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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

owner/publisher, who used to appear. To get to his office, he had to go through the city room, usually unable to quite make it on his own. There was a man by the name of Wilbur Forrest, who was his assistant, and had been a foreign correspondent. Wilbur was small, and he would get his shoulder under Reid's armpit and sort of guide him through the city room into his office.

Q:

What was the reason that he had trouble?

Heiskell:

Alcohol. I think I was once interviewed by Mrs. Reid. I forget when. I guess it may have been when--a friend of mine told me that there was a job available in that new magazine called Life, “if you want to take a chance, why don't you apply.” I said, what kind of a job was it. It was sort of a glorified picture/copy-boy, and I did apply. I was interviewed by the picture editor, Wilson Hicks. I thought I was doing quite well, answering all the questions honestly. The last question was, “And what do you know about pictures?” I quite honestly answered, “Nothing.” I, therefore, didn't get the job. A few months went by and I was invited over to Life by the number two man, Dan Longwell. They had had a science and medicine editor who had all the qualifications. He was the son of the Egyptologist Beard and he had all the qualifications except he had zero sense of journalism. So they'd just gotten rid of him and, I guess, decided that what they wanted was not somebody who knew much about science and medicine, who wasn't too knowledgeable, but maybe could be sufficiently interested in it so that he could make it interesting to others. So I went through the same Q and A with Dan





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