Several women were accusing Joseph R. Biden Jr., about to announce he was running for president, of touching them inappropriately. Sy Presten had a newsy item for the gossip columns.

“Listen to this,” Mr. Presten said.

He was sitting on a leather sofa in the living room of his apartment on West 26th Street. His wife, Joanne Binder, was out to lunch with a neighbor. “Years ago, I handled something called ‘Oh! Calcutta!’ It was the first nude musical,” Mr. Presten said. “I’m getting to the item. You got it? The first nude musical.”

Mr. Presten was dressed for loafing, a few days’ growth of beard on his jawline. “I did publicity for Norman Kean, who killed himself because his wife wouldn’t give up a guy she was going with,” he detoured, referring to the “Oh! Calcutta!” producer who, in a 1988 murder-suicide, stabbed his actress-wife to death one morning before jumping off the roof of his Riverside Drive apartment building.

“Anyway,” Mr. Presten resumed, “there was a party at Tavern on the Green. Some anniversary of ‘Oh! Calcutta!’ Joe Biden was an acquaintance of Norman Kean. I met Joe Biden. Joe Biden would not go to ‘Oh! Calcutta!’”