A liquid masterpiece in five enigmatic parts Nov 30, 2008
Fate's section is a sophisticated noir set piece - a Chester Himes novella infused with touches of David Lynchian creepiness and something of the muscular sports journalism of Norman Mailer and Gay Talese. To convey the emotional or topical polyphony of any of these sections would be impossible. (Boston Globe)
The Sky's The Limit Nov 22, 2008
YOU may have to take out a second mortgage to buy the new coffee-table tome "New York," which features classic snaps of the city by such photographers as Patrick Demarchelier, Ron Galella and Annie Leibovitz, and essays by Tom Wolfe, Don DeLillo and Gay Talese. The 2-foot-tall, 756-page volume from Gloria Books is shaped like a Manhattan skyscraper, weighs 26 pounds and costs a whopping 15,000. (New York Post -- Gossip)
Jacko Won't Go Nov 19, 2008
Among the guests not in the movie: Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Brett Ratner, Christine Baranski, Tovah Felshuh, James Toback, Gay Talese, Liz Smith and advertising genius Peter Rogers, Mort Zuckerman, Tom Freston, Bill McCuddy, lit agent Mary Evans, Time magazine s John Huey and Richard Zoglin, and NBC s Brian Williams and Jeff Zucker, reprising their roles from the Billy Elliot opening last week. Speaking of Billy Elliot, the Broadway smash shares producers with Frost/Nixon in Eric Fellner... (Fox News)
Book Reviews: 'George, Being George' and 'A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity' Oct 28, 2008
Fortunately, "George, Being George" also taps enough sharp-eyed observers - among them authors and editors like Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Maggie Paley and Robert Silvers - to outweigh its occasional fatuousness and repetition. Today in Culture. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
DVD Report: This week's new releases (Oct. 19) Oct 19, 2008
The film includes interviews with an impressive roster of former patrons: Walter Cronkite, Gay Talese, Yogi Berra, Frank Gifford. There are clips from Shor appearances on "This Is Your Life," "What's My Line," and "Person to Person." (Edward R. Murrow, introducing Shor, describes the former bouncer as "exactly the kind of guy he'd throw out of his place.") Best of all are a steady stream of period photographs and archival footage of New York street scenes and nightlife. (Boston Globe)
L. Rust Hills, 83; was Esquire's curmudgeonly fiction editor Aug 18, 2008
In 1963, Mr. Hills conceived an entire literary issue of the magazine, which included not just stories, but also interviews with writers; a photo essay on writers' lives; a snarky profile by Gay Talese of the circle surrounding George Plimpton's Paris Review; and, most controversially, an illustrated diagram of "The Structure of the American Literary Establishment," identifying writers, agents, publishers, reviewers, and events that Mr. Hills determined to be at and around the "red-hot center"... (Boston Globe)
'Big' Shoes to Fill Jun 27, 2008
with daughter Chloe Malle (her dad was the late amazing French director Louis Malle); Eammon Bowles; Charlie Rose; Jimmy Buffet; Brian Williams; Gail Sheehy; "Traffic" producer Laura Bickford with actor/husband, the great Sam Bottoms; famed writer (and nattily attired) Gay Talese; and Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy ("Ironweed") with beautiful wife, Dana, and son Brendan, also it s a theme 38. The Kennedy family had known Thompson since 1959. (Fox News)
ALL THE NEWS THATS FIT TO SQUINT May 22, 2008
Gay Talese won t go online, bless his ornery old-fashioned soul ... He rises every morning and paws through the newspaper with the diligence of an obedient journalism student and checks his mailbox for letters with stamps on them (and there will be letters; people write to Gay Talese; I did when I was a young starry-eyed reporter; wouldn t you if you were ... You wouldn t like being Gay Talese. (New York Press)
LA Times Festval of Books Apr 20, 2008
Gay Talese In Conversation with Tim Rutten. Maxine Hong Kingston in Conversation with David L. Ulin. (Suite101.com)
House of cards Apr 6, 2008
To Gay Talese, a pioneer of dramatic nonfiction writing and author of nonfiction works like "The Kingdom and the Power" and "Honor Thy Father," the sort of liberties Mezrich takes with character, chronology, and plot are "unacceptable, dishonest, and I have little or no respect for people who do it.". "Bringing Down the House" tells a dramatic tale. (Boston Globe)
In pages of Writer's Digest, an ever-changing authors' story Mar 25, 2008
In January 1981, the cover story centered on authors and their typewriters, and revealed that Gay Talese used dental floss for repairs. By April, the magazine was running a long article on word processors. (Boston Globe)
VH1 and Sundance Channel to Air Original Four-Part Documentary Series From Perry Films, 'Sex: The Revolution' Premiering on VH1, Monday, May 12 - Thursday, May 15 at 10pm* Each Night Mar 25, 2008
Among them: musicians Nile Rodgers and David Crosby; actors Cybill Shepherd, Danny Glover and Dyan Cannon; writers Erica Jong, Armistead Maupin, John Rechy and Gay Talese; publishers Hugh Hefner, Helen Gurley Brown, Gloria Steinem and Larry Flynt; filmmakers John Waters and Paul Mazursky; television host Phil Donahue; writer/publisher Paul Krassner (The Realist); birth control activist William Baird; and Marilyn Chambers, star of the landmark porn film Behind the Green Door. Also contributing... (Yahoo! Wire -- Entertainment News)
Esquire fictionalizes Heath Ledger's last days Mar 6, 2008
Esquire was among the pioneers in the 1960s in promoting what became known as New Journalism, the style developed by the cadre of writers like Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe who used literary techniques buttressed by voracious reporting to produce articles of narrative nonfiction. "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" by Talese, published in Esquire in 1966, is considered a classic of the genre and the precursor of the modern celebrity profile. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Channel 7's Donaldson isn't quite at home yet Feb 22, 2008
Among those interviewed about Louis, who finished his career with a record of 68-3, are Jimmy Carter, poet Maya Angelou, actor-comedian Jerry Lewis, comedian-activist Dick Gregory, Pete and Louis Marciano (the brothers of boxer Rocky Marciano) and writer Gay Talese. Said Gregory: "I lived in St. Louis. You heard it through the black community that Joe Louis is fighting on such and such a night. And it was better than Christmas 'cause on Christmas you couldn't be guaranteed you was gonna get... (Boston Globe)
Bill Bonanno, son of famous crime boss, dies in Tucson Jan 3, 2008
In June, Bonanno, his wife, children and grandchildren were featured in a Newsweek article written by Gay Talese, who wrote the 1971 best-selling biography of the Bonanno family, "Honor Thy Father." ... 1971: Gay Talese publishes Honor Thy Father, based on Bill Bonanno interviews. (AZCentral -- News)
Salvatore 'Bill' Bonanno, 75; son of Mafia boss Jan 3, 2008
"Bill was raised to be legit," said Gay Talese, author of "Honor Thy Father," the 1971 bestseller that chronicled the rise and fall of the Bonanno family. The book was turned into a 1973 television movie. (Los Angeles Times)
Bonanno, son of late crime chief, dies Jan 2, 2008
Author Gay Talese wrote about him in Honor Thy Father ... He was the subject of Gay Talese's book "Honor Thy Father" and co-produced a 1999 miniseries based on the autobiography of his father, known as "Joe Bananas.". (MSNBC -- Crime)
With Mailer's death, US loses a colorful writer and character Nov 11, 2007
"He could do anything he wanted to do - the movie business, writing, theater, politics," said author Gay Talese, husband of publisher Nan Talese. "He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything. He was a courageous person.". (San Francisco Chronicle)
Mailer, the giant of US literature, dies at 84 Nov 11, 2007
He never thought the boundaries were restricted,' said author Gay Talese. He'd go anywhere and try anything. (Guardian Unlimited)
Atlanta's praise Nov 11, 2007
Norman Mailer, right, with, seated from left: Gore Vidal, Gay Talese and Susan Sontag during a news conference in New York in 1993. The four were to perform a staged reading of 'Don Juan in Hell, ' the four-character play within George Bernard Shaw's play, 'Man and Superman. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Norman Mailer's life and legacy Nov 11, 2007
Along with Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, Mr. Mailer brought the breadth, drama and personal aspects of fiction to American journalism in the early 1970s. It was "The Executioner's Song" in 1977 that brilliantly blended reporting with fiction writing and showcased Mr. Mailer at his best. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA)
Author Norman Mailer dies Nov 10, 2007
He reported on politics for several publications, often putting his point of view at the center of the story -- a hallmark of the "New Journalism" practiced by Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. Meanwhile, with a lifestyle redolent of rock stars (before such a species existed), he was a constant in gossip columns, particularly after the 1960 stabbing incident, for which he was temporarily confined to New York's Bellevue mental hospital. (SportsIllustrated.CNN -- NFL)
Biographer: Norman Mailer dead at age 84 Nov 10, 2007
"He could do anything he wanted to do the movie business, writing, theater, politics," author Gay Talese said Saturday ... Noted authors, from left, Gay Talese, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal gather at a party following the Actors' Studio benefit production of George Bernard Shaw's "Don Juan In Hell" at Carnegie Hall, in this Feb. 15, 1993 file. (Brainerd Daily Dispatch)
Radio host Michael Krasny opens up in 'Off Mike' Nov 5, 2007
Krasny likes Gay Talese because "he stays in touch with who he is and was," instead of joining the clubby "Manhattan cognoscenti." He admires Alice Walker, who is committed to "the necessity to heal the ancestors, enshrine the human spirit and root out and speak out against violence and depravity." He describes Robert Stone as "a writer whose work was filled with dark edges and paranoia but who came across in the flesh as the most genial of men, kind and collegial, nearly docile, an autodidact... (San Francisco Chronicle)
Scaring up a cocktail Oct 30, 2007
A year earlier, Gay Talese had written in the New York Times about the sneaky new scheme to give moviegoers a thirst for Coca-Cola, that legendary fraud called ubliminal advertising. Priming audiences with unseen pitches for Coke and popcorn was one thing, Mr. Talese determined, but the real test was whether rather less obvious messages would work, messages such as ote for Lionel Smudge, Abjure Fleshly Lusts, and rink More Strega. (Boulder Colorado Daily, CO)
Has Britney Spears Found Her Howard K. Stern? Oct 25, 2007
Some of the other presenters include Gay Talese, Sarah Ferguson, Brooke Shields and Tiki Barner, Lorraine Bracco, Jonathan Groff of Spring Awakening, Rocco DiSpirito, Dan Rather and Catherine Crier, Oscar nominee Joan Allen and Karenna Gore Schiff, who accepts the award for her father, Al Gore, and his book, The Assault on Reason. Yes, that s one more award for Al Gore, after the Oscar and the Nobel. (Fox News)
'Angels' wins Quills book of the year Oct 23, 2007
Attendees and presenters also included Tina Brown, Dan Rather, Jonathan Groff, Brooke Shields and Gay Talese. TALKBACK. (Variety)
Eastwood tells Bennett's story for Masters Sep 6, 2007
Writer Gay Talese marvels at the career that has spanned the mid-20th century to now, and with no end in sight. Tony Bennett in the Studio: A Life of Art and Music, by Bennett and a co-author, is out this month, as are two new albums, and Bennett proudly notes his paintings have been accepted at museums including the Smithsonian. (MSNBC -- News)
Sebold under a dark 'Moon' Aug 30, 2007
Participants include writers Joan Didion, Anna Quindlen, Gay Talese and Nathaniel Philbrick and former basketball great Bill Walton. Publisher Robert Miller says the idea came from Halberstam's funeral, when his friends asked his widow, Jean, "What can we do to help?" "It's the kind of thing you say at that time, but they were serious. It speaks to their relationship with David and their feelings for his work.". (USA Today)
Publisher blasts Oprah at Grapevine writers conference Jul 30, 2007
Her husband is author Gay Talese, a prior Mayborn participant. The conference, which is sponsored in part by The Dallas Morning News , draws writers from across the country to discuss the practice of narrative journalism and nonfiction writing. (KHOU.com, TX)
Celeb Gridlock Jun 29, 2007
" The party emcee was Gay Talese, who announced, "I don't know why I'm here. I think Hotchner must be 90. (New York Post -- Gossip)
Author David Halberstam's memory of Mississippi preserved May 16, 2007
He was joined in the exercise by friends and fellow writers Gay Talese and A.E. Hotchner at one of the trio's favorite restaurants in New York City. "You adjust memory as you get older to make life bearable," Halberstam said. (The Clarion-Ledger)
Stephen Puleo's book The Boston Italians'' breaks new ground and dispels old myths May 7, 2007
Reached at home in New York, journalist Gay Talese, whose books include "Unto the Sons," a history of his Italian family, said that "the Italian-American male is the last minority about which a certain liberty can be taken in the media." Newspaper s , television networks, and advertisers are careful, he said, to avoid stereotypes of other groups, such as Jews or African-Americans. Another reason the stereotype has lingered, Talese suggested, is that Italians have been less likely to be writers... (Boston Globe)
Death of a journalism icon; tears for a dying craft May 3, 2007
They also included his friend Frank McCulloch, then a Time-Life correspondent, who, like Halberstam, saw through the official government optimism about Vietnam; Neil Sheehan, a Vietnam correspondent for UPI; Gay Talese of the Times and Seymour Hersh, now at the New Yorker, who also got his start with a major Vietnam story. One symbol of the era, though hardly the whole of it, was Harper's Magazine under Willie Morris in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (Scripps Howard News Wire)
David Halberstam (1934-2007): Apr 27, 2007
He was so bored that he spent much of his time writing a novel, writes Gay Talese in The Kingdom and the Power. In a letter to friends in New York, Halberstam complained of his inability to find a place in the paper. (Slate)
Author David Halberstam Killed In Crash Apr 26, 2007
Author Gay Talese, who was at the Halberstams' home Monday nigh, said he had known Halberstam since the early 1960s, was best man at his wedding and shared Thanksgiving dinner in Paris last year. "He was a dear friend," Talese said. (CBS News -- US)
Halberstam was best and brightest Apr 25, 2007
So in addition to already being friends with the likes of Russell Baker, Gay Talese, John Chancellor, and folks of that ilk, Halberstam would become friends with bombastic larger-than-life figures such as Belichick, Ted Williams, and Bob Knight. "After you've been slogging around Vietnam and challenging generals," reasons Nolan, "you're not going to worry about a basketball coach [or a .344 lifetime hitter] yelling at you.". (Boston Globe)
The Hart of the room Apr 24, 2007
Gore Vidal, Barbara Goldsmith, Salman Rushdie, Bob Caro, E. L. Doctorow, Henry Louis Gates, Tony Kushner, Fran Lebowitz, Frank McCourt, David Remnick and Gay Talese will all appear. Call 212-629-8748. (Variety)
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84 Apr 13, 2007
Gay Talese, a best-selling author who knew Vonnegut well, told CBS News correspondent Richard Schlesinger that he never heard Vonnegut "express a bit of vengeance, resentment ... although in his work there was that real keen sense of hypocrisy.". "He was not a mean man, Talese added. "And boy, that says something for writers. (CBS News)
Milch surfs back to HBO Mar 27, 2007
This "surf noir' is such an underground hit, they've already ordered up a dozen more episodes.RICHARD PLEPLER, Brad Grey, Carolyn Strauss and David Chase hosted a private screening of the first two episodes of the coming final season of "The Sopranos" at the Museum of Modern Art. In the time-honored fashion of making those who love "The Sopranos" wait for it, the screening, which indicated "7 o'clock sharp" on the invite, was a good 30 minutes late. And then came the self-congratulations. Not... (Variety)
