Never Say Die

Houston's hard-drinking, risk-taking Oilman Glenn McCarthy has a habit of making comebacks just when things look blackest. Once, when he had gone $1,500,000 in the red, and a creditors' committee had taken over his affairs, he didn't even have the $20,000 needed to finish the mansion he was building. Then, from an oilman he scarcely knew, came a check for $50,000 and a note: "Pay me when you can." McCarthy finished his mansion and launched new oil explorations that made him millions.

Once more down on his luck, McCarthy is trying another comeback. But when he talked of starting a new wildcatting company, his chief creditor, Equitable Life Assurance, said no. It told him that he must put his McCarthy Oil & Gas Corp. and Shamrock Hotel in order, or step out of the management (TIME, April 14).

Last week McCarthy and Equitable came to terms. Equitable made him step out of the management of the oil company and give up his $5,000-a-month salary as chairman. Equitable also stepped up the size of the payments on McCarthy's loan. Then it announced that it was in "full agreement" with his plan for a new oil company. Houston's investment firm, B. V. Christie Co., notified the SEC of McCarthy's intention of selling $20 million worth of stock at $2 per share in a new wildcatting company, to be known as Glenn McCarthy, Inc. Its chief assets: McCarthy's name and Irish luck. All that remained to be seen was whether McCarthy could sell the stock and if so whether he could find oil with the cash.

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