Collections and The American Cinematheque celebrate the life, writings and
films of Jim Tully (1886-1947) with a week-long "Tullyfest." Events include:
1) October 10 LAUGHTER IN HELL screening at the American Cinematheque; 2)
October 11 REDISCOVERING JIM TULLY Bonnie Cashin Lecture at UCLA Library
Special Collections and opening of exhibit (open thru December) of
selections from the Jim Tully Papers; 3) October 14 JIM TULLY'S HOLLYWOOD
walking tour; 4) The LAVA Salon honors JIM TULLY: A HOBO IN HOLLYWOOD
(Detailed event info is below.)
FOR MORE TULLYFEST INFO: Contact Kim Cooper, amscrayATgmailDOTcom,
323-223-2767.
On October 15, for its fourth quarterly literary Salon, LAVA
The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, makes a departure from the
celebrated subjects of past literary Salons (Raymond Chandler, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and John Fante) to honor a forgotten luminary of
the 1930s Hollywood scene, the hobo novelist, journalist and screenwriter
Jim Tully.
The LAVA Salon also moves from its past home at the Musso & Frank Grill
across the street to the Larry Edmunds Bookshop, the last historic
bookseller remaining on Hollywood Boulevard, and representing a direct line
to the celebrated Stanley Rose Bookshop where all the great Los Angeles
writers of the 1930s congregated‹Larry Edmunds was Stanley Rose's business
partner.
The fourth LAVA Salon, entitled JIM TULLY: A HOBO IN HOLLYWOOD, wraps up a
full week of Tullyfest celebrations stretching from Hollywood to Westwood
and back again. Tullyfest events unfold in this order:
1) LAUGHTER IN HELL film screening and talk at the American Cinematheque at
the Egyptian Theatre.
WHERE: American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood
Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028.
WHEN: Wednesday, October 10, 7:30pm (time subject to change, check calendar
link)
COST: General Admission $11.00. Cinematheque Members $7.00. Seniors
65+/Students w/valid ID $9.
LINK: http://www.
Tullyfest week begins with a screening of the 1933 film "Laughter in Hell"
with an introduction by Jim Tully's biographers Mark Dawidziak and Paul
Bauer. Copies of their book "Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover,
Hollywood Brawler" will be available for purchase from historic Hollywood
bookseller Larry Edmunds. Based on the 1932 Tully novel, this hard-boiled,
pre-code film stars Pat O'Brien as a wife-killing railroad worker who busts
out of prison and takes up with Gloria Stuart. At the time of its release,
the film gained notoriety for its no-holds-barred depiction of prison
brutality and lynching. It is rarely screened today, and was for many years
thought to be a lost film.
2) Bonnie Cashin Lecture REDISCOVERING JIM TULLY: GOLDEN AGE HOLLYWOOD'S
HARD-BOILED WRITER and opening of the exhibition THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JIM
TULLY FROM DRIFTER TO CELEBRATED AUTHOR: SELECTIONS FROM THE JIM TULLY
PAPERS
WHERE: UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Main Conference Room, 11360
Charles E. Young Research Library, Los Angeles, CA 90095
WHEN: Thursday, October 11, 4-6pm (lecture), exhibition is open through
December
COST: Free, but reservations required and space is limited. RSVP by October
2, 2012 to UCLA Library Development at 310.206.8526 orrsvp@library.ucla.edu
LINK:
http://blogs.library.ucla.edu/
ject-of-bonnie-cashin-lecture-
For the second Tullyfest event, UCLA Library Special Collections hosts the
Bonnie Cashin Lecture by Paul Bauer and Mark Dawidziak, entitled
"Rediscovering Jim Tully: Golden Age Hollywood's Hard-Boiled Writer" in the
Charles E. Young Research Library Conference Center. Bauer and Dawidziak are
authors of the biography, "Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover,
Hollywood Brawler" (Kent State University Press, 2011). The lecture will be
followed by a reception in Library Special Collections for the opening of
the accompanying exhibit, "The Life and Times of Jim Tully‹From Drifter to
Celebrated Author" curated by Lilace Hatayama. The exhibit will feature
selections from the Jim Tully Papers, including drafts of his novels and
first editions, correspondence with Hollywood celebrities, sports figures,
writers, editors, and screenwriters, research files for his non-fiction
pieces, photographs with celebrities of the day, and mementos of his strong
ties to his hometown of St. Mary's, Ohio.
3) JIM TULLY'S HOLLYWOOD walking tour presented by LAVA The Los Angeles
Visionaries Association
WHERE: Tour begins at the Larry Edmunds Bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Boulevard,
Los Angeles, CA, 90028
WHEN: Sunday, October 14, 3pm
COST: Free, but reservations are required from the link below.
LINK: http://lavatransforms.org/
The third Tullyfest event is a free two-hour walking tour that will focus on
the locations which were important to Jim Tully's career in the motion
picture industry, during the teens through the 1930s. The tour will be lead
by Mark Dawidziak and Paul Bauer, who are Jim Tully's biographers and who
will be presenting at the LAVA literary Salon the following night. Sites on
the tour include: Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Grauman's Chinese Theater, The
Musso & Frank Grill, Mark Twain Hotel and the former Chaplin Studios.
4) Monday, October 15 The LAVA Salon presents JIM TULLY: A HOBO IN
HOLLYWOOD
WHERE: The Larry Edmunds Bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles,
CA, 90028
WHEN: Monday, October 15, 2012 from 6:30-9pm.
COST: Free admittance and light snacks and beverages, but space is extremely
limited and reservations are required from the link below
LINK: http://lavatransforms.org/
The fourth and final Tullyfest event is the LAVA Salon honoring "Jim Tully:
A Hobo in Hollywood."
The LAVA Salon was just named Best Literary Salon by Los Angeles Magazine in
its Best of L.A. issue.
The first Salon, featuring Dan Fante reading from his recent memoir, was a
rousing success, with Larry Wilson of the Pasadena Star-News observing "The
sold-out crowd spoke to our hunger for a Southern California literary
history." And of the second sold-out Salon, featuring "L.A. Noir" author
John Buntin discussing the true crime roots of Raymond Chandler's fiction,
Carolyn Kellogg noted in the L.A. Times that "someone who didn't know any
L.A. history would have found it to be a robust and welcoming introduction."
And at the third sold-out Salon, David Kipen celebrated the late work of F.
Scott Fitzgerald as Adrienne Crew reminded us that for all her sharpness,
Dorothy Parker had a genius for friendship.
The LAVA Salon is the brainchild of Kim Cooper & Richard Schave, proprietors
of literary and historic tour company Esotouric‹Raymond Chandler's Los
Angeles, James M. Cain's Southern California Nightmare, Charles Bukowski's
Haunts of a Dirty Old Man, John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill‹who through
2009-10 hosted a free cultural Salon on the last Sunday of the month at
Clifton's Cafeteria. With the new series, LAVA expands its congenial,
intelligent and unpredictable cultural programming into Hollywood with a
quarterly literary Salon event. Seating is extremely limited, and these
intimate gatherings always sell out.
On Monday, October 15, you are invited to join Jim Tully's biographers Mark
Dawidziak and Paul Bauer for "Jim Tully: A Hobo in Hollywood," a night spent
exploring a fascinating Hollywood literary figure who star blazed brightly
through the 1930s, and unaccountably faded after his 1947 death.
The son of an Irish ditch-digger, Ohio-born Jim Tully (1886-1947) hit the
road in 1901, spending most of his teenage years in the company of hoboes.
While chasing his dream of becoming a writer, Tully rode the rails and
worked as a tree surgeon, boxer, and newspaper reporter. All the while, he
was crafting his memories into a dark and original chronicle of the American
underclass. When he began to set his experiences onto paper in a style that
was hard-boiled before the genre existed, he became a literary sensation.
At October's Salon, Jim Tully's biographers Mark Dawidziak and Paul Bauer
will seek to answer the fundamental question: "Why isn't Jim Tully still a
household name?" Tully exploded onto the scene with a stream of critically
acclaimed novels, among them "Beggars of Life" (1924), "Circus Parade"
(1927), "Shanty Irish" (1928), "Shadows of Men" (1930) and "Blood on the
Moon" (1931). Yet the books were out-of-print for decades, their author
forgotten.
To answer this question, Mark Dawidziak and Paul Bauer must look to the
Hollywood of 1912, to the sleepy little suburb that Tully found and watched
grow up around him, as he built his incongruous twin careers as motion
picture publicist and independent writer. From his piercing insights into
and deep ambivalence toward his longtime employer, Charlie Chaplin, to
anecdotes of great friendships with W. C. Fields, Jack Dempsey, Damon
Runyon, Lon Chaney, Frank Capra, and Erich von Stroheim, Tully exhibited a
lust for life which was only surpassed by his devotion to his craft. By 1930
Tully was a major American author, and had launched a parallel career as a
successful journalist. Both his novels and journalistic exposés shook the
country and his peer group in Hollywood.
But Tully's novel "Ladies In The Parlor" (1935), was declared obscene and
most copies destroyed, and Chaplin successfully prevented Tully's publisher
from releasing a biography of the actor. By the mid-1940s, crippling
physical ailments and family heartbreak left the writer on the ropes. With
his death in 1947, his name quietly slipped from the front ranks of American
Letters and into obscurity.
Since 2009, Kent State University Press has been rectifying this long
neglect with a series of Tully reprints. And in 2011, it published Mark
Dawidziak and Paul Bauer's definitive biography, "Jim Tully: American
Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler," drawing on new information found in
the Tully papers at UCLA Special Collections.
The time is ripe for a revival of interest in this fascinating American
character, and we invite you to play a part in it at the October Salon and
at all of the October TULLYFEST events.
Also appearing at the Salon is Howard Prouty (Acquisitions Archivist at The
Academy Foundation/Margaret Herrick Library and proprietor of ReadInk) with
the latest in his popular series of talks on a famous Los Angeles book
seller with a history of Hollywood's landmark Pickwick Bookshop.
ABOUT LAVA: Through participation in LAVA, a select group of creative
professionals come together to promote cultural programming that speaks to
the urban experience while promoting positive public space. LAVA's creative
partners share a love for L.A. and unique ideas for exploring it in their
work. Formed by social historians RICHARD SCHAVE and KIM COOPER ‹proprietors
of Esotouric bus adventures and the 1947project time travel blog series
(including On Bunker Hill and In SRO Land)‹LAVA brings together L.A.'s most
visionary promoters, artists, writers and thinkers.
Applications from prospective LAVA members are being taken at
http://lavatransforms.org/
To learn more about LAVA, please visit http://www.lavatransforms.org
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