Herbert Rudley

The last days of great American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald are chronicled in this film based on a memoir by Sheilah Graham, who was Fitzgerald's paramour during his final days. Graham was a gossip columnist and aspiring novelist who met Fitzgerald during his latter days as a Hollywood screenwriter. Deep in debt thanks to his wife's stay in a mental hospital and his daughter's private school tuition, Fitzgerald took a job writing film scripts to pay the bills, as he attempted to complete another novel that would re-establish his position as one of the important American authors of his century. Graham became Fitzgerald's aid and inspiration as he tried to steer himself away from alcohol and focus on his work, but the author was no longer as strong or stable as he once was. While Graham and Fitzgerald were in love, they often fought, and their efforts came to naught when he died of heart failure, with Graham at his side, before completing The Last Tycoon.

Pre-Civil War Kansas is the backdrop of this tale about a farmer who battles to save his land from a militant posse of private raiders.

Toward the end of his life F. Scott Fitzgerald is writing for Hollywood studios to be able to afford the cost of an asylum for his wife. He is also struggling against alcoholism. Into his life comes the famous gossip columnist.

Toward the end of his life F. Scott Fitzgerald is writing for Hollywood studios to be able to afford the cost of an asylum for his wife. He is also struggling against alcoholism. Into his life comes the famous gossip columnist.