Two years ago, Philip Roth announced, to rapt attention, that he had ceased writing fiction. Then, last May, following a sold-out appearance at the 92nd Street Y, Roth said that he would no longer engage in public readings. “You can write it down,” he said. “This was absolutely the last appearance I will make on any public stage, anywhere.”
Somehow, it is unlikely we’ve heard the last from Philip Roth. He may well have been telling the literal truth—that he will never again write fiction, nor will he continue to appear on a public platform. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he will be silent. He could publish fiction that he has pulled out of his trunk. He might write and print criticism. He could spout off on radio or some other nonvisual medium.
Roth’s ostensibly bald-faced disappearing act actually constitutes an increasingly popular form of personal conceit. We’re talking here about the Long Goodbye. Throughout history, many a public figure has declared his or her intention to slip back into obscurity, only to renege out of sheer egotism.
This wasn’t always the case; traditionally, these avowals have been sincere. The archetype remains Cincinnatus: The Romans brought him out of retirement and appointed him dictator to defeat the Aequians, after which he resigned to go back to his farm—all in the course of about two weeks. For good measure, he did the same thing nearly 20 years later, to put down an apparent rebellion by Spurius Maelius.
Ditto George Washington. After ceding command of the Continental Army, the Father of Our Country retreated in all earnestness to civilian life at Mount Vernon. Only the urgings of his countrymen restored him to public service as president of both the Constitutional Convention and the United States. And then it was back once again to Mount Vernon.
Other, more recent, political examples are more ambiguous. In 1951, after being relieved of command by President Truman and promising that he would “just fade away,” Douglas MacArthur embarked on what Eric Goldman called “the most substantial and noisiest fading-away in history.” But after a whirlwind of speeches and appearances, and amid speculation about his political ambitions, MacArthur did, indeed, fade away. He died, long out of the lime-light, 13 years later.
In this regard, Rudolph Giuliani comes to mind. He knew that he couldn’t legally serve a third term as mayor of New York, but, caught up in the public adulation he inspired in the aftermath of 9/11, he openly flirted with another four years. At the very least, he offered the possibility of an extended transition period in Gracie Mansion before realizing that such a move would yield only “division and litigation.”
Enter Michael Bloomberg.
Would that others might follow these leads. Following his 1960 presidential loss to John F. Kennedy and his defeat by Edmund G. “Pat” Brown in California’s gubernatorial race two years later, Richard Nixon famously declared, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” And we all know how that turned out.
Some of the most memorable grand avowals of withdrawal from the public eye have come from the world of media and entertainment. A couple of years before Nixon’s first last act, Jack Paar walked off as host of The Tonight Show over the censorship of a joke about what was then called a “water closet.” He returned a month later, to audience pandemonium, announcing, “As I was saying . . .”
Jack Paar’s turnabout probably wasn’t premeditated; he was famously high-strung and impulsive. By contrast, it’s hard to trust the motives of contemporary boldface names. These days, their retreats from view tend to be drawn-out and weasel-worded. They’re not necessarily untruthful, but they are carefully crafted to offer wiggle room that affords them the opportunity of continuing to bask in our lingering gaze.
Take Oprah Winfrey. Millions wept when she wrapped up her syndicated talk show in 2011, and she wept with them: “We won’t say goodbye,” she told her fans, and she was true to her word. Today, her namesake network, on which she is prominently featured, reaches more than 70 percent of American households with television. Another notable offender is Garrison Keillor, host of NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion, which, after a successful run, ended in 1987. Two years later, Keillor launched the remarkably similar American Radio Company of the Air. Then, after a lapse of several years, he resumed the old name of his old radio show—and has hosted its current incarnation ever since.
In 2011, Keillor announced in the AARP Bulletin that he planned to leave that show in the spring of 2013. Yet he is still broadcasting, and, for good measure, he recently published his own anthology, The Keillor Reader.
Let’s not forget music. Barbra Streisand conducted a series of (supposed) encore concerts in Las Vegas in 1999 that took place a few years before her “Streisand” North American tour. She performed live in Berlin seven years later. Indeed, she has yet to stop singing, having just released an album of collaborations with male vocalists such as Billy Joel and Andrea Bocelli. I’m looking to the press release about a series of live tie-in appearances.
In 2002, Cher embarked on what she planned would be a series of departing gigs: They ended up lasting not three months, as announced, but three years. The event was subsequently dubbed the “Never Can Say Goodbye” tour. Never was a curtain call more appropriately titled. And, of course, Cher is currently performing her North American “Dressed to Kill” tour.
Of course, it would be hypocritical to omit the example of certain journalists. Last October, Bill Moyers announced that he would be ending his weekly PBS series Moyers & Company. Now, one year later, he is saying so again: “It’s the real deal,” he declared last month. This summer, Barbara Walters retired noisily from The View, her departure having been reverentially covered from the moment she announced it a year earlier. At this point, it would probably be premature to rule out a future abundance of bandwidth from the woman S. J. Perelman once called “the most insincere, brassy nitwit in the business.”
Let’s face it: It’s probably best to honor your pledge to step down, especially when you’re at the top of your game, if for no other reason than that sticking around too long tends toward embarrassment. In the 1970s and early ’80s, “Doonesbury” was the hippest, most informative syndicated cartoon in existence, earning for its creator Garry Trudeau a Pulitzer Prize—the first one ever given for a comic strip. At the height of his powers, Trudeau told an astonished readership that he would take a hiatus. In 1984, after a 22-month breather, he took up pen and ink again; within a year, Saturday Review had declared, “The most publicized return since MacArthur’s has produced a strip that is predictable, mean-spirited, and not as funny as before.” A generation later, little has changed.
Rather more consequential is the case of Theodore Roosevelt. As Ken Burns’s endless documentary about the Roosevelts has reminded us, TR shocked the nation on his victorious election night in 1904 by declaring, “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.” He went back on his word, in 1912, when he ran as a Progressive and succeeded only in splitting the Republican vote between himself and William Howard Taft.
Enter Woodrow Wilson.
Yes, it’s hard to abandon the glow of general adulation. But there is a way to do so honestly and without wearing out one’s welcome. No one heard much from Johnny Carson after he stepped down as Jack Paar’s successor (of three decades) as host of The Tonight Show—until we read his obituary. Now that was a class act. The same holds true for Ronald Reagan, who, in 1994, announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and would proceed “into the sunset of my life”—which he did, quietly.
Time was when a public personality, after a respectable stint in the spotlight, would execute a graceful bow and exit with equal dignity. Plenty of smart and famous people now appear incapable of doing so. Is it disrespectful to suggest that their farewells should be hastened by mandating the use of the vaudeville hook?
Thomas Vinciguerra is the author of the forthcoming Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber and the Golden Age of The New Yorker (Norton).
