Monster Career.(The Talk of the Town)(Tom Meehan; 'Young Frankenstein')

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 15-OCT-07

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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

1959: Guy walks into a bar in Greenwich Village. Spies a friend, Tom Meehan, a twenty-seven-year-old staff writer for this magazine. Guy tells Meehan he's just come from a party where the actresses Uta Hagen and Ina Claire happened to be present.

Three years later, Meehan wakes up one morning with an idea: "Uta . . . Ina . . . Hmm." He compiles a list of euphoniously named luminaries: Ava Gardner, Yma Sumac, Oona O'Neill, Abba Eban, Ida Lupino, Aga Khan, Eva Gabor, etc. The result, "Yma Dream," an instant-classic piece of short fiction, is published in The New Yorker, February 24, 1962.

Another nine years pass. Meehan gets a call from Martin Charnin, who is directing a television special starring Anne Bancroft. An "Yma...

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