There was one reviewer from the 'New York Times,' I forget his name, who said I was 'death warmed over.' I wrote him back that I knew more about death than he did. The 'Times' fired him, put him in the cooking department!
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'd worked for the 'Dallas Times Herald' for ten years, and its death was a kick in the gut the like of which I cannot recall ever having experienced.
One of my first jobs was as a recipe tester for a PR agency. One week, the editor of 'Housewife' magazine called my boss and asked me to write a column - the cookery editor had gone away on a press trip. I was terrified.
I've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead.
Most of the authors I liked were dead, so it didn't seem like a safe occupation.
Sometimes a famous subject may even outlive his own obituary writer.
Reviewers and critics can be overly cynical. If something the least bit sentimental comes up, they'll often start flying off the handle. But I'm like, 'Wait a minute, you've had those times in your life. Everybody has.'
No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time on my business.
As I was coming up on the stage, there was one source that could make or break you, the New York Times. Inevitably there would be one actor singled out for a better review, or worse, than somebody else. The effect of that was cancerous, divisive.
I'm not spitting in my own soup, I love having spent my life thinking about these things-but you don't have to know anything about his life, even though I've just written a biography!
Critic's delight: scolding the Mighty Dead.