Arts and Letters

It was on an autumn day in 1937, as I remember, that Fate, in the person of a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer improbably named Fleet Mousejoy, decided to interweave my destiny with that of Ogden Nash. What Nash and I were doing at that moment in Hollywood, a place both of us detested, and at M-G-M, a studio nobody could possibly recall with nostalgia, may be clarified in a very few words: we were merely two of the thousands of mechanics toiling in the dream factories in that vanished epoch, and chance had thrown us together at the writer's table in that particular studio's commissary. We had a certain prior connection, to be sure, in that our published work had appeared in the same magazine, but this was our first real contact, and very soon, on discovering that we shared the same prejudices, we became good friends. It was rather bizarre, therefore, when we were separately bidden into Mr. Mousejoy's office one morning and formally introduced, despite our protestations that we knew each other. Mousejoy was the kind of satrap who refused to believe that anything existed unless he personally had arranged it.

"Now, boys," he announced after we had exchanged stilted handshakes. "We here at M-G-M have acquired a very important property—a best-seller that's cost us a pile of dough—and I feel you two are the ideal fellows to collaborate on the screenplay." He opened a desk drawer, withdrew a book, and laid it reverently between us. Our heads collided as we bent forward to inspect it. "What do you say to that for an assignment?"

"How to Win Friends and Influence People," I read off, mystified. "Um—yes, Dale Carnegie. But look, Mr. Mousejoy—"

"That title on a theater marquee," declared Mousejoy impressively, "is worth conservatively one million dollars. And with the cast I have in mind—Joan Crawford, Fanny Brice, and Mickey Rooney—it'll be the blockbuster of all time. We're going to write a new chapter in motion-picture history, my friends."

"Fabulous," Nash agreed, "but there's one little hitch, Mr. Mousejoy. There's no actual story. It's a book of inspirational essays-psychology for the layman kind of thing."

"Ach-who cares?" the producer said impatiently. "That's where you two come in. A pair of brilliant minds working together—how can you miss? Now, I have a few ideas that may be helpful. Mind you, they're only suggestions…."

Nash and I listened attentively to his maunderings, retired to one of the noisome lazarets we occupied, and devoted a couple of days of fruitless discussion to Carnegie's classic. The only idea we could dredge up was that the Misses Crawford and Brice were strip tease artistes domiciled at the Y.W.C.A., but we couldn't invent any excuse to implicate Mickey Rooney in such a locale, so we abandoned that hypothesis. We did discover while conferring, though, that we both venerated the Sherlock Holmes canon, and we began evolving an intricate quiz that seemed to have strong commercial possibilities. Incredibly enough, five weeks passed without any interference from Mousejoy. He phoned once or twice to inquire benevolently how we were progressing, but assured us he wasn't prying—he wanted our creative powers to range free, to be given the widest latitude.

Then, one day out of the blue, he suddenly summoned us into his presence. Naturally, we were appalled, as we hadn't a word on paper or even the ghost of an idea, but miraculously he didn't even ask. He merely wanted to apologize. He was being called to New York for some high-level executive meeting, and consequently was forced to postpone our picture and transfer us to two other producers. His voice shook with genuine emotion as he predicted that some day, in the near-distant future, our triumvirate would again work together.

The day did come, but the trio he envisioned was different. Six years later, Nash and I collaborated on a Broadway musical, One Touch of Venus, for which Ogden also supplied lyrics for Kurt Weill's score. We hammered out the libretto in a room at the Harvard Club, word by word in pencil on those lined yellow pads he always favored. He was a scrupulous, deliberate worker, as all his verse attests; he abhorred the slapdash, the hackneyed turn of thought, the threadbare phrase. And insofar as work can be pleasurable, I can't imagine anybody with whom one could feel a closer rapport. His understanding was so quick, his mind so fanciful and allusive, that it enriched whatever it touched.

We went on to other projects in the theater afterward, and never lost the spirit of harmony and enjoyment we found in each other's company. When geography and circumstance separated us in later years, my reunion with him was a delight; I felt privileged that I knew anyone of such cultivated and subtle intelligence. That his poetry was so widely acclaimed and his audience so devoted never surprised me, for the man himself had all its qualities—wit, compassion, and the extraordinary ability to enchant his readers—in the highest degree. I am grateful to have known Ogden Nash, and only sorry that those who know him merely from the printed page cannot share my love.