Vincent Musetto, 74; wrote classic headline

NEW YORK - Vincent Musetto, 74, a veteran newspaperman who wrote one of the industry's most famous headlines, died Tuesday, three weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, his family said.

Mr. Musetto was a longtime news editor and film critic for the New York Post when he wrote the headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar," which appeared on the paper's front page April 15, 1983, for a story on the killing of a bar owner who was shot and beheaded.

The New York Times, in its obituary, contrasted the headline with its own "Owner of a Bar Shot to Death; Suspect Is Held."

The headline almost didn't happen. There was a question in the newsroom on whether the bar actually was topless. A reporter was put on the case and found that it was.

It was not Mr. Musetto's favorite. He preferred one he wrote the next year: "Granny Executed in Her Pink Pajamas."

Mr. Musetto, who retired in 2011, "was one of the legends of our business, and he became famous for a truly classic headline," said a statement from Post editor in chief Col Allan. ". . . But for those who worked with him and mourn him today, V.A. offered so much more."

His daughter, Carly, told Capital New York that she recalled accompanying her father to the newsroom when she was a kid and seeing him stand on his desk yelling out headline ideas. "He loved his work," she said.