Get Smart 7 - Max Smart - The Spy Who Went Out to the Cold (18 page)

Barney
was his longest novel ever, clocking in at 307 pages. The page count is an interesting statistic owing to the period in which Johnston wrote: at that time, tie-in novels were typically shorter than they are today—as indeed were genre novels in general—and a typical Johnston paperback ranged from between 128-144 pages of small print to 160-190 pages of moderate print. By those standards, his two longest original tie-ins, the small print releases
The Nurses
at approximately 224 (Bantam) and
The Iron Horse
at approximately 190 (Popular Library) were tie-in epics.

Johnston’s last book— anyway, his last as far as can be determined—was an atypically “epic” small-print novelization, of the likewise epic, and thoroughly notorious film
Caligula
(Warner, 1979, 222 pages). As shamelessly salacious as the film apparently was, the book sported the byline “William Howard,” possibly to avoid inappropriately attracting the younger readers who flocked to his sitcom pastiches. Indeed, the book had its own notoriety, for it was originally released in advance of the film—with the film’s logo design (a Roman coin featuring an embossed close-up likeness of Malcolm McDowell in the title role) against a tan background—as
Gore Vidal’s Caligula.
But soon after, all unsold copies of the print run were recalled, as Vidal had filed suit to have his name taken off Bob Guccione’s vulgarized film. Vidal lost the suit, but his name was removed from the book, which was reissued with the logo against an ironically lily white background as simply
Caligula,
with no screenplay attribution.

The following profile comes from the premier edition back cover of Johnston’s first book,
The Marriage Cage,
and constitutes virtually the only bio of any meaningful detail he allowed on any of his books (he is quoted as having said, “I wanted to stay as anonymous as possible”). Based on its irreverent style, it’s safe to assume Johnston wrote it himself:

William Johnston was born in Lincoln, Illinois on January 11, 1924.

He ended his formal education after three years of high school, when he left home and school at seventeen to become an actor. Claims he was a lousy actor.

Joined the Navy in 1942 after seeing a Naval band marching in a newsreel. Has tried to avoid newsreels ever since. Served in the Pacific. After the war, he became a disk jockey for radio station WTAX, Springfield, Illinois. A year later, he became a wandering disk jockey, working at stations in Illinois and Indiana.

In another year, as Johnston tells the story, he, with two acquaintances and one client, formed an advertising agency in Chicago. For certain mystic reasons, they named it Merchants Limited, after a train that ran between Boston and New York. The day after the agency was formed, the client came to his senses and pulled out. Agency disbanded.

He was for two years the associate editor of
The Lion
, magazine of the International Association of the Lions Clubs.

For the past nine years he has been a public relations account executive. At the moment he handles the Lionel trains account for Tex McCrary’s public relations agency.

After
Caligula
, Johnston—who had amassed millions of fans yet little meaningful literary recognition—tired of writing and decided to become—

—wait for it—

—a bartender.

Then living on Long Island, New York, he attended bartending school and graduated to find that he was considered too old to hire. His solution was to buy his
own
bar, which he did. It was called
The Blind Pig;
it was located in Massapequa, and he ran it very successfully until his retirement.