The End of the World

In today’s world of endless media options, it is hard to fathom the influence newspapers had over daily life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one news source that many New Yorkers simply could not live without: The New York World.

March 7, 1931 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

So when the World ceased publication after a 70-year run, many of its readers struggled to come to terms with the loss. Despite the World’s working class appeal and sensationalistic reporting, E.B. White nevertheless counted himself among its mourners, offering a lengthy eulogy in his “Notes and Comment” column…

THE COLOR OF MONEY…Under the leadership of Joseph Pulitzer, who bought the *World* in 1883, the newspaper began an aggressive era of circulation building, and in 1896 enticed readers with pages printed by one of the world’s first four-color printing presses. The *World* was the first newspaper to launch a Sunday color supplement, which featured “The Yellow Kid” cartoon *Hogan’s Alley* (above, right). (5dguide.com)

A pioneer of yellow journalism, the World also featured sensational stories and headlines to capture the attention of readers…

…however, the World was also home to a number of prominent journalists, including the famed Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (aka Nellie Bly) and many writers from the social orbit of the Algonquin Round Table who were also early contributors to the fledgling New Yorker.

In his “Notes” essay, White suggests that he found something authentic in the World’s sensational style, and praised it for going after stories that more staid publications, like the New York Times, tended to ignore or downplay. The World’s staff of writers came from the rough and tumble, muckraking world of journalism, the same world in which the New Yorker’s founding editor, Harold Ross, first cut his teeth.

ALL-STAR LINE-UP…Many of the *World’s* famed writers inhabited the orbit of the *New Yorker* and the Algonquin Round Table, including, from left, music critic **Deems Taylor,** journalist and social critic **Heywood Broun**, “The Conning Tower” columnist **Franklin P. Adams**, and humorist **Frank Sullivan.** (deemstaylor.com/britannica.com/Wikipedia)

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Swedish Sphinx?

Thirty years after her death, Greta Garbo remains an iconic figure in popular culture, due to her expressive eyes and sensuality, but perhaps even more so due to her elusive air. In her profile of the star for the New Yorker, titled “American Pro Tem,” Virgilia Peterson Ross refused to buy into the mysterious aura that was partly manufactured by Garbo’s handlers at MGM. The other part, however, was genuine Garbo, who detested parties, serious talk, and other formalities.

THE FACE…Like her contemporary Marlene Dietrich, **Greta Garbo** preferred an androgynous look. From left, Garbo wearing the flat-heeled oxfords she favored; publicity photo from 1932; wearing one of her trademark berets in the late 1930s. (garboforever.com)

Ross touched on Garbo’s love life — she never married in her 84 years, but she was close to her mentor, Finnish director Mauritz Stiller, who died in 1928, having been eclipsed by his protégé. Garbo’s co-star in the silents, John Gilbert — known as a great lover on the screen — wanted to marry Garbo, but she balked at his frequent proposals. The two lived together intermittently in 1926 and 1927, Gilbert helping Garbo not only with her acting also teaching her how to behave like a star and barter with studio bosses. Garbo later admitted that she was in love with Gilbert, but preferred to remain single because she “always wanted to be the boss.” Drink and despair would send Gilbert to an early grave in 1936. In her profile piece, Ross concluded that Garbo was “not a mystery to be solved,” but rather “a limpid child.”

THE MEN IN HER LIFE…**Greta Garbo** contemplates a new-fangled microphone with film director **Clarence Brown** on the set of Garbo’s first talkie, *Anna Christie*. Brown would direct Garbo in seven different films; Garbo with sometime lover **John Gilbert** in *Flesh and the Devil* (1926). They would appear in four films together; Garbo with Finnish director and early mentor **Mauritz Stiller**, in 1926. (Wikipedia/IMDB/garboforever.com)

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Suffering Artist

Dorothy Parker continued to sub as theater critic for her friend, Robert Benchley, who was traveling abroad. It was not a task to her liking — during her temporary stint she had yet to see a play that didn’t insult her taste or her intelligence. Her review for the March 7 issue would prove no different.

BROADWAY BLAHS…**Dorothy Parker** had yet to find a play to her liking in her stint as theater critic for the *New Yorker*. To her credit, she had to sit through a couple of stinkers: *A Woman Denied* lasted about a month — 37 performances — and *Paging Danger* closed its curtains for good after just four performances. (Playbill/BBC)

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The Misanthrope

To call Wyndham Lewis a character is an understatement. The English writer, social critic and painter (he founded the cubist-inspired Vorticist movement) managed to offend just about everybody before his death in 1957. He was described by the London Review as “fiercely unsentimental,” and that is how I would describe this opening paragraph from his short story “Dark Party”…