A Real Mad Man
How many martinis did advertising executives really drink in the heyday of Mad Men? According to Jerry Della Femina, one of the guys who lived to tell such tales, three before lunch, wine with the meal and, rather than foregoing dessert for a cappuccino, some would order a double scotch. Then, it’s back to work.
Della Femina wrote a memoir about those days in 1970, From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor, that helped inspire the AMC series Mad Men, now in its fourth season.
The book has been republished by Simon and Schuster; Della Femina was interviewed on Weekend Edition Saturday. The title of the book, his suggestion for an ad for Panasonic, went right into the trash. The line he’s most proud of? One he wrote for McGraw Hill books, “Before Hitler could kill six million Jews, he had to burn six million books.” Not only did the company use it, Della Femina won a major award for it.
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