Wall Street Lays An Egg was a headline printed in ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'', a newspaper covering Hollywood and the entertainment industry, on October 30, 1929, over an article describing

Black Tuesday The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange coll ...

, the height of the panic known as the

Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange coll ...

(the actual headline text was WALL ST. LAYS AN EGG). It is one of the most famous headlines ever to appear in an American publication and continues to be noted in history books into the 21st century. "Laying an egg" is an American idiom, current particularly in 20th century

show business Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz or showbiz (since 1945), is a vernacular term for all aspects of the entertainment industry.''Oxford English Dictionary'' 2nd Ed. (1989) From the business side (including managers, agents, produce ...

, meaning "failing badly". ''Variety'' was noted for the slangy, breezy style of prose in its headlines and body text. Another famous headline in the paper was "

Sticks Nix Hick Pix "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" is a famous headline printed in '' Variety'', a newspaper covering Hollywood and the entertainment industry, on July 17, 1935, over an article about the reaction of rural audiences to movies about rural life. ''Variety'' was ...

". According to author Ken Bloom, ''Variety'' publisher

Sime Silverman Simon J. Silverman (May 19, 1873 – September 22, 1933) was an American journalist and newspaper publisher. He was the founder of the weekly newspaper ''Variety'' in New York City in 1905, which gave theatre and vaudeville reviews and the Hol ...

wrote the headline. However, Robert John Landry, who worked at ''Variety'' for 50 years, including as managing editor, says it was written by ''Variety''

city editor A city editor is a title used by a particular section editor of a newspaper. They are responsible for the daily changes of a particular issue of a newspaper that will be released in the coming day. Mostly they stay at the publication at night and t ...

Claude Binyon Claude Binyon (October 17, 1905 Chicago, Illinois – February 14, 1978 Glendale, California) was a screenwriter and director. His genres were comedy, musicals, and romances. As a Chicago-based journalist for the ''Examiner'' newspaper, he be ...

. The phrase is sometimes still used to invoke the Great Crash. For example, the sub-chapter describing the Crash in the 1973 book '' A Random Walk Down Wall Street'' is titled "Wall Street Lays An Egg", as is chapter 18 of the 1996 book ''Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway'', and chapter 17 of the 2003 book ''New World Coming : The 1920s and the Making of Modern America''. Even into the 21st century, variations of the headline have been used to announce financial downturns, some by ''Variety'' itself ("Wall Street, Son of Egg" in 1962, "Wall Street Lays An Egg: The Sequel" in 1987), and some by other publications ("Wall Street Lays Another Egg" in '' Vanity Fair'' in 2008).

References

{{reflist, refs= {{Cite book , last=Geisst , first=Charles R. , url=https://archive.org/details/wallstreethistor00geis , title=Wall Street: A History , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=1997 , isbn=978-0195396218 , pag
192
, access-date=April 15, 2016 , url-access=registration {{Cite book , last=Bloom , first=Ken , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ib2awFyFUKoC&pg=PT539 , title=Broadway: An Encyclopedia , publisher=Routledge , year=2003 , isbn=978-0415937047 , page=539 , access-date=April 15, 2016 {{Cite web , date=May 25, 1991 , title=Robert John Landry, Editor, 87 (obituary) , url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/25/obituaries/robert-john-landry-editor-87.html , access-date=April 15, 2016 , website=New York Times {{Cite web , date=March 17, 1977 , title=The Americanization of English , url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/67991089/ , url-access=subscription , access-date=April 15, 2016 , website=Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph {{Cite book , last=Malkiel , first=Burton Gordon , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8x1YpBp6WYC&pg=PA48 , title=A Random Walk Down Wall Street , publisher=W. W. Norton & Company , year=1973 , isbn=0-393-06245-7 , page=48 , access-date=April 15, 2016 {{Cite book , last=Nolan , first=Frederick , url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195102895.001.0001/acprof-9780195102895-chapter-18 , title=Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=1996 , isbn=9780195102895 , access-date=April 15, 2016 {{Cite book , last=Miller , first=Nathan , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RvU1p5tjGhgC&pg=PA365 , title=New World Coming : The 1920s and the Making of Modern America , publisher=Scribner , year=2003 , isbn=978-0684852959 , page=365 , access-date=April 15, 2016 {{Cite web , last=Niall Ferguson , date=November 6, 2008 , title=Wall Street Lays Another Egg , url=http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/12/banks200812 , access-date=April 15, 2016 , website=Vanity Fair Variety (magazine) Headlines Wall Street October 1929 events Great Depression in the United States