Word: shawn
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...HOPE, PA., Bucks County Playhouse: Dick Shawn and Betty Garrett in Murray Schisgal's upside-down comedies The Tiger and The Typists...
Finally, he dashed off a letter to Whitney, charging that the article was false and libelous. "I urge you to stop its distribution," wrote Shawn. "I know exactly what Wolfe's article is-a vicious, murderous attack on me and the magazine I work for. It is a ruthless and reckless article; it is pure sensation-mongering ... In one stroke it puts the Herald Tribune right down in the gutter with the Graphic, the Enquirer, and Confidential...
Breaking the Rules. If some readers had a hard time following the meaning of this convoluted prose, one reader grasped it immediately. The man described in the ad as the "embalmer" came suddenly to life and grabbed the phone. It was midnight, but New Yorker Editor William Shawn put in a call to Jock Whitney, publisher of the Herald Tribune, and said he was worried about the upcoming story...
...Next day Shawn called Whitney again, asking him not to print the story. He also placed a total of four calls to Trib Editor James Bellows and rang up other editors, hinting of a libel suit or an injunction. Then he tried to phone Whitney again. Instead, Shawn got Whitney's wife Betsey, whom he lectured about the Trib's irresponsible journalism...
Wolfe describes the area around Shawn's own offices as a Whisper Zone: "a kind of horsehair-stuffing atmosphere of old carpeting, framed New Yorker covers, quiet cubicles and happy-shabby, baked-apple gentility." Within 40 feet of Shawn's office, says Wolfe, everyone whispers in imitation of their sibilant boss. "He always seems to have on about 20 layers of clothes, about three button-up sweaters, four vests, a couple of shirts, two ties, it looks that way, a dark shapeless suit over the whole ensemble, and white cotton socks...