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of Worry.” If Johnson didn’t have a nickname for someone, he addressed them with the generic “pards,” as in “pardner.” His closest partner became Emmett, who now replaced Johnsonas head of international. Martini and Rossi were constant companions, conferring in their own personal shorthand. Johnson lavished gifts on Emmett, including a luxurious corporate apartment and an unlimited expense account. Other members of Johnson’s fraternity wondered, in their crude way, how The Big E managed to get so close to The Pope. “Martin,” one quipped, “must have a picture of Ross fucking a pig.”
    Yet Johnson could be fickle. He tended to get high on people, only to drop them. Sometimes he simply tired of a person’s company, like an eight-year-old who moves on to a new playmate. Ruben Gutoff lasted only seventeen months as president of Standard Brands. His crime, it seemed, was that he moved too slowly: He wanted to hold monthly meetings of a commodities committee when commodities decisions had to be made hourly. He wanted to see tear sheets of every Standard Brands ad, when there were thousands of them a month. Johnson fired Gutoff with no remorse, as he did a number of other young executives who fell from his favor.
    “Ross, you’re a rotten fuck,” a member of his entourage told Johnson after a particularly tough firing.
    Johnson smiled. “You’re one of the few people who know me,” he replied.
    Andy Sage, the board member who rescued Johnson’s Florida real estate, proved equally helpful as chairman of Standard Brands’s compensation committee. When Johnson took power, Weigl had been making $200,000, Johnson $130,000. With Sage’s help, Johnson pushed his own salary to $480,000. Many executives saw their salaries doubled. Pay at Standard Brands went from the bottom of the industry barrel to the top of the heap.
    Johnson didn’t stop there. Top executives were also ensconced in company apartments, enjoyed a private box at Madison Square Garden, and got country-club memberships. At one new country club in Connecticut—whose founders were lucky enough to be friends of Johnson—twenty-four Standard Brands managers had memberships. Johnson also kept himself stocked with “whip money”—large bills to be whipped out of his suit pocket. Shortly before Christmas—peak tipping season—he was heard telling his secretary, “Get me an inch of fifties, will you?”
    The hallmark of Johnson’s reign was the personal touch. He had an overriding rule he felt free to invoke at any time: The chief executive can do whatever he wants. When a friend, Manhattan restaurateur MichaelManuche, went out of business, Johnson took him on in public relations; later he put him in charge of the Dinah Shore LPGA golf tournament. Johnson gave Frank Gifford an expanded contract and an office at Standard Brands. Johnson liked having Gifford around so much he decided to bring on a whole stable of athletes, including Bobby Orr and tennis star Rod Laver, to help with promotions.
    The jocks were also called on to play an occasional round of golf with the supermarket executives so important to the Standard Brands sales force. Many seemed to really be Johnson’s courtiers, primarily, a fact that puzzled some of the stars themselves. Alex Webster, the former New York Giants fullback, recalled bumping into Johnson in an elevator in 1978 and being introduced by their mutual friend Gifford. The next day, Gifford called Webster to say that Johnson wanted him to go to Montreal to address a grocers’ group. “But I don’t know anything about Standard Brands,” Webster protested. “Just tell them some stories and thank them for their business,” Gifford advised. Webster would keep doing it for Johnson for more than a decade.
    Jocks were just the beginning. As head of Standard Brands, Johnson became the King of Schmooze, cultivating friendships with corporate chieftains such as Martin Davis of Gulf + Western and James Robinson of