During a career which spanned the 1940s to the 1990s, he profiled such notables as Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Barbra Streisand, Robin Williams, Bill Cosby, Jack Nicholson and Miss Piggy.
His reporting for Playboy on the 1972 Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky chess match is included as one of four “Best of the Best” in David Halberstam's Best American Sportswriting of the Century.
The vividness of his writing is notable; his language has appeared in several collections of quotations, including this description of Elvis Presley: "The hair was a Vaseline cathedral, the mouth a touchingly uncertain sneer of allure.
Like a berserk blender the lusty young pelvis whirred and the notorious git-tar slammed forward with a jolt that symbolically deflowered a generation of teenagers and knocked chips off 90 million older shoulders.
This description of Jackie Gleason is also memorable: "Gross in physique, gargantuan in gourmandise, oceanic in liquid capacity, prodigal of purse, a fire hose of libido and a Niagara of comic invention, the man was excess personified and one of the great entertainers of the age."