June 10, 2016
Mary McCarthy on the Jack Paar Show should be part of your Friday morning
by Melville House
This clip of Jack Paar interviewing Mary McCarthy in November 1963 will convince you of two things:
- Mary McCarthy was the best.
- Wowee, television has changed.
The interview begins just after the nine-minute mark:
Jack Paar is prodigiously un-woke, but McCarthy takes it all in stride, offering insights on a range of topics including the kinds of sex it’s appropriate to write about, the professional success of women in communist countries, and the American preoccupation with money.
Also interesting: you can watch the entire clip without having your attention in any way drawn to the fact that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated exactly one week earlier.