by Lillian Ross
It was exhilarating for me, as a reporter, to discover, in putting this book together, the journalistic development and accomplishment of so many writers, especially Thurber. It was he who, in 1927, started the convention of using the famous “we,” as in “We were fortunate enough to be seated a few rows behind Rachmaninoff the other night . . .” or “Having heard of great changes in store for the Old Lady, as attachés affectionately call the Murray Hill Hotel, we went half fearfully to dine there the other evening.” Thurber, as his early stories here demonstrate, pretty much was the inventor of the Talk story. (In addition, Ross’s first writers started the regular practice of beginning The Talk of the Town section with short, light, funny, and some serious—especially during the Second World War—essays of opinion, which ran under the slug “Notes and Comment”—now simply called “Comment.” Also included in the department were Anecdotes, which finally disappeared in 1975.) The delightful—from a journalistic point of view—breakthrough stories from 1928 on by Thurber, White, and Gibbs are but a small sampling here of the giant talents of these writers. Through the following decades, other writers and editors took this short form on from there, and they have pushed it forward ever since.
In the first issue of the magazine, dated February 21, 1925, The Talk of the Town appeared on page 3, with an illustration over the title showing an owl tipping a top hat to a rooster against a backdrop of city buildings. Two weeks later, in the March 7, 1925, issue, Ross had relegated the department to page 13, the title still flanked by the owl and the rooster. A couple of issues later, The Talk of the Town was back in first place, now to stay, with a permanent logo as well, depicting Eustace Tilly, holding a quill pen, and a winking owl, flanking a skyline under the name of the magazine. In a recent redesign of the magazine, Remnick initiated, among other things, simple headings over the stories in red and black.
By the late twenties, the department usually featured a “fact” piece plus a “personality” piece plus a “visit” piece; the mix became traditional, but more and more loosely so in recent years. Ross had a ravenous and ingenious appetite for facts and regularly came up with scores of topics for reporters (and sometimes himself) to work on. The Talk of the Town in its first years became replete with mesmerizing facts of durable interest. Readers were treated to facts about such subjects as violins, town houses, chewing gum, cellophane, the Pulitzer Mansion, George Washington’s 1789 Presidential Mansion at 3 Cherry Street, Panama hats, high hats, corsets, the availability of turtles for soup, the caviar shortage, Potter’s Field, the impressive box-office receipts of Disney’s cartoon film “The Three Little Pigs,” who first thought of the idea for a newsreel theater, and Al Smith (“Mrs. Smith got him to the opera once this season, but after it was over he said he’d never go again. He won’t go up in an airplane either; he never has been up in one. Swimming is his favorite pastime. Before a big banquet he always goes to the Biltmore and has a Turkish bath. He keeps in constant touch with Mr. Raskob but sees little of Governor Roosevelt. The latter has never requested Mr. Smith’s advice on the conduct of the State’s affairs. When they meet they talk about the weather.”).
There were visit pieces about the bubble dancer Sally Rand (“The balloons stand her twenty-six dollars each. The night we saw her, her first balloon broke, anyway, when she bounced it on some pine needles left by a previous artist, and they handed her a second one from the wings.”); about Eleanor Roosevelt going out to buy a new dress; about the scaffolding and stone placement at the building of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; about Gertrude Stein signing her new book at Brentano’s (“Miss Stein doesn’t like people to be incoherent about names. . . . We just handed our book to her, and she glanced at us with her keen, humorous eyes and, seeing that we didn’t have a name, simply put her own name on the flyleaf, and the date. She signs herself always Gtde Stein.”). There were personality pieces about the Astaires (“Adele is thirty and Fred is twenty-nine and they have been dancing together since she was six and he was five, professionally since they were nine and eight respectively. Their father’s name was Fred Austerlitz and he was a Viennese and a brewer”); about Hank Greenberg (“the ablest Jew in baseball”); about Marian Anderson (“the young Negress whose contralto voice is, as you probably know, the latest sensation of the musical world. We . . . found her living in a Y.W.C.A. in Harlem”); about George Balanchine (“Quite a fellow, by all accounts. He lives simply in a one-room apartment at 400 East Fifty-seventh street, and is probably the only man in New York who keeps a grand piano in a one-room apartment . . . when he dines out, it’s likely to be at a little Yiddish place in the East Nineties.”); about Henri Matisse (“He is now sixty, handsome, and looks like a doctor. While here he spent most of his time walking up and down Park Avenue, or looking out of his window in the thirty-first floor of the Ritz Tower. He would like to be ten years younger so he could move to New York, which he describes as ‘majestic’ and whose skyscrapers surprise him because they compose well.”); and about Isadora Duncan’s brother Raymond (“He hasn’t had on a pair of pants in nineteen years.”).
Ross didn’t like bylines. He wanted the stories in The Talk of the Town to sound as though they’d been written by a single person, and he wanted that person to have what he called “the male point of view.” “We” was always supposed to be male. In the mid-forties, with many of the males relocated to the Armed Forces, four female reporters were hired—Andy Logan, Roseanne Smith, Frances “Scottie” Lanahan, and me. Their stories were called “notes,” and they were rewritten by men, mainly Russell Maloney and Brendan Gill. Stories by men were called “originals.” The four women were perceived as fine reporters, but their stories were nevertheless put through the motions of a rewrite. Shawn continued this practice, ending it only around 1961. From then on, stories by women were called “originals,” along with those by men.
Harold Ross’s penchant for anonymity for his staff and his writers extended to himself. He never permitted his own name to be used, even though he wrote and rewrote many of the magazine’s stories, especially in The Talk of the Town. The only time his name appeared was in his obituary, which was written by E. B. White. This inhibition about accrediting bylines was continued carefully by William Shawn, whose own nature was ready-made for it; his name, similarly, never appeared in full until his obituary was published in the magazine. (A fictional piece by him about a meteor hitting New York City was signed only by the initials “W.S.”)
Like Ross, however, Shawn also wrote and rewrote stories for The Talk of the Town, and every writer who worked with him had his own experience of benefiting from a Shawn piece of writing hidden in the writer’s work. Shawn often shared his own knowledge, enthusiasm, and taste, for example, in matters of comedy and music. A 1967 Talk story of mine about the Beatles’ thirteenth, and then newest, record, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” told about its unusual and mixed reception by people who couldn’t understand what it was. Shawn accompanied me on a tour of record shops, where owners and customers talked about the record. In the story, I quoted them along with a “Lawrence Le Fevre” (aka William Shawn) who “gave us a little lecture.” The Talk of the Town in the earliest issues of the magazine was signed by a “Van Bibber III,” a pseudonym for a reporter named James Kevin McGuinness. After that, until 1934, the department was signed by “The New Yorkers.” For about the next six decades, the department was unsigned until Tina Brown identified the individual authors of the Talk stories with credits at the end of the section; then she instituted bylines at the end of each piece.
For many years, the first-person plural was used comfortably by the writers, in line with Ross’s idea that the department speak as a single entity. In 1961, however, a staff writer simply abandoned “we” and wrote a story as a scene in the third person. Shawn encouraged experimentation, so long as the story worked. From then on, writers used “we” or they didn’t; no one cared particularly, if the story was a good one. For Tina Brown, the “we” became an extra
word, and, without noticeable regrets, it finally was abandoned.
The anonymity of the old days was always OK with me. I felt at ease with it or without it. In recent years, I’ve been just as happy to have the credit. Like most of my colleagues, what mattered to me was that I always felt free to find whatever workable form was required for each new story. My enjoyment in the initial writing of a story has always been total. Although I have written hundreds of Talk stories, every time I go out as a Talk of the Town reporter today to do a story, I feel exactly as I did the first time. The singular challenge of creating these stories is pure fun for all of us who do them.
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1920s
“UP THE DARK STAIRS —” Robert Benchley
AMONG the major menaces to American journalism today (and there are so many that it hardly seems worth while even beginning this little article) is the O. Henry–Irvin Cobb tradition. According to this pretty belief, every reporter is potentially master of the short-story, and because of it we find Human Interest raising its ugly head in seven out of every eight news columns and a Human Document being turned out every time Henry H. Mackle of 1356 Grand Boulevard finds a robin or Mrs. Rasher Feiman of 425 West Forty-ninth Street attacks the scissors grinder.
Copy readers in the old days used to insist that all the facts in the story be bunched together in the opening paragraph. This never made for a very moving chronicle, but at least you got the idea of what was going on. Under the new system, where every reporter has his eye on George Horace Lorimer, you first establish your atmosphere, then shake a pair of doves out of the handkerchief, round off your lead with a couple of bars from a Chopin étude, and finally, in the next to last paragraph, divulge the names and addresses and what it was that happened.
A story which, under the old canons of journalism, would have read as follows:
“Mary J. Markezan, of 1278 Ocean Parkway, was found early this morning by Officer Charles Norbey of the Third Precinct in a fainting condition from lack of gin, etc.”
now appeals to our hearts and literary sensibilities as follows:
“Up the dark stairs in a shabby house on Ocean Parkway plodded a bent, weary figure. An aroma of cooking cabbage filled the hall. Somebody’s mother was coming home. Somebody’s mother was bringing in an arm-full of wood for the meagre fire at 1857 Ocean Parkway. Soon the tired form would be at the top of the shadowy stairs. But Fate, in the person of Officer Norbey, was present, etc.”
A fine bit of imaginative writing, satisfying everybody except the reader who wants to know what happened at 1857 Ocean Parkway.
Most of the trouble began about ten years ago when the Columbia School of Journalism began unloading its graduates on what was then the N. Y. Tribune (retaining the best features of neither). Every one of the boys had the O. Henry light in his eyes, and before long the market report was the only thing in the paper that didn’t lead off with “Up the dark stairs at—”
Fine writing in news stories was actually encouraged by the management and daily prizes were offered for the best concealed facts. The writer of this article (Robert Benchley) was a reporter at the time—“the worst reporter in New York City” the editors affectionately called him—and one day he won the prize with a couple of sticks on the funeral of Ada Rehan. This story consisted of two paragraphs of sentimental contemplation of old-time English comedy with a bitterly satirical comparison with modern movie comedy, and a short paragraph at the end saying that Ada Rehan was buried yesterday. Unfortunately the exigencies of make-up necessitated the cutting of the last paragraph; so the readers of the Tribune the next morning never did find out what had inspired this really beautiful tribute to somebody.
From the Tribune the scourge of fine news writing has spread to all the other papers with the exception of the Times. Your Monday morning copy of the World reads like something you find on the table by the guest room bed— “Twenty Tales of Danger and Daring” or “My Favorite Ghost Story: An Anthology”. The news of the day is dished up like the Comédie Humaine with leads running from: “Up the dark stairs at—” to “This is the story of a little boy who lost his kitty.” A picture of the City Room of the World, by one who has never been there, would disclose a dozen or so nervous word artists, each sitting in a cubicle furnished to represent an attic, sipping at black coffee, with now and then a dab of cocaine, writing and tearing up, writing and tearing up, pacing back and forth in what the French call (in French) le travail du style. There must be a little hidden music, too, to make the boys write as they do. One feels that back copies of the World should be bound and saved for perusal on rainy days when the volumes of “Harpers Round Table” have begun to pall.
Soon it will creep into the foreign dispatches, hitherto held somewhat in check by cable rates. From a debt conference in London we may have something like this:
“Up the dark stairs at 17 Downing Street trudged a tired figure in a silk hat. Under his arm he carried a brief case. Outside, the unheeding swirl of London swept by, but in the heart of the tired man there was peace. Austen Chamberlain had brought to a conclusion the negotiations for the day.”
Or:
“The twilight falls quickly on the left bank of the Seine, and yesterday it fell even more quickly than usual. At a table on the sidewalk of a little café on Montparnasse, a pale man sat figuring on the back of an envelope. Not a man that you would look at a second time, perhaps, but, as Kipling says, that is another story. This man was Jules Delatour and he ran a little shop on the Boulevard Raspail. And Jules Delatour was sad last evening as the quick twilight fell over Montparnasse. For yesterday the franc dropped again, to twenty-six to the dollar.”
When this has happened, we can have newstickers installed in our homes and let the newspapers give themselves over entirely to the belles lettres.
1925
A MARQUISE AT HOME —Author Unknown
GLORIA SWANSON is back with her titled husband, the Marquis de la Falaise de la Coudraie. A day or so after her arrival, she journeyed over to the Famous Players’ Astoria studio, accompanied, of course, by the marquis. The reception was a touching one.
Attracted by advance announcements, a large crowd had gathered in front of the studio. The whole studio force was assembled on the steps and four policemen struggled to keep a lane open for Gloria’s car.
Suddenly the cry went up, “Here she is!” The crowd surged forward, the quartet of police officers labored with might and main, and a smart foreign car slipped up to the steps.
Out stepped a dapper chap. “The marquis!” gasped the assembled stenographers in one breath. News cameras clicked. Cheers shook the studio. Bushels of confetti were tossed into midair.
When the air cleared it developed that the dapper chap was James R. Quirk, editor of Photoplay.
When Gloria and the marquis did appear a few seconds later, it was an anticlimax. Still, it was prettily done. The marquis looked pleasantly democratic, Gloria burst into tears and everyone cheered all over again.
The marquis is tall, smartly garbed and speaks excellent English.
There is, as was inevitable, a little story of the trip over from Paris. Gloria and the marquis had been pursued daily by curious passengers and finally the star decided to grace a ship’s concert. Ranged alongside were some friends of the old lady in Dubuque. Gloria’s nose tilted a bit in midair.
The marquis leaned close to his stellar wife. “Don’t be a snob, Gloria,” he said.
1925
THE KING’S PAJAMAS — Bill Corum
THEY were pink and they positively set the exclusive social circles of Asheville and Biltmore, N.C., agog, for the pajamas in question belonged to King Babe Ruth himself.
In Asheville it was, as all the world knows now, that the King first swooned away. The fourth breakfast porterhouse and a rough train ride had upset His Majesty. Doctors were called. Consultations held. It was decided that the indisposed monarch must be sent home to New York. Then came the question of moving him from the ho
tel to the train. It was suggested that it might be better for His Majesty if he were carried out on a stretcher. The King was not adverse and, between pinochle hands, so expressed himself. A stretcher was ordered held until His Majesty should tire of cards.
But what of the royal raiment? The King had no pajamas. Being a democratic monarch he frowns on unwonted luxuries. A messenger was despatched to obtain the going out outfit, the King specifying that it must be pink. Search in every store in Asheville disclosed only one pair of pink pajamas in the city. They were size 42. The King measured a goodly 48. In the end the messenger had to take the small size. By discarding the trousers altogether and splitting the coat up the back, they were made to do, the King being cautioned to stay quiet on the stretcher.
1925
MIGHT HAVE BEEN — Author Unknown
A BIE’S IRISH ROSE” is three years old today, and one wonders how Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Pitou are celebrating the event.
Mr. Pitou, it should be remembered, is one of the best known and most experienced of theatrical managers. He has not, to be sure, been as well represented along Broadway with productions as have others, but he has for many years operated profitably and extensively in the hinterland, where they also pay real money at box-offices.
A little over three years ago, then, “Abie’s Irish Rose” was in great distress. Despite a lengthy run on the Pacific Coast, the New York production had been icily received and most of the critics had been openly contemptuous of it. The show was in a bad way and it seemed likely that it would have to close.
Miss Anne Nichols, its author and producer, had never for one second lost faith in it. But you can not, under the Equity rules, pay off your cast in faith, and theatre owners have a way of wanting to be paid for the use of their property. What to do?