Gigolo; Playboy 1961

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GIGOLO

I ain't got nobody...I'm so sad and lonely...Nobody cares for me.
--Louis Prima, "Just a Gigolo"

    Sounds like my theme song!
    Julius Keller (author of INNS AND OUTS) had his obituary in the New York
Times, 27 February 1945, pg. 19, col. 5:

_Noted Restauranteur Dies--_
_Proprietor of Maxim's During the Prohibition Era_
     (...) He was known to many as "the father of cafe society," and also was
reputed to have been one of the first to introduce the gigolo, or male
dancing partner, to this country.  One of his original male dancing partners,
he said in his book, was the late Rudolph Valentino.

     Unfortunately, I couldn't check the Rudolph Valentino file in the NYPL
today.  I'll do that later in the week, and I'll try to find "gigolo."  I
went to the Strand Bookstore today, but not a single Valentino book was on
the shelves.
     A headline in the May 21, 1922 New York Tribune was "Valentino Is
Arrested as A Bigamist."  I didn't see "gigolo" there, but "bambino" was in
the article.  (Babe Ruth probably got that nickname this year.)  At least I
came away with a 1922 "big picture."
    OED's "gigolo," with a first citation from the Women's Home Companion of
November 1922, does not mention either Keller or Valentino.

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PLAYBOY 1961

   I've been slowly going through Playboy and Esquire, for the drinks and
other articles.  I expect to find a "singles bar" antedate in Playboy in the
late 1960s.  I'm also looking for "the whole nine yards," which I didn't find
in the football articles in the 1960s Sports Illustrateds.

February 1961, pg. 65, cartoon--The Meaningful Relationship.  (Jules
Feiffer--ed.)

April 1961, pg. 57, cartoon--"Hey, look at Miss Summers without her glasses.
Why--why, she's beautiful!"  (Humorous comment made at a nudist colony.
Nigel Rees's CLICHES, pg. 33,  has "but Miss --, you're beautiful!" but Rees
notes "no citation to hand"--ed.)

April 1961, pg. 111, cartoon--"I wouldn't know--I'm a leg man myself."
(RHHDAS has 1958, then Playboy from 1969--ed.)

April 1961, pg. 116, cols. 1-2, cartoon--"What do you mean, 'Let's not make a
federal case out of it'?"  (Supreme Court justices to lawyer--ed.)

May 1961, pg. 21, col. 1--Herb Caen, the _San Francisco Chronicle_'s
chronicler of choice news and patter, inspired by the conversational clinkers
we have published in the past, has been sending us his own nominations for
phrases he can live without.  Among Herb's latest:  "Like so"..."A real
crazy-type thing"..."A funny bit"..."They never had it so good"..."You don't
know me from Adam, but"..."So there I was with my bare face hanging
out"..."That gasses me"..."I'm hip"..."Believe you me"..."I made a
boo-boo"..."You must be out of your head"..."That'll be the day"..."Let me
clue you."  To which we add our own, in appreciation: "How _about_ that?"

May 1961, pg. 73--With him was his current sweetmeat, Thursday Schwartz, the
new teenage sensation, sixteen years old and five feet two inches of
delectable ponytailed juvenile deliquency.  ("Built like a brick doll's
house," Harry Kurnitz once said of her.) (RHHDAS has brick "outhouse" from
1933--ed.)

May 1961, pg. 56, cartoon--"When Consuelo says no--she means NO!"  (Not in
any catchphrase book--ed.)

June 1961, pg. 45, cartoon--"What do you do in real life?"  (RHHDAS real
life/world??--ed.)

June 1961, pg. 97--DICK GREGORY: a funny thing happened on the way to the
lunch counter.  (Partridge's DOCP has 1966, Rees's DOC has 1964--ed.)

July 1961, pg. 51, cartoon--"I couldn't say--I'm a stranger here myself."
(Gahan Wilson cartoon of two alien beings.  Rees's DOC has Ogden Nash from
1938--ed.)

September 1961, pg. 30, col. 2--Who remembers: (...) aggies? (...) stickball?
 (Could the Bronx word "haggies" be "aggies"?  David Shulman tells me he
remembers it as "akkies"--ed.)

September 1961, pg. 165, col. 1--(Long article on the history of swearing.
The f-word is explained here--ed.)

October 1961, pg. 99, cartoon--"What in the world is a beautiful girl like
you doing in a place like this?"  (Spoken by a man to a woman in bed--ed.)

November 1961, pg. 117, cartoon--"I'm interested in a girl who seemingly has
everything.  What would you suggest to get some of it."  (Nigel Rees's DOC
states that the "everything" catchphrase was used that year in BREAKFAST AT
TIFFANY'S--ed.)

November 1961, pg. 180, cols. 1-2, cartoon--"It's been three years since
Brother Dennis was kicked upstairs."  (Friars use this then-current business
phrase at a graveyard--ed.)

December 1961, pg. 7, cols. 1-2--(Maurice Samuel, author of THE WORLD OF
SHOLOM ALEICHEM, comments on the "Swearing" article.  He mentions that he
can't find "Drop dead!" in Yiddish, but that it may be Jewish.  The authentic
Yiddish is "Ver gerbarget!" or "Get killed!"--ed.)