Writers in Hollywood 1915-1951
By (Author) Ian Hamilton
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
17th November 2011
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000
808.066791
Paperback
352
Width 126mm, Height 198mm, Spine 25mm
382g
Legend has it that Hollywood lures gifted writers into its service with sunshine and money, only to treat them as glorified typists and plot-mechanics, peripheral to the main business of movie-making. This is what Ian Hamilton describes as 'the writer-in-chains saga that emerges from any study of Hollywood during its so-called golden years - the period I have marked as running from 1915-1951.'
But in this superb account of what befell the likes of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Chandler and Huxley by working for the Dream Factory, Hamilton argues that these writers 'were in the movies by choice: they earned far more money than their colleagues who did not write for films, and in several cases they applied themselves conscientiously to the not-unimportant task at hand. And they had a lot of laughs
Ian Hamilton was born in 1938, in King's Lynn, Norfolk, and educated at Darlington Grammar School and Keble College, Oxford. In 1962, he founded the influential poetry magazine, the Review, and he was later editor of the New Review. He also wrote biographies and journalism, mainly about literature and football. He died in 2001.