Thursday Talking Point - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This week's top recommendation was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, although unfortunately I was unable to see it myself due to scheduling difficulties. However, in keeping with the scope of the Thursday Talking Point I will discuss a theme associated with Benjamin Button, so this week it's Hollywoods relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald.


Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born to an Irish Catholic family on 24 September 1896. He seems to have been forever destined to become a writer, publishing detective stories in his school newspaper and whilst at Princeton. Although he did not complete his studies, leaving to enlist for the First World War.


He never saw action, but he did then meet Zelda Sayre, the woman who would shape his wrting and his life irrevocably before she developed schizophrenia.

His first novel, published before he was married in 1920, was This Side of Paradise and concerned the loves of a ambitious writer. It was followed by The Beautiful and the Damned in 1922.

Three years later Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby hit the shelves. The novel concerns itself with the failure of the American dream post World War I, and how the endless pursuit of monetary gain can become just taht with people never satisfied with what they have.

Fitzgerald wrote only one more novel whilst he lived and The Last Tycoon, edited from his notes was published in 1941 the year after he died. Although he wrote numerous short stories either for magazines (easy money for someone like Fitzgerald) or as part of collections.

The success of Fitzgerald's first noel was so huge that Hollywood wasted no time mining his work. The first film based on Fitzgeralds writing was The Chorus Girl's Romance in 1920, based on his short story "Head and Shoulders". Needless to say other than for curiousity value, and the thought that it is probably a "lost silent" there is little to recommend this however it sparked a trend.

In the next 4 years 6 of his novels and short stories were adapted, and The Great Gatbsy, starring Warner Baxter as Gatsby and William Powell as Wilson, went into production soon after the book was published.

From the 1930's Fitzgerald began to work inside the Hollywood on short stories. Essentially a hack, although he worked on some well remembered films like Marie Antoinette, The Women and even Gone with the Wind, although the scenes he wrote were not later filmed. His time in Hollywood may have been degrading but it certainly gave him plenty to write about, be it the "Pat Hobby Stories", about a Hollywood hack much like Fitzgerald, or his final novel, based on the Irving Thalberg.

Since his death Fitzgerald's works have gone inand out of fashion, although it is now widely regarded that he is one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th Century. Gatsby itslef has seen 4 incarnations with Alan Ladd, Robert Redford and Toby Stephens all taking on the iconic role. There is even another version currently in the pre-production stage from director Baz Luhrmann, and if anyone can pull off the fascination yet disgust we will feel towards the opulence on show I think Luhrmann will be able to do it.