Copyright (C) 2005 by Max Millard
100 New Yorkers of the 1970s
By Max Millard
Dedication: to Bruce Logan, who made this book possible.
Copyright 2005 by Max Millard
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The interviews for this book were conducted from May 1977 to December1979. They appeared as cover stories for the __TV Shopper__, a freeweekly paper that was distributed to homes and businesses in New YorkCity. Founded by Bruce Logan in the mid-1970s as the __West Side TVShopper__, it consisted of TV listings, advertisements, and two full-pagestories per issue. One was a "friendly" restaurant review of an advertiser;the other was a profile of a prominent resident of the Upper West Side ofManhattan. The honoree's face appeared on the cover, framed by a TVscreen.
The formula was successful enough so that in 1978, Bruce beganpublishing the __East Side TV Shopper__ as well. My job was to trackdown the biggest names I could find for both papers, interview them, andwrite a 900-word story. Most interviewees were in the arts andentertainment industry — actors, singers, dancers, writers, musicians,news broadcasters and radio personalities. Bruce quickly recruited me towrite the restaurant reviews as well. During my two and a half years atthe paper, I wrote about 210 interviews. These are my 100 favorites of theones that survive.
These stories represent my first professional work as a journalist. I arrivedin New York City in November 1976 at age 26, hungry for an opportunityto write full-time after spending six years practicing my craft at collegeand community newspapers in New England. I had just started to sell afew stories in Maine, but realized I would have to move to a big city ifI was serious about switching careers from social worker to journalist.
My gigs as an unpaid writer for small local papers included a musiccolumn for the __East Boston Community News__ and a theater columnfor the Wise Guide in Portland, Maine. I had learned the two mostimportant rules of journalism — get your facts straight and meet yourdeadlines. I had taught myself Pitman's shorthand and could take notes at100 words a minute. So I felt ready to make the leap if someone gave mea chance.
Full of hope, I quit my job in rural Maine as a senior citizens' aide, droveto New York, sold my car, moved into an Upper West Side apartmentwith two aspiring opera singers, and began to look for work.
One aspect of the New York personality, I soon observed, was that thegreat often mingled freely with the ordinary. At the Alpen Pantry Cafe inLincoln Center, where I worked briefly, David Hartman, host of GoodMorning America, came in for his coffee every morning and waited inline like everyone else. John Lennon was said to walk his Westsideneighborhood alone, and largely undisturbed.
The other side of the New York mentality was shown by nightclubssurrounded by velvet ropes, where uniformed doormen stood guard likearmy sentries. Disdaining the riffraff, they picked out certain attractiveindividuals milling outside and beckoned them to cut through the crowd,pay their admission and enter. The appearance of status counted for much,and many people who lived on 58th Street, one block from Central Park,got their mail through the back entrance so they could claim the higherclass address of Central Park West.
In early 1977 my shorthand skills got me a part-time job at the home ofLinda Grover, a scriptwriter for the TV soap opera The Doctors. Onthe day I met her, she dictated a half-hour script to me, winging it whileglancing at an outline.