F. Scott Fitzgerald's great American novel, The Great Gatsby, turns 100

Three Penguin editions of Fitzgerald's books which feature Louise Brooks on the cover

F. Scott Fitzgerald is certainly the one American author most emblematic of the Jazz Age. He authored a handful of brilliant novels including The Beautiful and the Damned and Tender is the Night, as well as numerous short story collected in books such Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age. Of course, his greatest achievement as a writer and certainly his best known work is The Great Gatsby, which this year turns one hundred years old. It is the "great American novel." This classic story of yearning helped define the Jazz Age -- it was also a novel that Louise Brooks "lived". 

This past weekend, CBS Sunday Morning ran a short piece on the book: "One hundred years ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a tragic tale of striving featuring an enigmatic millionaire, was published – and it bombed. Since then, its reputation has only grown, to where many consider it the Great American Novel. Correspondent Lee Cowan talks with a Fitzgerald descendant about the author's legacy; and visits Fitzgerald's old haunts, where his characters would have rubbed shoulders with 'the very rich' during the Jazz Age."

I don't know if Louise Brooks ever read The Great Gatsby or any other of Fitzgerald's novels or short stories, but it is possible. She was a reader whose tastes inclined toward the classics as well as contemporary literary fiction. 

What is certain is that Brooks knew of Fitzgerald, and in fact, they encountered one another on at least a few occasions. Brooks first met Fitzgerald in Hollywood. According to the Barry Paris biography, they first met in 1927 in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel. Brooks described the incident, "They were sitting close together on a sofa, like a comedy team, and the first thing that struck me was how small they were.” Brooks “had come to see the genius writer,” adding, “but what dominated the room was the blazing intelligence of Zelda’s profile… the profile of a witch.” 

In later letters and interviews, Brooks recounted a few other meetings at parties over the years, but apparently, they didn't leave much of an impression on each other. Instead, it was the similarly bobbed actress Colleen Moore about which Fitzgerald famously said, "I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch. What little things we are to have caused all that trouble." (For more on this actress, see Jeff Codori's fine biography Colleen Moore: A Biography of the Silent Film Star, from 2010.) Fitzgerald was also smitten with another actress of the silent era, Lois Moran, who served as the basis for a character or two in Fitzgerald's fiction. It is widely believed that Moran and Fitzgerald had a brief affair during the 1920s, despite their difference in years. (For more on the actress, see Richard Buller's outstanding biography A Beautiful Fairy Tale: The Life of Actress Lois Moran, from 2005.)

Fitzgerald and Brooks had at least a few things in common. They both came from the Midwest, were both prone to occasional melancholy (IMHO), and both shared a dislike of Hollywood. Despite its reputation as a dream factory, the writer and the actress were profoundly unhappy during their tenures in Tinseltown. They also "shared" two individuals who would play a significant role in their respective lives.

One of them was Herbert Brenon, who in 1925 directed Brooks in her very first film, The Street of Forgotten Men. One year later, he directed the now lost first film version of The Great Gatsby. (Both films featured Neil Hamilton.) The other individual the actress and the writer "shared" was Deering Davis, a polo player, dancer and socialite from a wealthy Chicago family.

Anyone who has read a Fitzgerald biography knows that before Zelda there was another woman with whom Fitzgerald was in love, or at least deeply infatuated. Her name was Ginevra King. The two met at a sledding party in January of 1915, when Scott was a nineteen year old college student at Princeton, and Ginevra was a poised high school sophomore. Their romance flourished in heartfelt letters and quickly ran its course – though Fitzgerald never forgot her. Ginevra became the inspiration for Isabelle Borgé in This Side of Paradise and the model for Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Scott also wrote a few short stories inspired by her – including “Babes in the Woods” and “Winter Dreams". This youthful passion helped shaped Fitzgerald’s life as a writer.

James L. W. West III's book, The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King, His First Love, reveals that around the same time that Fitzgerald was romancing Ginevra King, she was infatuated with a "Chicago boy" by the name of Deering Davis, the same Chicago playboy who married Louise Brooks in 1933! And, apparently, the two suitors aware of one another. [Whether or not Brooks was later made aware of the affair is uncertain, and considering it was almost 20 years earlier, perhaps unlikely.]

Three ebook editions of Fitzgerald's books which feature Louise Brooks on the cover

Fitzgerald and Brooks also had a friend in common, namely Townsend Martin. He was Fitzgerald's  classmate at Princeton, and, he penned two of Brooks' films, The American Venus (1926) and Love Em and Leave Em (1926). Brooks and Martin met around the time the future actress was appearing in the Follies, with Brooks suggesting Martin persuaded her to play a part in The American Venus. A few year's later, in 1929, they shared passage aboard the Ile de France to France and eventually Paris, where they encountered one another again, and the (in)famous incident of Brooks slapping a bouquet of roses across across Martin's face. (Read all about it in the Barry Paris biography of Brooks.) 

With both Fitzgerald and Brooks being modern day emblems of the Jazz Age, it is not surprising that the actress has ended up on the covers of at least a few editions of Fitzgerald's fiction.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.