Word: donners
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...What Donner learned in such areas, he has never forgotten. He has an encyclopedic knowledge about G.M., a prodigious memory and a fetish for facts. If someone is vague about a fact, even in casual conversation, Donner whips from his pocket a tiny notebook prepared by his office, crammed with industry charts and tables...
...cool, efficient manager of the modern stripe, Donner is a strong believer in team talk. He rarely makes a decision without extensive consultation with G.M.'s experts, shares responsibility to a unique degree with President John F. Gordon, a crack production man. By staying in the background and avoiding public controversy, Donner has also toned down G.M.'s earlier reputation for corporate arrogance...
...Donner is a prodigious worker who has little patience for anything but the best from either himself or his colleagues. No Detroiter, he commutes regularly to Manhattan on the 7:34 from Port Washington, Long Island, keeps as careful a check as the engineer on the arrival time. Says he of the 7:34: "It hasn't varied more than two or three minutes for quite some time now." After a packed day, Donner heads homeward with a briefcase full of papers, brings them back next morning marked with his own crisp comments...
...DONNER'S mind is so neatly compartmented that he can juggle three columns of figures at once, read a report while talking on the telephone, carry on simultaneous conferences in his office with three executives involved in entirely different matters. He keeps his hand in everything. Recently he helped sign up Danny Kaye for a three-year TV contract which, to the discomfort of admen, did not have an option to drop Kaye if the first shows were unsuccessful. (Kaye's first show proved a qualified critical success.) Donner also likes to give G.M. cars a rough spin...
...Fred Donner is one of the best paid men in U.S. industry (1959 compensation: $670,350), but his pleasures are comparatively simple. He lives with his wife (his two children are married) in a 22-room home in Sands Point, L.I. that once belonged to Producer George Abbott, keeps a Fifth Avenue apartment to be nearer his work in busy periods. He drinks moderately (Scotch, martinis), is also a wine connoisseur, does not smoke...