This is the infamous clip of the ten-minute brawl between Norman Mailer and Rip Torn in the film Maidstone. According to Wikipedia: as the camera rolled, Torn struck Mailer in the head with a hammer, intending to “kill his character.” Mailer’s scalp opened up, and a vicious fight ensued. With the camera still rolling, Torn [...]
Archive | December, 2008
NM on Charlie Rose
I posted a new link on the lower right of the front page to Charlie Rose’s web site. It shows all the interviews that he has had with Norman Mailer. The hours worth of video span over 10 years, from 1995 to 2008, including a memorial for those who died in 2007.
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Mailer’s 50th Bash
Bruce Klauber, writer and jazz musician, recounts Norman Mailer’s 50th birthday celebration in February 1973. He writes: Always the publicity hound, which is why Mailer was as much a “personality” as he was a writer, he decided in February of 1973 to throw himself a 50th birthday bash. But this would be no mere party. [...]
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Two Announcements
From President J. Michael Lennon: I am happy to announce that Professor Camille Paglia will be the keynote luncheon speaker at the Washington conference. She will speak on Friday, October 23. More details to follow. Also, we had a cancellation on one of the leather-bound, signed (Kennedy, DeLillo, Doctorow and Gunter Grass) copy of the [...]
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Frost/Nixon and Mailer
Norman Mailer is mentioned in Allen Barra’s review of the new film by Ron Howard: Frost/Nixon. Berra comments that Mailer, along with Gore Vidal and Philip Roth, attempted to probe the psyche of Nixon in literature. Berra writes: Mailer, not entirely unsympathetic, probably came the closest to pinpointing Nixon’s Rosebud. At the 1968 Republican Convention, [...]
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