Ellen Auerbach's depiction of her husband Walter as the quintessential hoodlum is so convincing that this portrait was used for the cover of Bill Buford's 1993 novel *Among the Thugs.* The pose was an exercise in role-playing for Walter Auerbach--a stage designer, artist, and writer--who was reportedly a gentle man. Shown at close range, his shorn head and dispassionate, half-closed eyes seem threatening as he contemptuously exhales a puff of smoke in the viewer's face.
