Other editions of book PAT HOBBY STORIES

The Pat Hobby Stories are a collection of 17 short stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pat Hobby is a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood, once successful as “a good man for structure” during the silent age of cinema, but now reduced to an alcoholic hack hanging around the studio lot. Most stories find him broke and engaged in some ploy for money or a much-desired screen credit, but his antics usually backfire and end in further humiliation. Drawing on his own experiences as a writer in Hollywood, Fitzgerald portrays Pat Hobby with self-mocking humor and nostalgia.

The Pat Hobby Stories are a collection of 17 short stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pat Hobby is a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood, once successful as “a good man for structure” during the silent age of cinema, but now reduced to an alcoholic hack hanging around the studio lot. Most stories find him broke and engaged in some ploy for money or a much-desired screen credit, but his antics usually backfire and end in further humiliation. Drawing on his own experiences as a writer in Hollywood, Fitzgerald portrays Pat Hobby with self-mocking humor and nostalgia.

The setting: Hollywood: the character: Pat Hobby, a down-and-out screenwriter trying to break back into show business, but having better luck getting into bars. Written between 1939 and 1940, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was working for Universal Studios, the seventeen Pat Hobby stories were first published in Esquire magazine and present a bitterly humorous portrait of a once-successful writer who becomes a forgotten hack on a Hollywood lot. "This was not art" Pat Hobby often said, "this was an industry" where whom "you sat with at lunch was more important than what you dictated in your office."

It was Christmas Eve in the studio. By eleven o'clock in the morning, Santa Claus had called on most of the huge population according to each one's deserts.Sumptuous gifts from producers to stars, and from agents to producers arrived at offices and studio bungalows: on every stage one heard of the roguish gifts of casts to directors or directors to casts; champagne had gone out from publicity office to the press. And tips of fifties, tens and fives from producers, directors and writers fell like manna upon the white collar class.In this sort of transaction there were exceptions. Pat Hobby, for example, who knew the game from twenty years' experience, had had the idea of getting rid of his secretary the day before. They were sending over a new one any minute—but she would scarcely expect a present the first day.Waiting for her, he walked the corridor, glancing into open offices for signs of life. He stopped to chat with Joe Hopper from the scenario department.'Not like the old days,' he mourned, 'Then there was a bottle on every desk.''There're a few around.''Not many.' Pat sighed. 'And afterwards we'd run a picture—made up out of cutting-room scraps.''I've heard. All the suppressed stuff,' said Hopper.

It was Christmas Eve in the studio. By eleven o'clock in the morning, Santa Claus had called on most of the huge population according to each one's deserts.Sumptuous gifts from producers to stars, and from agents to producers arrived at offices and studio bungalows: on every stage one heard of the roguish gifts of casts to directors or directors to casts; champagne had gone out from publicity office to the press. And tips of fifties, tens and fives from producers, directors and writers fell like manna upon the white collar class.In this sort of transaction there were exceptions. Pat Hobby, for example, who knew the game from twenty years' experience, had had the idea of getting rid of his secretary the day before. They were sending over a new one any minute—but she would scarcely expect a present the first day.Waiting for her, he walked the corridor, glancing into open offices for signs of life. He stopped to chat with Joe Hopper from the scenario department.'Not like the old days,' he mourned, 'Then there was a bottle on every desk.''There're a few around.''Not many.' Pat sighed. 'And afterwards we'd run a picture—made up out of cutting-room scraps.''I've heard. All the suppressed stuff,' said Hopper.