Clay Felker Remembered

Clay Felker Remembered

Tom Wolfe: I'll never forget being in the studio of Jacques Lowe, a photographer, and John F. Kennedy had just been assassinated ...And so everyone was either stunned or mourning or wondering, "God, can we go on," and next thing I hear is "clump-clump-clump-clump -clump-clump-clump" up the stairs. It was about a three-story walk-up, and it's Clay saying, "Jacques, Jacques, where are the pictures, where are the pictures?" Clay knew that Jacques Lowe had taken the only pictures of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy talking to Lyndon Johnson, trying to persuade him to run as vice president. So Clay's already thinking ahead to Johnson's administration. He's not ringing his hands over Jack Kennedy. The news, suddenly, is really Lyndon Johnson, because he's going to be the new president.

Gloria Steinem: After Martin Luther King was murdered, I was in my living room walking around, feeling like a part of the world had come to an end. Clay called me up and said, "You call yourself a reporter! Get up to Harlem and report!" He always had his mind on the story. Clay accumulated writers; writers would follow Clay anywhere.

Shelley Zalaznick: I don't know anybody who understood the city better. Really. He always understood this was a city that could change your life. I don't know anyone with a finer appreciation of that terribly important function of the city.