Remembering a Meeting with Frank Zachary
A tribute from Town & Country editor in chief Jay Fielden.
Jonathan Becker
A few weeks after I started editing Town & Country, I took a flight down to Florida to see a very important person—Frank Zachary, who edited Town & Country from 1972 to 1991. Under his bowtied command the magazine became a handbook for the way to live it up in America that was chronicled with documentary-like detail by the snapshot virtuoso Slim Aarons. Zachary, 97 and living in a retirement home in Delray Beach, generously shared memories and advice—”Don’t lose your nerve!”—from his two-decade tenure, while we sat on a back porch that overlooked a grassy yard encircled by a chirping mass of Florida jungle.
In the weeks since that visit Frank’s voice sometimes echoed back in the heat of things. One of the most memorable understatements he muttered that afternoon was, “Life’s a little lonely without deadlines.” Whenever I remembered that, the oft-occurring how-will-we-get-it-all-done-in-time chest-tightening moments immediately melted away.