Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (621 page)

Scott

TO ALICE RICHARDSON

Santa Barbara,
California

July
29,1940

Dear Alicia:

Your letter and Scottie’s reached me here the same day - here where with a producer I am working on a story for little Miss Temple. Santa Barbara is supposed to have some escape magic like Palm Springs, but no matter how hard you look it’s still California.

Daughter speaks of you with great admiration, says you have grown a full cubit since Baltimore, put your hair up, and stand like a modern Pallas Athene in mid-career. How well I remember Philippe’s castle drawn by a friend of yours and Gertrude Stein’s passage through Baltimore. It was a solemn winter but there were worse to come and in retrospect those months have an air of early April.

I am sincerely sorry not to have seen you - not only from curi-

osity but because you were always so determined things would be right that I’m glad they’ve turned out right. And turned out as you hoped and intended.

Your old friend,

Scott

P.S. Isn’t Hollywood a dump - in the human sense of the word? A hideous town, pointed up by the insulting gardens of its rich, full of the human spirit at a new low of debasement

TO MRS NEUVILLE

1403 North Laurel AvenueHollywood, California

July 29, 1940

Dear Mrs Neuville:

I thought the other day that a large rat had managed to insert itself into the plaster above my bedroom and workroom. I was, however, surprised that it apparently slept at night and worked in the day, causing its greatest din around high noon.

However yesterday, much to my surprise, I deduced from the sounds it emitted that it was a dog, or rather several dogs, and evidently training for a race, for they ran round and round the tin roof. Now I don’t know how these greyhounds climbed up the wall but I know dog-racing is against the law of California - so I thought you’d like to know. Beneath the arena where these races occur an old and harassed literary man is gradually going mad.

Sincerely,

F. Scott Fitzgerald

TO MRS NEUVILLE

1403 North Laurel AvenueHollywood,
California

August 12, 1940

My dear Mrs Neuville:

The woman across the hall takes her dog on that bare and resounding roof every morning. It is impossible to work or sleep while the riot is in progress. Today we had some words about it and she informed me of her intention to continue - though if I took to rapping on her roof she would doubtless consider it an outrage.

I believe that the roof was locked when I took this apartment and I request that it be locked again. As a respecter of the rights of others I know she has no legal or moral right to perpetuate this nuisance.

Sincerely,

F. Scott Fitzgerald

TO BENNETT CERF

1403 North
Laurel
Avenue

Hollywood, California

December 13, 1940

Dear Bennett Cerf:

I told Budd

Schulberg I was going to write you a word about his novel with permission to quote if you wanted. I read it through in one night. It is a grand book, utterly fearless and with a great deal of beauty side by side with the most bitter satire. Such things
are
in Hollywood - and Budd reports them with fine detachment. Except for its freshness and the inevitable challenge of a new and strong personality, it doesn’t read like a first novel at all.

It is full of excellent little vignettes - the ‘extra girl’ or whatever she is, and her attitude on love, and the diverse yet identical attitude of the two principal women on Sammy. Especially toward the end it gets the feeling of Hollywood with extraordinary vividness. Altogether I congratulate you on publishing this fine book and I hope it has all the success it deserves.

Sincerely,

F. Scott Fitzgerald

TO RALPH CHURCH

1403
North Laurel AvenueHollywood, California

December
17, 1940

DearMrChurch:

I hope the appearance of this pamphlet about the clubs means what I think it does - that the pictures and membership lists will be eliminated from
The Bric-a-Brac
proper. I’ve often wondered what the non-club men thought when they brought
The Bric-a- Brac
home with all that emphasis on Prospect Avenue.

For a dozen years Princeton has sunk steadily behind Yale and Harvard in their attitude toward this monkey business.
The Bric-a-Brac
could do a magnificent job by leaving out the clubs or else print in addition pictures of all the clubs who eat at tables in Commons.

Sincerely,

F. Scott Fitzgerald