Be an empiricist

In socialism and sex!

Read Wilhelm Reich

And remember the Czechs!

—Kenneth Tynan, in a birthday poem to his daughter Tracy

In a letter written to the agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar proposing an autobiography strong on name-dropping—a “conglamouration of stars,” as John Gielgud once put it in a slip of the tongue while acting in a Congreve play—Kenneth Tynan described himself as a talent snob. Quite accurate, too. Right out of the gate the young Kenneth Tynan was a fan—fanatically worshipful of athletes, of musicians, and above all of actors—and fanatical worship easily elides into snobbery.

Later, Tynan was snobbishly pleased at his connections with the talented and greatly acclaimed. (“Last year,” he wrote to friends in 1980, “met Cary Grant. Top that.”) “In our teens,” Tynan wrote at forty in a profile of Duke Ellington, “we make hero-lists of those we worship and intend one day to meet. Mine when I was thirteen included a cricketer, a stripper, a painter, a drama critic, several actors, a film director, and a jazz musician. I crossed them off as I met them, either socially or professionally, but until recently only one name remained unblotted.” This was of course Ellington’s. Cross another name off.

Arranging his life around his enthusiasms, Tynan became a drama critic—the drama critic of his age, in fact—thus finding a way to obtain a good seat for every show in town and entrée to friendship with nearly every interesting figure