John O'Hara's Hollywood

by John O'Hara, Matthew J. Bruccoli (Editor)

On the sound stage and the casting couch, behind the facades of Spanish style mansions and inside studio trailers, at costumes and makeup, in posh nightclubs and in backrooms filled with cigar smoke, here are the ruthless producers, over-the-hill directors, disillusioned writers, glamorously callous actresses, desperate and hungry starlets, and matinee idols with dark secrets as they are unsparingly observed by one of America's most popular masters of realism. Best known for the now-classic 1934 novel Appointment in Samarra and such blockbuster bestsellers as Ten North Frederick and Butterfield 8, in a career spanning four decades John O'Hara also published numerous story collections. Among his finest work, they highlight qualities that sold more than 15 million copies of his books in the course of his the snappy dialogue, the telling detail, the ironic narrative twist. Like the novels, and like the much-praised collection of John O'Hara's Gibbsville stories, also edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, the selections in John O'Hara's Hollywood, many originally appearing in the New Yorker or the Saturday Evening Post, explore the materialist aspirations and sexual exploits of flawed, prodigally human characters for whom arrangements consitute a deal and compromises pass for love.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2003

About the author

American writer John Henry O'Hara contributed short stories to the New Yorker and wrote novels, such as BUtterfield 8 (1935) and Ten North Frederick (1955).

Best-selling works of John Henry O'Hara include Appointment in Samarra . People particularly knew him for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara, a keen observer of social status and class differences, wrote frequently about the socially ambitious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O&#...

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gee, there's a surprising amount of homosexuality in this book!

... Now that I have your attention, I'll explain. O'Hara fans who (like myself) are more accustomed to the author's novels and short stories set on the east coast are in for a shift. It's not just that O'Hara is (here in this marvelous and vastly entertaining collection) writing about Hollywood and the west coast. The mood of the west is so antithetical to the east that O'Hara paints a whole other world - yet still with that certain something that is vintage O'Hara.

These stories date from the '30s & '40s (mostly) - with a handful from the '60s and one from 1974. Without exception, they are all about the movie industry - which the author dabbled in, not finding it particularly satisfying for a serious author. Still, he applied himself with his usual gusto, excavating the underbelly of the Tinseltown beast.

The book's first half consists of stories that are little more than brushstrokes, around 5-6 pages each; snapshots of specific events which, by implication, flesh out larger stories. Overall, these glimpses concentrate on the-less-fortunate: those without talent or unique selling points; those without the particular social skills needed to navigate Hollywood's caste system; those simply desperate to live in a world of fantasy, etc.

I started to think that O'Hara might maintain his focus on these fringe types (losers do offer more obvious dramatic possibilities, after all) but I was wrong. The second half (much longer stories; a few which feel like novellas) generally cover those who *have* made it in the business to a considerable degree - not that that guaranteed them easier lives; there's always the competitive struggle to stay prominently in the game.

Regardless of where any of the characters stand in the pantheon, O'Hara finds drama. Occasionally the drama is startling (i.e., 'In A Grove' certainly gave me a jump; 'Natica Jackson' - my favorite in the collection - sinks into twisted depth). But, more often than not, the drama plays out in remarkably breezy and extended dialogue. O'Hara writes some of the best character dialogue there is.

And then, of course, there's the amount of gay stuff (something you really don't see much of when his work is set in the east). You may have to approach with discernment. In the earlier stories, O'Hara characters use the word 'fag' regularly, but you'd probably be jumping the gun if you thought the writer was a bigot. (And keep in mind when these stories were written.) The second half introduces us more closely to not only homosexuals and lesbians but a fair number of either bisexuals~

"Of course some of them are double-gaited, and some of the double-gaited ones are just as masculine as anybody."

~ or the sexually confused:

"You were never a queer, were you?"
"Very queer. And afraid of it, hence the broads."

Finally - in 'The Way to Majorca' - O'Hara hilariously places a decidedly gay man front-and-center as he manipulates a studio executive in defense of himself and the starlet he has just made his marriage-of-convenience wife. While O'Hara's overall stand on sexuality does not appear to be judgmental, he does seem to relish bisexuality (in particular) in a 'Well, why not? Enjoy it without defining yourself.' sort of way. He certainly isn't naive about the specifics of sexual desire - straight or gay.

[Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) · Rating 4 out of 5]

As many are probably aware, John O'Hara was an incredibly prolific short story author from late-1920s up until his death in 1970. Nearly 250 of O'Hara's short stories were published in The New Yorker magazine, making him their most published author, by far. O'Hara's short-story collections were focused on the fictional eastern-Pennsylvania town of Gibbsville, New York City, and then Hollywood, California. Currently, there are published collections of O'Hara's short stories in all three locales, two of which (Hollywood and New York City) are available in Kindle editions.

This review focuses on the collection of short stories that are all associated with Hollywood, the studios, film lots, bedrooms, and the men and women involved in the 'industry.' There were several stories that were truly standouts in this collection in my opinion, including: The Way to Majorca, Malibu from the Sky, Everything Satisfactory, In a Grove (freaky and violent!), Yucca Knolls, and Natica Jackson. What they all share is O'Hara's mastery of taut dialog among characters. As you read one of his stories it is as though you are utterly transported and set down in the room with the characters and listening to the conversation first hand.

These stories very effectively resonate with the film noirish atmosphere of the Los Angeles and Hollywood that I've come to associate and appreciate from writers like Dashiell Hammett and now even James Ellroy. Good stuff, folks, and well worth searching out for a read! Solid 4 of five stars for me.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange and seedy place Hollywood is. John O'Hara's Hollywood, anyway. A weird little bubble world full of hedonistic, narcissistic people with very odd attitudes to sex and life and the world and other people. These stories fall into two main groups--those from the '30s and '40s, which are mostly very short, some not much more than vignettes, mostly originally published in The New Yorker--and those from the '60s (and one from the early '70s), significantly longer, one ("Natica Jackson") nearly novella length, several of which were originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, mostly looking back at Hollywood's golden age, but with a sceptical eye not much clouded by nostalgia. The stories are sharp and observant, a useful corrective to the glossy, glamourous view of Hollywood it likes to offer us of itself, from someone who worked successfully in Hollywood but never lost his footing outside that hermetically sealed little world, unlike so many of his characters here.

[Jim Dooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story collection from the wonderful John O’Hara is so difficult for me to rate. Shortly after I began the early short magazine pieces, I debated stopping and finding something else to read. Then, because the dialogue was so beautifully done (he writes exceptional dialogue), I continued with a few more ... thinking that I would finish reading it, but that I likely wouldn’t review it because it wasn’t a GoodRead.

That’s when I arrived at the longer pieces, and I was held in a trance.

Early on, it was difficult for me to understand what the writer was trying to do. I understand “slice of life” stories, but these were more of a sliver. I didn’t have time to identify with any of the characters, and I barely uncovered more than one piece of action before the tale ended.

With the longer stories, though, all of that changed. O’Hara’s stories were still slice of life pieces, yet they conveyed so much. I’ve read many books about Hollywood in this period, and most retold the famous incidents that became Hollywood lore. O’Hara isn’t interested in that. By allowing to Reader to overhear conversations between people at many levels of the Dream Factory hierarchy, he was creating an intensely vivid picture. Many times, I had the strong sense of “being there,” and references to famous (and infamous) incidents in other books suddenly came alive. I was an “Insider.”

The best of the longer stories (in my estimation) were:

“Yucca Knolls”
“James Francis and the Star”
“Natica Jackson”
“The Way to Majorca”
“The Sun Room”

These stories easily kept pace with Fitzgerald’s PAT HOBBY STORIES and THE LAST TYCOON. In fact, “Natica Jackson” was by far my favorite in the collection and I sincerely doubt that I’ll ever get its imagery out of my head. (I should probably have given the entire book a 5-star rating just for its inclusion.)

The book concludes with a coda from O’Hara called, “Hello Hollywood Good-Bye.” In it, he gives a brief overview of some of the incidents that were not included because they happened to him, not to his characters. This overview gives substance to his “love/mistrust” relationship with Hollywood, and establishes that it will likely hold onto a part of his future life. He had provided such vivid views in his stories that the atmosphere of the place even bled into his personal retelling.

I was sorry when JOHN O’HARA’S HOLLYWOOD ended. There had to have been so many more stories that he could tell, and I would have stayed with him to read them.

If you begin reading this one and wonder what it has to do with anything, hang on until the appearance of “Yucca Knolls.” From that point on (and that is the majority of the book), you are in for quite a ride.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

John O’Hara was one of the most successful American authors of his generation. O’Hara rose to fame during the 1930’s through his short stories in The New Yorker, and from his first two novels, Appointment in Samarra, and BUtterfield 8. O’Hara spent varying amounts of time in Hollywood from 1934 and 1955 as a screenwriter, and his time in California informed the short stories in the 2007 collection John O’Hara’s Hollywood. The book collects all of O’Hara’s 22 stories about Hollywood and the movies. It’s an excellent collection for fans of O’Hara’s writing, but it’s not without its faults.

Most of O’Hara’s early short stories from the 1930’s and 1940’s were very short, with many being under 1,000 words. O’Hara was a master at creating a mood in just a few words in these super short stories. O’Hara’s stories don’t really have endings that resolve the story; they just suddenly come to a halt. In this way, they capture the rhythm of real life.

Personally, I found the early short stories in John O’Hara’s Hollywood to be the most interesting. I thought that some of his later stories from the 1960’s were just too long and lacked narrative drive. The longest stories in the book are “Yucca Knolls,” “James Francis and the Star,” and “Natica Jackson,” and those are the three stories I found most disposable. They range from 50-80 pages in length, and they’re overly reliant on dialogue. Not much happens in them, and it seems that the only reason they are so long is just because they could be. O’Hara also seems stuck in the past in these stories, as they re-hash the 1920’s and 1930’s, the decades which he was most comfortable writing about.

The last piece in the book is one of the most fascinating; it’s a non-fiction piece titled “Hello Hollywood Goodbye,” that O’Hara wrote in 1968 for the magazine Holiday. Unfortunately, the introduction doesn’t mention it at all, so we don’t get much context for this piece. From what I know about O’Hara’s writings, it was fairly unusual for him to write an autobiographical non-fiction essay.

John O’Hara’s Hollywood was edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, the leading scholar of John O’Hara and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bruccoli’s introduction is excellent, but someone in the proof reading department was asleep at the wheel, as the introduction states that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote What Makes Sammy Run? and The Disenchanted, while Budd Schulberg wrote The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western, when it’s actually the other way around.

I noticed some interesting things as I read John O’Hara’s Hollywood, and one of them is that O’Hara really had a thing for fake movie titles with the word “strange” in them. In “The Magical Numbers” the fake biopic of President John Tyler is called Strange President. (p.22) Strange Courage is the movie the actor in “Adventure on the Set” has just finished. (p.27) Strange Virgin is the name of the movie that Kenyon Littlejohn is making a test for in “Drawing Room B,” (p.49), and it’s also the name of the movie, adapted from a novel, being made in “The Industry and the Professor.” (p.62) I wondered if all these fake movies with “strange” in the title was supposed to be an in-joke for movie fans. Were there a lot of movies with “strange” in the title being made in the 1930’s and 1940’s?

O’Hara might be making some in-jokes as he re-uses some character names in different stories. “The Answer Depends” name checks Sidney Gainsborough, who appears in the first story in the book, “Mr. Sidney Gainsborough: Quality Pictures.” The fictional actress Doris Arlington is mentioned in “The Answer Depends,” “Yucca Knolls,” and “James Francis and the Star.”

John O’Hara was a very interesting writer. He was clearly gifted with superb and sensitive abilities to capture the way people talked, thought, and felt, but yet in his personal life he had a knack for pissing off nearly everyone he met. Of course, he’s not the only great writer who also had a difficult personality. O’Hara had a keen sense of class and status in America, and he had a large inferiority complex about having never attended college. Ernest Hemingway supposedly once made the joke that he was collecting funds to send O’Hara to Yale. The sad part is, O’Hara might have taken Hemingway up on his offer. Obsessed with Yale life, O’Hara badgered the university to give him an honorary degree. Yale declined, because O’Hara was graceless enough to ask for the degree. O’Hara also made no secret of his desire to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Of course, he never got it.

O’Hara finally quit drinking in the mid 1950’s, and he became a much more prolific author, publishing 10 novels and 7 short story collections between 1955 and his death in 1970. He became a famous and wealthy author, and he gloried in the social signifiers that his status afforded him, as he drove a Rolls-Royce and an MG convertible with his monogram on the door.

O’Hara still holds the record for the most short stories published in The New Yorker, with an incredible 247! Along with those two other Johns, Cheever and Updike, O’Hara became synonymous with The New Yorker and the sophisticated short stories found between its covers.

At his best, John O’Hara was a superb chronicler of American life and culture, and John O’Hara’s Hollywood presents some of his best work.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great collection!

[Edward O'Neill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fine.

Micro-short stories--some about three pages.

All set in Hollywood--the town, the industry, the one-industry town.

Acutely observed. Good ear for dialogue. (O'Hara likes to write things the way people pernounce thum.) Master of the non-ending ending.

The guy knew his stuff.

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were fantastic. Stories of trashy people having lots of sex, written with great empathy and care. I really should be reading more O'Hara.