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Big literary names of Esquire have been F. Scott Fitzgerald, who this year detailed for the magazine's readers his nervous and emotional collapse (see p. 54), Ernest Hemingway, who has seldom been absent, John Dos Passos, who contributed a draw ng to the first number, many a story and article since. Once a month, Esquire has brought forward a literary "Discovery," one of whom was Novelist Louis Paul (The Pumpkin Coach, A Horse in Arizona}. His Esquire story No More Trouble for Jedwick is the magazine's pride & joy because it won an O. Henry Memorial Award. Another "Discovery" was a plagiarist who sold unsuspecting Editor Gingrich a story by Ambrose Bierce. Esquire manages more than any other mass publication to date to give the impression that it is trying for literary distinction in each of its 40 or 45 monthly articles or stories. Mr. Smart is the first U. S,. publisher to get on to the idea that most valid literary names cost little money.
Esquire Features was last week modestly housed in businesslike offices on Chicago's Walton Place. But Esquire and its trade companion Apparel Arts, now issued eight times a year, are administered in suites of offices in Manhattan and Chicago which carry out the cinema conception of magazine headquarters more thoroughly than any other U. S. publishing premises except those of the New Republic. In Manhattan, Partner Weintraub handles the fashion and advertising departments of both magazines. His outer halls are lined in pale gold satinwood, with a pale gold receptionist to match.
In Chicago, Publisher Smart holds forth as president of Esquire Inc. in offices vacated by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Co. These editorial premises and Publisher Smart's bachelor apartment across the street in the Drake Tower are decoratively notable for pigskin walls, chartreuse leather divans, duralumin lighting fixtures, look like quarters habitually occupied in cinemas by Actor William Powell.
Of Publisher Smart, who is just turning 42, Editor Gingrich once said: "In the grip of a headache, he sometimes looks older than God."
* Last week "Bazooka" Burns was entertaining in Kansas City with Ben Bernie's band at a seven-day municipal blow-out called a "Jubilesta."