The backstory for this quotation offers an entrée into a world that ought to prove a delight to any book lover.
It never appeared in any of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. Instead, it’s part of Beloved Infidel: The Education of a Woman (1957), a memoir by famed Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. In the book, she recounts her three-and-a-half year romance with the novelist when he lived in Hollywood and was trying to write for MGM.
Their attraction was immediate. At some point in the relationship, Sheilah revealed her impoverished and undereducated past, including time in an East End of London orphanage. Scott undertook to broaden her education.
Sheilah also writes about that episode of her life in College of One (1967). These are but two of eight autobiographical works in which she tells the story of her journey to becoming a top syndicated Hollywood writer, more widely distributed than her two closest rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. Sheilah dominated Hollywood reporting for decades.
But there’s more. Sheilah’s daughter, grew up to be Wendy W. Fairey, who earned a doctorate at Columbia University and taught English literature and creative writing for years at Brooklyn College. She wrote One of the Family (1992) about growing in Hollywood and her discovery that she was the child of her mother and British philosopher A.J. Ayer. She also wrote Full House (2002), a collection of related stories.
And that doesn’t even touch on the relationship of Scott and his wife Zelda, who was institutionalized while Scott was in Hollywood.
A lot to work with there.
We hope you’ll come and explore the possibilities at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.
Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search of the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com
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