Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan (10 page)

In New York, Ed stayed in touch with Sybil while maintaining both his vigorous work and night lives. One of his favorite Manhattan nightclubs was the Casa Lopez, an upscale speakeasy owned by famed bandleader Vincent Lopez. Socializing at the club one evening in early October, Sullivan spotted a young woman at the next table he described as a “
very stunning brunette youngster.” He asked the Casa Lopez’s publicity man, Joe Russell, to arrange an introduction.

Her name was Sylvia Weinstein. Elegantly dressed, the twenty-two-year-old possessed almost movie star good looks, with a trim figure, high cheekbones, and dark hair that complemented her pretty dark eyes. Her family was distinctly upper crust; her father, Julius Weinstein, a first-generation émigré from Lithuania, had made a considerable fortune in New York real estate.

When Ed sat down at her table the attraction soon became mutual. Their conversation turned, naturally, to sports, and Ed asked Sylvia if she liked tennis. “
Of course I said I loved it. Ed was very attractive,” she recalled. Ed brought up boxing and it turned out that, yes, Sylvia was also enthusiastic about attending boxing matches. Over the course of the evening’s animated chat, Ed asked Sylvia for not one but two dates. The answer to both was yes. They made a date to attend tennis star Suzanne Lenglen’s match at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, October 9, and they also planned to see the Harry Wills—Jack Sharkey prizefight at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on Tuesday, October 12.

Both events had an element of glamour. French tennis star Suzanne Lenglen, a dazzling player and star of the 1920 Olympics, was the first female tennis pro to wear an outfit that afforded a generous view of her calf—stirring a mild scandal. Her Madison Square Garden match that Saturday, attended by thirteen thousand fans, was the start of her first tour as a professional. Upon arriving in New York to launch the tour, she had hiked up her skirt for reporters and announced she had come to America to make a whole lot of money.

The prizefight between Harry Wills, known as the “Brown Panther,” and Jack Sharkey was a precursor to a title bout, with the winner earning a shot at champion Gene Tunney. (Wills, a black man, had signed a contract in the early 1920s to face then-champion Jack Dempsey, but New York’s governor canceled the bout, fearing a race riot after the fight.) Ebbets Field was crammed with forty thousand fans, and in the high-octane economy of New York in the 1920s plenty of high rollers were sprinkled among the crowd. The evening was Sylvia’s first at a boxing match, and she did her best to enjoy it.

Although pugilism held little interest for her, she felt quite intrigued by her date. At age twenty-five, he was in his element at events like these. As a well-known
sports reporter he was part of the party, a major fellow who knew the inside scoop. He likely had good seats, and plenty of opportunities for glad-handing with important personages—which he never failed to do. With his tailored suit and easy familiarity with everybody who was a somebody, he cut an attractive figure. If his goal was to impress his date, the two events were the perfect venue.

Sullivan’s first love, Sybil Bauer, an Olympic gold medalist in the 1924 games. (International Swimming Hall of Fame)

In Chicago, Sybil’s health showed no sign of improvement. At the end of October her condition took a turn for the worse and she entered the hospital. In November, Ed made a trip to see her, after which the couple made a major announcement. Ed had proposed, Sybil had accepted, and the two were now engaged. The wedding was set for June. Due to Sybil’s celebrity status the engagement was a minor national news item, reported in papers across the country. Ed, perennially short on money, borrowed enough from his older sister Helen to buy a diamond engagement ring at Black, Starr and Frost, an elegant high-end jeweler.

Or, Helen may have insisted that Ed take the money. Given Sybil’s ill health, his proposal may have been as much a gesture of sympathy as love. Decades later, Ed’s daughter Betty recalled that his sisters Mercedes and Helen urged Ed to propose
because they knew Sybil was dying. The sisters were fond of her and apparently saw the proposal as fulfilling her last wish. “
From what I understand he was sort of pushed into that by Helen and Mercedes,” Betty said.

After proposing, Ed returned to New York as Sybil’s condition continued to worsen. In late January, he again made the trip to Chicago, likely knowing that this was his last visit. As his fiancée died on January 31 he was sitting by her bedside, along with her two brothers, her sister, and her parents. The Bauer family gave Ed back his ring, and he returned to New York. Sybil Bauer’s untimely death was a far bigger news story than had been her engagement, and was splashed on the front page of many newspapers, with Ed mentioned as her bridegroom-to-be. Her pallbearers were six well-known swimmers, including 1924 Olympic gold medalist Johnny Weissmuller (who later played Tarzan in a string of B movies). Some editorialists pointed to Sybil’s illness as proof that women shouldn’t be allowed to compete in athletics, but, noted one swimming organization in its obituary, “
her life had contradicted those claims.”

In 1967, Sybil was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The organization asked Ed, then famous, to record a voiceover to accompany Sybil’s photo in its museum. In the recording, he summarized her athletic achievements, adding, “
Sybil, a girl from Chicago, was a very attractive girl. Most of us sports-casters had a crush on her. I know I did. Sybil really belongs in the Swimming Hall of Fame.” Claiming he had a crush on her like all the boys was quite an understatement for the fiancé who held Sybil’s hand on her deathbed. Ed seemed to have a need to exorcise her from his history, and after her death he never again made reference to her. In the early 1950s, after he became a major television star, he was interviewed constantly about his life history, yet never once mentioned his former fiancée. Even when he detailed his life story in a multipart series for the
New York Post
he included not one word of Sybil. Perhaps the episode was too grief inducing, or perhaps he simply preferred to keep it to himself. Like his father, he was a man who rarely spoke of his inner feelings, even to those closest to him.

Back in New York, Ed was not alone in his loss. Sylvia had become his steady date. Not that there was anything steady about the stormy sea of the Ed-Sylvia romance. The two were together as often as they decided to break things off. They would meet for a dinner date, or go out to a nightclub, only to call it quits by the end of the evening. But Ed couldn’t stay away, and a few days later he would call and say, “
I can’t stand it anymore.” The farewell dinners became a routine element of their relationship. “Afterward we would say ‘Meet you for another good-bye party in two weeks,’ ” Sylvia recalled.

The chief problem, or so it seemed, was their religious backgrounds. For Sylvia, it was one thing to accept a date with an attractive Catholic boy she had met in the intoxicating atmosphere of the Casa Lopez; it was another to tell her family she was dating a gentile. “
I guess Ed was the first Christian boy I ever really knew,” Sylvia said. When some months later she informed her family that she had a steady boyfriend, she told them his name was Ed Solomon. After her brother heard he wrote for the
Graphic
, he said, “
Oh, you mean Ed Sullivan, not Solomon.”

Sylvia described herself as coming from a
“regular Marjorie Morningstar world,” a reference to the Herman Wouk novel about an affluent Jewish girl in the 1930s who disobeys her family’s wishes to pursue her own desires and date a gentile. Her family, however, was not particularly observant, going to temple only on High Holy days, and despite her reluctance to acknowledge dating Ed, they seemed to have no serious objection. Sylvia later contradicted her reference to Marjorie Morningstar, saying, “
I can honestly say that there was very little opposition from my family.” And according to Ed’s grandson, Rob Precht, the Weinsteins were happy to see Sylvia date Ed. “
Her family was thrilled,” he said. “He was a man about town, a go-getter, attractive, an all-American sports guy. They liked him.”

However accepting Sylvia’s family felt about Ed, their attitude met its equal and opposite reaction in Ed’s family. The Sullivans were unequivocally opposed to him dating a Jewish girl. That he would marry Sylvia was not in the realm of possibility, in their view. Ed, bowing to the supposed immovable obstacle of their different religious backgrounds, kept insisting to Sylvia that their relationship could never work out. Then he would once again tell her he couldn’t see her anymore.

Still, nothing could keep them apart. Their chemistry worked. Sylvia, warm and easygoing, understanding, a good conversationalist; Ed, ambitious, moody, sometimes hot-tempered, yet exceptionally fond of her. Sylvia knew how to let Ed be Ed, how to take his moods with a grain of salt. She was also, like his mother, encouraging. She believed in him. He was always on the lookout, for the next job, the next hand to shake, the next opportunity. She knew he was headed somewhere, and she allowed him to take the lead. Ed was very much in charge, and Sylvia was happy to go along.

And they both loved to go out. For the two of them, the New York nightclub was like a second living room. Ed made the rounds practically every evening and Sylvia often accompanied him. She took pleasure in dressing with great style, and Ed himself was invariably nattily attired. Sylvia favored elegant dresses and her date usually wore a double-breasted jacket topped with a fedora; so dashing a figure did he cut that in the early 1930s Adam Hats ask him to pose for a newspaper ad. They made an attractive couple, Sylvia with her dark good looks and Ed still ruddily handsome from his days as a Port Chester athlete. The two sat and socialized in various expensive speakeasies on most nights, Ed with his cigarette and drink, Sylvia sipping a cocktail. Throughout the evening they greeted passersby and chatted with Ed’s many acquaintances and friends; after years of knocking around newspapers and nightclubs, he seemed to know most of the city.

So, as soon as they called the whole thing off, it was back on again. The romance between Ed and Sylvia—intermittent and mercurial at one level—was as steady and predictable as the train schedule at Grand Central Station.