12 Facts About Gay Talese

Gay Talese was eventually able to get an article published in the Times, albeit unsigned.

In "Times Square Anniversary", Gay Talese interviewed the man, Herbert Kesner, Broadcast Editor, who was responsible for managing the headlines that flash across the famous marquee above Times Square.

Gay Talese followed this with an article in the February 21,1954 edition concerning the chairs used on the boardwalk of Atlantic City.

Gay Talese had been required to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and had relocated to New York awaiting his eventual commission as a second lieutenant.

Gay Talese was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to train in the Tank Corps.

When Gay Talese completed his military service in 1956, he was rehired by The New York Times as a sports reporter.

Gay Talese was then assigned to the Times' Albany Bureau to cover state politics.

In 1964, Gay Talese published The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a reporter-style, non-fiction depiction of the construction of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.

In 1971, Gay Talese published Honor Thy Father, a book about the travails of the Bonanno crime family in the 1960s, especially Salvatore Bonanno and his father Joseph.

Gay Talese signed a $1.2 million contract with Doubleday in 1972 to write two books, with the first, Thy Neighbor's Wife, due in 1973.

In 2011, Gay Talese won the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Journalism.

Gay Talese was a close friend of fellow journalist and author Tom Wolfe.