Customer Reviews

The Last Renaissance Man: The Life of Charles Mullen

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Someone handed me a copy of this at the NYAC a few years back, and wherever I go, this flattering biography of Charlie Mullen, sometime head of the American Tobacco Company, keeps following me around. And I keep pulling it off the bookshelf (or out the box, as the case may be) and perusing it, again mesmerized by the photos ("Punky" Claudia; CEO Charlie, cigarette and ashtray at the ready, receiving his Arkansas Traveler certificate from Governor Winthrop Rockefeller; Charlie, in his young and old selves, on the cover of "Newsleaf," house organ of the American Tobacco Company; Charlie playing a Jewish tinseltown mogul in a Connecticut amateur-dramatics show about Marilyn Monroe; etc. etc.). Of its kind, the book is perfect. I do however quibble with Mr. Mills's facile finessing of the story's deeper mysteries. In particular, I'd like a clear explanation of why young veteran radio-star Charlie, poised at the cusp of television, gave up his career to become...a salesman for the American Tobacco Company. Mills tries to tell us that it was Charlie's mother who persuaded him, on the grounds that a cigarette salesman had a more secure future. Excuse me while I cough--I mean, laugh! Mightn't there be other considerations afoot? Such as Charlie's lack of confidence in his hearty, slightly porcine appearance? He would have been a smash-hit on TV, I have no doubt. But SOMEBODY persuaded him that only suave dark men with classical features had a chance on the tube. What a tragedy! What a loss! And behind the ruddy cheeks of Charlie's convivial visage, I do believe I detect a clear understanding that he took the wrong road.