‘Locust’ Author Had His Day in Hollywood

The San Fernando Valley was good to writer Nathanael West, whose work includes such bleak classics as “Miss Lonelyhearts.”

In 1936 the New York transplant got his first staff job at a movie studio. He was hired, not at one of the majors such as MGM, but at Republic Productions in Studio City for $200 a week to write such forgettable flicks as “Jim Haney--Detective.”

With Republic putting food on his table, West was able to write his masterpiece, “The Day of the Locust.” Regarded by many as the best Hollywood novel of all time, it is peopled with characters based on the industry underclass he lived among at the Pa-Va-Sed Hotel, over the hill in Hollywood.

Writing for the movies paid West far better than writing for posterity. Random House gave him an advance of $500 for “Locust,” in whose final pages Hollywood literally goes up in flames. Published in 1939, it sold fewer than 1,500 copies.

By then, West had a job at a better studio--RKO--earning $400 a week. That was enough for him to marry Eileen McKenney. In December 1940, West and his bride moved into a handsome house at 12706 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood. The home was a kind of grand farmhouse on a two-acre lot full of walnut and pear trees. They began furnishing it with all the brio of a happy couple with some money in their pockets.

On Dec. 21, 1940, West’s friend F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in his Hollywood apartment. The Wests were on hunting trip in Mexico when Fitzgerald died.

The next day, the couple was driving back to Los Angeles when West, a notoriously bad driver, failed to stop at a treacherous intersection near El Centro.

Only 37, West and his wife died in the crash that followed. According to biographer Jay Martin, their Valley house was still full of unpacked boxes.