A Life in Stories with Gay Talese

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1:27Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk to some of the brightest minds about everything surrounding the written word. That's everything. That's from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Before we dive in, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to leave a review. Good or bad, I want to hear from you. I want to hear whether you're enjoying it or where we can improve. And I can take the hits. So let me know. If you don't like something, say it straight. Now let's get into it.

2:10It's a great honor today to host our first in-person episode of Open Book. I usually do this over Zoom, Gay. I'm glad because I don't look so good of a zoo. You're looking good in person, by the way. Thank you so much. It's a true honor to be with a literary New York legend. Joining us today on Open Book is Mr. Gay Talese, who I have been reading your writing for 50 years, by the way. I consider the magazine story, Frank Sinatra has a call, to be the greatest magazine piece that's ever been published. You also wrote The Kingdom and the Power and Honor, my father. Gay has spent decades chroniling the lives of everyone from mobsters, media giants, and everyday New Yorkers.

2:54And the latest book, which is here with us, is A Town Without Time, which is effectively a love story about this wonderful city that I think you've lived in for at least the last 60 years. I know you came from New Jersey. We'll talk a little bit about that. You have a meticulous writing process. You're incredibly insightful. And the best thing I can say about your writing is something that Maya Angelou once said about words. We can never remember how we hear things or we can never remember what somebody says, but we can remember the way they make us feel. And your writing has got this very powerful impact on the way we feel, sir.

3:34It'll be with us forever. Thank you so much. Very grateful, very honored to have you. So let's start with you, if you don't mind. This is my first in-person interview, so a big honor for me. Let's talk a little bit about you. You were raised in New Jersey. Give us a little bit of your origin story. My father was a custom tailor who was born in Calabria, a little town called Maeda, the Catanzaro region. He came at 17. He left the village and followed in the path of his famous cousin, Antonio Cristiati, who was a tailor in Paris. The Christianity family is on my mother's side. My father, Joseph Talese, followed in 1921 after the war, World War I.

4:23My father went to Paris to be an apprentice for one year with Antonio Christianity who had a shop in Four Rue de La Pée. The older Christianity had gone to Paris in 1911. This is more than you want to know. but my father came by Paris and went back to Philadelphia after one year in Paris. Philadelphia then didn't like the town but liked the resort town called Ocean City which is about 60 miles from Philadelphia and I liked the fresh air of the ocean. In 92 years he was alone at a tailor shop. He bought a tailor shop. It was a town of Christians, Protestants, no Italians around there, no black people, no Jewish people.

5:03It was really a Christian town founded by Methodist Ministers. Those in New Jersey is somewhat south of Atlantic City about 10 or 12 miles. In 1925, he went to Brooklyn because his cousin, Nicholas Pelleggi, was getting married. Nicholas Pelleggi, of course, for my young viewers, one of the great writers of all time. But there's the father. Oh, the father, Nicholas Pelleggi. My father and Nicholas Pelleggi Sr. were cousins from Calabria. They both came to America more at the same time. The Pelleggie Sr. was a saxophone player in a couple bands. He also worked in movie theaters, the silent movie to provide the...

5:44But when he got married, Nicholas Pelleggie Sr., the wife, his wife-to-be, was the sister of my mother. Because Joseph T 'Police, my father, met his bride-to-be at the wedding of Nicholas Pelleggie and Sue Pelleggie. that the son, Nick Magnoloff is the son of that marriage. Fact to me, I was born in 1932. My Mussolini was on the rise in Italy. As the war came upon us in 1941, 42, 43, my father's three brothers were drafted in Mussolini's army. So for the period of World War II, from 1942 I was 10, right through the next four years of the war, I didn't know if I was on Italy or America's side. But the town was a very waspy town, so I never expressed anything.

6:38I was really interior, but I had a split personality. My father kept his mouth shut. He was a tailor. His wife, my mother Catherine, had a dress shop in the town, and most of her women that she dressed were middle-aged women, a little overweight, but her choice of clothes was made. And that's very important for me because as a kid in school, after I helped my mother in the dress shop, I would listen to the stories of these women during the war. These stories were fascinating. They were ordinary women. Not the women who would get an obituary. They were not newsworthy women, but they were worthy in their consciousness of the history of the time of World War II and how it affected them.

7:18Nylon stockings, they couldn't go anywhere. Ocean City is on the ocean, so there's a lot of security along the beach. And I was hearing as a boy after school in the mother's dress shop and my father's tailor shop next door. The voices of people that were not necessarily national figures at all, not even newsworthy, even our town weekly. But that's where my training as a journalist began. Because one, being a son of shopkeepers, you learn manners, how to treat the customer. The customers are your sources, your source of income, but you would have to cultivate them. You never ask too many questions.

7:55You listen and you don't intrude. You learn to dress well. My father's a tailor. As a kid, I always had tailor-made clothes. Appearances matter. As a journalist, I always said, if you're knocking on someone's door to get access to their story, you have to make a good first impression. Clothes matter. Journalists say I dress like they go to a tailgate party, but this was not true in my mentality, in my training and sensibility. I worked in high school. I was not good in anything really, except I worked on the school paper. and then I worked for the Town Weekly writing a high school column. In 1949, I graduated from high school.

8:34My grades were so bad I couldn't get into college. I tried to get to Penn, Penn State, Rutgers, zero. One of my father's customers was a doctor from Alabama who was in our town in Ocean City. He said, I could get gay in Alabama. We didn't know where Alabama was, but it was a college anyway. So in 1949, my father drove me to Philadelphia, my mother, sent me to Alabama on an all-night train to the Southerner. And I wind up in a place called Tuscaloosa in 1949. I spent the next four years at the University of Alabama. I worked on a college newspaper and a stringer for the Birmingham newspaper, a Hearst newspaper, called the, I forget the name.

9:18In 1953, I graduated. And one guy I met as a student was from Mississippi. Yeah. named Jimmy Pinkston. And he said, okay, you want to be a journalist? When you get out of here, meaning when I graduated, go to New York and look my cousin up. He's a manager of the New York Times. He'll give you a job. Really? Yeah. So when I got out of Alabama, the first thing I did after, it was a week for my, I got on a bus and I go from LA to New York. So I get off of 43rd Street, the bus there. And I walk in the New York Times building. It was like 11 o 'clock in the morning. I got on a, I was wearing my suit and pocket shriek and hat.

9:58I go in the New York Times building, third floor newsroom, the receptionist, on the big reception room, on the walls where the photographs are paintings of the Salzburger family, the owners of the paper. And I go in there and say, good afternoon, good morning, good afternoon, young man. And I go to the receptionist. Oh, hello, I'm here to see Mr. Catledge. Do you have an appointment? No. But I know his cousin. in Alabama, I know his cousin. Guy looked at me. This is an elderly man, but a very distinguished man. He looked at me. I knew his cousin. He was a little frightened. He was listening to him.

10:35Picked up the phone, and he calls someone in the newsroom. This was the reception room. Sooner but sooner, then a younger man comes out and said, good afternoon. My name is Herbert Andre. I'm Mr. Callich's executive secretary. And did you say, you want to see Mr. Callich? I said, yes, yes, I do. Thank you. well he's a very busy man I assume so and he has a but do you have an appointment? no but I know his cousin Mr. I was just amazed Mr. Cowles has a meeting with his editors at 4 o 'clock if you come back this is like 11 noon come back at 10 or 4 I'll try to get you in for 5 minutes but that's all I can't do more than that he's very thank you Mr.

11:20Andre I hadn't been to New York before. None. I wander around Times Square. Come back around 10 or 4, 4 or 4. Same minute come in and Mr. Andre is at White City. Takes me into the city room. Big city room. Hundreds of typewriters, desks, men smoking, drinking, women all over the place. It was really like a movie. The whole plot from 43 to 44 streets. Big room. And then Mr. Andre, I follow him down the aisle and he goes to the big room with Turner College's room. The baddest he had his room. Big office and at the back of the office is Callage himself, a great pinstripe suit, beautiful silver hair, forward complexion, and one just polished foot on the desk and the lead back in a big chair.

12:02And I go walk in and go, oh, good afternoon, young man, Mr. Callage said. Hello, Mr. Callage, thank you for seeing me. Sit down, young man. Thank you, Mr. Callage. I just graduated from the University of Alabama and I had a journalism degree. I have a friend named Jimmy Pinkston, your cousin. He said I should come and see you and maybe get a job. And Kat said, well, you know, people who work for the York Times have a lot of experience. You're a college student. That's very good. But we have people who work here, who work for big newspapers for a couple years. And you said, my cousin? Who's my cousin?

12:39Oh, Jimmy Pinkston is my cousin. Yes, sir. No expression. no recognition at all and the secretary is behind me and I'm sitting at the desk and here's Callag and there's silence I said I'm sorry Mr. I thought there was a here I have bad sources I'm supposed to be a fucking journalist bad sources I said well maybe I could get a job as a copy boy or something and Callag looked at Andre no Mr. I'm sorry there's no opening Callag said look Mr. Andre will take your phone number. If anything opens up, we'll let you know. Thank you so much. I got up and I was taken out of the city room. I put it on the bus and went back to Ocean City, called that stupid cousin and said, what did you do that for?

13:29Oh, he is my cousin. Oh, he doesn't know it. Two weeks later, in the tailor shop, my father picks up the phone rings. Mr. Talese, please. This is Mr. Talese's father. Don't know you're younger, Mr. Talese. So I get on the phone. It happened to be in the store. Andre, Mrs. Andre, we have a copy boy job open. Are you still interested? Oh, yes, sir. When can you come to New York? Oh, I can come today. No, no, you don't have to come today. Come two weeks from now. That's how I saw it. I went back to New York and got a job as a copy boy. That was in 1953. A copy boy job is a medial task. I went to get sandwiches for people.

14:07But I had, New York was this great city, and I had not seen it. So everything I saw was a sense of wonderment, a sense of aspiration, a grand jury. Multi-ethnic, right? Everything. Melting pot. So one time I saw on 42nd Street, that three-sided building where they dropped the ball during Deer's Eve. Yep. But back in 1903, that was the New York Times building. Before the paper got too big, they moved a block away. 229 was 43rd Street. But I happened to notice that building. It had a sign. People that are not my age, but there used to be a headline sign and a big seven-foot letters rotating around the three-sided building.

14:59The zipper. The zipper. I don't know if no one knows that. It was a big deal in those days. In 1928, it started announcing the election of Al Smith over Jimmy. Al Smith lost to Hoover, 28. The Lindbergh babies, it was a big feature. Scoops of that. I wandered into that building one day, and I saw the steps. Nobody was there. I walked the steps to the fourth floor, walked in, and I saw a man on a ladder. The man on a ladder looked like an accordion, and he was pushing buttons. And that was causing the outside the building the lights to form letters. I watched him. Who was this guy? When he came down from the ladder, he said, excuse me, Mr.

15:42I'm a copy boy, but I'm wondering what you're doing. Explain it all. I said, this might be a story. He gave me his name. He gave me his facts. This is how it worked. I went back, and during my off hours as a copy boy, I started writing on somebody's borrowed typewriter. I wrote this story. I showed it to the one that started. We had a star reporter saying, Byer Berger, he went, Byer Berger was a big name on the staff. Mr. Berger, would you look at this? He's looking, that's still pretty good. I talked to the guy. Berger gave it to the city and they published it. They had an editorial page. They didn't have a byline.

16:17In those days, you didn't have a byline. It was an editorial page. My first thing. So after that, my free time, I just kept looking at the city and finding it. I read a column by Walter Winchell, one of the tabloids. and the column said, Broadway next year, this is 54, is going to feature Carol Channing in a big musical called The Vamp. It is inspired by a silent movie screen actress named Nita Naldi, who played opposite Valentino in many silent screen pictures of the 1920s and the 30s. And she lives in obscurity in a hotel off-Broadway. Nita Naldi lives off-Broadway in an obscurity. And Jesus, that's a story.

16:59That's a story. She's fine. This is a Broadway play. But she didn't tell you the name of the hotel. But in the copy boy, they had a hotel. And we had a black telephone book in the back of the city room. All the yellow pages. All hotels. And from A to Z. So I saw her calling every hotel. Right down from A to Z. There's Miss Nolly there. There's Miss Nolly there. No, no. She's who? Nobody knows who she was. I finally got to Wentworth Hotel. Wentworth Hotel. There's Miss Nolly there. She's out. I think she's taking a walk. What must you be able to? I don't know. Thank you so much. Hung up. I go right to the hotel Wentworth.

17:37I don't go to the desk. I don't want them, I don't want to have questions to answer. I go to the cell, the house phone in the corner. Miss Donnie picks up the phone. I call, it's Miss Donnie that picked up the phone. Hello, this is, I'm a copy boy of the New York Times, Miss Donnie, but I read, I hope I can write a story about you. I read in the column the other day that you inspired the play that Carol Shanning is starring in and brought it called The Vamp. I should be playing that part, not Carol Shanning. I said, well, I just want, maybe I can write about it. Can I interview? Where are you?

18:16I'm in the lobby. Well, this place is a mess. Well, give me five minutes to fix it. So I wait five minutes. I go up the elevator. I don't wait to the lobby. I don't want to be answered. What are you doing here? I go up to the fifth floor, wait in the hall for 10 minutes, let her knock on the door. This tall woman with black hair and black dress, dangling earrings, looked like a little silent screen movie actress for sure. It's like Sunset Boulevard, the whole story. That's right. The parrots were hanging from the ceiling. The decor was always 1920s. It looked like a movie set. Come in, young man, sit down.

18:51Oh, you say you want to write a story about me? Yes, I do, Miss Naldi, because I think it was a fascinating story. She starts telling me her story. She sits me down. The next two hours, she talks about her story. I was making notes. I make notes on little cardboards. This is a shirtboard, your name there. I write these things. I don't want to record. There were no recording in those days. That's what I did. And I wrote. I took notes. And I went back to my house. I lived in McDougal Street then. And I wrote a story. and I wrote a story and I went back to after I finished it I went back to the paper and I gave it to the receptionist of the Sunday department the magazine and says can you give it to the drama editor?

19:35They did and I got a call a couple days later that they liked the story and they were going to use it. They wanted to see me and check the facts. I was a copy boy writing this stuff. So I did very well as a copy boy and I was later on I had to be in the army for a couple years I was a lieutenant in the tank corps in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Then I got to work under the general there, Creighton Abins. There's a tank called the Abins tank. Creighton W. Abins was the guy that inspired the tank. And I would work for him after a year in the tank corps. And I later went to Germany with him, to Frankfurt, Germany, 3rd Armored Division, which later on had Elvis Presley as a private in that 3rd Armored Division.

20:17And a good soldier, I'm told. and then I came back to the Times in 1956 and they gave me a job in the sports department. I was the only reporter. Then I worked there for a year and then I worked, I wrote a lot of stories. I worked in General News and I worked in, that's essentially it. Then I went after, I quit in 65. I loved the paper, but 65, I was 32 years old and I had a one-year-old daughter and I felt I had to, I don't want to become old I don't want to be an old journalist I saw old journalists it's a young man's game and I was okay at 32 but I had this is it so I I knew an editor at Esquire I had written a lot of pieces for Esquire one on Joe Lewis one on the director named Joshua Logan a famous Broadway director and others and they gave me a contract at Esquire in 1965 for one year.

21:18I could save my money I made at the Times, but I only had to do six pieces and long. I could write 10 ,000 words. Times Magazine, 2 ,500 is tops. 10 ,000 words, I could take a month or two to do it. So I learned, and they want me to do, I said, I want to write about some people in the New York Times. Well, yeah, but I want you to do that or say, I want you to do Sinatra. I don't want to do Sinatra. Everybody's done Sinatra, and I don't want to do them. Well, listen, and you do, you want me to write about the New York Times people? You have to help me with the newsstand sales, the editor Harold Hayes said.

21:53It's easy. It was all set up. I checked with the press agent, not just press agent, Jim Mahoney. It's all said, go out there, stay in the Beverly Wilshire. Take it maybe a week. And then you can write about the Times managing editor, Clifton Daniel, which I wanted to do. He replaced Callage, that guy. So I went out there. They gave me a first-class ticket. TWA. on that damn airplane, I read in another news column that Sinatra was going to sue Walter Cronkite and CBS because there was a CBS interview that Don Hewitt had set up an interview with Sinatra's people, but then with Walter Cronkite flying out the Palm Springs where Sinatra was living.

22:36But then Hewitt wanted to deal with the mafia. And even though Cronkite was not supposed to talk about the mafia, Hewitt encouraged, that asked about those guys in an organized crime. Sinatra was really, I mean, betrayed him. He quit the interview. I mean, he stopped the interview. That was in the paper. It was going to be lost, lost. I said, Jesus, I'm not going to be greeted very well as a reporter. So I went out to California. Unfortunately, I had a couple of friends that owned a nightclub or a supper club called The Daisy, Jack Hansen and Sally Hansen. But there was also, she was a designer of clothes called Jax, J-A-X.

23:13In the 1960s, Jax pants for women were tremendously successful items. And they invited me to have dinner with them at their club. That night I saw Sonata at the bar. I didn't talk to him yet, but I just saw him. There were two blondes. And I asked Sally Hansen, who were those blondes that they didn't know? then Sandra got up walked to the pool room I followed him 50, 60, 70 people in that room playing pool and Sandra sat in a chair with a drink in hand and looked at the guy playing pool his name was Holland Ellison and they found out and Sandra got mad what kind of boots you're wearing young man the Italian boots?

24:01no Spanish boots? no What are they? Why are you talking to me? I don't like the way you're dressed. I dress a suit myself. Well, I don't like the way you're dressed. What are they? I'm watching, and I'm thinking, Jesus, this is crazy. That was a scene. I don't want to go out and tell you the whole story, because you read the story. But those two scenes, not at the bar, the blondes, that's not at the bar, were the opening scenes of that article, which is how I really work. I don't want to interview question and answer, question and answer. No, you're ethereal. You pull the character into the story.

24:37You feel, when I read that for the first time, I was in high school. Really? Yeah, I'll tell you what happened. Esquire had an anniversary special. I think he wrote that article. It had to be 1965, I believe, thereabout. And it was the 15th anniversary of the article. And so they republished it in 1980 in Esquire. And I read the article because my, I think I mentioned this to you before we started the interview, My uncle knew Sinatra, and we used to go down to Vincent's Clam Bar in Little Italy, and Ferrara's, that whole area. And one night, I went down there with him, and Sinatra was there. It wasn't with him, but he was eating with somebody else.

25:18We went over to the table to say hello, and he couldn't have been nice. He was very charming. So when I saw his name in the article, I read the article, and the article made me laugh, because you captured the essence of who he was. You know, there was a charming nature to him. There was also a little bit of a volatile nature to him. And, of course, James Kaplan, who I think you know, wrote a biography, a two-volume biography of Sinatra. And he tried to also capture the essence of what you wrote in that, in that story about Sinatra. You know, I... Raise the rudders. Raise the sails. Raise the sails.

25:52Kaplan, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sails professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hire 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands.

26:33This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. He never, I don't know if he read it. Nice that you read it, but I don't know if it's not to read it. and I even though I didn't you don't think you ever read it you don't think you ever read that story it's the most famous story ever written about him well he never told me I never got a letter but I didn't get a lawsuit either as well but but I didn't want to write it and I don't know I think I know why I didn't want to write anything to offend him because I loved him because he I have to back up a minute.