Minutes of the Last Meeting

by Gene Fowler

A haunting, loving portrait of a motley crew of Hollywood drinking buddies of the '30s and '40s including W.C. Fields and John Barrymore.

Genres: Classics

277 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Gene Fowler (born Eugene Devlan) was an American journalist, author, and dramatist, known for his racy, readable content and for the speed of his writing. After a year at the University of Colorado, he took a job with The Denver Post. His assignments included an interview with the frontiersman and Wild West Show promoter Buffalo Bill Cody. He established his trademark impertinence by questioning Cody about his many love affairs.

Fowler left Denver for Chicago, then moved to New York where Fowler worked for the New York Daily Mirror, New York Evening Journal and as managing editor of the New York American and The Morning Telegraph. His work included more than a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the 1930s.

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A haunting, loving portrait of a motley crew of Hollywood drinking buddies of the '30s and '40s -- the movie stars W.C. Fields and John Barrymore, Tinseltown commercial artist John Decker, and the enigmatic, skeletal Japanese-American free-spirited artist and eccentric Sadakichi Hartmann. The book is ostensibly Hartmann's tale, a fascinating portrait of an oddball living life on the fringe in his own sweet impoverished way, arrogant to the very end, sponging off the generosity of richer and more famous men, as a kind of fool to all of them --- yet all of them aimless, drunken and foolish. The author, Fowler, was an intimate of all of them, and he also penned a stunning and beautifully evocative biography of Barrymore ("Goodnight Sweet Prince..."). This is one of those books that seeps into your bones and soul. It's one of my favorites.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting snapshot sort of pseudo-memoir, pseudo-biography of a specific time and place for a group of friends and frenemies in the early days of Hollywood. An engrossing, fast read which largely served to make me wish someone would actually write a comprehensive biography of Sadakichi Hartmann.

[Estott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable- a colorful account of Fowler's Hollywood circle, with prominence being given to John Barrymore and W. C. Fields. Fowler does a magnificent job of spinning their alcoholic decline into something almost touching. I wouldn't vouch for every word being the truth- his biography of Barrymore (Good Night sweet Prince) is long on affection and short on accuracy.

[William Coates · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good reread. Still one of my favorite books of all time about good friendship, rambunctious recitals of Macbeth, and the sort of Bohemianism that existed very briefly in the 1910s and was gone by the 1930s.

[Janna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not want this book to end! Though the main focus was Fowler's biography of Hartmann, the glimpses into the lives of all the "giants among men" were fascinating.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entertaining tale of old Hollywood and the Bundy Street gang. Incredibly well written (of course), the story is a rough tale of the life of Sadakichi Hartmann, interwoven with tales of Decker, Barrymore, and Fowler. Well worth a read.