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Return to Hollywood[edit]
Fitzgerald with a cigarette in 1937
Although he reportedly found movie work degrading, Fitzgerald entered into a lucrative exclusive deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1937 that necessitated his moving to Hollywood, where he earned his highest annual income up to that point: $29,757.87 (equivalent to $529,235 in 2019).[109] During his two years in California, Fitzgerald rented a room at the Garden of Allah bungalow complex on Sunset Boulevard. In an effort to abstain from alcohol, Fitzgerald resorted to drinking large amounts of bottled Coca-Cola.[110]
Completely estranged from Zelda, he began an affair with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham.[111] After a heart-attack in Schwab's Drug Store, he was ordered by his doctor to avoid strenuous exertion. He moved in with Graham, who lived in Hollywood on North Hayworth Avenue, one block east of Fitzgerald's apartment on North Laurel Avenue. Fitzgerald had two flights of stairs to climb to his apartment; Graham's was on the ground floor.[111] At one point during their affair, Fitzgerald attempted to give her one of his books, but after visiting several bookstores, he realized that they had stopped carrying his books.[97] On occasions that Fitzgerald failed his attempt at sobriety, he would tell others, "I'm F. Scott Fitzgerald. You've read my books. You've read "The Great Gatsby," haven't you? Remember?"[97]
Fitzgerald wrote some unused dialogue for Gone with the Wind (1939), for which he received no credit.
The projects Fitzgerald worked on included two weeks' unused dialog work on loanout to David Selznick for Gone with the Wind (1939) for which he received no credit, and, for MGM, revisions on Madame Curie (1943) which also went uncredited. His only screenplay credit is for Three Comrades (1938). He also spent time during this period working on his fifth and final novel, based on film executive Irving Thalberg. Fitzgerald often ignored scriptwriting rules, writing prose and description more fitting for a novel, annoying the studio.[112] In 1939, MGM terminated the contract, and Fitzgerald became a freelance screenwriter.[111] During his work on Winter Carnival (1939), Fitzgerald went on another alcoholic binge and was treated by New York psychiatrist Richard H. Hoffmann.[113]
Director Billy Wilder described Fitzgerald's foray into Hollywood as like that of "a great sculptor who is hired to do a plumbing job."[114] Edmund Wilson and Aaron Latham later suggested that Hollywood sucked Fitzgerald's creativity like a vampire.[112] His failure in Hollywood pushed him to return to drinking, imbibing nearly 40 beers a day in 1939.[100] Beginning that year, Fitzgerald mocked himself as a Hollywood hack through the character of Pat Hobby in a sequence of 17 short stories, later collected as "The Pat Hobby Stories", which garnered many positive reviews. The Pat Hobby Stories were originally published in Esquire between January 1940 and July 1941, even after his death.[115] In his final year of life, Fitzgerald wrote his daughter: "I wish now I'd never relaxed or looked back - but said at the end of 'The Great Gatsby': I've found my line - from now on this comes first. This is my immediate duty - without this I am nothing."[116]
Death[edit]
On the night of December 20, 1940, Fitzgerald and Graham attended the premiere of This Thing Called Love starring Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. As the two were leaving the Pantages Theater, Fitzgerald experienced a dizzy spell and had trouble walking; upset, he said to Graham, "They think I am drunk, don't they?"[111]
The following day, as Fitzgerald ate a candy bar and made notes in his newly arrived Princeton Alumni Weekly,[117] Graham saw him jump from his armchair, grab the mantelpiece, gasp, and fall to the floor. She ran to the manager of the building, Harry Culver. Upon entering the apartment to assist Fitzgerald, Culver stated, "I'm afraid he's dead." Fitzgerald had died of a heart attack, aged just 44.[118]
The Fitzgeralds' current grave at St. Mary's in Maryland, inscribed with the final sentence of The Great Gatsby
Among the attendees at a visitation held at a funeral home was Dorothy Parker, who reportedly cried and murmured "the poor son-of-a-bitch", a line from Jay Gatsby's funeral in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.[119][120][121] His body was transported to Bethesda, Maryland, where his funeral was attended by only thirty people; among the attendees were his only child, Scottie Fitzgerald,[note 4] and his editor, Maxwell Perkins.[122]
At the time of his death, the Roman Catholic Church denied the family's request that Fitzgerald, a non-practicing Catholic, be buried in the family plot in the Catholic Saint Mary's Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. Fitzgerald was instead buried at Rockville Union Cemetery. When Zelda Fitzgerald died in 1948, in a fire at the Highland Mental Hospital, she was originally buried next to him at Rockville Union.[123][124] In 1975, Scottie successfully petitioned to have the earlier decision revisited, and her parents' remains were moved to the family plot in Saint Mary's.[125][126][127]
Legacy[edit]
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