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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Cerf:

Well, he was too much of a brawler for me, in those early days. Gene was a wild man, a wild man, but I loved him. He was the handsomest, most arresting man I think I've ever seen--Eugene O'Neill.

Q:

You mean in personality?

Cerf:

No, handsome--beautiful. He spoke very slowly and hesitated several times in a sentence. He'd say, “Let's...uh... take a walk...uh...down Broadway tonight.” You know, he'd pause between phrases. And I'm a very impatient man. But Gene I would listen to patiently because he fascinated me.

Q:

Did you see that he would become such a...?

Cerf:

Oh, he'd already written Seven Plays of the Sea. He had just written Strange Interlude. He was big already. He had arrived. And he was one playwright whose books hit the top of Best Seller lists. Strange Interlude wound up selling over 150,000 copies.

Q:

Was there any one person that he went out with usually?

Cerf:

Well, he had a bunch of cronies--a lot of people from the Provincetown Playhouse. One was Eleanor Fitzgerald-- “Fitzie”--who ran the Provincetown Playhouse, a rather fascinating woman--ended up penniless. He was just about preparing





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