Gay Talese

Prior to my homecoming visit to Alabama, I had frequently been in contact with the newly appointed editor of The New Yorker, Tina Brown, a 40-year-old British-born, Oxford-educated blonde who reminded me of my high school English teacher—a comely, decorous and demanding taskmistress, who was often at the center of my teenage erotic fantasies and who was the first woman to personify for me the awesome combination of sex appeal and professional power.In

Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something.