Title Reviewed:
The Real Nick and Nora
Frances Goodrich and Albert
Hackett,
Writers of Stage and Screen Classics
By David L. Goodrich
Continued from Page 1
It was with Albert Hackett, an actor and writer, that Frances life clicked
for the best. The pair wrote plays, got married, and went to the new world
of Hollywood to write the words for actors to say in the 'Talkies'.
The Hacketts wrote screenplays and plays for the next 30 years. They are
best known for their work on the three Thin Man films staring Myrna Loy and
William Powell.
The Hacketts, as Goodrich calls them, were the epitome of Nick and Nora.
Frances had the refined taste for the good life and had grown up in Nutley
with attending servants. Albert was the wise-cracking uncle every one would
hang around at parties.
While writing the screenplays in their Hollywood studio office, passersby
would hear the pair screaming and yelling at each other. Then the Hacketts
would break for lunch and be as civil and chatty to each other as possible
while away from their keyboard.
At the 'writers' table' at MGM and in Hollywood's Golden Age, they forged
friendships with Ogden Nash, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott
Fitzgerald and many others.
Later, when the Hacketts were well known, they were instrumental in
establishing the Screen Writers Guild - to ensure fair treatment of writers
in Hollywood. They stood up to the bigwigs, including Louis B. Mayer.
And the pair worked on Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" but it wasn't a
pleasant experience for even the seasoned Hollywood screenwriters.
The Hacketts' crowning achievement, and most-draining writing effort, was
their work as playwrights on The Diary of Anne Frank. For that work they won
the Pulitzer Prize.
Frances, who never had any children, thought of Anne as hers. Albert
predicted rightly, that whenever Frances was called upon to speak about the
play, it would cause her to cry.
The exhaustive 300-plus pages of ''The Real Nick and Nora'' covers a pair of
long, full lives, Frances died at 94, and Albert, ten years her junior,
lived to be 95.
The Hacketts were such nice people, they often seemed out of place in the
wilds of Hollywood in the 30s and 40s. Their kindness was often taken
advantage of, but they were such nice people, who wouldn't want to be their
friend?
The Hacketts certainly deserve the fine treatment in this comprehensive
biography. They would be proud of the fine job their nephew did.
<The following observation is not based
on the book>
As for the Goodrich house on Nutley Avenue, it was not far from the home on Walnut
Street where Frank Stockton wrote his classic short story ''The Lady or the
Tiger.'' However it's unlikely that young Frances would have met Stockton as
he moved from Nutley and died when she was 12.
She may have read his stories while at her private school in Nutley, but who
can really say?
The two have another connection and it adds to the irony of the two
best-known writers to have ever lived in Nutley.
In Nutley, Frances Goodrich and her family lived at 187 Nutley Avenue. When
you visit this site in 2005, you will see a stone column - of which there
are several around town that once marked the entrance to a grand estate -
such as Nutley Manor.
But on Nutley Avenue, all you'll find of the Goodrich estate where 187
Nutley Avenue was located is the stone pillar. The estate has been replaced
by a dead end street that leads to another dead end street. The latter is
called Pomander Walk and the former street, perhaps at the former entrance
to the Goodrich estate is Stockton Place.
As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the REST of the story.
This review was written by Anthony Buccino and
published on this web site in 2005.
A complimentary copy of The Real Nick and Nora -
Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Writers of Stage and Screen Classics
was submitted for review consideration.
Book published 2001 by Southern Illinois University
Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville
Click here to order from Amazon: The Real Nick & Nora
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