Capital of the World: A Portrait of New York City in the Roaring Twenties

by David Wallace West Point

Overview

A portrait of NewYork City in the roaring twenties.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762768196
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

David Wallace has been an active journalist on the national, Colorado, and Southern California scene for many years.

For the decade of the 1980s, he was the National Correspondent for People Weekly, reporting most of their Hollywood celebrity cover stories including many exclusive “scoops” for the multi-million circulation magazine.  Among them was the first interview with Robert Wagner and Jill St. John after Natalie Wood’s tragic death, and Mel Gibson’s first major interview with U.S. media (which became the first of People’s celebrated “Sexiest Man Alive” series). He also represented columnist Liz Smith on the West Coast.

In the past, Wallace also wrote extensively for The Denver Post; the Los Angeles Times (primarily entertainment features); Ladies Home Journal; Life; and, from 1995 until 2003, for Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine (more than 150 features on home design, decoration, art, travel, and lifestyle plus a regular car column). He also is a recognized classical music critic.

Before his present writing activities, Wallace co-founded New York’s Gifford/Wallace publicity and public relations firm, and subsequently founded his own associated firm in Hollywood.

In New York, Gifford/Wallace represented the hugely successful rock musical “Hair” (eventually – with Wallace’s continuing association after his move to California – for its entire 10-year run).   The firm, hailed by Esquire as “suavely hip,” also represented many other Braodway and Off-Broadway theatrical productions, including the long-running hit “Your Own Thing”; the Fillmore East (the late Bill Graham’s famed rock music palace); the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park; American Ballet Theatre (national representation); Cue magazine; restaurants including the now-legendary Le Mistral and The Ground Floor (CBS chairman William Paley’s personal restaurant project); plus numerous personalities including “Hair” producer Michael Butler. 

Among Wallace’s clients after his move to Hollywood were the California 500 (soon to be the biggest sports event in the West); 20th Century Fox-TV; KLOS-FM (it became Los Angeles’ major rock music station); The New York Times Publishing Company; “Hair”; one of the largest art galleries in America (in Santa Fe, NM); and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra.

                                                                       

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 "Gentleman Jim," Part I, The Good Times Mayor Jimmy Walker 1

2 Prohibition Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club 15

3 The Rise of the Mafia, Part I: The Three "M"s: Morello, Masseria, and Maranzano 31

4 The Rise of the Mafia, Part II Meyer Lansky Lucky Luciano 45

5 America's Most Famous Madam Polly Adler 57

6 Queen of the Nightclubs Texas Guinan 67

7 The Birth of Gossip Journalism Walter Winchell 77

8 America's Conflicted Queen of Vaudeville and Comedy Fanny Brice 91

9 The Rise of Radio David Sarnoff 105

10 Dance: The Charleston, the Black Bottom, and Martha Graham 119

11 High Cs and High Jinks: Classical Music's Biggest Scandal Arturo Toscanini Geraldine Farrar 129

12 Literature of the 1920s, Part I F. Scott Fitzgerald 139

13 Litebature of the 1920s, Part II Edith Wharton Anita Loos Eugene O'Neill 153

14 The Round Table Alexander Woollcott Robert Benchley Robert Sherwood Franklin P. Adams Marc Connelly Harold Ross Dorothy Parker 165

15 The Witty Critic Dorothy Parker 179

16 The Magazines Henry Luce Briton Hadden and Time, Harold Ross and the New Yorker 189

17 New York's Lesbian Subculture: Interior Design Pioneer Elsie de Wolfe 203

18 The Harlem Renaissance: The Cotton Club, Bessie Smith,and the Harlem Renaissance 217

19 Sports Bill Tilden Babe Ruth 235

20 The Ticker-Tape Parade Grover T. Whalen 249

21 "Gentleman Jim," Part II, the Party's Over Mayor Jimmy Walker 259

Epilogue: The Crash and the Sign of a Better Tomorrow: The Chrysler Building and Architect William Van Alen 273

Acknowledgments 278

Bibliography 279

Index 283

About the Author 290

Editorial Reviews

"The 1920s' distinctive cultural creation, the celebrity, is the real star of this gallery of famous New Yorkers. . . . Take Fanny Brice, then a popular comedienne. She was the inspiration for the hit musical and 1968 movie Funny Girl. . . . Others are novelist Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), mobster Lucky Luciano (The Godfather), and a Harlem nightclub (The Cotton Club). . . . Also including figures from journalism, prostitution, politics, music, and dance, Wallace's tome recalls the fizz and biz of 1920s publicity."—Booklist "...a great summer read." —BoweryBoys.com "...compelling and appealing.... [an] engaging recounting of the era as personified by some of its most colorful characters." —Sam Roberts, The New York Times "David Wallace anoints 1920s New York the Capital of the World." —Vanity Fair

From the Publisher