American financier and railroad executive George Jay Gould, 59, dies today.
He came here to the Riviera on vacation with his former mistress and second wife of only one year, Guinevere Jeanne, 38, and their three children (identified by the New York Times as “her three children”).
George Jay Gould
Gould succumbs to pneumonia, the result of a fever he contracted a few months ago after visiting the recently excavated tomb of King Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.
The financial supporter of the excavation, George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, died earlier this year at age 56, a few months after entering the tomb.
Next month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 63, creator of the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, is pleased to be doing what he is meant to do: Lecturing an audience of Americans about the importance of spiritualism.
The Conan Doyle family departing from Victoria Station for their trip to America
Doyle spent the past day constantly answering reporters’ questions about the death of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, 56, financier of and participant in the recent excavation of the tomb of King Tutankhamun near Luxor, Egypt. Carnarvon died yesterday in the Continental Savoy Hotel in Cairo, about two weeks after shaving over a mosquito bite on his cheek that became infected. Blood poisoning combined with pneumonia and his general ill health led to his death.
Lord Carnarvon
The main question to Doyle has been, Was Lord Carnarvon’s death the result of a curse put on all who disturbed the tomb of the Pharaoh, dead over 3,000 years? The headlines have read, “Doyle Blames Spirits for Carnarvon Death,” “Conan-Doyle Says Spirits Killed Lord,” “Says Ghosts Did It,” and
Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette
Doyle has told reporters that the spirits of the Egyptians
easily may have used these powers, occult and otherwise, to defend their graves. They always opposed digging up the mummies.”
In his lecture tonight, the first on a six-month American tour, Doyle wants to leave Egyptian curses behind him and impress the crowd with a series of “spirit photographs” he has, that show ectoplasm and floating faces. He wants to convince them that, since the Great War, mankind is searching for meaning, and religion has failed. Only spiritualism can provide the necessary comfort.
During the lecture Conan Doyle rests his head in his hand and closes his eyes—such drama. He says he can see
a great church forming which will take in all sects from the Roman Catholic to the Salvation Army…which will bring religion and science together…The old Christianity is dead—dead. How else could 10 million young men have marched out to slaughter? Did any moral force stop that war? No, Christianity is dead.”
The media are already souring on Conan Doyle’s theories about the Egyptian curse. The New York Times is planning an editorial headlined, “He’s Beginning to Strain Our Patience.”
This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
The new kid on the block, Warner Brothers studios, releases its first film, Main Street. Based on last year’s hit novel by Sinclair Lewis, 38, the movie is billed as “The Story that Made the World Sit Up in a Dazed Surprise.” The studio was only incorporated about three weeks ago by four immigrant brothers originally named Wonsal.
Main Street film lobby card
Production company Famous Players-Lasky and distributor Paramount Pictures account for several of the films bringing people to the theatres this month, including Prodigal Daughters starring Gloria Swanson, 24, and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine starring Mary Miles Minter, just turning 21.
Prodigal Daughters poster
Famous Players-Lasky’s most innovative offering however, is Bella Donna staring Polish-born Pola Negri, 26, in her first American film, and Pittsburgh-born Adolphe Menjou, 33. The new Phonofilm process, developed by inventor Lee de Forest, 49, allows audiences to hear the music and sound effects synchronized with the film, not from live musicians. Later in the month, de Forest puts on a demonstration of the sound-on-film technique at the Rivoli Theatre, presenting a variety of short movies with music and dancing, but no synchronized dialogue. Yet. He’s working on it.
Bella Donna poster
The biggest hit this month, from Hal Roach Studios, is Safety Last!, with handsome star Harold Lloyd, just turning 30, trying to look nerdy behind oversized eyeglasses. The most astounding scene shows Harold dangling off a clock on a skyscraper, high above the street below. The scene was created using footage showing Lloyd, who has already lost parts of a few fingers in a stunt accident; a couple of stunt doubles, including one who works as a steeplejack; and various buildings between First and Ninth Streets in downtown Los Angeles.
After Safety Last! premieres at the Strand Theatre in New York, the Times says that the seven-reeler is,
filled with laughs and gasps…Although laughter follows quickly on the heels of each thrill, the thrill lasts long enough for a man to feel that dizzy feeling when looking down from a height of 12 stories.”
Safety Last! poster
*****
In that same issue, the New York Times reports that a Mexican teenager, Marina Vega, 15, traveled from Mexico City to break into the house of international film star Charlie Chaplin, just turning 34, in the Hollywood Hills.
Charlie Chaplin’s Hollywood Hills home
After being removed from the house, Vega returned and put on Chaplin’s pajamas in his bedroom. Chaplin convinced her to leave by promising to pay for her train ticket home.
However, two days later Marina was back again, strewing red roses on Chaplin’s driveway and lying on top of them. Chaplin’s valet saw all the red and thought the woman had shot herself. Vega claimed she had taken poison and was rushed to the hospital. But it was never clear whether she had really poisoned herself.
So the Times went with the headline, “GIRL PURSUES CHAPLIN; Marina Vega Is Said to Have Taken Poison at His Home.”
This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Tells of the Difficulties Involved in Reaching the Top—
Hope of Winning in 1924 by
Establishment of Base Camps on a Higher Level”
…’Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?’ This question was asked of George Leigh Mallory [37], who was with both expeditions toward the summit of the world’s highest mountain, in 1921 and 1923, and who is now in New York. He plans to go again [next year], and he gave as the reason for persisting in these repeated attempts to reach the top, ‘Because it’s there.'”
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Free-lance writer Dorothy Parker, 29, is worrying about how to handle the regular book club that she is hosting this evening here at her apartment.
Sixth Avenue and West 57th Street
They all will have heard; she lunches at the Algonquin Hotel most days with one of the regulars, New York Times reporter Jane Grant, 30, and her husband American Legion Weekly editor Harold Ross, also 30. Parker knows the writers who congregate there have been spreading rumors and trying to figure out why she did it.
Dottie is thinking it will be best to take the direct approach. She’ll greet each guest saying,
I slashed my wrists.”
That should get over some of the awkwardness.
That Sunday she had arrived back here at her apartment feeling really hungry. She called down and ordered delivery from that vile—but convenient—restaurant downstairs, the Swiss Alps.
When she went into the bathroom Parker saw the razor left behind by her estranged husband Edwin Pond Parker III, 29, when he took off to his family back in Connecticut last summer. She hadn’t noticed it before.
Parker took the blade and cut along the vein in her left wrist. Blood spurted all over the room. Her hand was so slippery she had a hard time slitting the other wrist.
And then the delivery boy arrived with dinner.
Call a doctor!”
Dottie shouted. The ambulance took her to Presbyterian Hospital.
Some of her friends’ comments around the lunch table have gotten back to her.
Playwright Marc Connelly, 32, thinks it was “just a bit of theatre.” A few feel Parker was looking for attention, or to have Eddie come back. Jane Grant is suspicious of the fortuitous arrival of the delivery boy.
Dorothy and Eddie Parker
Her family and some of her lunch friends came to visit Parker in the hospital. Dean of the New York columnists Franklin Pierce Adams (FPA), 41, stayed away. Connelly came; as did theatre critic Alexander Woollcott, about to turn 36. Most important of all was the visit from her best friend, Life magazine editor Robert Benchley, 33.
Eddie didn’t even keep his razors sharp,”
she told him.
In the hospital Parker had tied pale blue ribbons into little bows around the scars on her wrists. For the bridge club tonight, Dottie decides to use black velvet ribbons.
Next month I will be talking about the literary 1920s in Paris and New York City in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse,about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Ad to be placed tomorrow in the New York Times by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]
*****
In Moscow, Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay, 32, has given his speech to the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International on the topic, “The Negro Question,” which was well-received. McKay financed this trip, which he calls his “Magic Pilgrimage,” by selling deluxe editions of his poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, to people on the NAACP donor list and working as a stoker on a freighter.
Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
At the Sam H. Harris Theatre on West 42nd Street, Hamlet, starring the legendary John Barrymore, 40, has just opened. The New York Herald says that his performance “will be memorable in the history of the American theatre.”
The Times predicts,
We have a new and a lasting Hamlet.”
And Brooklyn Life says that Barrymore has “won the right to be called the greatest living American tragedian.”
John Barrymore as Hamlet
*****
Farther up Fifth Avenue, the Cort Theatre on 48th Street is hosting a different type of theatrical success, Merton of the Movies, by Algonquin Hotel lunch buddies Marc Connelly, 31, and George S Kaufman, just turning 33. Like their previous Broadway hit Dulcy, Merton is based on a suggestion from another regular at the Algonquin, top World columnist Franklin Pierce Adams, just turning 41, known to all as FPA.
The Times calls it “a delight in every way,” and their other lunch regular, Heywood Broun, 33, also in the World, calls it “the most amusing show of the season.”
Cast of Merton of the Movies
*****
But, around the corner at the much smaller Punch and Judy Theatre on 49th Street, Connelly and Kaufman have financed a comedy review, The ‘49ers, written by their friends.
The gang put on a show back in April, No Sirree!, which was only performed one night for an invited audience of their friends and fans, who loved it.
So they figured they’d do it right this time—hire a producer, director and professional actors. Besides Connelly, Kaufman, FPA and Broun, the sketches were written by their talented friends, including Dorothy Parker, 29, Robert Benchley, 33, and Ring Lardner, 37.
What could go wrong?!
It wasn’t funny.
On opening night, the Mistress of Ceremonies, legendary vaudevillian Miss May Irwin, 60, was soooo bad, Connelly decided to take on the role himself, over Kaufman’s objections.
The whole disaster just closed after only 15 performances.
May Irwin
*****
One block away, at Tony Soma’s speakeasy, Parker is sharing the horror story of her recent abortion with anyone who will listen. Few want to.
She’d felt sick when her friend, magazine illustrator Neysa McMein, 34, was painting her portrait recently. Neysa gave her a glass of gin and immediately got her to a west side hospital.
DorothyParker by Neysa McMein
They both knew who the father was: That cad, would-be playwright Charles MacArthur, 27.
When Dotty told Charlie that she had had an abortion, he slipped her 30 bucks, which did not cover the cost, and promptly disappeared from her life. Parker said,
It was like Judas making a refund.”
To make it worse, due to her sloppy timekeeping, Parker had passed her first trimester, and “Dr. Sunshine” (one of many so-called in Manhattan) was angry that her pregnancy was farther along than she had claimed.
After one week in the hospital, Parker is back to her usual writing, reviewing and drinking. She has poems regularly in the Saturday Evening Post, and her first short story, “Such a Pretty Little Picture” will be in next month’s Smart Set.
But this whole experience has truly depressed her. Her pal Benchley is supportive, but he warned her about MacArthur, who has become one of Benchley’s best friends.
She tells him,
Serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.”
Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
This wedding is fun. The Manhattan editors and writers who trade quips and insults almost every day at lunch at the Algonquin Hotel are here. The groom is Robert Sherwood, 26, editor of the humor magazine Life, towering over everyone at 6 feet 8 inches tall. The bride is actress Mary Brandon, 20, who appeared with Sherwood and the Algonquin gang in their one-off revue, No Sirree!, a few months ago.
The Little Church Around the Corner, aka The Church of the Transfiguration
The ushers include Sherwood’s co-editor at Life, Robert Benchley, 33, who just finished a gig with the Music Box Revue doing his shtick from No Sirree!, “The Treasurer’s Report,” seven days a week. And Alexander Woollcott, 35, who just went from reviewing plays for the New York Times to writing a column, “In the Wake of the Plays,” for the New York Herald after the owner, Frank Munsey, 68, offered him $15,000 a year. “For money and no other reason,” explains Woollcott.
And playwright Marc Connelly, 31, who just had a second Broadway hit, West of Pittsburgh, with his collaborator, George S Kaufman, 32.
And also Frank Case, 49, who is not known to be particularly witty, but as the manager of the Algonquin Hotel, he must have a good sense of humor.
Frank Case
Also attending are hit novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, 26, and his wife Zelda, 22, fresh off the successful publication of his second collection of short stories, Tales of the Jazz Age.
And America’s sweethearts, film stars Mary Pickford, 30, and her co-star and husband of two years, Douglas Fairbanks, 39.
All wish the Sherwoods well. But some predict this wedding will be the high point of their marriage.
Mary Brandon Sherwood
*****
Many of the wedding guests actually have more fun in the summer and into the fall partying out on Long Island.
The biggest bashes are at the rented home of New York World publisher Herbert Bayard Swope, 40, overlooking Manhasset Bay. People were not invited—they went there.
Herbert Bayard Swope’s house in Great Neck
From Great Neck then, came the Fitzgeralds, who have rented a house there and the Lardners from across the street. And a whole clan named Marx, including Arthur (“Harpo”), 33, and his brother Julius (“Groucho”), 32, who have made a name for themselves in musical theatre.
From nearby Sandy Point came magazine illustrator Neysa McMein, 34, and mining engineer Jack Baragwanath, 35. Neysa was the first to suggest that their competitive croquet games on the lawn be played without rules. Swope loved the idea; he feels the game
makes you want to cheat and kill…The game gives release to all the evil in you.”
Heywood Broun, 33, a columnist on Swope’s own World, came to gamble, but sometimes brought his wife, free-lance writer Ruth Hale, 35.
Of theatrical people there were the Kaufmanns and Connelly and composer George Gershwin, 24. Also from New York were Woollcott, and New York Times journalist Jane Grant, 30. And the free-lance writer DorothyParker, 29, separated now, who has pieces in almost every issue of the Saturday Evening Post. She’s sometimes accompanied by her latest beau, would-be playwright Charles MacArthur, 27, but other times is seen sneaking across the road to the home of sportswriter Ring Lardner, 37, when his wife is away.
Ring Lardner
In addition to all these, satiric writer Donald Ogden Stewart, 27, came there at least once.
All these people came to Swope’s house in the summer.
Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Don’t wear white after Labor Day! And, gentlemen, don’t wear a straw hat after September 15th! Marauding hooligans in New York City may knock it off your head and stomp it on the ground. Or worse!
No one is sure where this tradition started, but men are supposed to switch to their winter felt hats on September 15 or face the fashion police. This year, a group of young thugs started early, a few days ago, knocking the straw hats off dock workers coming off their shift. The dock workers fought back.
A sea of straw hats
Traffic on the Manhattan Bridge was stopped and arrests were made.
Later in the year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
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