Free Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan by James Maguire

100-meter backstroke four full seconds faster than the silver medalist. She would eventually set twenty-three world records in swimming.
    For all her competitive prowess, Sybil was easygoing, gentle, and upbeat. She wasn’t classically pretty—her features were blunt—yet she possessed a swimmer’s svelte form. When Ed and the twenty-one-year-old swimmer met, he wasn’t the only one to swoon: the young Olympic star also found the sports reporter quite charming. Because the two lived in different parts of the country it was an unlikely romance; Sybil was a student at Northwestern University in Chicago, where she had grown up, and Ed lived in New York. But that proved no obstacle for Sullivan, and he pursued Sybil with a passion.
    The romance blossomed. Sybil’s swimming career brought her to the East Coast at times, and Ed made the trip to Chicago when he could. Several months after meeting, the two were quite serious about each other. In an unusual gesture, Ed even brought Sybil home to Port Chester to meet his family. Once established in New York he had rarely gone back, preferring to keep his distance from his father, if not from Port Chester itself. However, the trip home with Sybil proved a major success. Everyone in the Sullivan family liked her enormously.
    The romance, while growing, remained a long-distance relationship, with Sybil attending college in Chicago and pursuing her swimming career while Ed remained immersed in his life as a New York sports reporter. He continued burning the candle at both ends, covering athletics during the day and nightclubbing virtually every night of the week.
    Sybil appeared to have everything—athletic prowess, renown, winning charm—yet her life took an unexpected turn in early 1926. While being honored in a parade in St. Augustine, Florida, after winning an AAU swimming championship in February, Sybilsuffered a momentary dizziness and fell from a slow-moving touring car. Though she suffered no major injuries, it soon became evident that her dizziness was symptomatic of a very real health problem. One newspaper attributed her fall to a nervous breakdown caused by the strain of her vigorous athletic training—the idea of a prominent female athlete was resisted by many. The real cause, however, was far more serious, and Sybil’s health began to deteriorate, precipitously. Sometime in the next several months her family was told that she had cancer. The champion swimmer, in peak physical shape just months before, was now gravely ill.

    In New York, Ed stayed in touch with Sybil while maintaining both his vigorous work and night lives. One of his favorite Manhattan nightclubs was the Casa Lopez, an upscale speakeasy owned by famed bandleader Vincent Lopez. Socializing at the club one evening in early October, Sullivan spotted a young woman at the next table he described as a “very stunning brunette youngster.” He asked the Casa Lopez’s publicity man, Joe Russell, to arrange an introduction.
    Her name was Sylvia Weinstein. Elegantly dressed, the twenty-two-year-old possessed almost movie star good looks, with a trim figure, high cheekbones, and dark hair that complemented her pretty dark eyes. Her family was distinctly upper crust; her father, Julius Weinstein, a first-generation émigré from Lithuania, had made a considerable fortune in New York real estate.
    When Ed sat down at her table the attraction soon became mutual. Their conversation turned, naturally, to sports, and Ed asked Sylvia if she liked tennis. “Of course I said I loved it. Ed was very attractive,” she recalled. Ed brought up boxing and it turned out that, yes, Sylvia was also enthusiastic about attending boxing matches. Over the course of the evening’s animated chat, Ed asked Sylvia for not one but two dates. The answer to both was yes. They made a date to attend tennis star Suzanne Lenglen’s match at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, October 9, and they also planned to see the Harry Wills—Jack