Headline-writing legend dead

For most of us, a minute or two of our workday in the context of our lives doesn’t define us.

When he died this week, Vincent Musetto, 74, didn’t have that luxury.

No doubt he was an accomplished man, loved his family and all that comes with spending three-quarters of a century on the planet.

But this is what defined Mr. Musetto’s life.

Photo: New York Post

Musetto retired in 2011 and still wrote reviews for the Post until he was axed in 2013.

His famous headline almost never came to be, NPR reported in 2013. After writing it, somebody said it might not have been a topless bar. Someone had to check, because back in the day, accuracy in the New York Post apparently mattered.

A few minutes before deadline,” Belsky wrote, “the reporter called in to say the bar was locked up tight. There were no signs, no advertisements about it being a topless place. I asked her if she could see inside. She said she’d try. She somehow was able to pull herself up and peek into a window of the bar. That’s when she saw it. A sign inside that said: ‘Topless Dancing.’ … New York City tabloid history was made.”

Musetto called the headline the best one he wrote in his career — even better than “Khadafy Goes Daffy,” he said.

(h/t: Katherine Lanpher)