Old Reads #8: Mr. Big Stuff
Can you really say goodbye to all that?
As promised, we are back with part two of my Sex and the City nostalgia tour. As I went down the rabbit hole of Candace Bushnell’s New York for Old Reads #7, I stumbled across an article far too juicy to be relegated to the Extra Credit section.
Ron Galotti was Mr. Big. He was a titan of the business side of the magazine industry, and a prominent figure in New York’s power elite. No surprise that his decision to leave it all behind for a pastoral life in Vermont was newsworthy. It is more of a surprise that it merited more than a write up in the business section of the Times; it was the cover feature for New York’s May 2004 issue, written by Jay McInerney.
Novelists make the absolute best profile writers, and New York was the perfect vehicle for this piece. It was published early in Adam Moss’s tenure as editor-in-chief, and indicative of his editorial point of view; a savvy, omni-curious New Yorker speaking to his peers. Masquerading as a media feature, the article confronts the age old question: when is the right time to get out of the rat race? Or, for Galotti’s contemporaries and New York’s readers: is there ever a right time?
Goodbye, Mr. Big
By: Jay McInerney for New York
Published: May 10, 2004
Did You Know?
During a brief playboy period (that would serve as the source material for Mr. Big), Ron dated the “man-eater” model Janice Dickinson. They met at a party thrown by Anna Wintour, where Dickinson was in attendance with her then boyfriend, Sylvester Stallone. Ever the shrewd businessman, when he noticed Janice and Sly fighting, he pounced, saying “Fuck him, come with me.” Janice took the deal.
The specter of Talk magazine looms large throughout this piece. In 1999, Galotti partnered with Tina Brown to launch what was supposed to be the next great magazine. Instead, it folded after little more than two years, a harbinger of what lay ahead for even more established publications.
Galotti was fired not once but twice from Condé Nast.
1993: Shortly after Graydon Carter took over Vanity Fair, Galotti, was ousted as publisher. Reduced ad sales was one of the official causes, but surely a contributing factor was the, shall we say, tension with then CEO, Bernie Leser. When Galotti was asked what he wanted for the company’s future he said, “I want to see Bernie Leser walk out of the building and get hit by a bus. I don’t want him killed, just hurt so he has to go back to Australia or New Zealand or wherever the hell he came from.”
2003: He was fired again after a short stint at GQ, a rebound role after the failure of Talk. He left the building with only his golf clubs.
All roads lead back to Lizzie Grubman: her father, Alan, negotiated his severance package.
McInerney expertly weaves in a party report from Padma Lakshmi & Salman Rushdie’s wedding, highlighting Galotti’s absence as evidence of the road not taken. The fact that we learn that the following people were in attendance is just icing on the cake:
Diane Von Furstenburg
Steve Martin
Paul Auster
Michael Cunninghan
LOU REED
Gallotti personally taught Chris Noth how to pronounce “absofuckinglutely.”
Words of Note
The last time I saw [Galotti], he was presiding over the extravagant Talk magazine launch party on Liberty Island in the summer of ‘99, standing next to a radiant Tina Brown at the base of the Statue of Liberty, interrupting his chat with Salman Rushdie to kiss Kyra Sedgwick on the cheek, and later rapping on stage with Queen Latifah.
Jay McInerney, people! Now THAT is how you conjure an image. Sidenote: this is the party where Rushdie would meet Padma Lakshmi—one of the longer lasting legacies of Talk.
Extra Credit
The launch of Talk really was that big of a deal, and it’s opening party was as star studded as the quote above would suggest. So much so, that the late, great David Carr revisited the launch party for his New York Times column.
If McInerney has whet your appetite for Rushdie-Lakshmi wedding coverage, you can find their full wedding story here.
For posterity’s sake, I must include Jay’s most iconic profile—Chloë Sevigny for The New Yorker—though you have probably already read it. And if you haven’t…what are you waiting for??