Quoting last lines of Bob Dylan’ s masters of war in my head as I read this. Maybe not directly trading arms, but certainly a catalyst for misery - and death. How is anyone born with the kind of impulse he must have had to poison the well? Yes, I’ll be glad when he’s dead.
I interviewed him when I wrote a piece for New Times on how he took over the NY Magazine empire from Clay Felker, which at the time included the Village Voice. The interview took over two hours. The thing that grabbed the headlines was Murdoch describing Washington Post owner Kay Graham crying on the phone in a call trying to save "my Clay," as she called him. Murdoch's wife was knitting in a chair across from the two of us in the living room, and she saved him by asking him to go upstairs and "check on the boys, please, Rupert" every time he was about to reveal some nugget of gossip or interesting stuff about Felker. The boys were Lachlan and James, of course, who were already in bed. She was upstairs checking on them when Rupert told the story about Kay Graham crying on the phone. It's astounding to think that Murdoch owned the Voice for a time, but he did, and he didn't do much to screw around with it, because the Voice was a HUGE cash cow at the time.
I wonder if Lucian noticed Murdoch's *extremely* unexpected soft voice when he had a real conversation with him ... or maybe it was an affectation he added at some point? (I guess I expected a principle-free heavy to have a booming voice.)
I only met him once in a receiving line in Malibu, circa 1980. He had the VIP's staple in those situations: someone at his shoulder to tell him who everyone was. When I was presented to him he said, "I believe I work for your mother." That was cute, I thought. My mother was in the syndicated end of the newspaper business, and her home paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, had just been bought by Murdoch. He was the kind of man who had an aide check whether an invitee would accept before an invitation was issued. (The invitation I refer to was a house party in England, and my mother's pre-answer was No.)
He was considered so odious -- even then -- that no first rate newspaper people wanted anything to do with him. (Contractually my mother was free to leave the paper if it was sold one more time. It was, and she did, joining Mike Royko at the Chicago Tribune.)
Quoting last lines of Bob Dylan’ s masters of war in my head as I read this. Maybe not directly trading arms, but certainly a catalyst for misery - and death. How is anyone born with the kind of impulse he must have had to poison the well? Yes, I’ll be glad when he’s dead.
Brilliant, Nina--as always. I love reading your work.
Thank you!
I interviewed him when I wrote a piece for New Times on how he took over the NY Magazine empire from Clay Felker, which at the time included the Village Voice. The interview took over two hours. The thing that grabbed the headlines was Murdoch describing Washington Post owner Kay Graham crying on the phone in a call trying to save "my Clay," as she called him. Murdoch's wife was knitting in a chair across from the two of us in the living room, and she saved him by asking him to go upstairs and "check on the boys, please, Rupert" every time he was about to reveal some nugget of gossip or interesting stuff about Felker. The boys were Lachlan and James, of course, who were already in bed. She was upstairs checking on them when Rupert told the story about Kay Graham crying on the phone. It's astounding to think that Murdoch owned the Voice for a time, but he did, and he didn't do much to screw around with it, because the Voice was a HUGE cash cow at the time.
I wonder if Lucian noticed Murdoch's *extremely* unexpected soft voice when he had a real conversation with him ... or maybe it was an affectation he added at some point? (I guess I expected a principle-free heavy to have a booming voice.)
I only met him once in a receiving line in Malibu, circa 1980. He had the VIP's staple in those situations: someone at his shoulder to tell him who everyone was. When I was presented to him he said, "I believe I work for your mother." That was cute, I thought. My mother was in the syndicated end of the newspaper business, and her home paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, had just been bought by Murdoch. He was the kind of man who had an aide check whether an invitee would accept before an invitation was issued. (The invitation I refer to was a house party in England, and my mother's pre-answer was No.)
He was considered so odious -- even then -- that no first rate newspaper people wanted anything to do with him. (Contractually my mother was free to leave the paper if it was sold one more time. It was, and she did, joining Mike Royko at the Chicago Tribune.)
Wolff mentions his mumble almost incoherent voice. So it’s apparently how he sounds now.
Then, he was not mumbling or incoherent. Just amazingly soft and quiet for a titan.