hearts and old must be sensitive to life.”
That is a typical letter plucked out of a large pile of mail on Erich Segal’s desk. There are thousands more, from old ladies who say they haven’t cried that hard since the Elsie Dinsmore books, from young girls who want to interview Erich for their high-school papers, from young men who have read the book and want to go to Harvard and play hockey and marry a girl who has leukemia. The mail has been coming in in sacks since about Valentine’s Day, 1970 (
Love Story
was published ten days before). The reviews of the book were exultant. The movie is now on the way to being the biggest film in history. And what has happened to Erich Segal as a result of all this? “I always was the way I am,” he says, “only I was less successful at it. The difference being that people used to think I was an idiot ass-hole dilettante and now—you can find a nice adjective.” Yes, Erich was always this way, only now he is more so. You can find a nice adjective.
“Erich, Erich, you’re so pale,” shouts Mrs. Jessie Rhine, a lady from Brooklyn, as Erich Segal, the rabbi’s son, signs an autograph for her and rumples his curly black hair and stubs his toe and rolls his big brown eyes. His aw-shucks thing. Mrs. Rhine loves it, loves Erich, loves his book, and she would very much like to slip him the name of her niece except that there is this huge group of ladies, there must be a hundred of them, who are also surrounding Erich and trying to slip him the names of
their
nieces. The ladies have just heard Erich give a speech to eleven hundred New York women at the Book and Author Luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria. Robert Ardrey, the anthropologist, who also spoke at the luncheon, is hanging around Erich, trying to soak up some of the attention, but itdoes no good. The ladies want Erich and they are all asking him where they can get a copy of his speech.
Erich’s speech. Erich has been giving his speech for months on the book-and-author circuit and he has found that it works. The audience especially responds to the way Erich’s speech praises
Love Story
at the expense of
Portnoy’s Complaint
and then rises to a crescendo in a condemnation of graphic sex in literature. “Have you any doubt,” Segal asks the ladies, “what happened between Romeo and Juliet on their wedding night?” The ladies have no doubt. “Would you feel any better if you had seen it?” No, eleven hundred heads shake, no. “Fortunately,” Segal concludes, “Shakespeare was neither curious nor yellow.” Wild applause. Everyone loves Erich’s speech. Everyone, that is, but Pauline Kael, the film critic, who heard an earlier version of Erich’s speech at a book-and-author luncheon in Richmond, Virginia, and told him afterward that he was knocking freedom of speech and sucking up to his audience. To which Erich replied, “We’re here to sell books, aren’t we?”
The phenomenon of the professor as performer is not a new one: many teachers thrive on exactly the kind of idolatry that characterizes groupies and middle-aged lady fans. Still, there has never been an academician quite as good as Erich at selling books, quite as … you can find a nice adjective. He checks in with his publicists once or twice a day. Is everything being done that could be? What about the Carson show? What about running the Canby review again? What about using Christopher Lehmann-Haupt’s quote in the ad? Is this anecdote right for Leonard Lyons? “I’ve been in this business fourteen years and Erich is the closest thing to what a publicist’s dream would be,” says Harper & Row’s Stuart Harris. “All authors feel they have to make a publicitytour, but they don’t know how to do it. Erich knows. He knows how to monopolize the time on a talk show without being obvious.
I
would know he’s obvious,
you
would know he’s obvious, but millions listening in don’t know. So many authors don’t know how to say anything about their
That is a typical letter plucked out of a large pile of mail on Erich Segal’s desk. There are thousands more, from old ladies who say they haven’t cried that hard since the Elsie Dinsmore books, from young girls who want to interview Erich for their high-school papers, from young men who have read the book and want to go to Harvard and play hockey and marry a girl who has leukemia. The mail has been coming in in sacks since about Valentine’s Day, 1970 (
Love Story
was published ten days before). The reviews of the book were exultant. The movie is now on the way to being the biggest film in history. And what has happened to Erich Segal as a result of all this? “I always was the way I am,” he says, “only I was less successful at it. The difference being that people used to think I was an idiot ass-hole dilettante and now—you can find a nice adjective.” Yes, Erich was always this way, only now he is more so. You can find a nice adjective.
“Erich, Erich, you’re so pale,” shouts Mrs. Jessie Rhine, a lady from Brooklyn, as Erich Segal, the rabbi’s son, signs an autograph for her and rumples his curly black hair and stubs his toe and rolls his big brown eyes. His aw-shucks thing. Mrs. Rhine loves it, loves Erich, loves his book, and she would very much like to slip him the name of her niece except that there is this huge group of ladies, there must be a hundred of them, who are also surrounding Erich and trying to slip him the names of
their
nieces. The ladies have just heard Erich give a speech to eleven hundred New York women at the Book and Author Luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria. Robert Ardrey, the anthropologist, who also spoke at the luncheon, is hanging around Erich, trying to soak up some of the attention, but itdoes no good. The ladies want Erich and they are all asking him where they can get a copy of his speech.
Erich’s speech. Erich has been giving his speech for months on the book-and-author circuit and he has found that it works. The audience especially responds to the way Erich’s speech praises
Love Story
at the expense of
Portnoy’s Complaint
and then rises to a crescendo in a condemnation of graphic sex in literature. “Have you any doubt,” Segal asks the ladies, “what happened between Romeo and Juliet on their wedding night?” The ladies have no doubt. “Would you feel any better if you had seen it?” No, eleven hundred heads shake, no. “Fortunately,” Segal concludes, “Shakespeare was neither curious nor yellow.” Wild applause. Everyone loves Erich’s speech. Everyone, that is, but Pauline Kael, the film critic, who heard an earlier version of Erich’s speech at a book-and-author luncheon in Richmond, Virginia, and told him afterward that he was knocking freedom of speech and sucking up to his audience. To which Erich replied, “We’re here to sell books, aren’t we?”
The phenomenon of the professor as performer is not a new one: many teachers thrive on exactly the kind of idolatry that characterizes groupies and middle-aged lady fans. Still, there has never been an academician quite as good as Erich at selling books, quite as … you can find a nice adjective. He checks in with his publicists once or twice a day. Is everything being done that could be? What about the Carson show? What about running the Canby review again? What about using Christopher Lehmann-Haupt’s quote in the ad? Is this anecdote right for Leonard Lyons? “I’ve been in this business fourteen years and Erich is the closest thing to what a publicist’s dream would be,” says Harper & Row’s Stuart Harris. “All authors feel they have to make a publicitytour, but they don’t know how to do it. Erich knows. He knows how to monopolize the time on a talk show without being obvious.
I
would know he’s obvious,
you
would know he’s obvious, but millions listening in don’t know. So many authors don’t know how to say anything about their
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