Word: petrillos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When James Caesar Petrillo finally agreed to a series of interviews for TIME'S cover story on him in the Jan. 26 issue, he shook a warning finger at our Chicago bureau reporters and boomed: "You do I a cover on Colonel McCormick and he's gotta newspaper and can answer back. You do one on Roosevelt or Truman and they can get on the radio and talk to millions of people. I can't get my story across. If I could have all the People in America in one hall for one hour...
This approach was familiar to Eleanor Steinert, who has covered the Chicago angles of TIME'S Petrillo stories for the last two years. Her first brush with the boss of the musicians' union was a by-product of the press conference at which he said: "We don't want any victories or any rights. All we want to do is live." Western Union transmitted it as "love," and TIME printed it that way. At a later press conference Petrillo leveled a finger at Miss Steinert and hollered: "There's that gal from TIME magazine that said...
Since then, Miss Steinert has been devoted to Petrillo-as a news source. A former member of an opera company, she appreciates a good performance, which he gives, and she has always been able to get a direct answer from him to a direct question. This time Petrillo came through in style on both counts. He had played hard-to-get when he learned that he was to be the cover subject, but the entire Chicago staff descended on him and Petrillo, who can take a production as well as give one, croaked "Ya got me outnumbered" and gave down...
...while any negotiations involving Petrillo were always as unstable as nitroglycerin, neither side seemed to yearn for a showdown battle. For all their public outcry against him, the big men of the music industry respected, and in some cases, admired, Caesar Petrillo. He was honest, and until his mind was set, he was always open to persuasion. His word was as good as gold...
What did Jimmy want this time? "I love my enemies," he cried, "but they don't all love me. They say Petrillo's a son-of-a-bitch. All I want to do is keep up with the times. These companies progress-well, I just want to go along with them...