Jerry Della Femina may have helped inspire Mad Men, but the legendary ad executive insists that the AMC TV series makes the 1960s ad industry look tamer than it really was, said Will Dean in the London Guardian. Della Femina’s 1970 memoir, From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor, has just been reprinted to capitalize on Mad Men‘s popularity, and it’s a reminder that the fun of working in a creative ad office back then only began with the three-martini lunches. “We made Mad Men look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” Della Femina says. “We were much wilder, we drank more, we carried on more.” For 25 years, Della Femina’s agency even ran a secret holiday contest in which everybody voted for the person they would most like to sleep with. The winners were given a weekend together at the Plaza Hotel.
Della Femina doesn’t wish for a return of the casual bigotry of the early ’60s, said Katie Roiphe in the Financial Times. As a young copywriter, he was once told that Ford Motor didn’t want “his kind” working on its account. But he does miss the fact that no one had to feel guilty about smoking a pack a day or pouring scotch at their desks. He especially misses the advent of the sexual revolution, and the creative flowering it inspired. “The advertising business went wild,” he says. “I encouraged it because nothing got creative people to come in early and leave late better than the prospect of a sexual adventure.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”