Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda
Page 38
These skies are so intense and tintillant that they are adamant overhead and underfoot the pavement tries its best to crack one’s feet.
Devotedly
Zelda
297. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
July 29 1940
Dearest Zelda:-
The Temple thing is this: she’s too old to have a child’s appeal and though they’ve put everything in her last pictures—song, dance, sleight of hand, etc.,—they fail to hold the crowd. In fact the very last is rather nauseous in its sentimentality.
So this “independent” producer Cowan, now of Columbia, shortly to be at Paramount, had the idea of a romantic drama for her and bought my Babylon Revisited last year for $900. for that purpose. I should have held out for more but the story had been nearly ten years published without a nibble. So then, in a beautifully avaricious way, knowing I’d been sick and was probably hard up, Mr. Cowan hired me to do the script on a percentage basis. He gives me—or gave me— what worked out to a few hundred a week to do a quick script. Which I did and then took to bed to recuperate. Now he says he wants me to do another, and I’m supposed to be grateful because since I haven’t done a movie for so long the conclusion is easy for this scum that I can’t write. If you could see and talk for five minutes with the People I deal with you’d understand without words how difficult it is to master a bare politeness.
Anyhow I think it’s been a good thing except for the health angle and if and when he sells Mrs. Temple and Paramount the script there’ll be a little more money—if he doesn’t think of a way to beat me out of it.
So that’s the story. Tell me—did the watch come? You never mentioned it.
With Dearest Love,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
298. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
August 3 1940
Dearest Zelda:
This has been a hot, unsatisfactory day with lost [lots] of snags in the manuscript and nothing bright on the horizon except an awfully intelligent letter from Scottie about her courses and about Harvard which seems to have been a great success.
If things go even moderately well I think that I’ll be able to send her to you for a week in September. She wants to pay a couple of visits first which will cost no more than the railroad fare and I imagine you will come South in early September. Have had no letter from you this week. I do hope all goes well.
With dearest love,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
299. TO SCOTT
[August 1940]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Montgomery, Alabama]
Dear Scott:
Thanks again for the money. It affords me pleasure, and the freedom of the city and lots of felicitous arrangements. I always write to thank you, and how you dont get my letters, I cant understand.
The red-cross is a cool and wind-blown barn where I sew labels in things and watch time passing from the face of the capitol clock. I spend two days a week there. Though swimming is become a “precieuse” entertainment for me—enjoying as I do the significance of line in the lean long bodies and the play of high hot noons over the water’s edge—I sometimes go in. Red Ruth is still hobbling cheerily dramaticly and recklessly about, but there are so few of my old friends available that I mostly enjoy the garden and the bien faisance of being free from such restrictive routine as the hospital
Mamma is the best and most gracious of company. We linger over things: peaches + figs and the poignant fragrances of a summer already on the wane. I will start painting again as soon as I attain the vitality to both live, and aspire.
Devotedly, and gratefully
Zelda
300. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
August 10 1940
Dearest Zelda:
Up to this last week I heard from Scottie regularly—but I think it was specifically because we were discussing courses at Vassar and also she was acknowledging her allowance. I’ve had no letter this week but I think the answer is quite simply that she’s taking her examinations. I consider her as grown now, as having developed a great deal of common sense (knock wood) in these years and there is no use worrying about her except for some specific reason, as there is nothing I can possibly do at this distance.
I’m finishing the Temple script tomorrow. I would like to rest for a week but there’s a nibble from Zannuck [Zanuck] which I may have to follow up. He is one producer I haven’t quarrelled with, but give me time.
I had a very nice letter from your mother which I will answer this week.
With dearest love,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
301. TO SCOTT
[c. August 14, 1940]
!ALS, 4 pp. 53
[Montgomery, Alabama]
Dear Scott:
The money arrived; for which I am duly grateful. I am afraid that I havent thanked you for unearthing the play: and I am most appreciative of the effort that I know this cost. Though I haven’t seen anybody on the subject yet, I think that when the insistence of the weather here abates a little the ms. will hold the possibilities (at any rate) of much pleasure.
Meantime, Maxwell Field grows; the heat augments; and life moves along at a pleasantly uneventful tempo. I am become a regular customer at the swimming pool and though I have not attained a hue to set the fashion I am not entirely blanc mange any more.
The Gertrude Stein book both Mamma and I find extremely amusing and heart-breakingly remeniscent, for me. Isnt it devastating thinking that there isnt any France any more?
Meantime: it is always very gratifying to see Scottie. I trust that she will enjoy her sequel as much as the original theme.
There don’t seem to be many young people about but I suppose upon shaking the cabbage-bush there will some appear.
Do you know, by any chance where my star-necklace is? Always my love, I always envested that necklace with a deep romantic appeal: endowed as it was with the property of story. Anyway, I would be glad of it and glad of my silver that sort of thing if there is any—not avidly enough to warrant the causing of any confusion but glad—
People lots of times ask about you: and I always tell them tales of glamour and of renown—
I havent saved any money: so I havent any money saved—about which I feel very apologetic—
Devotedly
Zelda
302. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
August 15 1940
Dearest Zelda:-
I have the star necklace here and will send it to you parcel post tomorrow. You never told me about the wrist watch. Did you get it? About the silver, you may remember that one of the pieces—I’m afraid it was the mirror was stolen from a hat box which was in our baggage when I brought you to Asheville in April, 1936. I did everything possible to recover it but never could. There may be a piece or two—in fact I think there are—among the silver in Baltimore but it’s pretty expensive to have it opened up and I’d rather wait until there is some pressing need of things. Is there anything else especially you would like from there?
I hope Scottie has written you. She is coming South, paying a couple of visits first. This picture has dragged on interminately though I’m not getting a cent out of it now. I’m simply gambling on the possibility of sale.
I’m glad you liked “Paris, France”. It certainly is sad to think that that’s all over—at least for our lifetime.
With dearest love,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
303. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
August 24 1940
Dearest Zelda:
By the time you get this Scottie will have leisurely started South— with two or three stops. I’ve missed seeing her this summer but we’ve exchanged long letters of a quite intimate character in regard to life and literature. She is an awfully goo
d girl in the broad fundamentals. Please see to one thing—that she doesn’t get into any automobiles with drunken drivers.
I think I have a pretty good job coming up next week—a possibility of ten weeks work and a fairly nice price at 20th Century Fox. I have my fingers crossed but with the good Shirley Temple script behind me I think my stock out here is better than at any time during the last year.
With dearest love,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, Calif.
304. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
August 30 1940
Dearest Zelda:-
It seems odd to be back in the studio again. Monday morning they called up to tell me they wanted me for a four weeks’ job. I only get about half of what I used to but all of it is owed to everybody imaginable, the government, insurance, hospital, Vassar, etc. But four weeks pay does insure a certain amount of security for the next three months if I spread it over the time wisely.
I’m going to get a suit in two or three weeks and will send you the money for a dress as you must be short on clothes. I’m still running the fever and there’s a couch in my office and while they insist on your physical presence in the studio there are no peepholes they can look into and see whether I am lying down or not. It gives me a very strange feeling to be back.
I suppose Scottie will be with you this week. She tells me that she has grown two years this summer. Do write me at length about her. I’m sorry to miss a glimpse of her at this stage of her life, but of course it seems much more important to stay here and keep her going. It is strange too that she is repeating the phase of your life—all her friends about to go off to war and the world again on fire.
With dearest love,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
305. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
September 5 1940
Dearest Zelda:-
Here’s ten dollars extra as I thought due to Scottie’s visit it might come in handy. Also I’m sending you Craven’s “Art Masterpieces”, a book of extraordinary reproductions that is a little art gallery in itself.
Don’t be deceived by this sudden munificence—as yet I haven’t received a cent from my new job but in a wild burst of elation of getting it, I hocked the car again for $150.
With dearest love, always,
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
306. TO SCOTT
[September 1940]
ALS, 4 pp.
[Montgomery, Alabama]
Dear Scott:
Scottie arrived on a picturesque twilight, steaming into the station on a cider-blown day-coach from Atlanta. She had had breakfast and lunch there with Rosalind. Her voyagings are always the more persuasive from their impromptu quality—always seeming to be a very transitory interruption to the exigence of highly organized vacations.
She has had a wonderful, and perfected summer according to the best of summer traditions and seems (gratefully) happy and well to begin the more academic facets of life.
In the course of a long discussion Scottie suggested that it might be preferable to get a job for a year: This was not at my suggestion so dont attribute it to me in case you find yourself antagonisticly disposed. She thought the Baltimore Sun might offer possibilities. I told her that, judging from all your correspondence on the subject you would much prefer her to continue at Vassar; and advised that she write you concerning the project. Feeling as I do that an independent means of subsistence is almost indispensable to any constructive happiness, I nevertheless observe that you prefer that she first acquire the standard back-ground.
Montgomery is still tintillant in a blazing heat—Most people sip and fan and await the autumn surcease. I love the fading glories of summer over the cotton fields. Time is become traditions, for being so long disciplined by circumstance down here; and the past is, indeed, the actuality.
I am distressed, and regret, that you still have fever. One seems to live as well with tuberculosis as without—and maybe someday the suffering will be gone. It must be good to have a job. Two people have sent me clippings of the Shirley Temple exploit. It ought to be a very successful project—since you have dramatized the youth of the generation and she is about to take over—
Devotedly; grateful[ly]
Zelda
307. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
September 6 1940
Dearest Zelda:
This is written in a big Saturday rush just to get you this money.
You know that to a certain extent I agreed with you on a metier for Scottie. When she was ten you were strong for Ballet—and later when she was fourteen I almost put her into the theatre. But now the dye is cast for a cultural education and situated as she is now she has an infinitely wider range of men to meet than she would in Baltimore or anywhere else. And except in cases of exceptional talent any newspaper would rather have a college graduate than a two year student.
With dearest love,
P.S. Naturally my hope is that with this job the strain of the last year will lift a little and life be more liberal for all of us
1403 N. Laurel Ave.
Hollywood, Calif.
308. TO SCOTT
[September 1940]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Montgomery, Alabama]
Dear Scott:
Thanks, most gratefully, for the money. I spose you want to know what I did with it: indeed, it would make a rather elaborate account. I buy things and accrue benefits and pay what I owe and enjoy as many controversial issues as a woman of big-business.
The autumn streets lead to new, and newly organized horizons; the gutters overflow with burnt gold leaves. The air is high and classic under bright impervious autumn skies and the mornings are hushed, and matinal resources mobilized now that the children are in school. The paper advertizes an art class at the museum which may engage my attentions; the red cross begs for workers; there are plenty of things to do. I may buy a bicycle later. I planted a garden-full of 25¢ worth of 15¢ worth of mustard, but the heat seethed and seered at the time, and we didnt prosper as truck-farmers.
Scottie had a very pleasant visit. She cant see any possible reason why she should keep me informed as to her whereabouts, so I dont know where she is, or why, or what to do about it if any: which is rather a disadvantage in a parental way.
A little cat pretty and poised and wild with as many antennae as a swamp lilly has adopted us. He’s very obedient and persuasive and makes himself a happy home.
Devotedly
Zelda
309. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 2 pp. September 14 1940
Dearest Zelda:-
Am sending you a small check next week which you should really spend on something which you need—a winter coat—for instance— or if you are equipped, to put it away for a trip when it gets colder. I can’t quite see you doing this, however. Do you have extra bills, dentists, doctors, etc., and if so, they should be sent to me as I don’t expect you to pay them out of the thirty dollars. And I certainly don’t want your mother to be in for any extras. Is she?
This is the third week of my job and I’m holding up very well but so many jobs have started well and come to nothing that I keep my fingers crossed until the thing is in production. Paramount doesn’t want to star Shirley Temple alone on the other picture and the producer can’t find any big star who will play with her so we are temporarily held up.
As I wrote you Scottie is now definitely committed to an education and I feel so strongly about it that if she wanted to go to work I would let her really do it by cutting off all allowance. What on earth is the use of having gone to so much time and trouble about a thing and then giving it up two years short of fulfillment. It is the last two years in college that count. I got nothing out of my first two years—in the last I got my passionate love for poetry and historical perspective and ideas in general (however superficially), that c
arried me full swing into my career. Her generation is liable to get only too big a share of raw life at first hand.
Write me what you do?
With dearest love,
P.S. Scottie may quite possibly marry within a year and then she is fairly permanently off my hands. I’ve spent so much time doing work that I didn’t particularly want to do that what does one more year matter. They’ve let a certain writer here direct his own pictures and he has made such a go of it that there may be a different feeling about that soon. If I had that chance I would attain my real goal in coming here in the first place.
1403 N. Laurel Avenue
Hollywood, California
310. TO SCOTT
[September 1940]
ALS, 4 pp.
[Montgomery, Alabama]
Dear Scott:
The money arrived, again. I’m always happy of the expectation of renewed possibilities latent within the Monday envellope; and generally in pressing need
You ask about my pursuits: Time broods over Montgomery with such detachment, and with so philosophic an acceptance that one simply does nothing in terms of rather dynamic negation; and is grateful. I am materially happy in the beneficent peace of Mammas humble circumstance and bask in the pleasurableness of leisurely fragrant breakfasts and suppers foraged out of the peaceful Dusk. I dont write; and I dont paint: largely because it requires most of my resources to keep out of the hospital. I’ve had such a difficult struggle over the last ten years that making the social-adjustment is more difficult than I had supposed and I content myself to drift through the dreamy beatitudes of Mammas little garden without worrying too much about the morrow. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway: women of my age, and invalid history would have more than a struggle getting work in these times where sustenance itself is become more precious than one is wont to consider. I live: and am grateful and have no suggestions to offer: though I grant you that I would give anything within reason for a means of livlihood.