Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s next book, The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George
Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon, will be published by Viking in July
2025.
Laurie Gwen Shapiro
By Laurie Gwen Shapiro
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Culture The Time I Almost Saw Walt Disney Vomit
In Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s interview with Sam Adams, a former Hollywood errand boy-turned-dealmaker, Adams turns to Shapiro and asks her if he ever told her about the time that he saw Walt Disney nearly vomit. She asks him to elaborate and, well, here’s the rest of the story: “One day when I was at the…
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Culture Meet Sam Adams — Humphrey Bogart’s Assistant and I.B. Singer’s Dealmaker
I met retired Hollywood film and literary agent Sam Adams while I was on a research trip for my forthcoming book. When I introduced myself, he was reading a dog-eared copy of perhaps the greatest of true Antarctic tales, Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s “The Worst Journey in the World.” Sam, now just shy of his 90th birthday,…
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Culture This 101-Year-Old’s Uncle Was the Strongest Jew in the World
Editor’s Note: On December 5, Martha Gold died at 101. As a tribute to her, we are re-publishing her interview with Laurie Gwen Shapiro about Martha’s uncle Max Rosenstock, who at one time was known as the strongest man in the world. When you get word there’s a 101-year-old who’s a historic witness to a…
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Culture Meet Harry Swimmer — CNN’s Jewish Nominee For Hero of the Year
When CNN announced the ten finalists for their tenth annual “CNN Heroes” special, 86-year-old Harry Swimmer was eating his weekend lox and bagels with family and friends, keeping his best poker face between bites. Swimmer knew he was among the finalists, but had signed a confidentiality agreement, and had even kept the news from his…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of the NBC Peacock
“Why would anybody be interested in my mishegas?” Larry Pomerance is 82 and still smokes. He sits on a windy terrace eating a bialy. I’ve known Larry for eight years and I can say without qualification that what he terms “mishegas” is funny and worth sharing. Not that I didn’t have to practically pull teeth…
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Culture My Lower East Side Neighbor Caught Adolf Eichmann
For a long time, when I was growing up in the building I still live in on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I knew one neighbor only as Peter. Tall, bronzed and muscled, Peter lived on the 13th floor. If I was riding the elevator alone with him, he always said, “Hello, how’s your mother?” in…
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Culture They Were the Good Kids on the Lower East Side
The three alter kockers looked much younger than their years when they greeted each other at the Seward Park Library on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Mentally sharp, with considerable color in their skin and dyed hair, they seemed giddy that they’d been chosen to be the first formal interview subjects for The New York Public…
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Culture The 100-Year Vision of Moscot Eyewear
There’s an old Yiddish expression my Lower East Side grandmother Ida was fond of: “When luck happens, offer it a seat.” Luck happened. My family has been loyal customers of Moscot Eyewear for nearly 100 of its 100 years; my bespectacled elderly father will buy from no one else, and my grandparents bought there when…
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