This makes for a doubly squat image as Spellman was a short and notably rotund man. Bowen describes Spellman as "a Bostonian and protege of William Cardinal O'Connell (known to Bostonians as 'Gangplank Willie' for the many photographs the papers published showing the Cardinal embarking on or debarking from his latest trip to Rome). Spellman aimed at being a true Prince of the Church, and came across to many people as a pompous old scold.

The Cardinal, a popular novel of the 50s by Henry Morton Robinson, was said to be rather freely based on the career of Spellman. Otto Preminger made a movie of this in which the hero reminded me more of Richard Nixon than Cardinal Spellman, mainly because of a speech he makes at the end. When appointed a cardinal, he describes how he has faced the church's enemies in the form of Nazism and Communism and so on - all of which reminded me of Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign. Unlike Cardinal Spellman, as far as I know, the fictitious cardinal manages to be in Vienna when the Germans take it over, later gets flogged by the Klan when he upholds racial equality in a Deep South parish, and somehow gets to confront the Communists also, though I forget how and where. I don't know how much of this was actually in the book since I never read it. Spellman wrote a novel that I did read during my high school years while my mother was a member of a Catholic book club. I can't imagine that anyone outside of a Catholic book club ever wanted to read it."