The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

In August, 1933, when he was twenty-seven, Irving married Nan Ofgang at his older sister’s house, in Brooklyn. “I had to borrow ten dollars to pay the rabbi,” he said. “We had nothing but guts and faith, and my wife had a job at the cosmetics department at the Thrifty Drug Company. I had heard from a friend, however, about a novelty company that had gone broke and abandoned a million units of a fortune-telling device in a warehouse in New York. This was called the Fortunscope. I borrowed money to lay claim to the inventory, and Nan and I decided to go on the road. There were a million Fortunscopes in that warehouse, and I was determined to sell them all. Now, the Fortunscope was a device in which you spun an arrow and found your fortune. All the fortunes were complimentary. I had a sample case, and would offer the Fortunscope to retailers. Once they placed an order, I would send it back to the New York warehouse, and Fortunscopes would be shipped to the retailer. It was a painstaking b ... Read full article.