High Finance: Bonaparte's Retreat

Eddy Gilbert was always fond of telling people what great things he could do, and sometimes he did them. As a brash, icy-eyed youngster of 24. he decided he wanted control of Memphis' E.L. Bruce Co., a leading manufacturer of hardwood products. Ten years later, in 1958, he won control of the company after a go-for-broke battle that established him as one of Wall Street's boy wonders. Eddy, who once showed up at a costume party as Napoleon, assured friends that this was only the beginning. He intended, he said, to use...