Visit the Thai Restaurant blends atmospheric elegance with culina Featuring the 15116We Drin k Cafe E Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald on their honeymoon. By his last years, wrote one biog- rapher, "Fitzgerald had rejected the anti-Semitism endemic among middle-class white Americans, which he had learned during his youth in St. Paul." Fitzgerald And The Jews Biographers point to The Last Tycoon as an indication of a change of heart in Fitzgerald's attitudes toward Jews. In the author's own words, "He had worked with Jews for too long to believe the legend that they were small with money." Jeffrey Myers, author of Scott Fitzgerald — A Biography (1994), listed among the author's Jewish friends and admirers George Jean Nathan, who published his first stories; Gilbert Seldes, whose review of The Great Gatsby helped launch Fitzgerald's inter- national fame; and authors Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman, Nathanael West and Budd Schulberg. By his last years, Myers wrote, "Fitzgerald had rejected the anti- Semitism endemic among middle-class white Americans, which he had learned during his youth in St. Paul. The radical transformation was clearly reflected in his novels." In The Beautiful and the Damned (1921), the Jewish character Joseph Bloeckman is a vulgar film company executive who tries to seduce the hero's wife with a screen test and promises of a film career. And, four years later, The Great Gatsby features the villainous Meyer Wolfsheim, a gangster who speaks with a guttural Eastern European accent, wears cufflinks made of human molars and is implicated in fixing that most American of all events, the World Series. In 1939-40, when he wrote The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald clearly modeled his admirable hero, the Jewish Monroe Stahr, on film producer Irving Thalberg, whose films included Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty and Camille. In the novel, Stahr drives himself mercilessly, despite suffering from a debilitating heart condition. The char- acter does favors for lower-level employees and makes difficult, but artistically valid, decisions, including canceling the release of a poorly made movie. Eventually, Stahr sacrifices himself for the good of the studio. In a Showtime interview, Kroll Ring, now 83, said her main concern was that the anguish that Fitzgerald felt during his last years be seen in its true light. "My memory harbors a gentle man with a nearly collapsed dream whose prevailing gift gave him the strength to keep doing what he did best — to write," she said. "My belief is that you remember this man for his writing, not his drink- ing. His drinking came out of personal torments that have to be understood and put in perspective. "But the writing stands on its own, and writing was all that was ever important to him." ❑ Last Call debuts 8 p.m. Saturday, May 25, on the Showtime Network. Roy al Oak, Ml -1-307 (2+8) 28 3-0002 en: Mon — Thur. I lam - l O p m • Fri. 1 I am- 1 1 pm Sat. 12pm-11 pm • „burl. 12-10pm Lunch served '61 5pm Mon-fri mile ey Woodward in The Northwood Shopping Center •SCRUMPTIOUS APPETIZERS •DELECTABLE HOT DINNERS •FABULOUS PARTY TRAYS •TANTALIZING DESSERTS 6646 TELEGRAPH • AT MAPLE • BLOOMFIELD PLAZ • GRAND OPENING Thai Cuisine EXCLUDES TAKEOUT 25226 Greenfield Rd.Oak Park, MI 48237 • SALA THAI (248) 968-9495 Fax ( 248) 968-9405 Open Daily 11:00 am - 9:30 pm Fri & Sat 11:00 am - 11:00 pm Dinner Served: Mon-Fri after 3 pm Saturday all day • I 1 Mile Rd. 0 'MI Pl..1 .....! ) and caffeine content kept him awake enough to write. Kroll ordered groceries, made sand- wiches and appointments, fended off unwelcome guests and listened while her employer talked out his ideas. She arranged with her furrier father, Samuel Kr011, to convert a nearly new coat of Graham's to a more youthful style for Fitzgerald's teen-aged daugh- ter, Scottie — at no charge. Finally, it fell to Kroll to make Fitzgerald's funeral arrangements in December 1940, and to arrange publi- cation of the unfinished The Last Tycoon, with notes fleshed out by critic Edmund Wilson. 5092.3 Woodward Ave. *Q.< it.:31 10 Mile Rd. 10 OFF WHOLE BILL! • Chinese Carry-Out Restaurant Mon-Thurs, 11:00 am - 9:30 pm Fri, 11:00 am - 10:00 pm Sat & Sun, 4:00 pm - 9:30 pm % OFF Total Bill with cotip.r ■ Expires 6/30/02 • Our speciality • General Tso's Chicken 395 I Telegraph (NE corner of Long Lake Rd.) • Bloomfield Twp. Don't have a menu? We'll fox one right over! 5/24 2002 73