Sprinkled With Ruby Dust

by H.N. Swanson

Hollywood's most famous literary agent recounts his career representing such twentieth century literary luminaries as F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner in their efforts to find work as script-writers in Hollywood's booming, lucrative film industry

151 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1989

Reviews

[Randal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The charming, breezy memoir of H.N. Swanson, one of the most influential literary agents in Hollywood of the 20th century. Swanson moved to Los Angeles in 1931 and opened his eponymous agency in 1934. Comprising a mere 151 pages (the first 10 of which are taken up with Elmore Leonard's introduction), there is clearly a lot of this story that is not included within these covers.

Nevertheless, Swanson dishes out choice anecdotes about many of his famous clients, including F. Scott Fitzgerald (Swanson read one of Fitzgerald's novels in manuscript, loved it, and strongly recommended that the title be changed from Trimalchio of West Egg to "Gatsby," or better yet, "The Great Gatsby"), Michael Arlen, MacKinlay Kantor, Carl Sandburg, Maurine Watkins (who wrote the original stage play Chicago, Charles Bennett (writer of several screenplays for Alfred Hitchcock), Norman Reilly Raine, W.R. Burnett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Frank Buck, Mary O'Hara, Damon Runyon, William Faulkner, John O'Hara, Harry Tugend, Elmore Leonard, Arthur Hailey, Luke Short, Horace McCoy, John Ball, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Sherwood Anderson, P.G. Wodehouse, Ernest Haycox, Alan LeMay, Katherine Brush, Pearl Buck, E. Philips Oppenheim, S.J. Perelman, S.S. Van Dine, Thornton Wilder, Clarence Budington Kelland, Paul Gallico, Max Brand, Theodore Dreiser, Sally Benson, Cornell Woolrich, Joyce Carol Oates, Dorothy Uhnak, and Agatha Christie.

And those are just some of the names mentioned in this brief tome. Swanson's client list was a veritable who's-who of 20th century authors and screenwriters. Would I read a critical biography of this man? You better believe it!

[Ken Oder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold “Swanie” Swanson was the first pure literary agent in Hollywood, setting up shop on Sunset Boulevard in 1934 and running his agency until his death in 1991 at the age of 91. He represented F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Cain, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Elmore Leonard, and many other hall of fame writers, and he hobnobbed with all the major producers, directors, and actors of his day. I was privileged to meet him and spend time with him when I represented him in a court case in the late 80’s. His stories were fascinating to me back then. They still are. If you’re interested in the early days of Hollywood movie production and in vignettes about the legendary writers of the twentieth century, this is your book.