Silvia Schulman
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Silvia Schulman (March 3, 1913 – February 19, 1993) was an American writer, interior designer, and building contractor. During the 1930s, she worked for the Hollywood film studios
RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...
,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
, and later
Selznick International Pictures Selznick International Pictures was a Hollywood motion picture studio created by David O. Selznick in 1935, and dissolved in 1943. In its short existence the independent studio produced two films that received the Academy Award for Best Pictureâ ...
as a secretary. She was producer
David O. Selznick David O. Selznick (born David Selznick; May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca (1940 film), Rebecca'' (1 ...
's personal assistant until February 1937, when she quit to marry screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. During their honeymoon, she began to write a comic novel based upon her Hollywood experiences, and later enlisted the help of freelance writer Jane Shore. In 1938, ''I Lost My Girlish Laughter'' was published under the pseudonym Jane Allen.


Biography

Silvia Schulman was born in
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
to Russian Jewish parents David and Sarah Schulman in 1913. Both of her parents emigrated from
Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...
. She attended
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...
, but left before graduation to take a job at RKO's New York office. She later moved to Los Angeles, where she met
David O. Selznick David O. Selznick (born David Selznick; May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca (1940 film), Rebecca'' (1 ...
. She took a job at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Selznick, and in 1935, when Selznick left to form his own company, Schulman accepted a position as his personal assistant. She worked with him on ''
David Copperfield ''David Copperfield''Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work; see is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to matur ...
'' (1935), ''
Little Lord Fauntleroy ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was published as a serial in ''St. Nicholas Magazine'' from November 1885 to October 1886, then as a book by Charles Scribner's Sons, Scribner's (the publisher of ...
'' (1936), '' The Garden of Allah'' (1936), and '' A Star Is Born'' (1937). In 1936, Schulman, along with Kay Brown and literary agent Annie Laurie Williams, was instrumental in persuading Selznick to purchase
Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel ''Gone With the Wind (novel), Gone ...
's novel ''Gone with the Wind''. In February 1937, she left Selznick International to marry publicist and screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. and began writing her novel. Later that year, she asked Jane Shore to help polish her material for a New York publisher. Annie Laurie Williams, Margaret Mitchell's agent, acted for them. The novel was serialized first and then published by
Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
in 1938. ''I Lost My Girlish Laughter'' is told in a series of letters, telegrams, news articles, and diary entries by "a smart and sassy narrator"—Hollywood secretary Madge Lawrence. Many supporting characters were based on real Hollywood people. Selznick appeared as crass producer Sidney Brand, actress
Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however, Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...
was parodied as a snobby foreign star called Sarya Tarn, and Kay Brown, journalist
Louella Parsons Louella Rose Oettinger, (August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) known by the pen name Louella Parsons, was an American gossip columnist and a screenwriter. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide. She ...
, and agent
Leland Hayward Leland Hayward (September 13, 1902 – March 18, 1971) was an American talent agent and theatrical producer. He was an agent to about 150 artists in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood, and produced the original Broadway theatre, Broadway st ...
also made cameo appearances under pseudonyms. The novel's publication created quite a scandal, and although many critics hoped for a film adaptation, the studio producers blackballed the book. Schulman and Lardner had two children,
Peter Lardner Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...
(1938-) and
Ann Waswo Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie and Ana. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in t ...
(1940-2020). Although Lardner would become one of Hollywood's most highly regarded writers, most of Schulman's former Hollywood associates shunned her for satirizing the studio system. Schulman and Lardner divorced in 1945. Schulman became an interior designer and building contractor in the 1940s and 1950s, based in Newport Beach, California and Phoenix, Arizona. She died in 1993 of cancer.


Notes


References

* Jane Allen (1938), ''I Lost My Girlish Laughter''. * J.E. Smyth (2018), ''Nobody's Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood''. * Steve Wilson (2014), ''The Making of Gone with the Wind''.


External links


Silvia Schulman Lardner at IMDB.

Silvia Schulman Lardner at BFI.


{{DEFAULTSORT:Schulman, Silvia 1913 births 1993 deaths American women interior designers American interior designers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American women Writers from New York City