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Budd Schulberg

The origin of “I coulda been a contender”

October 2, 2010

A note from screenwriter Budd Schulberg to a fan, jotted on the back of an index card, explains the origin of the famous line from “On the Waterfront.” The note reads:

12/7/89

For Bobby Cotton —

From an old fight fan who actually heard a friend of his (an ex-pug) say, “I coulda been a contender…” A lot of writing is simply careful listening.

Sincerely,

Budd Schulberg

Now, about that one-way ticket to Palookaville…

Filed Under: Movies, Writing Tagged With: Budd Schulberg, letters, On the Waterfront

Man Out of Time: “The Disenchanted” by Budd Schulberg

June 30, 2010

F. Scott Fitzgerald is easy to iconize. His story so neatly tracks his times: in the Twenties, he had a Jazz Age party; when America crashed, he cracked up; in the Depression, he was down and out. In The Disenchanted, Budd Schulberg’s novelization of the Scott-Zelda tale, an older, lightly fictionalized Fitzgerald is painfully aware of the symmetry:

It seemed almost too damned easy to think of himself and the Twenties as going smash together, as if he were unconsciously acting out the Twenties in some ghastly charade, and yet here he was in the first year of the Depression with his money gone, his wife nearly gone, his reputation going. What had Hank said? He didn’t know how to keep his distance.

The Disenchanted is partly a response to all the images and associations that built up around Fitzgerald. It strips away the dreamy illusions and portrays instead an older Fitzgerald who is all too human. Not the glamorous idol of the twenties, but the broke-down, post-crackup Fitzgerald of 1939 — ravaged by alcoholism, forgotten by the reading public, near dead at 43 years old. Schulberg’s depiction is so unforgiving that Sheilah Graham, Fitzgerald’s partner at the end of his life, never forgave him.

But the novel is not just about Fitzgerald’s decline. It is also about young Budd Schulberg’s own disillusionment when he discovered the Fitzgerald myth was just that, a romantic fantasy. It turned out, Fitzgerald’s story ended the same way everyone else’s does. No Daisy or Zelda, no green light, no “riotous” parties. Just the inevitable grinding-down of time. Even Scott Fitzgerald grew up then grew old. To a 25-year-old Fitzgerald fan, there is no drearier news.

[Read more…] about Man Out of Time: “The Disenchanted” by Budd Schulberg

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Keepers Tagged With: Budd Schulberg, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Disenchanted

You never completely relax again

June 8, 2010

Fitzgerald in Hollywood

[Being a writer is] an awful curse to wish on anybody — from the day you begin you never completely relax again.… Even those years I threw away, when the book reviewers were giving me up, I was always worrying about writing, wishing I could find the way to get started again and wanting to push on beyond where I had been.

— Budd Schulberg, The Disenchanted (1950)

The speaker is Manley Halliday, a character based on F. Scott Fitzgerald in his cracked-up, broke-down Hollywood years.

Image: Detail, F. Scott Fitzgerald, June 4, 1937 (photo by Carl van Vechten). Fitzgerald is 40 years old in this photo. He died December 21, 1940, at age 44.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: Budd Schulberg, F. Scott Fitzgerald, quotes for writers, The Disenchanted

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