PHOENIX HOUSE FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT The Reminiscences of Jerry Taylor Columbia Center for Oral History Columbia University 2014 PREFACE The following oral history is the result of a recorded interview with Gerald “Jerry” Taylor conducted by Lance Thurner on September 23, 2014. This interview is part of the Phoenix House Foundation Oral History Project. The reader is asked to bear in mind that s/he is reading a verbatim transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose. Audio Transcription Center Session #1 Interviewee: Jerry Taylor Location: New York, New York Interviewer: Lance Thurner Date: September 23, 2014 Q: This is Lance Thurner and I’m interviewing Jerry Taylor here in the offices of Lippe and Taylor— Taylor: Lippe Taylor. Q: Lippe Taylor, on Park Avenue in Downtown Manhattan, and it’s September 23rd, about mid- day, and this is for the Phoenix House oral history project. Jerry, would you just say hello? Taylor: Hello, everyone! Q: OK. So, Jerry, I’d like to begin this interview as a life history interview, just talking a little bit about your childhood and your growing up, and kind of taking a long view of how you became involved with Phoenix House. So, can we just start a little bit with when, where were you born, and a little bit about your childhood? Taylor: Sure. I was born in Los Angeles in 1935. Grew up there, went to Fairfax High School. As a matter of fact, after I graduated college, I worked for a magazine called Coast, which was owned by Jeff Nathanson, who is now a Phoenix House board member on the West Coast, a little coincidence there. Taylor – Session 1 – 2 Q: Hmm! Taylor: Anyway, I moved to Chicago when I was twenty-seven, that would have been in 1962, and stayed there, had my own business for a while, for six years. Loved Chicago, great town! I think I grew up in Chicago. Then I moved— Q: And what was Chicago like at that time? Taylor: It was a great working city. Q: Yes. Taylor: I had a sales company, what I did was, I sold advertising space in magazines, and along with publishing a magazine. And for a salesman, when you could get in six, seven calls a day, that was great! You know, because you could make more sales. The more calls you make, the more sales you make. In New York, not so much. Maybe four calls, because people are busy, and they’re a little more snooty about accepting people. Q: Yes. What about the politics of Chicago and the life of the city? How did the— Taylor: Well, at that time, the original Mayor Daley was the mayor of Chicago. It was a very democratic city. The corruption was everywhere, but it was all underground. For example, I paid Taylor – Session 1 – 3 ten dollars a month to the police to park in an illegal parking space on Lower Wacker Drive. However, later I moved to Evanston, and during that time, I became a delegate to the 1968 Democratic Convention. At the time, I had a girlfriend who was Mary Travers from Peter, Paul and Mary. And so, she came to Chicago during that convention, and as you may remember, that convention was pretty bloody. The police were on the streets, there was rioting, there was mace, there was teargas, there was everything. Q: And how did you become a delegate to this? Taylor: Well, I lived in Evanston, and there were almost no Democrats in Evanston, so it wasn’t very difficult to become a delegate from Evanston. I joined the Democratic club, and I was voted to be a delegate. Q: Did you have political aspirations at this point at all? Taylor: No. No. Not at all. I just, you know, was very interested in what was going on at that time. And on the streets, well, we got a little mace, and we got a little teargas. And one of the more interesting things that happened was, I was in Senator Eugene McCarthy’s suite, and as you know, or may know, he was attempting to get the democratic nomination away from Hubert Humphrey. Anyway, after it was pretty much all over, there were riots in the street. It was, oh, maybe 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and one of his friends, Robert Lowell, United States Poet Laureate… Taylor – Session 1 – 4 Q: Robert Lowell? Taylor: He was in the suite as well. We were overlooking Grant Park, which is where the riots took place. And the National Guard was there, but it had all dissipated by then, because it was early in the morning, most everyone went home. There were a few kids still there, and they were sleeping in the park. And they were sleeping on their sides all curled up, and Eugene McCarthy looked out, and he said, “Look at all the question marks! I wish I had the answers.” And that was a very moving part of that experience. Q: Yes. And did you feel, in any way, like you identified with the anger in the streets, or did that seem like something that was— Taylor: I was one of the few people, along with Mary, who was both on the streets and in the convention. Mary was singing in the Bryant Park. And then we would go up, and we would get into the convention, see what’s going on there, and then we would hang out with Gene McCarthy. So, I really got a view of that craziness, I think, more than anyone else. Or, certainly as much. Q: Yes. And so, before going too much further from that, how did you meet Mary Travers, and how did that relationship begin? Taylor – Session 1 – 5 Taylor: I was publishing a magazine in Chicago called Big Ten, and it was a very financially limited. So, I was not only the publisher and the advertising salesman, I was also one of the writers. I took on the music area, which I was always very interested in. And so, I would interview stars. I would interview celebrities. I had interviewed Bill Cosby, I had interviewed Herb Alpert, who I went to high school with. I had interviewed Arthur Fiedler. I interviewed Ramsey Lewis, Frank Zappa. And before I had interviewed Frank Zappa, I had interviewed him in New York. I said, “Oh, my God, I haven’t interviewed a woman. I’ve got to find a woman to interview.” And I didn’t like Joan Baez. I had thought she was just an interloper, and you know, for whatever reason, I didn’t like her. And I’m thinking, “Who can I interview? Oh, Mary, from Peter, Paul and Mary.” Interestingly, I had never been to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert. I had, of course, heard their music. So, I arranged, through their PR company, and I later understood that they had a PR agency for, like, three weeks. And I hit it during the three weeks! Q: Mm-hmm? Taylor: So, I had the appointment with her at her home. At the time, I smoked a pipe. That will become relevant in a minute. And I interviewed her. And she was a great interview, really fun! I mean, liberal, and body politics, and all that. And oh, I left my pipe in her apartment. She lived on East 58th Street, above a Café Nicholson, which was a great café at the time. I think it no Taylor – Session 1 – 6 longer exists. I can’t remember the next time that I saw her. Ultimately, we got together. I think I saw her at a place called Brews, near where she rehearsed. She said, “Oh, you’ve got to come out to Connecticut and meet this new guy named John Denver. You should interview him, you really should come out. Oh, and I have your pipe.” So, I said, “Well, OK.” So, I stayed another day, it was a Saturday, and I went out to interview, I rented a car and drove out to West Redding, Connecticut. I got there and there was no John Denver. We spent the day together, and things developed from there. Ultimately, within a year or so, we got married. Q: So, when you met her was in 1968, ’67? Taylor: Sixty-seven. We were married in ’69. And we stayed married until ’75. Q: Yes. So, for you, was this an inlet or a connection into the world of counter-culture in the ‘60s, and radical politics? Or, how much did you feel involved with that? Taylor: I always had my sympathies toward that. Q: Yes. Taylor: I was running a college magazine, and I would go on college campuses in the ‘60s, and you know, there was a lot of anger, and a lot of great philosophical thinking going on among the kids. Taylor – Session 1 – 7 Q: Yes. Taylor: And I loved it. I would go on the campuses, and I would interview them and see them. I also was representing this college magazine, and also the National Lampoon, which was counter- culture and fun, and very irreverent, and the beginnings of Saturday Night Live. And when I came to New York I became the publisher of the National Lampoon. Q: Right. Did you, as you were going to college, did you intend to become a magazine publisher? Taylor: No, I went to school for marketing and advertising. Q: At Woodbury [University]? Taylor: Yes. Q: Yes.