We Offered Them Caviar

Although David Leddick has been a Naval officer at the hydrogen bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll, a dancer at the Metropolitan Opera, a novelist, an internationally noted compiler of art books highlighting the male nude in photography and other media, an actor, a travel writer and a cabaret artist, he was also for many years in the cosmetics business, focused on advertising as ultimately worldwide Creative Director for L'Oréal working through Grey Advertising. This book is a memoir of that part of his life when he was in advertising, and as such offers a rare insider glimpse into what advertising was really like from both the agency (Grey) side as well as the client (Revlon) side in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Whether working on print or TV advertising, Leddick traveled the world with the most in-demand models, the best photographers (like Avedon) and mixed and mingled with the glamoratti over a period of three decades. This is that story. Since he was under contract to Grey Advertising, he was not strictly an employee, and always negotiated a contract that permitted him to work 32 weeks per year, taking the remaining 20 weeks off to spend time at his flat in Paris and his country home in the Loire Valley. When in New York, he lived in Greenwich Village. He divides his time now trekking to homes in Montevideo, Miami Beach and France.