Elliot Harold Paul (February 10, 1891 – April 7, 1958) was an American journalist and writer.
Biography
Paul was born in Linden, a part of
Malden, Massachusetts
Malden is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 66,263 people.
History
Malden, a hilly woodland area north of the Mystic River, was settled by Puritans in 1640 on la ...
, the son of Harold Henry Paul and Lucy Greenleaf Doucette. He graduated from
Malden High School
Malden High School is a public high school in Malden, Massachusetts. Established in 1857, the school is part of the Malden Public Schools and is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC).
A 2013 study conduc ...
then worked in the U.S. West on the government Reclamation projects for several years until 1914 when he returned home and took a job as a reporter covering legislative events at the State House in Boston. In 1917, he joined the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
Signals Corps to fight in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. Paul served in France where he fought in the
Battle of Saint-Mihiel
The Battle of Saint-Mihiel was a major World War I battle fought from 12–15 September 1918, involving the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and 110,000 French troops under the command of General John J. Pershing of the United States agai ...
and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Following the war's end, he returned home and to a job as a journalist. At this time, he began writing books, inspired in part by his military experiences.
By 1925 Elliot Paul had already seen three of his novels published when he left America to join many of his literary compatriots in the
Montparnasse Quarter
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has ...
of Paris, France. There, he worked for a time at the
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
's ''International Edition'' (so-called ''Paris Edition''), before joining Eugene and
Maria Jolas
Maria Jolas (January 12, 1893 – March 4, 1987), born Maria McDonald, was one of the founding members of ''transition'' in Paris with her husband Eugene Jolas.
Life
Jolas was born in Louisville, Kentucky,''transition''. A friend of both
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...
and
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
, Paul defied
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
's maxim that "if you mentioned Joyce twice to Stein, you were dead." Paul was a great enthusiast of Stein's work, equating its "feeling for a continuous present" with
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
.
Paul returned to the newspaper business, to the '' Paris Herald'' and to write more novels in his spare time. He had completed three more books when he suffered from a nervous breakdown and abruptly left Paris to recuperate in the Spanish village of Santa Eulalia on the island of
Ibiza
Ibiza (natively and officially in ca, Eivissa, ) is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, in Spain. Its la ...
. With virtually no one in the literary community knowing where he was, in her 1933 ''
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
''The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas'' is a book by Gertrude Stein, written in October and November 1932 and published in 1933. It employs the form of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, her life partner. In 1998, Modern Library rank ...
'', Stein mused over his "disappearance."
Caught in the middle of the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
, he was inspired to write the well-received '' Life and Death of a Spanish Town''. Forced to flee Spain, he returned to Paris and produced detective fiction featuring the amateur sleuth Homer Evans, as well as crafting what is considered as one of his best works, ''The Last Time I Saw Paris''.
Back in the United States following the outbreak of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Elliot Paul turned to screenwriting where in Hollywood, between 1941 and 1953, he participated in the writing of ten screenplays, the most remembered of which is the 1945 production, ''
Rhapsody in Blue
''Rhapsody in Blue'' is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work premiered i ...
''; he also wrote the screenplay for the Poverty Row production of ''
'', a fictional history of Storyville jazz featuring
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...
in her only acting role. He also contributed to '' London Town'' (1946), one of the most infamous flops in British cinema history. In 1949 he provided subtitles for the US release of
Claude Autant-Lara
Claude Autant-Lara (; 5 August 1901 – 5 February 2000) was a French film director and later Member of the European Parliament (MEP).
Biography
Born at Luzarches in Val-d'Oise, Autant-Lara was educated in France and at London's Mill Hill Sc ...
's film ''Devil in the Flesh'' (Le Diable au corps).
Contemptuous of the censorship imposed on the studios by the Hays Code, Paul mocked Hollywood's hypocritical puritanism in his satiric book from 1942, ''With a Hays Nonny Nonny'', where he reworked Bible stories so that they complied with the Code. ''
The Book of Esther
The Book of Esther ( he, מְגִלַּת אֶסְתֵּר, Megillat Esther), also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Jewish '' Tanakh'' (the Hebrew Bible). It is one of the ...
'', for example, becomes a vehicle for
Don Ameche
Don Ameche (; born Dominic Felix Amici; May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993) was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. After playing in college shows, stock, and vaudeville, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which ...
, with
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...
as Mordecai.
A talented pianist, he frequently supplemented his income by playing at local clubs in the Los Angeles area.
Paul married and divorced five times - Rosa Gertrude Brown (1919-1925), Camille Haynes (1925-1937), Flora Thompson (1937-1940), Barbara Mayock (1940-1949), and Nancy Dolan McMahon (1950-1957). He had one son with Camille Haynes. He died in 1958 at the Veterans' Hospital in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
.
Partial list of screenwriting credits
*''
A Woman's Face
''A Woman's Face'' is a 1941 American drama film directed by George Cukor and starring Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas and Conrad Veidt. It tells the story of Anna Holm, a facially disfigured blackmailer, who because of her appearance, despises eve ...
'' (1941)
*''
Rhapsody in Blue
''Rhapsody in Blue'' is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work premiered i ...
'' (1945)
*'' It's a Pleasure'' (1945)
*'' London Town'' (1946) (U.S. title ''My Heart Goes Crazy'')
*''
* ''Indelible (novel), Indelible'' (1922)
* ''Impromptu'' (1923)
* ''Imperturbe'' (1924)
* ''Low Run Tide and Lava Rock'' (1929)
* ''The Amazon (novel), The Amazon'' (1930)
* ''The Governor of Massachusetts'' (1930)
* ''Concert Pitch'' (1938)
* ''The Stars and Stripes Forever (book), The Stars and Stripes Forever'' (1939)
* ''The Death of Lord Haw Haw'' (as Brett Rutledge, 1940)
* ''A Narrow Street'' (British title of ''The Last Time I Saw Paris'') (1942)
* ''Paris: Twenty-Eight Drawings by Jean Vigoureux'' (introduction; 1942)
* ''Summer in December'' (1945)
* '' Linden on the Saugus Branch'' (1946)
* ''A Ghost Town on the Yellowstone'' (1948)
* ''My Old Kentucky Home (book), My Old Kentucky Home'' (1949)
* ''Desperate Scenery'' (1954)
;Homer Evans series
* ''The Mysterious Mickey Finn'' (1939)
* ''Hugger Mugger in the Louvre'' (1940)
* ''Mayhem in B-Flat'' (1940)
* ''Fracas in the Foothills'' (1940)
* ''I'll Hate Myself in the Morning'' (1945)
* ''Murder on the Left Bank'' (1951)
* ''The Black Gardenia'' (1952)
* ''Waylaid in Boston'' (1953)
* ''The Black and the Red'' (1956)
Non-fiction
* '' Life and Death of a Spanish Town'' (1937)
* ''Intoxication Made Easy'' (1941)
* ''The Last Time I Saw Paris'' (1942)Not to be confused with the film ''The Last Time I Saw Paris'', which was based on the short story ''Babylon Revisited'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
* ''Springtime in Paris'' (1950)
*
* ''Understanding the French'' (1954/55)
* ''Film Flam'' (1956)
* ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957)
———————
;Notes