Cerfin’ Right Place, Right Time

In Deauville, a town hard by the Northern coast of France, they honor film and writers with a festival of cinema. One of the honorees was 90-something “ex Hollywood Prince” Bud Schulberg. He hung out with Castro in the early days, joining him for a tall vodka with Erroll Flynn in the 50s. He got a big break, as told in the International Herald Tribune, when he was at Dartmouth.

“I ran the newspaper, at Dartmouth, and there was a marble quarry strike about 40 miles away.” Schulberg said. “I took the side of the workers. There was fury on the campus; the adminstration was in an uproar. The students took food and clothes to the workers. My crazy luck was that publisher Bennett Cerf was there lecturing and read my stuff in the paper. He said, ‘Young man, this is awfully well written. If you think about writing a novel, come see us.”

And the novel he wrote was “What Makes Sammy Run,”about Hollywood’s seamy underbelly, a great success that made a lot of people mad and changed Schulberg’s life forever.