Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan by James Maguire Read Free Book Online Page B

covering a collegiate boat race between Princeton, Columbia, and Penn State on the Harlem River: “The challenge was met with a quick acceleration of the Columbia stroke, and from that [ sic ] on the two boats fought it out stroke for stoke, while the crowds went wild.” Throughout 1921 Ed inched his way up the Mail ’s masthead, getting promoted to cover professional golf and tennis in addition to college sports. By the end of the year his writing had regained the cheeky humor of his Port Chester reports. Covering swimmer Helen Wainwright, who had just broken four world records in the 500-yard freestyle, he observed her at lunch. His goal, he wrote, was to discover what makes a champion. “Miss Wainwright ordered a club sandwich, a piece of watermelon, a large slice of lemon meringue pie, ice cream and a glass of milk, and after stowing that away the youngster started on a box of chocolates. Of such stuff are champions made.”
    With his promotion Sullivan earned $75 a week, a handsome salary in the early 1920s when a furnished room in Manhattan rented for well under $50 a month. He had lived at home in his early Mail days, but with his raise he rented an apartment in midtown, on West 48th Street, over a bar called Duffy’s Tavern. Equipped with a place of his own, he dipped a tentative toe into the swirling waters of Manhattan nightlife. At first, the Port Chester boy was ill at ease, yet he soon found a tourguide. The Mail ’s boxing editor managed a fighter named Johnny Dundee, then a top featherweight contender, and he introduced him to Ed. The twenty-seven-year-old boxer, born Giuseppe Carrora in Sicily, had fought professionally since age seventeen. He won the junior lightweight title in 1921 and the featherweight title in 1923. He would later be inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame and become such a revered ring hero that Angelo Mirena, Muhammad Ali’s lead trainer, legally changed his surname to Dundee in Johnny’s honor.
    Ed and Johnny became fast friends. As a celebrity athlete, Dundee had entrée to the city’s most exclusive haunts. The boxer took Ed under his wing, introducing him to major figures in many walks of life. In the late 1930s Sullivan recalled how Dundee had shown him around, and how Ed “died a thousand deaths every time he met a celebrity, but didn’t want to let on.”
    Now that Ed was a New York fellow he wanted to look like one, and he spent every penny of his Mail salary to do so. He outfitted himself in high-quality hand-tailored suits and shirts; photos from the period show him to be nattily attired, with his hair slicked back, often sporting a fedora. One of the Mail ’s advertisers was the Durant motorcar company, which must have caught Ed’s eye; he was soon motoring around town in his own Durant roadster. As a young man he was ruddily handsome, with wavy auburn hair and strong blue eyes, his masculine mien reflecting the glow of his Port Chester athleticism.
    On weekends he drove home to date his Port Chester sweetheart, Alma Burnes, but during the week he pursued the young women he met in New York’s nightclubs. The Mail referred to these female speakeasy habitués as “flappers”; in the 1890s the term referred to a young prostitute, but by the 1920s it had come to mean any girl with a thin, boyish figure and an informal manner. The flappers lived up to their reputation for flouting convention. The practice of young women frequenting drinking establishments by themselves was new, and frowned upon by many. Worse, many of the flappers wore dresses with hemlines a full twelve inches above the ground and visibly used cosmetics, and some even smoked in public.
    Ed’s favorite nightspot was the Silver Slipper, on West 48th Street, a roaring upscale speakeasy not far from his apartment. He was there almost every night, cigarette and drink in hand. His Port Chester shyness long gone, he was now an avid socializer, a natural glad-hander who conversed with anyone and everyone.