Reviews

When American celebrity was mainly reserved for swells and gentiles, gatekeeper Sherman Billingsley set the standard for glamour. In his Stork Club's smoky magic circle, powerful New York columnists like Walter Winchell chronicled diners and drinkers for the consumption of hungry "nobodies" on a limited budget. Ex-bootlegger Billingsley hosted the likes of superdebs, the Kennedys, Ethel Merman, Tallulah Bankhead, and J. Edgar Hoover, dispensing orchids, perfume, and whiskey on favorites with a generosity he recouped from tourists' tables. New York Times culture reporter Blumenthal dispassionately captures the city's pampered class, its glaring sexual double standards, and its unabashed bigotry. Tabloid-style, he depicts women as the "svelte redhead," the "willowy green-eyed brunette," or "blond and blue-eyed." Blumenthal reveals that Billingsley bugged staff and patron conversations. Facing down death threats, extortion, discrimination suits, and union pickets out front, he kept the nightclub going from Prohibition until its demise in 1965 when, as Jimmy Breslin, said, "New York changed, and the Stork Club became silly and old." Recommended for public libraries.--Elaine Machleder, Bronx, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Errol Flynn, Rita Hayworth, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Marilyn Monroe, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor--the list of regulars who patronized New York's exclusive Stork Club is a who's who of early- to mid-20th century society. But this lively, resonant account from Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Blumenthal (Once Through the Heart, etc.) of the club's rise and fall is more than an exercise in name-dropping. At its heart, it's the story of Sherman Billingsley, the Oklahoma bootlegger who opened the Stork during Prohibition and spent the next four decades keeping gangsters and unions at bay while coddling every rich, influential and famous person he could, plying them with gifts ranging from pure-bred puppies to perfume (called Cigogne, French for "stork"). Billingsley, who served time in Leavenworth for bootlegging, wound up in New York on the heels of one of his convict brothers. There he continued bootlegging (hiding behind his legit business as a drugstore owner) and made a name in real estate before opening the Stork. Media savvy and skilled at mar-keting, Billingsley had a knack for befriending the right people, among them gossip columnist Walter Winchell, who held court at the club for years. The Stork flourished during pre- and postwar years--an era captured vividly by Blumenthal (and well illustrated with a rich supply of period photos). The disillusionment that blanketed the U.S. after the Kennedy assassination, however, heralded the end of those heady times, whichBlumenthal colorfully brings back to life in all their glamour. But the pleasant haze of nostalgia he creates (in telling details such as the 14-karat gold chain inside the club's door) doesn't obscure the ugly union-busting actions that helped bring the club down. 75 b&w photos. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.