The Press: Voice from the Sewer

“When you unsnap your brassiere.” leered the San Francisco Chronicle columnist who calls himself Count Marco, “do you let out a loud ‘whoosh’ of relief and stand there grunting and scratching like some happy sow, or do you have your [husband] help with the snaps, then gracefully cross your arms as you let it slip down?”

On the theory that sex builds circulation, the Chronicle, under Publisher Charles Thieriot and Executive Editor Scott Newhall, has moved toward the top spot among San Francisco newspapers with an unequaled array of columnists specializing in sophisticated spice (TIME, April 13). But the danger of sex becoming mere smut is sharply illustrated in the case of Count Marco, newest member of the Chronicle’s stable of columnists.

Born Marco Spinelli in Pittsburgh (his father is an Italian count, but Marco will not inherit the title, blandly admits that his use of it is “crass and commercial”), wispy, mustachioed Count Marco, 41, is a widower, an ex-actor (he played the fool in Twelfth Night), ex-producer of television soap operas, ex-hairdresser. His column “Beauty and the Beast,” smirkingly instructs San Francisco housewives on all manner of boudoir-and-bathroom behavior. A prize example:

“Revive in your own house the lost art of romance and take a bath with your husband . . . Step daintily into the bubble-filled tub. Mon Dieu, this is no time to bend over . . . Don’t offer to his horrified eyes the ungainly sight of a bare bottom that will only remind him of a blimp struggling through a storm . . .

Lower yourself gradually into the water. Don’t just plop in like a baby whale.”

Defending his newest columnist against growing criticism, Editor Scott Newhall says loftily: “The column is aimed at the American wife who is approaching a more mature age, and affords her a chance to restore some of the excitement she had in her younger years. Count Marco is writing around the brink of a great big Freudian abyss.” Where Editor Newhall may be going wrong in his circulation drive is in mistaking a sewer for an abyss.