Elliot Paul
Encyclopedia
Elliot Harold Paul was an American
journalist
and author
.
, Elliot Paul graduated from Malden High School
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 Signals Corps to fight in World War I
. Paul served in France
where he fought in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel
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 of Paris, France. There, he worked for a time at the Chicago Tribune
's International Edition (so-called Paris Edition), before joining Eugene
and Maria Jolas
as co-editor of the literary journal, transition
. A friend of both James Joyce
and Gertrude Stein
, Paul defied Ernest Hemingway
'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
.
Paul returned to the newspaper business, to the Paris Herald (now the International Herald Tribune
) 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
. With virtually no one in the literary community knowing where he was, in her 1933 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
, Stein muses over his "disappearance."
Caught in the middle of the Spanish Civil War
, he was inspired to write the well received Life and Death of a Spanish Town
. Forced to flee Spain, he returned to Paris 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
, 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
; he also wrote the screenplay for the Poverty Row production of New Orleans, a fictional history of Storyville
jazz featuring Billie Holiday
in her only acting role. He also contributed to London Town (1946
), one of the most infamous flops in British
cinema history.
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 , for example, becomes a vehicle for Don Ameche
, with Groucho Marx
as Mordecai
.
A talented pianist, he frequently supplemented his income by playing at local clubs in the Los Angeles
area.
Married and divorced five times, Paul had one son. He died in 1958 at the Veterans' Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
Biography
Born in Linden, a part of Malden, MassachusettsMalden, Massachusetts
Malden is a suburban city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 59,450 at the 2010 census. In 2009 Malden was ranked as the "Best Place to Raise Your Kids" in Massachusetts by Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine.-History:...
, Elliot Paul graduated from Malden High School
Malden High School
Malden High School is a public high school located in Malden, Massachusetts. Accredited by New England Association of Schools and Colleges , it awards high school diplomas.The school was founded in 1857.-Centre St.:...
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
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. In 1917, he joined the U.S. Army Signals Corps to fight in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Paul served in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
where he fought in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel
Battle of Saint-Mihiel
The Battle of Saint-Mihiel was a World War I battle fought between September 12–15, 1918, involving the American Expeditionary Force and 48,000 French troops under the command of U.S. general John J. Pershing against German positions...
and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive
Meuse-Argonne Offensive
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, or Maas-Argonne Offensive, also called the Battle of the Argonne Forest, was a part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire western front.-Overview:...
. 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 of Paris, France. There, he worked for a time at the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
's International Edition (so-called Paris Edition), before joining Eugene
Eugene Jolas
John George Eugene Jolas was a writer, translator and literary critic.-Biography:Eugene Jolas was born in Union City, New Jersey, but grew up in Forbach in Elsass-Lothringen , to which his family returned when he was two years old. He spent periods of his adult life living in both the U.S...
and Maria Jolas
Maria Jolas
Maria Jolas , born Maria McDonald, was one of the founding members of transition in Paris with her husband Eugene Jolas....
as co-editor of the literary journal, transition
Transition (literary journal)
transition was an experimental literary journal that featured surrealist, expressionist, and Dada art and artists. It was founded in 1927 by poet Eugene Jolas and his wife Maria McDonald and published in Paris...
. A friend of both James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
, Paul defied Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
'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
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
.
Paul returned to the newspaper business, to the Paris Herald (now the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
) 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
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
village of Santa Eulalia
Santa Eulària des Riu
Santa Eulària des Riu is a municipality on the eastern coast of Ibiza. The only river on the island flows through the town of Santa Eulària. The town was depicted, in the time before and up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in Elliot Paul's Life and Death of a Spanish Town...
on the island of Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
. 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
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is a 1933 book by Gertrude Stein, written in the guise of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, who was her lover.-Summary:-Before I came to Paris:...
, Stein muses over his "disappearance."
Caught in the middle of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, he was inspired to write the well received Life and Death of a Spanish Town
Life and Death of a Spanish Town
Life and Death of a Spanish Town is a book by Elliot Paul about the island of Ibiza before and up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War...
. Forced to flee Spain, he returned to Paris 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
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Elliot Paul turned to screenwriting
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
where in Hollywood, between 1941 and 1953, he participated in the writing of ten screenplays, the most remembered of which is the 1945
1945 in film
The year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
production, Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue (film)
Rhapsody in Blue is a 1945 fictionalized screen biography of the American composer and musician George Gershwin . Starring Robert Alda as Gershwin, the film features a few of Gershwin's acquaintances playing themselves...
; he also wrote the screenplay for the Poverty Row production of New Orleans, a fictional history of Storyville
Storyville
Storyville was the red-light district of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1897 through 1917. Locals usually simply referred to the area as The District.-History:...
jazz featuring Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
in her only acting role. He also contributed to London Town (1946
1946 in film
The year 1946 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*November 21 - William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York featuring an ensemble cast including Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell.*December 20 - Frank Capra's It's a...
), one of the most infamous flops in British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
cinema history.
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
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
stories so that they complied with the Code. The Book of Esther , for example, becomes a vehicle for Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
, with Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
as Mordecai
Mordecai
Mordecai or Mordechai is one of the main personalities in the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. He was the son of Jair, of the tribe of Benjamin.-Biblical account:...
.
A talented pianist, he frequently supplemented his income by playing at local clubs in the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
area.
Married and divorced five times, Paul had one son. He died in 1958 at the Veterans' Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
.
Partial list of screenwriting credits
- A Woman's FaceA Woman's FaceA Woman's Face is a 1941 drama film directed by George Cukor, 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 everyone she encounters...
(1941) - Rhapsody in BlueRhapsody in Blue (film)Rhapsody in Blue is a 1945 fictionalized screen biography of the American composer and musician George Gershwin . Starring Robert Alda as Gershwin, the film features a few of Gershwin's acquaintances playing themselves...
(1945) - It's A Pleasure (1945)
- London Town (1946) (aka My Heart Goes Crazy in the US)
- New OrleansNew Orleans (1947 film)New Orleans is a 1947 musical drama featuring Billie Holiday as a singing maid and Louis Armstrong as a bandleader; supporting players Holiday and Armstrong perform together and portray a couple becoming romantically involved...
(1947)