Letter of Recommendation: Life Magazine

If Paul thereaux 's book was the last on earth...

That was not classy. When someone meets someone, it's always a test. It can't be anything other than a test. Maybe you disliked that he thought he was better than you. I happen to think that most people are better than you. You should have known that you were being tested. And he would not have invited you to his house unless he liked you. So the thing you objected to was his ego. But you didn't admit to that in your piece.

The piece was not about Life Magazine, either. It makes no more sense to recommend Life Magazine than to recommend being born in 1945.

Giving a eulogy at someone's funeral, then writing that they had a big head is uncool.

I remember reading about Kitty Genovese. I was younger than 10.

In addition to the hit TV show, "Adventures in Paradise" (1959-62), Gardner McKay also starred in a cult movie, "I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew" (1968). The TV series made McKay famous, yet Theroux doesn't even mention it in the article.

Sad, that you never got beyond the "test frustration." The first time that I knew that we were being segregated by type was 7th grade, although we had been tested forever. Suddenly, we were with similar intellects and interests in classes that moved from math to art to science and English with the same 28 students. Jump to Peace Corps training in the late 60s, where every move was noted and assessed. And deselected if disappointing. Get over it. Especially with technology, we are all testing each other every day. My daughters survived middle and high school partly with technology allowing them to partner with those similar minds and talents across thousands of miles. Whole new world. Next time, go to that dinner. And enjoy.

My strong first memory of looking at Life (I was seven) was the issue which had the horrifying photos of the starving Jews in concentration camps. I have never forgotten them, and they certainly ended of my innocence.

I don't begin to understand a mentality that would reject someone's offered friendship because of a resentment of being "tested". I guess that's a male thing. I do understand wanting to have coffee with a stranger before deciding to invite the stranger home. I think Theroux lost out. And isn't wise enough to understand it.

Nevertheless, one look at that face and "Gardner McKay" popped right into my head. Which is astonishing considering I have such trouble with names now I forgot my sister's when I wanted to introduce her to someone. But I remember as a girl having a slight crush on the handsome pseudo sea captain. Who turned out to be not just an actor, but a man whose love of the sea was quite real, and who valued real adventure more than being a celebrity. He seemed like one of the genuine heroes. Still does.

Theroux is honest enough to relate his own high self-regard, paradoxical feelings of inferiority, and prickly sensitivity to being patronized by someone obviously more open-hearted and likeable than he.

Like him I grew up with Life and the window it opened to the wider world.

I enjoyed this essay, as I've enjoyed the several Theroux books I've read, because of the author's honesty, perspective and great talent as a writer.

One day in the 1980's, Oxford Books had both new and used books stores. Both were equally delicious places to leisurely enjoy. I wandered about in the used book store and found a tremendous collection of Life magazines. The one I first picked up was from the 1940's, with an Army general on the cover. I found a place to sit and immediately that issue of Life transported me back to WWII. Toward the back of the magazine was a half page ad for Pond's Cold Cream, the tagline reading something like "She's young, she's lovely, she's engaged, she uses Ponds Cold Cream". I gasped and said very loudly, that's my mother!

She was a beautiful woman and a famous photographer in New York had taken the main photo. As the adopted daughter of her second marriage, I was looking at photos of a woman I never knew. She looked happy and the ad firmly placed her in the upper echelon of society, marrying a man from a well-known family and himself, an injured pilot who wound up in Walter Reed recovering from being shot down, a sort of war hero.

I never knew much about my adoptive mother during the years she was alive. She was definitely not happy, socially isolated and given to drinking and Valium to cope with life.

What pleasure it gave me to know my mother had shined, was celebrated and was full of joy.

Thanks to Life magazine, I was given a window into who she was, one I never got in all our days as mother and daughter.

It is sad that ego has prevented the author from striking up a friendship with his hero. I have encountered such drinks-preceded-by-unplanned dinner social tests, and I always felt good passing them. They have led to long term friendships and business relationships.

This essay bothers me. It feels self-serving, as if the point is that Gardner ended up "forgotten," while the "humble" Theroux became a well-known literary star who deigned to speak at the funeral of a man he once envied but long ago surpassed. Self-aggrandizement presented as generosity.

Does Paul Theroux make everything about Paul Theroux?

For me, seeing that Life magazine cover was a jolt back to being 14 and, for want of a better word, in love. Do we still call them heartthrobs? I carried that magazine back and forth to the beach for days, until my mother told me to stop showing it to everybody. When McKay's television show, Adventures in Paradise, finally came on in September, how could it not be anticlimactic? For one thing, it was startling that he spoke in a voice other than God's. I really liked him better as mine & on a magazine cover.

Fortunate Mr. McKay, that Theroux declined the dinner invitation. The jealous edges in this article are painful. How did Theroux end up being asked to speak ... one can only speculate. But straightforwardness does not suggest itself. This entire article is not something Mr. Theroux, to borrow his word, should crow about.

Here's a link to the article about Hannes Lindemann and his kayak: https://books.google.com/books?id=Mz8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA92&lr=&r...

Like Mr. Theroux, LIFE magazine was more important to me as a young kid than I realized at the time. Slow at learning to read, I devoured the photo journalism magazine each Friday as it arrived at our house. Big gorgeous pictures that told current stories from all facets of the world. But seeing it all turned out not to be enough for me and I began reading the slim writings about each photo and encouraged myself to learn how to pronounce and understand the words that opened up the photos more fully! LIFE was one of my great teachers and I miss it all the time.
I remember Gardner McKay and his TV series "Adventures in Paradise" which ran for a couple of seasons on CBS I believe. He was everything that this kid wanted to be and I've often wondered what happened to him. Am very happy to know that he had what appears to be a fully and rewarding life in Hawaii.
As for Mr. Theroux, happily he is still around to fill us in on his own adventures.

Hi Paul,
I feel a bit of familiarity because we were introduced... in 1962, in the front yard of the Univ. of P.R. I had just flunked out of Cornell Architecture. I am a tall, handsome, dim-witted fellow.
We got "Life," too, but my recollections are of movie girls with nice glands. National Geographic was the rag that instilled wanderlust.
When he was 8yrs old, I gave my gran-brat "Huckleberry Finn." A few weeks later, he had rigged a curtain rod in over-the-shoulder mode with an improvised sack. At the front door, he called to his mother, saying he was checking out. She responded, "Hold on for a minute while I get the camera. I want your picture so I can remember you." He caved in a shower of tears.
My next trip is to Kunming. If the fickle finger dumps me in Honolulu, (again) I may hunt you down. (You'll prolly be someplace else.)

Winthrop Allen

"Adventures in Paradise." Ah, yes, I remember it well. Well, sort of. It was a long time ago. But I remember that I liked it and I thought Capt. Adam Troy was a really cool guy, so I figured Gardner McKay must be, too. Looks like my instincts were right.