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George Frazier on the Best-Dressed Men of 1960

For 40 years, George Frazier was to Boston what Jimmy Breslin was to New York, what Mike Royko was to Chicago and Herb Caen to San Francisco.

Handsome and elegant, he wrote columns about jazz, sports, politics and style for publications in the United States and Europe: the Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, Down Beat and Life.

His Esquire piece, The Art of Wearing Clothes, was a George Frazier classic, recounting the history of “this rare masculine art and of the men who practice it extremely well.”

Duende

His most important – and popular – subject was duende, an Andalusian-Spanish word that he said meant “class.”

“So difficult to define, “ he wrote, “but when it is there it is unmistakable, inspiring our awe, quickening our memory. To observe someone who has it is to feel icy fingers running up and down our spine.’’ He made his commitment to duende evident in his fastidious dress, often sporting a white carnation in his buttonhole.

Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding. He had duende.

His Esquire essay on men’s style required years of research. In his final analysis, New England’s finest men’s clothiers ranked with the best in London, Paris and New York, he wrote. Many catered to the region’s storied institutions of higher learning, such as J. Press at Yale, Andover Shop at Phillips Academy and Chipp at Harvard.

Firefighter’s Son

George Frazier had a steeper learning curve about men’s fashions than did the wealthy socialites he wrote about. He was born in South Boston on June 10, 1911, the son of a firefighter. He graduated from Boston Latin School and then Harvard College in 1932. Soon after graduation he began writing about jazz – in both French and English.

Frank Sinatra — definite duende

He analyzed what was best about popular culture and elevated it to a higher plane. George Frazier celebrated the way the music of Count Basie wafted over the Public Garden from the Roof at the Ritz. He made readers wish they’d seen Hobey Baker play hockey at Princeton.

In his essays on duende, Frazier tried to separate what was genuinely excellent from dross. Frank Sinatra had duende, he wrote; Dick Haymes did not. Nantucket had it, Martha’s Vineyard didn’t. Ted Williams had it when striking out; Stan Musial didn’t even when hitting a home run.

Esquire

For Esquire, Frazier deconstructed the clothing preferences and habits of the best-dressed men he knew — men with duende:

The best-dressed American men — at least for the most part — not only cherish venerable clothes, but cherish venerable milieux as well. Like their apparel, they, too, are full of tradition, being, rather more often than not, products of such sanctified New England private schools as St. Mark’s, Groton, and St. Paul’s, and of ivied universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; living, not in such youthful and characterless cities as Los Angeles, but in either what Roger Angell has termed “The Effete East” — which is to say the hallowed ground of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and the posher precincts of Long Island.

The best-dressed American men also respected and liked the men who sell them clothes, wrote George Frazier. They began buying clothes at Brooks Brothers on Christmas vacation. When they got married, he wrote, “it would have been absolutely unthinkable not to have had a Brooks Brothers representative on hand to tie their and their ushers’ ascots.”

J. P. Morgan, wrote Frazier, greeted a Brooks Brothers’ employee with “Good morning, Mr. Webb.” Webb replied, “Good morning, Jack.”

Credit to BroBro

George Frazier gave credit to Brooks Brothers for creating the foundational garment of the well-dressed New Englander: the No. 1-sack suit. Not-yet-President John F. Kennedy wore it, though Frazier didn’t include him on his list of best-dressed men.

Angier Biddle Duke

He did include Kennedy’s future chief of protocol, Angier Biddle Duke. Duke was the nephew of A.J. Drexel Biddle – about whom “it would be something of a task to find a male more elegant than he,” wrote Frazier.

Biddle sworn in as ambassador to Norway. Clearly the most elegant person in the room.

George Frazier traced the spread of the sack suit style among Yale undergraduates by the venerable J. Press, which had catered to Yalies since 1902. In the 1940s, two tailors left J. Press and opened a shop in Harvard Square called Chipp, which later opened a shop in New York. Chipp closed its Cambridge store by 1960, but still had its New York branch.

Frazier called Zareh of Boston and Brookline, Mass., “one of the few authentically tasteful men’s shops in the United States.” He praised Marty Sullivan’s in New Bedford. The shopowner was so attuned to men’s fashion he sent his buyers and designers to hang out in P.J. Clarke’s in Manhattan so they could watch “the creatively dressed Ivy Leaguers” who frequented the bar.

George Frazier also approved of the Boston Bootmakers of Boston and Andover Shops in Cambridge and Andover, Mass., which to this day caters to Phillips Academy students.

Invisible Elegance

Frazier, in his Esquire essay, noted that elegance didn’t have to be visible. Playwright Moss Hart, he wrote, favored solid-gold monogrammed collar stays. Noted English dandy Freddie Cripps would only have his underwear made in Vienna. He traveled there regularly for fittings. And then this:

In the case of the late William Rhinelander Stewart, for example, elegance was nothing more costly than not venturing out in the evening without first having his rumpled paper money ironed flat by his valet!

Moss Hart

Best Dressed List By George Frazier

George Frazier then ended his 10,000 word essay with his picks for the best-dressed men he knew. They included:

FRED ASTAIRE — Then 61, he “favors English-type jackets, suede shoes, often uses silk handkerchiefs as belts. He has had many suits made by Anderson and Sheppard of London, but, at the moment, he is using John Galuppo of Schmidt and Galuppo, Inc., of Beverly Hills.” Frazier also quoted Astaire: “I often take a brand-new suit or hat and throw it up against the wall a few times to get that stiff, square newness out of it.”

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR, — Fairbanks, 50, then lived in London. “He is a member of the Century and Lambs clubs in New York, Buck’s and White’s in London, the Travellers in Paris, and the Metropolitan and the Army & Navy in Washington, D.C. His tailor: Stovel & Mason (48 guineas or $141.12 a suit) in London.”

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

ROY HAYNES — The thiry-five-year-old jazz percussionist belongs on any best-dressed list if only because of his taste in selecting clothes that flatter his short stature (five feet, three and a half inches). His suits are custom made (around $125 each) by the Andover Shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Roy Haynes at radio KJAZ Festival, Davies Symony Hall, San Francisco 1981 © Brian McMillen

Also Well-Dressed

CARY GRANT — “Although Grant, who is fifty-six, favors such abominations as large tie knots and claims to have originated the square-style breast-pocket handkerchief, he is so extraordinarily attractive that he looks good in practically anything. He insists upon tight armholes in his suit jackets, finds the most comfortable (and functional) of all underwear to be women’s nylon panties. Something of a maverick as to tailors, he now goes to Quintino (around $225 a suit) in Beverly Hills, California, and, whenever possible, certain of the preposterously low-priced geniuses in Hong Kong.”

Cary Grant

MILES DAVIS — Frazier noted the 34-year-old “genius of “progressive jazz” trumpet” favors skin-tight trousers and Italian-cut jackets. “His seersucker coats, which have side vents, are custom made. His tailor: Emsley (New York), which charges $185 a suit.”

Miles Davis

JOHN McLEAN: JOHN McLEAN — The 41-year-old son of Washington hostess Evalyn Walsh McLean belonged to the Racquet & Tennis Club in New York and the Seminole in Palm Beach. He helped originate red socks for wear with a dinner suit. He goes to Bernard Weatherill.

George Frazier died on June 13, 1974. Studs Terkel had this to say about him:

Duende was George Frazier’s favorite word. It is, of course, the precise word to describe his life and his writings: roughly translated—grace, wit and class.

You can read the whole essay here.

With thanks to Another Man’s Poison: The Life and Writings of Columnist George Frazier by Charles Fountain.

End Notes

Images: Roy Haynes by By Brianmcmillen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77365373. This story was updated in 2021. A.J. Drexel Biddle Harris & Ewing, photographer. (1935) Biddle sworn in as Minister to Norway. Exclusive picture was taken Tuesday when Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., was sworn in as minister to Norway in the State Dept. bldg. Left to right: Sen. Joseph F. Guffey D. of Penn., Acting Sec. of State William Phillip, Minister to Norway Biddle and Percy F. Allen, Chief of the Appt. Division, seen swearing Mr. Biddle in to his new post, 7/23/35. United States, 1935. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016881245/. Paul Newman By Lmattozz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56807570. Cary Grant By farid_s_v. – Flickr. Information about which film this is from is in here., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48810000. Roy Haynes By Brianmcmillen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77365373. Miles Davis By Mallory1180 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56137966. Fred Astaire by kate gabrielle via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

This story updated in 2023.

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Malcolm X and Martin Luther King in Boston: One City, Two Different Worlds

When Martin Luther King, Jr., moved to Boston in 1951 to study for his graduate degree in philosophy, Malcolm X was already there voraciously reading books. Malcolm X, though, read from the Charlestown State Prison as he finished his six-year sentence for burglary.

Together, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King spent about 15 years in Boston. The two men only met once, and not in Boston. They experienced two very different sides of the same city. Those differences became clear by the time of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Martin and Malcolm X

Martin, the son of a well-to-do Atlanta minister, lived the genteel life in Boston. He wore tailored suits to concerts, teas, sermons and classes. He owned his own Chevrolet and matriculated at Boston University. There he consulted renowned philosophers Paul Tillich and Reinold Neibuhr for advice about his dissertation.

Malcolm X in 1964.

Malcolm X matriculated in Boston’s streets and prisons during the dozen years he lived there on and off. Parentless and poor, the 15-year-old first moved to the Roxbury section of Boston in 1941. There he stayed with his older half-sister, the formidable Ella Little Collins. She saw theft as her only way to make it into the black bourgeoisie. Police arrested her 21 times, but received only one conviction.

Her rebellious little brother took from her a lesson about evading personal responsibility. He dropped out of ninth grade after one day, smoked pot, hustled, stole, ran numbers and seduced loose women.

Fame

By 1963, the ex-con and the former graduate student had achieved international fame. Martin Luther King, Jr., earned international celebrity for preaching nonviolence and integration, Malcolm X for preaching separatism and self-defense. Where Martin said he had a dream for America, Malcolm X said he saw an American nightmare.

That was the year of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Both Martin and Malcolm had only a few years left. The two men were coming closer – certainly not to each other, but to the same views and strategies. Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, repudiated his earlier racism and advocated a program of economic advancement. Martin Luther King, Jr., increasingly embraced the labor movement as a force for the economic justice required for social justice. Many forget he died while supporting a sanitation workers’ strike.

Martin Luther King in 1964.

Malcolm X Meets the Cradle of Jazz

In February 1941, Malcolm X, still known as Malcolm Little, rode the Greyhound bus from Lansing, Mich., to Boston. He wore a too-small dark green suit and a light green topcoat. He moved in with his older half sister Ella at 72 Dale St. in Roxbury. The modest house sits a block from what is now Martin Luther King Boulevard and three miles from what would be Martin’s apartment at 397 Massachusetts Ave. in the South End.

Malcolm X frequented Boston’s jazz clubs.

Malcolm’s mother had been committed to an insane asylum in Kalamazoo. His father, a Baptist lay preacher, was killed by a streetcar when Malcolm was six. Though Earl Little’s death was ruled an accident, Malcolm believed his father had been pushed in front of the oncoming trolley by white racists. Earl followed Marcus Garvey, leader of the black separatist and Pan-Africanism movement. So did his half-sister Ella.

Boston made an enormous impression on the small-town boy from Michigan.

Malcolm X on Mass. Ave.

“I didn’t know the world contained as many Negroes as I saw thronging downtown Roxbury at night, especially on Saturdays,” Malcolm X wrote in his 1964 autobiography. “Neon lights, nightclubs, poolhalls [sic], bars, the cars they drove! Restaurants made the streets smell-rich, greasy, down-home black cooking. Jukeboxes blared Erskine Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams, dozens of others.”

Ella had offered to take him in and enrolled him in a private boys’ academy in downtown Boston. On his first day he saw no girls in school and decided to end his formal education. Soon he met his mentor in the ways of the underworld, Malcolm “Shorty” Jarvis. Jarvis, a trumpet player, introduced him to Boston’s demimonde.

“The stretch of Mass. Ave. between Huntington and Columbus was, by the late ’40s, Boston’s answer to 52nd Street in Manhattan. It had not only the Roseland, but the Savoy Café, the Hi-Hat, Wally’s, and a handful of smaller clubs,” according to Nat Hentoff in a 2001 Boston Globe article.

Malcolm conked his hair, bought a zoot suit and learned how to hustle and dance. He deliberately set himself apart from African-American strivers like the preacher’s son from Atlanta.

The “M” in Martin

Martin Luther King, Jr., 22, arrived in Boston in 1951, the son of a well-to-do Baptist pastor. He too had skipped ninth grade – but because he was such a precocious student. Martin went right to the tenth and, right after 11^th grade, enrolled in Morehouse College at age 15. He had graduated in 1948 with a degree in sociology and then received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa.

Boston University along Commonwealth Ave.

King adopted an elite persona as he moved between his classes, the library and his Massachusetts Avenue apartment. In Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch writes: “King continued to wear tailored suits whenever he stepped out of his apartment, and he worked consciously to develop habits befitting an intellectual. Doodling on the back of a notebook, he practiced increasingly ornate signatures, until the “g” in King looped all the way back to the “M” in Martin.

Martin was influenced by his advisor, theologian Howard Thurman, the first black dean of a predominately white university. He listened to Thurman’s sermons at the University’s Marsh Chapel. Thurman, who had visited Mohandas Gandhi in India, educated his young student in the mahatma’s philosophy of nonviolent protest.

Martin surrounded himself with books and pursued an elegant social life. He wanted to find the proper wife for an ambitious Baptist minister. One of his friends called him “the most eligible and popular bachelor in town.” His dating began to affect his grades.

Courtship

Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott in Boston.

Martin wooed Coretta Scott, an Antioch College graduate studying to become a classical singer at the New England Conservatory of Music. He treated her to concerts and the theater and showered her with poetic prose. In a letter written in 1952, he wrote “My life without you is like a year without a spring time which comes to give illumination and heat to the atmosphere saturated by the dark cold breeze of winter.”

They wed in 1953, and moved into a new apartment in Boston. They didn’t stay long. In September 1954 he became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. Nine months later, he would receive his Ph.D. from Boston University. Soon after that he would be plunged into the civil rights movement.

Menial Jobs, Prison

Malcolm would get a series of menial jobs in Boston: as a soda jerk, as a warehouse worker at a South Boston wallpaper company, at a Sears Roebuck warehouse in the Fenway, as a waiter at the posh Parker House.

When the United States entered World War II, jobs opened up on the railroad, and Malcolm got a job as a fourth-class cook. He traveled to Washington, D.C., and to New York, where he fell in love with Harlem. By 1943 he had moved there, supporting himself by dealing drugs, gambling and stealing. He drifted back and forth between Boston, New York and his family in Lansing for the next few years. Police arrested him several times.

Police mugshot of Malcolm X after his arrest in 1944.

Finally, in 1946 police arrested him for burglary. He had dropped off a stolen watch for repair at a Roxbury jewelry store. Detectives were waiting for him when he came to pick it up. He received a sentence of six to eight years of hard labor at the notorious Charlestown prison.

Charlestown State Prison is now the site of Bunker Hill Community College. Malcolm was incensed about his imprisonment, and his cellmates called him “Satan.” He furiously paced his tiny cell, insulted the guards, ranted profanely and got high on ground nutmeg.

Malcolm X Turns Around

And then Malcolm Little started to turn his life around. A fellow inmate persuaded him to begin formal study through correspondence courses. Malcolm threw himself into his self-education. Prison officials, noting his good behavior, moved him to a slightly better institution, the Massachusetts Reformatory at Concord.

By then, he’d convinced Ella of the sincerity of his good intentions. She began a letter-writing campaign to move him to a more humane facility. She succeeded. He then moved to the Norfolk Prison Colony, where he could read extensively in the prison library and practice his debating skills.

Prodded by his family, Malcolm began to follow the Nation of Islam, a new movement that preached self-reliance and Pan-Africanism. He left prison in 1952 and moved to Detroit. There he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Malcolm X.

To read Part 2 this story, click here. This story about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., was updated in 2022.

Image; Malcolm X in 1964, By Ed Ford, World Telegram staff photographer – Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c15058, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3515550.

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