F Scott Fitzgerald, who coined the term ‘Jazz Age’ for the flamboyant 1920s and 1930s and became its most famous literary figure, is regarded as one of America’s greatest writers. The four novels published in his lifetime were This Side of Paradise (1920), The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender is the Night (1934). The Last Tycoon was unfinished at the time of his death at the age of 44 in 1940, and was published posthumously in 1941.
It was nine o’clock of a July night and there were still some extras in the drug store across from the studio1 – I could see them bent over the pin-games inside2 – as I parked my car.3 “Old” Johnny Swanson4 stood on the corner in his semi-cowboy clothes5 staring gloomily past the moon.6 Once he had been as big in pictures as Tom Mix or Bill Hart—now it was too sad to speak to him and I
