Volume 49, Number 1 · January 17, 2002
He Who Played the King
By Pico Iyer
The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan
edited by John Lahr
Bloomsbury, 439 pp., $32.95
When Kenneth Tynan submitted articles on politics to Playboy during the Sixties, in his capacity as contributing editor, they were always accepted. But every time he offered the magazine an article on sex, as his late widow Kathleen records in her fair and forgiving biography,[1] the upholders of the Playboy Philosophy felt obliged to turn it down. His 'scholarly homage to the female bottom' was judged by Hugh Hefner's men to be afflicted with 'an archness which is middle-aged.' Of his piece on female underwear, an editor wrote, it 'comes off not only as a little bent but boring to boot.' Even his defense of hard-core pornography was too much for the magazine that defined itself as the caretaker of the Sexual Revolution.
Review, 3259 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |