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Then there was Felker's private office. After years of inhabiting cubicles filled to overflowing with books, manuscripts, scratch pads, plastic cups, unpaid bills, echoes of old screams and the yellowing envelopes on which he jots his inspirations, Felker decided to create for himself a baronial HQ. The walls were walnut-paneled, the floors Orientally carpeted. All went executive suitely until, says Managing Editor Byron Dobell, "Clay heard people discussing things outside his office door, and he couldn't bear not hearing all of it." So Clay moved his battered old desk—a Trib memento—into the editorial bullpen, where he could overhear everything.
A bachelor for eight years since his divorce from Actress Pamela Tiffin (he claimed at times that she was a streptococcus "carrier," and he was constantly infected by her tonsils), Felker maintains an East 57th Street superduplex with a live-in housekeeper-cook named Berta, whom he sent to cooking school. Says one ex-protégé: "Clay told me that you should always live beyond your means so that people will think you're doing well." Adds Richard Reeves: "I think Clay Felker made a great mistake in not being born rich."