Her specialty was the real-life story, perfected and condensed. These take work, and she’d go through a half dozen verbal drafts before getting one where she wanted it. Over the course of the day the line she wished she’d delivered in response to some question or comment—the zinger—would become the line she had delivered. “So I said to him, ‘Buddy, that’s why they invented the airplane.’” We’d be on the sidelines, aghast: “That’s not how it happened at all!” But what did it matter with such great results?
