An Irishman's Diary

WHEN the New York Timespublished Elizabeth Taylor's obituary this week, a note at the bottom of the article pointed out that its main author, a man called Mel Gussow, had been dead for six years.

This might be considered something of an irony outside journalistic circles, and indeed there has been comment to that effect. But on the contrary, it is a standard enough occurrence. Allowing that Gussow was not normally so employed, it’s only to be expected that a professional obit writer will eventually predecease some of his subjects.

The important thing, surely, is that the subjects predecease publication of the obits. After all, it was the same New York Timesthat in 1907 reported the possible loss at sea of Mark Twain when a boat he was known to be on went missing. In fact, it had only been delayed by fog, allowing Twain himself to clarify the matter in a famous news update.

Less fortunate, perhaps, was the black rights campaigner Marcus Garvey, who died in 1940 from the combined effects of two strokes. After the first attack, it’s said that he read his own obituary – a critical one – in a Chicago newspaper. And it was reportedly his upset at this that precipitated the fatal seizure.

So the only issue arising from Gussow's article on Taylor is whether it had dated at all during the period she outlived him: a problem easily fixed. As to the main body of the piece, the NYTsaid it was "too good to throw away". A leading theatre critic and author, Gussow straddled the borders between journalism and literature, and the film star's eulogy may have doubled as a tribute to him as well as its subject.

Full-time obituary writing is – yes – a dying trade these days. Thanks to the ease with which information can now be stored and retrieved, the "obit file" is all but gone too. And yet it's only a few years ago since The Irish Timesstill had a library full of these quaint things (the files, that is, not the writers).

Mostly, they were just collections of newspaper cuttings about their subjects, although some of the older ones had ready-formatted death notices, with blanks left for filling in whenever the time came, eg: “Mr Joe Bloggs, who has died aged XY, was a veteran of the War of Independence and later a highly successful businessman . . . A noted bon-viveur, even into his 80s, he is survived by his wife/wives X, Y, and Z, and, at the last count, by XY children.” Not that the file was exclusively, or even primarily, intended for use when its subject died. Although obituaries are notorious for euphemistic language (“bon-viveur”, for example, could be code for a wide range of misdemeanours), the term “obit file” was arguably the opposite of a euphemism, in that it made the reality sound harsher than it was.

Sure, the information would become an obituary sooner or later. But in the meantime, the file was a journalist’s basic research tool. Whenever somebody who had already made news made more of it, his or her cuttings would be sent for. When the file went

back to the library, the new cuttings would be added. And so on.

You didn't have to be at death's door, or anywhere near it, to qualify. In my first year on the ITstaff, back in the mid-1990s, I won an award which necessitated a photo in the paper, along with a few paragraphs saying who I was. It was all very exciting until the discovery, shortly afterwards, that I too now had an obit file, with one cutting. I may have shuddered when first seeing it.

It’s true, however, that when somebody in public life was known to be very ill, the obit file would be sent for – at around the same time as the priest, if not earlier. It would then be updated discreetly, so that it was ready to “go” at short notice, in case the patient did. This may sound callous, but the deceased was thereby guaranteed a more sympathetic send-off than if he died some night without warning, half an hour from deadline.

If the patient lingered, or rallied, the file might mirror his or her experience, being rushed from the library to the newsroom’s intensive care unit and then, after successful surgery, returning to the shelves for a period of convalescence. I know of happy cases in which patients made complete recoveries and are still outliving their draft eulogies, years on.

But getting back to Liz Taylor, there’s a story told about another Hollywood great, Bette Davis, to the effect that late in life she received a visit from a reporter who wanted to ask some questions. At first they were having the interview over tea.

Then the nature of the queries made her suspicious. Was the interview by any chance intended for the purpose of updating her obituary file, she asked the visitor.

Whereupon the reporter admitted that yes, that’s exactly he was doing. So the tea was sent away and a bottle of whiskey, considered by the film star to be more appropriate to the task now at hand, was produced instead. After which prop-change, like the trouper she was, Davis carried on with the interview.

* fmcnally@irishtimes.com