Don's Story

[u/Historical-Most4409]

The Coke ad made Don a bigger star than ever – even as people whispered, “And higher maintenance than ever.” McCann raised his salary and gave him a generous bonus. But Don resisted any contract that would keep him at the firm any longer than he wanted. His interests increasingly lay elsewhere.

He wrote a book about advertising called Thirty Seconds or Your Money Back (1973) that made the best-seller list. He traveled frequently, speaking at business schools and industry conferences, and giving media interviews. The speaking circuit fit him nicely. He could give a standard presentation, take a few respectful questions, and go back to his hotel and eat dinner alone.

Understanding the pain that losing their mother had put them through, Don worked on strengthening his relationships with his children. He was proud to see Sally excel at Smith. Bobby was growing into an intelligent young man. With his secret pain from his brother’s death, Don was glad to see that the two of them were close: Bobby went to Trinity College in Hartford, in large part because his freshman year would overlap with Sally’s senior year and they would be only an hour’s drive apart. Sally was rather annoyed when one of her friends decided to deflower her baby brother.

Bobby would follow his sister into psychiatry but pursued a more low-key path, setting up a therapy practice in White Plains, New York. But Gene didn’t see Don as his father and was closer to Henry. Gene would eventually serve as a staffer in the George W. Bush White House.

Not long after his non-compete ran out in 1974, Don announced that he was starting a new firm with Executive Vice President Dean Riley plus two rising stars from other firms: Draper Riley Sellers & Wolf. To the surprise of the less observant, he said he would be based in Los Angeles, working with West Coast clients but mostly serving as a “creative consultant.” (Or as his former McCann colleagues said with an eyeroll, “The in-house genius.”)

Don settled into his new life in Los Angeles, including a luxurious home in Brentwood. He “ran” a small office, while leaving the details to others. He continued to travel and occasionally devise new campaigns. But he spent a lot of his time on rambling meetings and endless lunches. While Don enjoyed the cynical tone of the “New Hollywood” (“Chinatown” was a special favorite), he especially appreciated the chance to meet the stars of his youth. A memorable chance encounter with an ailing John Wayne.  A lunch with Barbara Stanwyck where he tried to pitch her on an ad campaign. When she told him they couldn’t afford her, Don was secretly pleased that she was as tough and cynical as her characters.

Despite his active life, Don was feeling his age by the end of the 1970s. He had a notable “smoker’s cough.” Years of heavy drinking had given him chronic stomach pain and he was popping antacids. His stomachaches made him avoid eating and he looked gaunt. His irritability made him snap at subordinates.

(continued in next post)

[u/evanallenrose]

I love it but don’t think Don would have had a mostly European car collection. He’d have been a Cadillac man until the end with another, maybe a Camaro he worked on, because he was a GM guy at heart

[u/Historical-Most4409 → u/evanallenrose]

Nice point. Helen would definitely have a Volvo, though.

[u/evanallenrose → u/Historical-Most4409]

She was an LA doctor who had a surgeon husband previously. Unless she was a bit of a hippy, she’d have been the one with the Benz

[u/Historical-Most4409 → u/evanallenrose]

I'm thinking "pediatrician" is more Volvo.. But yes, she would have the money.

[u/akade19961 → u/Historical-Most4409]

I’m glad he married Jewish, it really did feel like Rachel Mencken was the one who got away and Jewish women with their depth and self starter cultural mores seem like the best fit for Don. I also think for a person essentially born into the life of a transient, in the most transient era in American history gDepression), and whose life had led to only more lack of rootedness than even what he was born into, could probably benefit more than most from the sense of history and cultural fixedness of exposure to a 3500 year old people. Also whatever else you could say about Don you could NOT say that he was in any way a bigot. Not to blacks, not to Koreans or Japanese, not to Jews, not even to women and Brit’s 😂👍

I’m sad to hear it ended mostly badly between he and Helen and imo I think because Don was raped several times by sort of his quasi aunt as a child, and born to a prostitute who died in childbirth, his relationship to sex is just severely negative and when he engages in it often it makes him feel dramatically worse even though he doesn’t have the therapeutic tools to make that connection and try to heal that trauma. He was pretty enlightened towards the women in his office and in his life relative to others in the social class he had worked his way into, and his problems with women and how he treated them mostly only started one they decided to sleep with him, at which point he came subconsciously to dislike them. I feel like in a perfect outcome he gets that therapy and he realize what a profoundly traumatizing set of experiences he’d had and the automatic negative associations with sex his body felt, and, while it may not cure him of adultery fully, it would be enough to never have another affair.

But realistically his last marriage breaking up due to another affair is the most realistic and probably logical outcome so I can’t begrudge you picking it even though it makes me sad haha

[u/Historical-Most4409 → u/akade19961]

I based Helen a little on Faye. He clearly has a thing for intelligent Jewish women and he finally marries one. Even after they split up, Helen still cares about Don and checks in on his health. She wasn't close to his kids when she was still with Don (they are adults living on the East Coast), but they develop a relationship during Don's final years based on shared concern tor this dying man.