First the unscripted brawl. Never seen the like on network television. This was what television was to work very hard to re-create decades later in 'reality TV', only it happened on a talk show, unedited and it involved three writers, 'intellectuals' and personalities, one of which was drunk, incredibly belligerent, arrogant and involved in a feud with another and yes the entire audience eventually. Cavett was the host/participant, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer the other two famous egos, and this train-wreck went on and on and on. Now I will draw your attention to that forgotten lady, the 'observer' sitting there trying to create civility. My You tube post is pasted below Janet Flanner, pen-name 'Genet', She was the Paris Correspondent/columnist for the New Yorker Magazine for 50 years, and the same sex lover of Solita Solano for just as long ( to explain Mailers homophobic crack near the end) who helped create the unique 'New Yorker' style of writing. She introduced contemporaries in Europe and America to Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, André Gide, Jean Cocteau among others. She worked as a war correspondent throughout WWII and wrote an influential 3 part series on Hitler, covered Lindberg's crossing of the Atlantic, the Nuremburg Trials, The Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Suez Crisis, and the political rise of Charles DeGaule. In other words, she was as successful and influential a writer, as these two jerks, only she did it as an ex-patriot journalist ,novelist and essayist in France. Here is another clip that showcases her career, the art of writing, feminism, modern art, the personalities of Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Heminway, DeGaul and 1950's Paris.
