August 9, 2026 / 10:23 AM EDT
/ CBS News
"The Kingdom and the Power," Gay Talese's 1969 book, recounted power plays and family feuds at The New York Times, where he rose from copyboy to reporter. A work of non-fiction that read like a well-observed novel, it was his first bestseller – one that took Talese six years to write. "I've always been a very slow writer," he said.
"Most journalists are restless voyeurs who see the warts on the world, the imperfections in people and places. The sane scene that is much of life, the great portion of the planet unmarked by madness, does not lure them like riots and raids, crumbling countries, and sinking ships, bankers banished to Rio and burning Buddhist nuns – gloom is their game, the spectacle their passion, normality their nemesis."From "The Kingdom and the Power"
"I want the reader to have a picture in mind, as I have myself," Talese said.
Gay Talese is a legend among writers and reporters. His career, both celebrated and, at times, controversial, spans some 70 years. Recently, the New York Public Library acquired his professional and personal archive.
The first piece he ever wrote in The New York Times was about The New York Times, specifically the lit-up sign that broadcast headlines in five-foot-high letters. That sign, which revolved around the Times building, was a fixture in Times Square during the early 20th century. Hardly anyone thought about who changed the lightbulbs. "There used to be a guy on the fourth floor of that building who would write in a machine that would put the bulbs around the building that made the headlines," Talese said.
Electrician James J. Torpey got his name in the paper. Talese didn't. But, he'd found his calling. "I wanted to be the lamplighter for those people who were in the dark," Talese said. "That was my main ambition. I wanted to write about people and make them known enough to have to have an obituary written about them, 'cause they were known."
Robert Boynton, a professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, called Talese "the most curious person I've ever met. He was on his way somewhere once, and some guy was doing construction outside, and he started interviewing him."
By 1965, magazines were fat with advertising, and populated by great storytellers. Esquire, under the editor Harold Hayes, was a beacon for writers like Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Talese.
"I had a contract, one year," Talee recalled. "Hayes said, 'You could write three pieces on your people.' And, I had to write about Frank."
His resulting 1966 article, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," is one of the most famous magazine stories ever. "You had to be impressed with Sinatra," Talese said. "I'm not fawning on people. I keep my reserves. But I was respectful of Sinatra."
"Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel—only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence, and it affects not only his own psyche but also seems to cause a kind of psychosomatic nasal drip within dozens of people who work for him, drink with him, love him, depend on him for their own welfare and stability. A Sinatra with a cold can, in a small way, send vibrations through the entertainment industry and beyond as surely as a president of the United States, suddenly sick, can shake the national economy."From "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold"
Boynton said, "Talese really takes this sort of cinematic approach, which did not exist before in the very sort of flat, corporate writing of, say, Time or Newsweek that really was dominant in that time."
But Talese said he didn't know "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" would resonate as it did. "I didn't care about the Sinatra piece," he said. "And I have written many good pieces." From "Mr. Bad News" (about Alden Whitman, the obituary writer at The New York Times), to profiles of aging sports figures, like Joe DiMaggio, Floyd Patterson, and Joe Louis.
His profile of Louis, the boxer, starts with him not talking to Talese, but talking to his wife. It's an example of what Talese calls "the art of hanging around. I hope I win their confidence to allow me to accompany them on what they do."