From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor - Jerry Della Femina [8]
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Take booze. At the very large, established agencies there’s no casual boozing during the day. Clark Gable was always knocking down a quickie before a meeting. At Bates, there’s no liquor for the troops. You just don’t drink if you’re a troop. You may drink at Bates if you’re one of the very, very biggies, but then only in your office. Whenever an agency picks up an account somebody might be a sport and buy some New York State champagne. At J. Walter Thompson, forget it. They’ve barely accepted the fact that such a thing as liquor exists. For years, Thompson wouldn’t even take a liquor account because their chairman was anti-booze. The surest way to be fired at Thompson in those days was to show up bagged.
Go through all the larger agencies and there’s very little drinking going on. Oh, a guy might drink at lunch, and there’s always a handful of guys at an agency with what everyone calls ‘a problem.’ But there’s always a few guys at a brokerage house with the same problem.
When I worked at Fuller & Smith & Ross seven years ago there was an account executive who was quite a boozer. You knew that if you wanted to talk to him you talked to him like at eleven in the morning because at 3:00 p.m. you’re talking but the guy isn’t there – he’s out of it. He’s drunk, and he’s doing some pretty strange things. Those guys who do booze – the hard core of agency drinkers – they’re all bagged by noon. The only thing you have to remember when you’ve got business to do with them is be sure and get to them before lunch.
At our agency at the end of the day we haul out the booze, get a bucket of ice, and whoever wants a drink takes one. At the newer and looser agencies around town they do a little boozing. No one’s uncomfortable about my seeing them drink, because they’ve seen me drink. No one feels uncomfortable about opening a bottle at our agency. An account executive can run over and grab a bottle here without me saying, ‘Boy, is he having a drinking problem. We’re going to have to watch him closely.’ There’s probably more drinking done at our agency than at most other agencies in New York.
There are always a couple of guys who spur the drinking on. When I worked at Delehanty, Kurnit & Geller, I was one of the guys who did the spurring. My thing was I had to steal Shep Kurnit’s booze. He was the president, and I had to get at his stuff. For a period of six months, whenever Shep would have a client in, he would open his liquor cabinet – which he kept locked – and reach in for his booze and it was gone. He knew I was taking it. The whole agency would wait for me to steal it – that was the scene. Finally he came up to me one day and he said, ‘Jerry, look, I won’t say anything but you’ve got to tell me how you get into the liquor cabinet. I’ll buy it for you, but you just have to tell me how you get into a locked liquor cabinet.’
Shep had a letter opener on his desk, given to him by the One Hundred Million Club, a direct-mail organization. I took the letter opener and said, ‘Watch. I’m going to open the cabinet faster than you do with a key.’ I shoved the letter opener into the cabinet and popped the lock without any trouble. The cabinet door swung open. Shep looked at me and said, ‘O.K.I’ll leave the cabinet open, but don’t screw around with my letter opener.’ Shep is such a beautiful person.
Sometimes people at agencies don’t actually booze in their offices; instead, they hang out at certain bars. For instance, the Doyle, Dane people hang out at the Teheran, which is a bar over on Forty-fourth Street. It’s their bar, Big carrying-on bar, big coming-and-going bar. Friday nights are the heavy nights at the Teheran. Guys who left Doyle, Dane fifteen years ago find their way back to the Teheran on Friday nights. The Delehanty people used to hang out a lot at the Mount D’Or, over on East Forty-sixth, and