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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Courtly Mailer: The Legacy Derby: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Courtly Mailer: The Legacy Derby (view source)
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primed and there was a scheduled one-day Mailer stopover at the University of South Florida. It was at his time that I met a new Norman, the media’s “Prisoner of Sex.” This controversial topic and book rocked the feminist movement, and marked Mailer. Gender warfare was stormy and blistery in 1972. | primed and there was a scheduled one-day Mailer stopover at the University of South Florida. It was at his time that I met a new Norman, the media’s “Prisoner of Sex.” This controversial topic and book rocked the feminist movement, and marked Mailer. Gender warfare was stormy and blistery in 1972. | ||
Once again, I found myself at center stage. I taught at the University, and | Once again, I found myself at center stage. I taught at the University, and had played a role in bringing Norman to Tampa to give a podium lecture. I also volunteered to organize and finance the twenty-four hour agenda, which included hosting a big party for our embattled visitor. I was excited. The local media and campus police were on alert.Why? Mailer was about to meet his gender-slayer. Kathy Freeperson and her militants were out to bloody this advertised chauvinist. I wondered how Mailer’s character would hold up. Would it turn good or bad? | ||
had played a role in bringing Norman to Tampa to give a podium lecture. I | |||
also volunteered to organize and finance the twenty-four hour agenda, | |||
which included hosting a big party for our embattled visitor. I was excited. The local media and campus police were on alert.Why? Mailer was about to meet his gender-slayer. Kathy Freeperson and her militants were out to bloody this advertised chauvinist. I wondered how Mailer’s character would hold up. Would it turn good or bad? | |||
The Mailer agenda began, tastefully, with an early four o’clock dinner in | The Mailer agenda began, tastefully, with an early four o’clock dinner in | ||
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prophecy—that he could never ever resist violence. In fact, he stamped it | prophecy—that he could never ever resist violence. In fact, he stamped it | ||
out. His Tampa visit did not create headlines, only modest coverage. Everybody won, and that included Kathy, Norman, and his Legacy Quotient. | out. His Tampa visit did not create headlines, only modest coverage. Everybody won, and that included Kathy, Norman, and his Legacy Quotient. | ||
===V. MIAMI (1972)=== | |||
This “visit” was a Miami peepshow, mostly a three-day blur, because I was no longer at stage-center, relegated to become one of those proverbial lost souls in the crowd, even as was Mailer himself lost among fellow celebrities. For once, Mailer and his “character” were too obscure to probe. | |||
The “show” was the 1972 Democratic Party National Convention, all | |||
geared-up with celebrity overload. Norman did have a spotlighted niche. He was in full throttle as the arch-practitioner of the New Journalism, today’s creative nonfiction. ''Life'' magazine had contracted Mailer to write a convention ''exposé'' and the focus was to be the McGovern-Eagleton Democratic ticket for the Presidency. Norman on deadline—and busy, busy. | |||
I was in the vicinity although I was only another of many unknowns, a | |||
nightclub gawker. I stayed at a nearby hotel in Mike Gravel’s suite, a volunteer as support staff for the Alaskan senator’s bold but failed bid for the VicePresidency. Thus I had enough political credentials to station myself in Mailer traffic, mostly fleeting—smiles, nods, occasional terse friendly “newsy” remarks. These encounters were hardly the stuff of a memorable adventure. | |||
But there was one event where I could watch Norman in slow motion. A | |||
mutual friend from Tampa hosted a glitzy Fort Lauderdale party. Our host | |||
was a high-flying attorney (Rolls, yacht, and much more) and he had show | |||
business connections. Word got out. Local newspapers were alerted, especially society editors. There were multiple guests of honor and Norman was one of them. Although the Tampa party was Maileresque, this Lauderdale bash promised a new Mailer perspective—his behavior among his social peers. Would there be party room peace or conflict? | |||
Once again, the combative Mailer failed to show. He was in a very good | |||
mood. Other celebrities were also quite subdued combative. There was | |||
Johnny Weissmuller (an elderly Tarzan) and Mickey Rooney (a bit grayish | |||
and wrinkled but as short and peppy as ever). Always looming in the room | |||
was Senator Mike Gravel, a proven scene-stealer. Norman worked the room | |||
the best he could. | |||