Wall Street Lays An Egg Wall Street Lays An Egg Wall Street Lays An Egg describes a headline printed in "Variety", a newspaper covering Hollywood and the entertainment industry, on October 30, 1929, over an article describing Black Tuesday, the height of the panic known as the Wall Street Crash of 1929 (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, meaning "failing
Wall Street Lays An Egg 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". According to author Ken Bloom, "Variety" publisher Sime Silverman 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 Claude Binyon. 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",