to newsdealers to get them to display the magazine front and center at the supermarket checkout counter. But nobody in the company wants to spend the money—not until the magazine rakes in enough money in ad revenues. That’s essentially what I am—a space salesman. I’m there to sell ad space, by hook or by crook, and mostly by crook. Of course what I really need, if we’re ever going to make Mode a good magazine, is a really good editorial assistant, a woman assistant, who knows fashion, and who knows how to edit a magazine for women.”

  “Then why don’t you hire one?” she asked innocently.

  He rolled his eyes. “The money again. Nobody wants to spend any money on my poor little sissy magazine. Also, nobody really gives a damn what goes into the magazine editorially. Nobody gives a damn about the magazine’s readers. Subscribers don’t make money for a magazine. Only advertisers. In fact, if you get subscription-heavy, you find yourself losing money. So meanwhile, I’m treading water, waiting for the higher-ups in the Rothman dynasty to decide little Steven is ready for something better.” His eyes had that wistful, faraway look again, and he said, “Do you know you’re the first woman I’ve ever met who seemed even remotely interested in hearing about my job? When women hear that I’m the new editor of Mode, they come bubbling up to me and ask me what’s new and exciting from Paris. When they find I don’t know, and don’t even care, they just walk off and find somebody else to talk to.”

  “If I were the editor of Mode, I’d want to make it the biggest, most beautiful, most important fashion magazine in the world. I’d keep foxing it up, and foxing it up.”

  He grinned. “‘Foxing it up’? What’s that?”

  “Just keep adding little new twists, little new surprises, with each issue—things that will keep the readers guessing, keep them on their toes, keep them turning the pages, keep them coming back for more.”

  “Fine,” he said. “And how would you perform these little miracles?”

  She thought for a moment. She was thinking of something she had noticed when modeling fashions for local stores. “I’m thinking of making Mode’s fashions more accessible to your readers,” she said. “I read Mode, for instance, and I’ve often seen clothes there that I’d like to own, or at least try on. But then, shopping around the stores in town, I’ve found that nobody in Kansas City sells them. I’ve seen the line ‘Available at Bergdorf-Goodman.’ But Bergdorf-Goodman is hundreds and hundreds of miles away. This Bill Blass story—when it appears next summer, will women in Kansas City be able to buy his clothes in local stores?”

  “We send out regular fliers to retailers, telling them what’s coming up in future issues. But then it’s up to the individual buyers to decide whether or not to stock the clothes. We can’t control what the buyers order.”

  “You might, if you were to give a store—the leading fashion store in each major city—an exclusive right to sell Mode’s fashions. Then, the minute Mode came out, that store, and only that store, would put those clothes, and nobody else’s, in their windows.”

  His eyes were bright. “Go on,” he said.

  “Then, if you picked Stix’s here, for instance, women would know that the only place in Kansas City where they could buy Mode’s fashions was Stix’s. Women would like it, the stores would like it, and I think advertisers would, too. Stix’s would probably buy an ad.”

  “I’ve been trying to sell Stix’s a page all week,” he said. “It’s been an uphill job.”

  “But what if you made Stix’s Mode’s official Kansas City store?”

  He was still staring at her intently. “What else would you do?”

  “If you could make Mode’s fashions more accessible to women, you could also make the magazine itself harder to get.”

  “You mean raise the cover price?”

  “Why not? A dollar-fifty seems cheap to me for a magazine like Mode. Double the price. Make it seem more exclusive, like the exclusive stores that would sell Mode’s clothes. It must be expensive to mail out all those subscriptions.”

  “Damn right. The most expensive, and least efficient, method of distributing any product is through the U.S. mail.”

  “What if there were no subscriptions? What if the only places in those cities where you could buy Mode were those special stores?”

  He stared at her fixedly for a moment longer. “Your ideas are very clever, you know,” he said at last. “You’re a very clever lady. I was expecting to meet a pretty, empty-headed fashion model, but that’s not you at all.”

  “Those special stores would promote Mode, and Mode would promote those special stores.”

  Then he tossed his dinner napkin in the air. It landed on the table. “But I can hear what my father and my grandfather would say,” he said. “How much will it cost to try something like that? How much will it cost? The magazine can’t afford it. No, your ideas are clever and original, but nobody’s going to change a thing because there’s nobody who really cares enough to make a change. Do you know the real reason why Pop wanted to buy Mode? Because Mom was complaining that she was the wife of a man who published schlock. She thought if he published a magazine like Mode, it would make her seem more fashionable, for God’s sake. And Pop, for reasons of his own, would like to get Mom off his back right now. My parents are—well, that’s another story. Mode is just window-dressing for them. That’s all it is. Just something to improve their image, and make Pop’s write-up in Who’s Who look better.”

  “But shouldn’t it be profitable window-dressing?”

  “Sure. But my grandfather, who controls the money, doesn’t believe in the magazine. Innovations like you’re talking about involve risk capital, and my grandf
ather isn’t willing to take the risks. First he wants black ink. ‘Show me some black ink, Stevie, give me some black ink,’” he said, imitating Ho Rothman’s Russian accent. “Until I give him that, Mode will just plod along the way it’s always done. February is our Look-Ten-Years-Younger issue. March is our Diet issue. April is our French issue, May is Italian, and June is American designers. It’s that way year after year. So be it. World without end. Amen. While I go up and down the street, trolling for advertisers, offering them deals—”

  “But look,” she said, leaning forward eagerly, “if you could first of all make the magazine exciting to readers, that would make it exciting to manufacturers, who are your national advertisers. The manufacturers would make it exciting to the retailers they sell to, and the retailers would help make it even more exciting to their customers, who are your readers.” She made a circle with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands. “It’s like a circle, isn’t it? It would snowball. But you have to start with readers, don’t you? I think your grandfather is approaching the whole thing from the wrong direction.”

  He sighed. “Try telling that to Gramps,” he said.

  “But if you were able to turn Mode into a huge success, wouldn’t they stop punishing you—for whatever it is?”

  He looked at her. “Would you help me?” he asked quickly.

  “Help you? How could I help you?” And suddenly as he looked at her, the air between them seemed to grow taut with tension, thick and fibrous and heavy with unspoken thoughts and unanswered questions, and she thought: The tip of the iceberg; I have only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg with this man; there is much more, very complicated, deep below. She felt all at once shy with him, as though she had caught him in a weak and shameful act. She lowered her eyes, and said, “But I shouldn’t be telling you how to run your business.”

  “Why not? Nobody else ever has.” Then he said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, Alexandra. But I like you very much. In my job, the people who work for me do what I say, but I know that none of them have any respect for me. I know they really hate me because I’m the boss’s grandson, and wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for him. But you’re different. I think you care about me. I’m going back to New York tomorrow, but do you think I could write or telephone you from time to time—just to talk?”