Norman Mailer, best known for The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner's Song, was born on January 31. He lived at 73 Perry Street in New York City.

Perhaps his biggest contribution to the life of the Village was The Village Voice, which he helped start in 1955 with John Wilcock, Ed Fancher, and Dan Wolf.

Always provocative, Mailer said this about writing:

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

"Mr. Mailer Interviews Himself" in The New York Times Book Review, September 17, 1967.