Cast of Characters

by Thomas Vinciguerra

  327 “The parties are incessant”: George Spelvin, “Feudin’ an’ Fightin’,” Theatre Arts, November 1954.

  327 “written in something”: “Critic on the Beach,” Newsweek, July 19, 1954.

  327 “We worked once on a Long Island”: WG, “Some Initial Comments About This Paper,” Fire Islander, May 28, 1954.

  328 “one half of a desk”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, July 1, 2007.

  328 “as dim as Miss Bush League”: WG to Bill Birmingham, “Sunday,” spring 1954.

  328 “Jesus Christ, this job,” etc.: Constantine Karvonides, interview by author, April 11, 2013.

  329 “totally incompetent”: Gibbs interview, June 29, 2007.

  329 “I could just find”: Gibbs interview, July 1, 2007.

  329 As the deadline approached: Karvonides interview, April 11, 2013.

  330 “have been shot by a firing squad”: Roger Hall obituary, New York Times, July 28, 2008.

  330 “I don’t like kids”: “Critic on the Beach,” Newsweek, July 19, 1954.

  330 “as abundant out here”: Sam Zolotow, “Gibbs Will Cover Fire Island Beat,” New York Times, May 12, 1954.

  330 “I’m sure this is”: WG to George Price, May 17, 1954.

  330 “I’ve never been to Fire Island”: WG to JT, May 13, 1954.

  330 “hell’s own imposition”: WG to EBW, n.d., probably July 5, 1954.

  331 He even paid The New Yorker: WG to Bill Birmingham, “Thursday,” spring 1954.

  331 “mr gibbs promised”: Fred Allen to Herman Wouk, August 13, 1954.

  332 “We simulated a publication meeting”: Constantine Karvonides, interview by author, September 29, 2013.

  332 “Contrary to persistent rumors”: WG, “Wolcott Gibbs and The Fire Islander,”Fire Islander, July 3, 1956.

  332 “thousands of good words”: Bruccoli, O’Hara Concern, p. 241.

  333 “in an ever-rising” and “none of the rest of us”: Irwin Shaw to Charles Addams, November 23, 1957.

  333 a take-off on Hemingway: EBW, “Across the Street and into the Grill,” TNY, October 14, 1950.

  333 among the funniest things: KSW and EBW exchange, October 1950.

  333 “At Wormwood”: EBW, “Letter from the East,” TNY, December 24, 1955.

  333 Jack Case, an editor at Macmillan: Elledge, White: A Biography, p. 325.

  334 “My single purpose”: EBW to Jack Case, December 17, 1958.

  334 “She is a better grammarian”: EBW to Case, November 3, 1958.

  335 “Mrs. White has a lawn” and “sheer insolence”: Cort, Glossy Rats, p. 162.

  335 “I am very sad”: John Updike to KSW, December 27, 1959.

  335 “wonderful and perfect”: JT to Rosemary Thurber Sauers, February 19, 1953.

  336 “that terrible institution” and “I wish the entire”: JT to Lester Getzloe, October 26, 1951.

  336 “approval or as indifference”: JT to Howard L. Bevis, December 6, 1951.

  336 watch Mexican jumping beans: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 453.

  336 “I have been much worse”: JT to Ronald and Jane Williams, October 15, 1952.

  336 “I feel better than I ever”: JT to KSW and EBW, October 7, 1953.

  336 “no violent pencil,” “[A] letter of mine,” etc.: JT, “A Note in Conclusion,” unused portion of Years with Ross, courtesy Yale University.

  336 “one of the great figures”: Nizer, Jury Returns, p. 411.

  337 “I fear that where my fancy”: JT to John McNulty, n.d.

  337 “rather painful”: WG, “Twenty-Two Characters in Search of Pirandello,” TNY, December 24, 1955.

  337 “a very sad and confusing situation”: WG, “Enough Is Enough Is Enough,” TNY, May 5, 1956.

  337 “an exceptionally cheerful offering”: WG, “Triple-Threat Man,” TNY, January 4, 1958.

  338 “With the passing years”: WG, “Broadway: The Season Just Past; The Season to Come,” Playboy, December 19, 1956.

  338 “They couldn’t live with each other”: Gibbs interview, July 1, 2007.

  338 “That was shocking,” “Gibbs used to complain,” and “I think I’m going”: Karvonides interview, April 11, 2013.

  338 “By his standards” and “I think they just”: Elizabeth “Tish” Collins, interview by author, June 9, 2007.

  339 “He found the prospect”: Ross, Here But Not Here, p. 65.

  339 “They were so continuously unpleasant”: Gibbs interview, July 1, 2007.

  339 “a complete 180”: Collins interview, June 9, 2007.

  339 seeing a psychoanalyst: Karvonides interview, September 29, 2013.

  339 “I am just about the only member”: WG, “Witch Doctor Bewitched,” TNY, January 2, 1954.

  339 “It was a letter typical”: JT, Years with Ross, p. viii.

  339 “should serve always” and “Because of a late-blooming”: Gibbs, More in Sorrow, p. x.

  CHAPTER 14: “WHOSE DAYS, IN ANY CASE, WERE NUMBERED”

  341 “I’ll be here”: WG to Nancy Hale, n.d.

  341 “the last of the fashionable”: WG, “A Fellow of Infinite Jest,” TNY, April 13, 1957.

  341 “masterly”: KSW to WG, February 26, 1957.

  341 “Mrs. Wolcott Gibbs was”: Walter Winchell column, September 8, 1958.

  342 “Gibbs was upstairs”: Botsford, Life of Privilege, Mostly, p. 181.

  342 “My understanding,” etc.: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, July 1, 2007.

  343 “Congestion and Cyanosis of Lungs”: The death certificate was signed by P. J. Laviano on August 17, 1958.

  343 Elinor suspected: Ari Hoogbenboom, Gibbs entry in Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement Six, 1956–1960, p. 237.

  343 “She would sweep through”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 30, 2007

  343 “He seemed rather, for him”: Elizabeth “Tish” Collins, interview by author, June 9, 2007.

  344 DEEPLY SHOCKED: JT to WS, telegram, August 18, 1958.

  344 “drenched in grief”: Tom Gorman to KSW, August 18, 1958.

  344 When word reached O’Hara: Bruccoli, O’Hara Concern, p. 278.

  344 “I had hoped”: JOH to Joseph W. Outerbridge, late August 1958.

  344 “We can’t bear it”: Cassie and John Mason Brown to Elinor Gibbs, August 19, 1958.

  344 “He wasn’t about to”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, July 1, 2007.

  344 Gibbs’s brothers in theatrical: “Rites for Gibbs Conducted Here,” New York Times, August 21, 1958.

  344 “Just can’t”: S. N. Behrman diary, entry for August 21, 1958.

  345 “Often the editor”: EBW, “Wolcott Gibbs,” TNY, August 30, 1958.

  345 “Terrible that it had to be”: JT to EBW, September 20, 1958.

  345 “He literally jumped” and “He was a born actor”: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 477.

  345 “Memorized!”: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, p. 1063.

  346 “My old relationship really died”: JT to Milton Greenstein, April 26, 1961.

  346 “Thurber’s copy often came in”: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, p. 1042.

  346 “God bless . . . goddam”: Charles S. Holmes, The Clocks of Columbus: The Literary Career of James Thurber, p. 329.

  346 “I am one of the lucky”: EBW, “James Thurber,” TNY, November 11, 1961.

  347 “about an impostor” and “study of imposture”: StCM, application to Yaddo, ca. early 1963.

  347 Yaddo canceled: Elizabeth Ames to StCM, July 29, 1963.

  347 “I did not know”: Cheever to Polly Winternitz, June 30, 1963.

  347 a self-obsessed account: StCM, “A Reporter at Large: A Journalist in Bellevue,” killed in 1970, can be found in Box 1542 of New Yorker Records, NYPL.

  347 “amazed that creditors”: HWR, notes on telephone conversation with StCM, October 27, 1949.

  347 he was in hock: New York State Tax Commission statement, June 28, 1954.

  347 his creditors included: HWR notes of October 27, 1949, and v
arious bills and correspondence in Box 1321 of New Yorker Records, NYPL.

  347 doodle on the walls: Deirdre Carmody, “There at The New Yorker, with Thurber,” New York Times, February 19, 1991.

  347 “dotty”: Craig Seligman, “The Talk of the (Seedy) Side of Town,” New York Times Book Review, March 7, 2010.

  348 in 1963 his income tax payment alone: Bruccoli, O’Hara Concern, p. 315.

  348 “I maintain that much of”: JOH to Graham Watson, July 20, 1964.

  348 “toughness and grittiness”: Charles McGrath, introduction to JOH, Appointment in Samarra (2013 ed.), p. xvii.

  349 “one of the half-dozen”: MacShane, Life of O’Hara, p. 238.

  349 “I don’t think we want to”: Davis, Charles Addams, p. 200.

  349 more than thirteen hundred illustrations: Roger Angell, “Charles Addams,” TNY, October 17, 1988.

  349 he made $141,276: Davis, Charles Addams, p. 200.

  350 “She may be the moodiest”: Ibid., p. 202.

  350 Ignobly, he seems: Ruth O’Hara, interview by author, August 1, 2006.

  350 “It’s my favorite place”: Carey Winfrey, “Cartoonist Weds Dog Fancier at Private Cemetery for Pets,” New York Times, June 1, 1980.

  350 “an American landmark”: John Russell, “Art: Monumental Lichtenstein Works,” New York Times, November 2, 1974.

  351 “muffed” and “I really had not intended”: EBW to Robert and Helen Strider, May 30, 1964.

  351 “I dislike cameras”: EBW to Andy Rooney, January 1978.

  351 “died of exposure”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, November 30, 1963.

  351 “Like every great river”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, July 26, 1969.

  352 “White wrote back”: Louis Menand, “A Friend Writes: Life Catches Up with The New Yorker,” New Republic, February 26, 1990.

  352 “a feather in Shawn’s cap”: KSW to S. N. Behrman, October 12, 1965.

  352 “a bent and horrible” and “a burden to myself”: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 229.

  352 “dull and feeble”: Ibid., p. 251.

  353 “Saint Valentine and I”: KSW to EBW, 1955.

  353 “This place doesn’t fit me”: Nan Robertson, “Life Without Katharine: E. B. White and His Sense of Loss,” New York Times, April 8, 1980.

  353 “I was reduced alternately”: EBW to Scott Elledge, February 10, 1984.

  354 “A vulnerable, intensely private man”: Linda Davis, “The Man on the Swing,” TNY, December 27, 1993.

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