Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 1029

by a man named Darryl Zanuck. Darryl Zanuck was already the head of Twentieth Century Fox, and he was a colonel in the War. We published his book and had a very big sale because Twentieth Century Fox bought 20,000 copies.

Q:

Did they make a movie out of it probably too?

Cerf:

Probably. One wonderful thing I remember. Darryl Zanuck was always a great one for sending eight-page telegrams. You know, he would sent a telegram the way some love-sick girl would write a mushy letter. He had a loud voice. He smoked great big cigars. Here he was a colonel when he came back from Tunis to New York, and, before he went back to Hollywood, he had nothing to do so he'd stay in my office and talk to me. You could hear him all over the office. You know, he was fun, but you couldn't do any work while he was around. But, when he left, I gave him the galleys of Only the Stars Are Neutral by Quentin Reynolds to read on the plane back to California. The next morning I got one of his long, long telegrams. One of the things that he said was: “It may interest you to know that on page 141, Quentin Reynolds mentions some hotel in Tobruk or somewhere in North Africa. It may interest you and Quentin to know that I was the first American officer to set foot in this hotel, on the morning of (so-and-so).” And he gave me some long details about what he had had for breakfast...all in the telegram.





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help