Word: backed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...awesome. But Alec Cushing had a certain rudeness about him from the beginning. "He was a beautiful baby," recalls his older sister, Mrs. Lily Cushing Boyd. "He was also the most determined boy you ever saw. Whenever people came up and went itchykoo at him, Alexander would lie back and bark like a sea lion." He was born to wealth. His grandfather, Robert M. Cushing, was an old Boston tea merchant. His father was a talented painter, died when Alec was four. Young Cushing grew...
...year Alec decided summer trips were too short, set out to get his degree in three years, didn't quite make it (he lacked one-half unit), but managed a nine-month tour of the Far East (on which he visited with Fred Astaire) while his classmates labored back in Cambridge...
...flew to Brazil, found a Naval transport station sorely in need of dockage equipment. Ironically, the very equipment needed was stored only four miles away but assigned to the Rubber Development Corporation. Federal law forbade transfer to the Navy, so Cushing decided the law needed changing. He flew back to Washington, went to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, got his backing, helped prepare the legislation, all in one stretch of 60 hours without sleep. The bill passed, but the strain proved too much. He collapsed, wound up in Bethesda Naval Hospital...
...left side of his face that still pulls down the corner of his mouth, gives him a quizzical look. He was philosophical ("There was not a damn thing I could do about it. so what was the use of worrying?"). At war's end he went back to the law (in Wall Street), stuck it out for two years, quit in boredom ("The war taught me life could be exciting...
...union workmen struck the week of the opening, hooked up plumbing himself. Justine hurriedly summoned the domestic couple from their New York home, pressed a friend into service as a chambermaid. One woman guest arrived early, found Cushing still at work on the plumbing. Snarled Alec: "Madam, come back in three hours, and we'll be ready. Meanwhile, don't bother me." That night everything went wrong. There was no dinner until 10. Only one toilet was working, and the waiting line for it snaked out into the lobby. One of Cushing's daughters tripped, broke...