The Beautiful and Damned

The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 novel, introduced Fitzgerald fans to 22-year-old Gloria Gilbert, a drop-dead gorgeous, selfish, gumdrop-addicted beauty from Kansas City, and 25-year-old Anthony Patch, a handsome, heir-to-a-fortune, careless, spoiled Harvard graduate and New York bon vivant. The novel opens in 1913, a time of flappers, jazz clubs, silent movies, and, for those who could afford it, a 24/7 world of parties, booze, and social extravagances. Golden-haired Gloria, by her own admission known as "Coast-to-Coast Gloria", dabbles in men's affections as other women might dabble in a kitchen - trying one recipe for love after another, never quite finding the perfect emotional meal until she meets Anthony Patch. She has broken many hearts, leaving in her wake a trail of love-besotted men from the small towns in the Midwest to the emerging studios of the motion picture industry. Only one man, the arrogant and ruthless Joseph Bloeckman of Films par Excellence, re