“Well, Just Grab It!” The Carol Saline I Remember

Carol Saline in full force co-hosting a women’s networking event in New York in 2008. / Photograph by Ben Gabbe/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Pioneering Philadelphia magazine journalist Carol Saline died on August 30th at the age of 86. We could think of no one more qualified to pen a remembrance of such a formidable personality than the equally formidable Lisa DePaulo, a celebrated staff writer and senior editor for the magazine from the mid-’80s through the mid-’90s. Lisa, who went on to write for JFK Jr.’s George and countless other national publications, is currently working on a memoir.

My favorite Carol Saline memory:

I was 19 years old, an intern at Philly Mag, which I thought was the most magical place on earth. There were all these characters! Like Steve Fried, who owner Herb Lipson used to call “an unmade bed,” because he was. And Terri Pred, who let me — and I mean “let me,” like she was doing me a big fucking favor — type up about a hundred soup recipes for a feature story on soup, back in those days, the glory days, when there were actually enough ads to justify a soup story that went on and on and on. (I know, I miss them too.) But there was no one like Carol Saline.

“Come in here,” she summoned one day. She had, she said, a very, very important assignment for me. I could barely contain my excitement. Were they actually going to let me write something? But nooooo. This was much more important than that. “I need you to go to Nan Duskin.” I did not know what that was. “Now.” See, Carol had to do a TV show that night, and it was imperative, life and death really, that she have a new bottle of Taupe Number 9. Her makeup for the show. And not Number 8 or Number 10, but Taupe Number 9. I scampered off.

I get there and horrors! They are out of Taupe Number 9. In fact, the intimidating saleslady tells me, she just wrapped up the last bottle for a customer who’d be here shortly to pick it up. I call Carol from the phone behind the counter (this was way pre-cell phones), and deliver the bad news. “That’s impossible!” says Carol. “Did you tell her it’s for me?” Yes, yes, sold out. “That can’t be.” And then I make the rookie mistake of telling her about the one in the bag for the other customer. “Oh?” she says, her voice lifting. “Well, just grab it.” “I – I – I …” “Just. Grab. It.”

And I did.

We would joke about this years later. In fact, in our last email exchange a few months ago, she wrote, “And don’t think I’m still embarrassed about that makeup thing.”

But she never should have been embarrassed. Among the great many lessons Carol taught me was: Women, particularly women in journalism, should learn never to take no for an answer. This guided Carol’s life. One of the famous true stories, so good it made her New York Times obit, was about the time that Carol was laid off, when the magazine was pinching pennies — literal pennies, because Carol always made shit — and the rationale was that she could be fired because she had a husband. Whereas the guys have wives and children to support. Carol’s response? She continued to get dressed up — and she always got dressed up — and come into the office every day! Continued to write stories and hand them in. She was not going to take no for an answer. Eventually the powers that be, which is to say the guys, buckled and put her back on the payroll.

But she did always make shit. In those days, women at Philly Mag were never compensated as well as men. (Trust me, it took a long time for that to change.) If you ever noticed, we were all called senior editors, though we never edited (which I would argue is easier than writing), because titles were what we got instead of money. Carol even appeared as the cover girl for the first Best of Philly issue. I guarantee you she did not get a raise that year. The cover, which brought in scads of money for the magazine, was her raise.

The endlessly reprinted first Best of Philly cover from 1974, left, and the less well-known but much more Carol 1975 cover.

And she was marginalized over the years. Though she proved herself more than capable of writing huge investigative stories, including 1982’s “Dealing at Street Level” (a National Magazine Award finalist) and 1986’s “Dr. Snow,” about the Penn dentist who was a cocaine dealer, which she later turned into her first book, she was often relegated to editing Best of Philly (I did five) and Top Doctors, two huge moneymakers for the magazine that the boy writers felt were beneath them. Carol did these things without complaint and with joy.

A couple other things I learned from her:

• It was not okay for women magazine journalists to parade around in jeans and a hoodie, like the dudes. You were to dress the part. In Carol’s case, that meant a wardrobe of cute little short-skirted suits, always in bright colors. The perfect heel to match (Herb would always stare at our shoes, usually in disgust) and fabulous costume jewelry, she of the bold beads and formidable bangle bracelets. Her nails were always perfectly manicured, her posture at the typewriter, then computer, always erect. She was a lady.

• But it was also not okay for her women colleagues to be treated anything less than wonderfully by their boyfriends. Carol’s office was usually the place where all of Us Girls on staff would gather. We would laugh, ask Carol questions, and commiserate. One day, one of the women on staff was having problems with her boyfriend, particularly in the sex category, particularly in a particular subset of the sex category. “Oh, honey,” said Carol. “Break up with him! Never date a guy who won’t go down on you!”

• If you get rejected, try, try again. Not only with men, but with stories. Much has been said and written about Carol’s book Sisters, written with photographer Sharon Wohlmuth, which hit “publishing gold,” according to the NYT. It was a runaway bestseller that propelled Carol to national fame and financial security. It was also a story that had been rejected by Philly Mag. I was shocked when I heard the story from Eliot Kaplan, the editor in chief from 1991 to 1999, about the time he walked into the art department and found, in a drawer, these photos, just sitting there. They were for a story on sisters that the then-editor apparently got bored with. But Carol did not take no for an answer.

• And she was there for us, really there for us. There was a time I was going through some serious depression. I knew I could go to Carol, tell her stuff she’d never repeat (she didn’t, ever), and she’d give me great advice (she did, even helping me find the right therapist, and checking on me daily). This was no frivolous thing.

Carol with her husband, Paul Rathblott, in 2011. / Photograph by HughE Dillon

I knew Carol best when she was married to her first husband, Jack Saline, he of the marvelous malapropisms (like “What am I? Chopped wood?”). And I would later take much pleasure in the story of how she met her second husband, Paul Rathblott, who she told the Times was the love of her life. They knew each other in grade school. Then decades later, Carol, well, grabbed it!

I hope you’re up there, Carol, not taking no for an answer.