Fitzgerald in Hollywood

An interesting discussion about the many reasons for F. Scott Fitzgerald's downfall in Hollywood. Goodness knows he burned with talent but not the kind of talent that could lead to success in Hollywood like the kind of success he had enjoyed in the '20s. The reasons for Fitzgerald's failure are many but one I hadn't thought of before may have been his political incorrectness - Fitzgerald was never really concerned with the social issues like the rest of Hollywood was in the '30s:

Of course, Patsy Ruth is describing the emerging cells of Hollywood Reds. The love of humanity at the expense of the individual is at the core of Communist ideology. Too often Communist purges, where thousands if not millions are murdered, are justified by the charming dictum: “You have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelette.”

Patsy Ruth observes:

His work was condemned, they said, and he believed them. He denounced himself even more harshly than his judges, accusing his work of being trivial and superficial.

“He actually told me he’s ashamed of The Great Gatsby,” John fairly snarled. “Those cursed Do-gooders… they’ve got him believing his work isn’t worth a tinkers damn just because he wasn’t waving a banner or marching in a picket line. They’ve destroyed him, as sure as God made little apples.”

That shouldn’t keep him from writing,” I protested.

The Hell it doesn’t,” John said. “Who can write when you’ve been told, when you’ve been convinced that anything you have to say is a bunch of crap. He can write rings around every one of those bastards who’ve done this to him, but he doesn’t believe it any more, and if you don’t believe it, you can’t do it.”

I think that's reaching a bit - Fitzgerald's downward spiral can be traced back to his post-Gatsby days. Still, it's good to see that despite whatever outside pressures he was feeling, Fitzgerald stayed as true to his vision as he could. That's no small thing.

Fitzgerald and His Pat Hobby Stories

Though I've re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby within the last few years - if you're looking for The Great American Novel, here it is - it's been a long, long time since I've read any of his short stories. This might be a good reason to dig into at least the Pat Hobby stories:

When F. Scott Fitzgerald died in Los Angeles in 1940, he'd been laboring for a year and a half on "The Last Tycoon," a novel about a charismatic movie producer named Monroe Stahr. Published posthumously, this uncompleted manuscript would be called—by, among others, Edmund Wilson—the finest work of fiction ever written about Hollywood.

On weekends during those same creative months, Fitzgerald dashed off (for quick cash) a batch of tales involving a much different Hollywood type: a down-at-heels scriptwriter named Pat Hobby. The 17 Hobby episodes, printed in Esquire magazine between 1939 and 1941 and later collected into "The Pat Hobby Stories" (Scribner), complement "The Last Tycoon" and fill out his vision of the movie-town that fed and inspired him in his final years. The unfinished "Tycoon" is a masterpiece of modern-romantic tragedy. "The Pat Hobby Stories" is an acerbic comedy—one where the laughs often stick in your throat.

Fitzgerald's story is a tragic one - yes, much of it self-inflicted - but I liked how, at the end there, he was working on coming back to life. And, right up to the end, he was devoted to his daughter, Scottie. These stories sound like they may shed a little light of how things were before they ended.