With dearest love,
Daddy
P.S. You ask what to put on the cards. It should be about like this:
Dancing Miss Frances Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald
December 22nd Four to six Hotel Belvedere
Oak Halt Hotel
Tryon, North Carolina
Spring, 1937
Darling Scottina:
I loved having you here (except in the early morning) and I think we didn’t get along so badly, did we? Glad you had a gay time in Baltimore and New York and have a friend at Groton. They are very democratic there - they have to sleep in gold cubicles and wash at old platinum pumps. This toughens them up so they can pay the poor starvation wages without weakening. (By the way, the older boys only can smoke at Andover and in a special place - you wretched liar you!)
The horse show is Wednesday. Everybody asks about you and really means it, some of them. La Sprague said her mother forgot to invite you to some party she gave and was in tears. She has two Williams boys who are here at the hotel on her trail. Caroline Kelly sends her love. I see your mother tomorrow. Finally finished my story (very good) and am starting another and a play on the side. Hollywood postponed but may come through.
What did you do in Baltimore? How were Peaches and Meredith? Answer.
With dearest love to my slew-footed angel, Daddy P.S. What about the toil? Are you sweating gall and vinegar?
En route to HollywoodPostmarked July 5, 1937
Dearest Pie:
What an exit! Horrors of life in the sticks - nothing could have turned around there except a model T Ford. Sorry to leave you and Grandma in such a mess.
The air trip was fine - very thrilling as always. I’m sending this to the Obers where I hope you are by now. Also by the time you get this I’ll have heard from the MacArthurs though I know it’s all right. It will be great to have you with me in Hollywood. I know Freddie Bartholomew will love taking you around to birthday parties in the afternoons, and you’ll find Shirley Temple as good a pal as Peaches and more loyal.
Where on earth did you get that preconception that I think of you as a scarlet woman? Hell, you’re a romantic but that’s not in your disfavor. It’s all right to like affection, but not when you drive, in the immortal words of Mitzi Green. I simply don’t want you in danger and I don’t want you to do anything inappropriate to your age. For premature adventure one pays an atrocious price. As I told you once, every boy I know who drank at eighteen or nineteen is now safe in his grave. The girls who were what we called ‘speeds’ (in our stone-age slang) at sixteen were reduced to anything they could get at the marrying time. It’s in the logic of life that no young person ever ‘gets away with anything.’ They fool their parents but not their contemporaries. It was in the cards that Ginevra King should get fired from Westover - also that your mother should wear out young. I think that despite a tendency to self indulgence you and I have some essential seriousness that will manage to preserve us. Whatever your sins are I hope you never get to justify them to yourself.
With dearest love,
Daddy
En route to Hollywood
July. 1937
Dearest Pie:
This may be the last letter for a time, though I won’t forget the check when I get at my check book.
I feel a certain excitement. The third Hollywood venture. Two failures behind me though one no fault of mine. The first one was just ten years ago. At that time I had been generally acknowledged for several years as the top American writer both seriously and, as far as prices went, popularly. I had been loafing for six months for the first time in my life and was confident to the point of conceit. Hollywood made a big fuss over us and the ladies all looked very beautiful to a man of thirty. I honestly believed that with no effort on my part I was a sort of magician with words - an odd delusion on my part when I had worked so desperately hard to develop a hard, colorful prose style.
Total result - a great time and no work. I was to be paid only a small amount unless they made my picture - they didn’t.
The second time I went was five years ago. Life had gotten in some hard socks and while all was serene on top, with your mother apparently recovered in Montgomery, I was jittery underneath and beginning to drink more than I ought to. Far from approaching it too confidently I was far too humble. I ran afoul of a bastard named de Sano, since a suicide, and let myself be gypped out of command. I wrote the picture and he changed as I wrote. I tried to get at Thalberg but was erroneously warned against it as ‘bad taste.’ Result - a bad script. I left with the money, for this was a contract for weekly payments, but disillusioned and disgusted, vowing never to go back, the they said it wasn’t my fault and asked me to stay. I wanted to get East when the contract expired to see how your mother was. This was later interpreted as ‘running out on them’ and held against me.
(The train has left El Paso since I began this letter - hence the writing - Rocky Mountain writing.)
I want to profit by these two experiences - I must be very tactful but keep my hand on the wheel from the start - find out the key man among the bosses and the most malleable among the collaborators - then fight the rest tooth and nail until, in fact or in effect, I’m alone on the picture. That’s the only way I can do my best work. Given a break I can make them double this contract in less than two years. You can help us all best by keeping out of trouble - it will make a great difference to your important years. Take care of yourself mentally (study when you’re fresh), physically (don ‘t pluck your eyebrows), morally (don’t get where you have to lie) and I’ll give you more scope than Peaches.
Daddy
The Garden of Allah Hotel
Hollywood,California
October 8, 1937
Darling Pie:
I’m awfully sorry about that telegram. I got a letter from Bill Warren, saying that it was all around Baltimore that I was making twenty-five hundred a week out here, and it disturbed and upset me. I suppose it was one of Rita Swann’s ideas. I don’t know why I suspected you - I should have known you would be more discrete and would at least name some believable figure. You see what a reputation you’ve made with your romantic tales!
As to the missing three days, I really don’t blame you for that either. The trouble was that Harold Ober didn’t know where you were either. If you had wired him instead of Aunt Rosalind, it would have been all right. However, it gave me only one bad hour, as I really don’t fret about you as much as I used to. I did worry about your smoking this summer, but you gave me your word that you wouldn’t smoke at Peaches’ so that was all right; and I don’t care much who you go out with so long as you are in at a decent hour and don’t get the practice on your mind. From next summer on, you can find you’ll have more privileges, but I don’t want them to become habits that will turn and devour you. You have got to devote the best and freshest part of your energies to things that will give you a happy and profitable life. There is no other time but now.
No special news - things have been quiet. Had the questionable honor of meeting — , a shifty-eyed fellow surrounded by huge bodyguards. Norma Shearer invited me to dinner three times but I couldn’t go - unfortunately, as I like her. Maybe she will ask me again. Also have seen something of Buff Cobb, Irving Cobb’s daughter, who is an old friend; and Sheilah who, by the way, has broken her engagement to the Marquess Donnegal. (The poor man was about to get on a boat, but it was a sort of foolish marriage in many ways.) Also have been to much tennis and saw Helen Wills come back in company with Von Cramm to defeat Budge and his partner. Took Beatrice Lillie, Charlie MacArthur and Sheilah to the Tennis Club the other night, and Errol Flynn joined us - he seemed very nice though rather silly and fatuous. Don’t see why Peaches is so fascinated. Frank Morgan came over and talked to me, telling me that we had a fight in the cloak room at Gloria Swanson’s seventeen years ago, but I had no recollection of the incident except that I had a scuffle with somebody. But in those days there were so many scraps that this
one doesn’t stand out in my memory.
I hope you thought over my analysis as to how to deal with the neatness habit, and if for one week you put each thing away individually from the moment of touching it to the moment of its final disposal - instead of putting away three things at a time - I think that you would lick it in a month and life would be easier for you in one more way. Please tell me about this when you write.
Looking over your letters and answering them in turn - it was nice of Peaches to give a party for you, and I’m glad Stanley is divine-looking; sorry Andrew is repulsive. I’m glad that you went out with that great heart-throb, Bob-the-Baker. Was Bob Haas nice? Your next letter comes from Exeter. Sorry you can’t go to Annapolis - you’ll be invited there again. Here I have a postcard and, by God, I’m awfully sore at you about that tutoring. I don’t understand how on earth the letter could have been mislaid. I posted it from the airport in Spartanburg that night. So you are still dwelling on the Fisher’s Island party in retrospect!
Another letter tells of visiting Mary Earle on Long Island. It sounds fine, but you are right that romantic things really happen in roachy kitchens and back yards. Moonlight is vastly overestimated. It was all right what you borrowed from Harold. He will put it on my account. So Meredith called from Baltimore! Aren’t you afraid of stirring up those old embers? Your disloyalty to Princeton breaks my heart. I sent Andrew football tickets. Your dress sounds fine, Scottie, my bonnie lass.
Lastly, the letter with the Yale postmark - I bet you bought that stationery. It reminds me of something that happened yesterday. On such paper, but with the Princeton seal, I used to write endless letters throughout sophomore and junior years to Ginevra King of Chicago and Westover, who later figured in This Side of Paradise. Then I didn’t see her for twentyone years, though I telephoned her in 1933 to entertain your mother at the World’s Fair, which she did. Yesterday I get a wire that she is in Santa Barbara and will I come down there immediately. She was the first girl I ever loved and I have faithfully avoided seeing her up to this moment to keep that illusion perfect, because she ended up by throwing me over with the most supreme boredom and indifference. I don’t know whether I should go or not. It would be very, very strange. These great beauties are often something else at thirty-eight, but Ginevra had a great deal besides beauty.
I was hoping that they’d get up a ‘Higher French’ course for you. Was nothing done about that? Miss Walker mentioned it in her letter. Your learning German seems to me rather pointless but don’t construe this into any tendency to loaf on it. Knowing just a little bit would be a foundation - especially if we go abroad for a few weeks next summer.
I sent the thirteen dollars to Rosalind.
What do you want for your birthday? You might make a suggestion.
I think of you a lot. I was very proud of you all summer and I do think that we had a good time together. Your life seemed gaited with much more moderation and I’m not sorry that you had rather a taste of misfortune during my long sickness, but now we can do more things together - when we can’t find anybody better. There - that will take you down! I do adore you and will see you Christmas.
Your loving
Daddy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation
Culver City,
California
November 4, 1937
Dearest Pie:
I admit I’m a terrible correspondent but I hope it isn’t the pot calling the kettle black - i e., do you write your mother regularly once a week? As I assured you before, it is of the greatest importance, even if Bob-the-Butcher or Bill-the-Baker doesn’t get the weekly hook in his gills.
News about the picture: The cast is tentatively settled. Joan Crawford had her teeth in the lead for a while but was convinced that it was a man’s picture; and Loretta Young not being available, the decision rests at present on Margaret Sullavan. Certainly she will be much better than Joan Crawford in the role. Tracy and Taylor will be reinforced by Franchot Tone at present writing, and the cameras will presumably roll sometime in December. An old friend, Ted Paramore, has joined me on the picture in fixing up much of the movie construction, at which I am still a semi- amateur, though I won’t be that much longer.
Plans about Christmas depend on whether I will be held here for changes through the shooting. I don’t think that’s probable, and if it weren’t my first picture that I’m anxious to get as perfect as can be, I wouldn’t let it be possible, because I can always have a vacation on three weeks’ notice - but I want to mention it as a very faint chance. However, let us suppose I come East, as I will nine chances out of ten -I will expect to spend the time with you and your mother, perhaps a little in Baltimore, some in Asheville. Maybe I can take your mother to Montgomery, though that is very faint indeed and should not be mentioned to her. Also I want to spend a couple of days in New York and I have no doubt that you will want to be with me then.
Have you any plans of what you’d like to do? Would you like another party in Baltimore? I mean just an afternoon affair like the last. It might become a sort of an institution, a yearly roundup of your Baltimore friends. Write me immediately what you thought you wanted to do - of course you also will go to see your mother sometime during the holidays.
By ill chance the Harvard game tickets for Andrew went astray and were sent me here. I’m sorry. He must have been disappointed - save that he missed the worst drubbing Princeton has had in many years.
My social life is in definite slow motion. I refused a good many parties and am now in the comfortable position of not being invited much any more. I had dinner at Gladys Swarthout’s last week with John McCormick and some of the musical crowd. I have taken in some football games with Sheilah Graham, and met the love of my youth, Ginevra King (Mitchell), after an interval of twenty-one years. She is still a charming woman and I’m sorry I didn’t see more of her.
How much do the ads cost for your year book? Please let me know.
I have a small apartment now at the Garden of Allah, but have done nothing about the house situation, as there seems no chance of your mother coming out here at the present.
I am anxiously awaiting your first report and will be more inclined to go —
Congratulations on Cheerleader, etc. Can you turn a cartwheel?
The Garden of Allah Hotel
Hollywood, California
February, 1938
Dearest Scottina:
So much has happened out here, and in the East, that a letter can’t tell it.
Beginning at the end - Three Comrades went into production today and I started on the new Joan Crawford picture - as yet unnamed. I am half sick with work, overwhelmed with it and yet vaguely happier than I’ve been in months. The last part of a job is always sad and very difficult but I’m proud of the year’s output and haven’t much to complain of.
Your mother was better than ever I expected and our trip would have been fun except that I was tired. We went to Miami and Palm Beach, flew to Montgomery, all of which sounds very gay and glamorous but wasn’t particularly. I flew back to New York intending to take you out with your friends Saturday but I discovered you were on bounds. My zero hour was Monday morning in California so there was nothing to do except fly back on Sunday afternoon. I didn’t think you and I could cover much ground with the horses flying around the tan bark and steaming in Rosa Bonheur’s steel engraving on the wall.
One time in sophomore year at Princeton, Dean West got up and rolled out the great lines of Horace:
‘Integer Vitae, scelerisque pueris Non eget mauris, facule nec arcu - And I knew in my heart that I had missed something by being a poor Latin scholar, like a blessed evening with a lovely girl. It was a great human experience I had rejected through laziness, through having sown no painful seed.
But when anything, Latin or pig latin, was ever put to me so immediately as your chance of entering Vassar next fall I could always rise to meet that. It is either Vassar or else the University of California here under my eye and
the choice is so plain that I have no sympathy for your loafing. We are not even out of debt yet, you are still a scholarship student and you might give them a break by making a graceful exit. They practically took you on your passport picture.
Baby, you’re going on blind faith, as vain as Kitsy’s belief that she wouldn’t grow a whisker, when you assume that a small gift for people will get you through the world. It all begins with keeping faith with something that grows and changes as you go on. You have got to make all the right changes at the main corners - the price for losing your way once is years of unhappiness. You have not yet entirely missed a turning, but failing to get somewhere with the Latin will be just that. If you break faith with me I cannot feel the same towards you.
The Murphys, Nora, etc., asked after you. We will without fail go somewhere at Easter - your mother’s going to make a stay in Montgomery with a companion and she’ll meet us. Some New York gallery has taken some very expensive pictures of you - do you want any? I like them but my God they cost.
With dearest love always, Daddy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation
Culver City,
California
February 22,1938
Dearest Pie:
I never hear from you any more. Please drop me a line and tell me if all goes well.
I started my new picture which is after all a piece called Infidelity and will star Joan Crawford and I don’t know who else. I will finish the first draft Easter and will come East to take you somewhere.
Three Comrades is halfway through. I have seen some of the shooting and some of the ‘rushes’ (where they run off what they’ve shot that day) but you can’t tell much from either. To my mind, the producer seriously hurt the script in rewriting it. It may be I am wrong.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 433