Interviews: 1912 – 1960 – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

George Jean Nathan
(Vanity Fair, 1917)

A witty if dry profile of George Jean Nathan (1882 – 1958), one of the more prolific essayists and reviewers of all things dramatic and literary during the Twenties. At the time of this printing he was serving as the co-editor (along with his friend H.L. Mencken) of the American magazine The Smart Set while contributing occasional drama reviews to Vanity Fair. You’ll read a very long list of Nathan’s likes and dislikes, which, in fact, comprise 99% of the profile.

Later in life, Nathan would wed Mary Pickford – read about her here…

‘The Dictator and his Woman”
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

The article attached herein is oddly titled The Dictator and his Woman; a more apt title would have been The Woman and her Dictator

From the start, the relationship between Peron and Evita was a curious and contradictory liason. It is true that she was still a struggling actress when Peron met her, but she had achieved a considerable reputation for spreading her favors around with a sharp eye to the future,

Read about Fascist Argentina…

Read about the post-war Nazi refuge that was Argentina…

The Life and Death of Hank Williams
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

Country Music legend Hank Williams (1923 – 1953)
died just four and a half months after being kicked out of the Grand Ol’ Opry for drunken and erratic behavior. He was at the peak of his fame, earning over $200,000 a year and enjoying the enthusiasm of ten million fans in the U.S. and five million abroad. He was 29 years old and known only for 35 songs. The attached article will let you in on the short and painful life of country music’s fair haired boy.

Like many artists, his creativity was nurtured by an empty stomach. Hank Williams was raised under dreadfully impoverished conditions in Depression era Alabama; suffering from spinal bifida, the illness that eventually overcame him, he sought relief from the pain with liquor and drugs and died in the back of the Caddy that was ferrying him to a gig in Canton Ohio.

Robert Benchley, Humorist
(Stage Magazine, 1934)

New Yorker theater critic, columnist, actor and Algonquin wit Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945) was interviewed for Stage Magazine and photographed by theater shutter-bug Ben Pinchot:

Sometimes he writes digests of the news which The New Yorker calls ‘The Wayward Press’ and signs them Guy Fawkes for some quaint reason…

Click here to read more about the The New Yorker.

Robert Benchley, Humorist
(Stage Magazine, 1934)

New Yorker theater critic, columnist, actor and Algonquin wit Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945) was interviewed for Stage Magazine and photographed by theater shutter-bug Ben Pinchot:

Sometimes he writes digests of the news which The New Yorker calls ‘The Wayward Press’ and signs them Guy Fawkes for some quaint reason…

Click here to read more about the The New Yorker.

A Profile of Cartoonist Rube Goldberg, Cartoonist and Quack-Inventor
(Vanity Fair, 1914)

In the attached 1914 magazine profile, Joseph Edgar Chamberlin (1851 – 1935) asked, Who is Goldberg? and then jumped right in and proceeded to answer that question. However, the reader should understand that in 1914 it simply did not take very long to give the answer. With so much good work yet to come, this article outlined the cartoonist’s earliest employment record while making clear that he was already well known for his invention gags, which had already appeared in many papers across the United States.

If you would like to read a 1930 article written by Rube Goldberg click here.

Click here to see an anti-New Deal cartoon that Goldberg drew in 1939.

Leftist Cartoonist Art Young
(Direction Magazine, 1938)

Artist Gilbert Wilson conducted this interview with American socialist cartoonist Art Young (1866 – 1943) which appeared in DIRECTION MAGAZINE during the summer of 1938. In the fullness of time, Art Young has come to be recognized as something of a demi-god in the American poison pen pantheon of graphic satirists and no study of Twentieth Century political cartoons is complete without him:

Art Young has never adopted the policy of tearing into his foe (which is capitalism) with tooth and claw. It simply isn’t his way. He just isn’t capable of hating anyone or anything badly enough to get that angry.

Isn’t it rather the duty of a good radical, as Lenin said, ‘patiently to explain’?

In 1887 the NEW YORK TIMES reviewed the first english edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it…

An Interview With P.G. Wodehouse
(The American Legion Weekly, 1919)

At the time this magazine profile first appeared in 1919, P.G. Wodehouse (1904-1975) had recently resigned his post as the Drama Critic for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE in order to pursue his ambition as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse’s keen interest in American slang and the language of American comic strips.

Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.

Ronald Reagan in his Own Words
(Photoplay Magazine, 1942)

In the attached PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE article, Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 – 2004), the Hollywood actor who would one day become the fortieth president of the United States (1981–1989), gives a tidy account as to who he was in 1942, and what was dear to him:

My favorite menu is steaks smothered with onions and strawberry short cake. I play bridge adequately and collect guns, always carry a penny as a good luck charm…I’m interested in politics and governmental problems. My favorite books are Turnabout, by Thorne Smith, Babbitt, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the works of Pearl Buck, H.G. Wells, Damon Runyon and Erich Remarque.

A good read and a revealing article by a complicated man.

Click here to read about a Cold War prophet who was much admired by President Reagan…

Clare Boothe: The Woman Behind ”The Women”
(Stage Magazine, 1938)

The following STAGE MAGAZINE article by American playwright Clare Boothe (Clare Boothe Luce 1903 – 1987) appeared in print shortly after the successful opening of her play, The Women:

Of course, writing plays wasn’t exactly a flash of genius. I mean I am shewed in spots…But inspiration or calculation, it was frightfully lucky that I hit on writing plays, wasn’t it? And it was so wonderfully fortunate that quite a lot of people that I’d met socially on Park Avenue, at very exclusive parties, people like cowboys, cooks, manicurists, nurses, hat-check girls, fitters, exchorines, declasses countesses, Westport intellectuals, Hollywood producers Southern girls and radical columnists, gave me such lovely material to write about.

Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.

Ronald Reagan in his Own Words
(Photoplay Magazine, 1942)

A good read and a revealing article by a complicated man.

Click here to read about a Cold War prophet who was much admired by President Reagan…

Ronald Reagan in his Own Words
(Photoplay Magazine, 1942)

A good read and a revealing article by a complicated man.

Click here to read about a Cold War prophet who was much admired by President Reagan…

Ronald Reagan in his Own Words
(Photoplay Magazine, 1942)

A good read and a revealing article by a complicated man.

Click here to read about a Cold War prophet who was much admired by President Reagan…

Dale Carnegie on Winning Friends and Influencing People
(Collier’s Magazine, 1949)

Dale Carnegie (1888 – 1955) was a phenomenon unique to American shores; he was a publishing marvel whose book How To Win Friends and Influence People has sold over fifty million copies since it’s first appearance in 1937.
Similar to his contemporary Napoleon Hill
(1883 – 1970), Carnegie was one the preeminent self-help authors of the last century who recognized that success can be found within all of us if we simply know how to harness those elements properly. He had a strong belief that the powers of self-determination can be mastered in one’s ability to communicate clearly, and his followers are legion.

This article coincided with the printing of his second book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), and explains the author’s philosophy –

… be a good listener, talk in terms of the other man’s interests, and make the other person feel important.

The New Commander-in-Chief: Harry S Truman
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A heavily illustrated, four page article that served to answer the U.S. serviceman’s questions as to who Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972) was and why was he deemed suitable to serve as President?

Mr. Truman now occupies the Presidency, of course, because he won the Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination in Chicago last summer. Two things won him the nomination. First was the fact that he alone was acceptable to Mr. Roosevelt and to both the conservative element of the Democratic Party and its liberal wing. The second was the excellent performance of the Truman Committee in the investigation of our government’s spending money for the war-effort…One of the main themes of his campaign speeches last fall was that the U.S. should never return to isolationism.

Click here to read about the busy life of President Franklin Roosevelt.

Cole Porter
(Pageant Magazine, 1949)

– a CD from Amazon: KEY WORDS: Cole Porter Magazine Article,Cole Porter biography,Cole Porter Newspaper Article,Cole Porter composer,Cole Porter KISS

Noël Coward
(Stage Magazine, 1933)

Noël Coward (1899 – 1973) was simply the best all-rounder of the theatrical, literary and musical worlds of the 20th century. He invented the concept of celebrity and was the essence of chic in the Jazz Age of the 20s and 30s. His debonair looks and stylishly groomed appearance made him the icon of ‘the Bright Young Things’ that inhabited the world of The Ivy, The Savoy and The Ritz. No one is totally sure when and why it happened but following his success in the 1930s he was called ‘The Master’, a nickname of honor that indicated the level of his talent and achievement in so many of the entertainment arts. -so say the old salts at NoelCoward.net, and they should know because they have a good deal more time to think about him than we do.

The attached article was no doubt written by one of his many groupies for a swank American theater magazine following the successful New York premiere of his play Design for Living:

Click here to read about Cole Porter.

Elsa Maxwell kept the party going during the Great Depression…

A Look at Oscar Wilde
(The Nineteenth Century, 1922)

The author of this article, Gilbert Coleridge, has written an honest character study of Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) in hopes to better understand the man in the context of his time. One of the interesting hypothetical questions he poses asks how would Oscar Wilde (a man who lived only for pleasure) have got on during the highly rationed home front of 1914-1918 war?

He was an arresting figure in person, of commanding height, with a clean-shaved oval face. The latter was marred by a weak mouth, from which poured, with fascinating languor sometimes, torrents of paradox, quaint wit, perverse and startling epigrams, all spoken in a tone which left the listener wondering whether the speaker was really in earnest, or only talking for effect.

Another article about Oscar Wilde can be read here.