Word: bennett
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hard to Turn Down. "Every publisher," says Bennett Cerf, "thinks of himself as an idealist, although the idealism is in the back of his head." Cerf tries to fulfill his idealistic responsibility "by publishing poetry, belles-lettres, and first novels you know won't sell a copy. We do two or three of those a year." Nevertheless, Cerf concedes that "it's awfully hard to turn down a book that's going to make money. If I thought nobody else was going to publish it, it wouldn't matter. But the thought that...
...table. Then Bill Faulkner called up and said he was in town. I told Lewis and asked him, could Bill come over? Lewis said, 'Certainly not. This is my night!' Then at 9:30, Lewis went to bed. At 10:30, he shouted downstairs, 'Bennett!' I answered him, and he said, 'I just wanted to see if you sneaked out to see Faulkner...
Today, Cerf puts much effort into the care and feeding of his favorite author, John O'Hara. Whenever O'Hara telephones him from his Princeton, N.J., home and says, "Hello, Cerfie," Bennett knows that he has some kind of complaint. Often O'Hara calls only to ask Cerf to get him a hotel room. Cerf always complies, and also makes certain that the Random House parking lot will save a spot for O'Hara's Rolls-Royce. O'Hara is equally fond of Cerf. "He just needs a lot of love," says he. Besides...
...Oppernockety. From all indications, Cerf runs a happy shop as well as a contented stable. "They're all prima donnas," he chortles. "We're a firm of prima donnas!" When he tells a visitor that Jason Epstein is "the cross I have to bear," Epstein retorts, "and Bennett is the bear I have to cross." Corporation Secretary Charles A. Wimpfheimer, 38, gets in on the fun now and then. He once installed a parking meter in Cerf's private washroom, probably because Cerf himself started the local bathroom jokes by placing two copies of Lindbergh...
Some of Cerfs competitors readily suggest that he is a creature of his own publicity, a quipster who has parlayed his way into the publishing pantheon through the good offices of television and Joe Miller's joke book. "Bennett," says one fellow publisher, "is not an intellectual. He's not a literary man. He's an entrepreneur, an impresario." But that is only the surface of Cerf. Explains Epstein: "Bennett runs Random House as a conservative branch of show business. The company is vulgar to a degree. But what makes the difference with Bennett is how important...