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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Q:

Did the “autobiographies” sell?

Cerf:

The first one was very successful. The second one, partially, the third one beginning to go down-hill. Luckily, he stopped himself just about the time we would have done it for him because he was running out of invention.

Another wonderful story about Elliot Paul was when he was living in Paris after the war. The King and Queen of Great Britain were received in France. That was the first time that they had come over to France since the war had ended, and a great luncheon was given for them. For this luncheon, the great chef of every province of France came up to cook his famous dish and the great wines of every province were bought for this thing. So they had all of the finest wines in France. Old Elliot, who was a clever fellow, realized that they would never have a chance to touch one-twentieth of those wines and most of the lunch would go uneaten and be ruined. The King and Queen were at the luncheon about three-quarters of an hour. To eat this meal would take about eighteen hours. He didn't care about the food, but the wine that had been given, he realized, was the gieatest wine in France. So, the afternoon of the luncheon, he applied to buy all of the wine that was left over from this lunch; and they were delighted to sell it to him at cost. He got himself a superb wine cellar. He was offered a profit of about 700 per cent on this purchase. All of the wine merchants in France the next day came around to get in on this, but Elliot had out-thought them by twenty-four





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