Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [6]
One day Mrs. Dean spotted Miley in the lobby of the Tampa Terrace Hotel. She pointed to him and said to Dizzy, “There’s that fat sonuvabitch. Give him his lumps.” Then, as I stood at Miley’s side, an innocent bystander, Dizzy and Miley got embroiled in a name-calling contest. As the argument grew more heated, some eighteen members of the St. Louis club, still in uniform after an exhibition game, trudged into the lobby. Dizzy, Miley, and I were surrounded. By this time the verbal exchange between Miley and Dizzy had grown so vicious that one of the players lashed out with a spiked shoe he was carrying in his hand. He had taken off his shoes so as not to slice up the hotel rug; he spared the rug but not Miley. This was the signal for a free-for-all, with the players taking swings at the two sports-writers. The result: a two-inch gash on Miley’s forehead, a black eye for Kupcinet, a number of broken lamps and smashed potted palms for the Tampa Terrace. And front-page headlines in the newspapers.
After Dizzy was traded to the Chicago Cubs, he and I made up our differences and became friends. But each year at spring-training time, the “Battle of the Tampa Terrace” has been revived by Vince Flaherty in his column. And each year, according to Flaherty’s version, I get braver and braver. The last time Vince revived the story, he had me annihilating – single-handedly – the entire St. Louis gang. The fact is, I would have been overmatched against the bat boy.
As a reporter, assistant sports editor, and columnist, I remained on the sports beat until 1943. In that year the late editor of the Times, Richard J. Finnegan, called me into his office. With him was Managing Editor Russ Stewart, who is now vice-president of the newspaper division of Fields Enterprises.
“We’re starting a new man-about-town column,” Mr. Finnegan said, “and Russ thinks you’re the man for it. I agree with him. How do you feel about it?”
I leaped at the opportunity. I liked writing sports, but I felt ready to branch out. I enjoyed going around town, visiting night clubs, mingling with show-business personalities, and talking to people in all walks of life.
On January 18, 1943, I wrote my first “Kup’s Column,” a name which Stewart had selected. “Kupcinet,” he had reasoned, “was too difficult a name to inflict on the public. Kup could easily be remembered.” The lead item in that first column concerned the disciplinary problems Irving Berlin was having with the cast of This Is the Army, then playing in Chicago. Ever since that day I’ve been fighting a daily deadline six times a week. But I wouldn’t trade the excitement of writing the column for any other job in the world. One does meet such interesting people, not to mention the bores, boors, and brutes who also inhabit my little world.
Many of the celebrities I write about have become deep, personal friends, and I like to feel that they would be my friends even if I didn’t write the column. (I like to feel that way. I don’t know that it is true.)
Bob Hope is among my closest friends in show business. I met “Ol’ Ski Nose” through his press agent, Mack Millar, shortly after I started writing the column. Over the years Bob and I have discovered that we like many of the same things – travel, golf, football, night life, and playing benefits. And we like people who like travel, golf, football, night life, and playing benefits. I have traveled with Hope over a large part of the globe as he makes his annual Christmas tours to entertain our GIs.
Down through the years, I have developed friendships and acquaintances with most of the big names of show business, from A for Adams