Next week’s issue of New York Magazine will contain an oral history of our late founder Clay Felker’s career both here and elsewhere. In this sample, his wife, Gail Sheehy, talks about the first time she saw Felker, when they were both at the New York Herald Tribune.
The first time I laid eyes on Clay he was yelling on the phone — something unusual. I dared to walk down the back stairs at the Herald Tribune women’s department, which was a flamingo-pink ghetto. But I had a story idea, and the only way to do it was to go and talk to Clay. So I was quite terrified; but then when I heard him and saw him, he was very big. And he had a huge voice, which just, you know, sliced right through me. And he was yelling at somebody about tickets to Dinner at Eight. He was just, like, another creature from another planet to me. But totally intriguing. —Gail Sheehy
Earlier: Tom Wolfe Remembers Clay Felker
Clay Felker, 1925–2008
