Word: last
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...background to last week's celebrations was a retrospective of Coward's career that was unprecedented even for as oft-revived a writer as he is. A parade of his plays and revues flickered past on BBC-TV. The National Film Theater began to spin out a series of his films. Occasions like 70th birthdays tend to bring out hyperbole, and uncritical reassessments blossomed in the press. Some critics went so far as to rank him with Sheridan and Wilde, or to call him England's greatest living playwright. Such judgments overlooked the extent to which Coward...
...pitch of last week's praise for Coward was a measure of what he himself calls "the Noel Coward renaissance." He has lived long enough to see himself transformed from a faded relic of some impossibly sophisticated yesterday into a minor classic. After World War II, a new generation viewed him-along with P. G. Wodehouse-as the last, slightly ridiculous vestige of the frivolous '20s. Country houses, stiff upper lips, cocktails-and-laughter-but-oh-what-comes-after and all that. Many of his plays flopped in the '40s and '50s and his fortunes sagged...
...consumer caution is due not only to inflation but also to growing uncertainty over the economy. Last week's figures disclosed continuing November declines in industrial production, housing starts and workers' purchasing power, distressingly combined with consumer-price increases that were running at a 6% annual rate. Arthur Burns, who will become chairman of the Federal Reserve Board on Feb. 2, conceded to a Senate committee that the U.S. faces a "danger" of recession. He spoke cautiously of a relaxation of the board's credit squeeze-if Congress passes a noninflationary tax bill and President Nixon...
...purge is a result of last spring's attempted takeover of Goodrich by Ben Heineman's Chicago-based Northwest Industries. Goodrich waged a successful defense [TIME, May 23] that has become a classic in corporate tactics. But Northwest emerged as the largest single stockholder, with 16% of Goodrich's shares. That was a sufficient threat to spur Goodrich's chairman, Ward Keener, to make good on his promise in the heat of the takeover battle to "improve profit margins...
Goodrich's profits have lagged behind those of its prime competitors. Last year the company earned only 3.9% on sales of $1.1 billion, compared with 6% for the industry's most profitable major operator, Firestone. After Northwest's takeover attempt, Keener, who was paid $240,000 last year, allotted each of the divisions a profit target and rigorously trimmed back on money-losing operations. Last week, six days before Christmas, Goodrich closed down a rubber footwear plant in Watertown, Mass-and with it went the jobs of 950 employees. In that case, the closing had been announced...