Charles Grayson – The Fourth Round

Finally, I acquired a copy of The Fourth Round by Charles Grayson,    the last of his Stories for Men anthologies.

This is my second post about Charles Grayson (born Charles Wright Gray 1903). The first post  started with an interest in noir writers and the discovery of a book about noir writers. In the book by Paul Duncan,  I found a little known author and screen writer,  P.J Wolfson, and his early collaborator, Allen Rivkin, which lead to Charles Grayson, editor of  these terrific anthologies of short stories by literary greats.  A common thread among these three writers was the famous Hollywood director, John Huston.

Called out west by Hollywood to work , P.J. Wolfson and Allen Rivkin started writing scripts together in the early 1930′s. Charles Grayson was already there.

A native Californian, he graduated from UCLA in 1926 with a degree in English. Here’s a link to his UCLA graduation photo (Thanks to Charlotte Brown at the UCLA university archives for help in finding this source!). At UCLA, he was a member of Kaps and Bells (drama) and served as  the Literature committee chairman .

All three screenwriters were very young men and about the same age as they began work at a Hollywood that was entering its Golden Era.

Charles Grayson had already published a few anthologies under his birth name,  Charles Wright  Gray.  His mother’s father’s name was Lucien D.C. Gray.  It is therefore likely he changed his surname to Grayson perhaps because “Gray” was too bland (but I don’t really know why he changed it).

He had two sisters. One of whom, Evelyn, was married to Tom Mix’s lawyer Ivon Drouth Parker (d. 1953) who was a thoroughbreed horse breeder, member of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, and founder of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Posse.

[source: Los Angeles Times, Chatterbox, Dec. 29, 1935]

Before his stints in Hollywood, Charles Grayson did some world traveling and furthered his education by attending  Harvard and the Sorbonne [source: Charles Grayson obit.- The New York Times May 9, 1973].

Eventually Grayson, Rivkin, and Wolfson,  would all three become friends of John Huston, director of The Maltese Falcon (1941). In his book Hello Hollywood! written with his wife Laura Kerr, Allen Rivkin talks about meeting and working with John Huston and shenanigans that took place on the studio lot with P.J. Wolfson.  Also in his book Hello Hollywood!, Allen Rivkin published a small account written by Charles Grayson about working with John Huston on a film set.

Charles Grayson and director John Huston shared a love for fine literature. No other other Hollywood director faithfully adapted so many  literary works to the big screen. Huston directed and filmed  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Red Badge of Courage, The African Queen, Moby Dick, A Farewell to Arms, The Night of The Iguana, The Man who would be King, Wise Blood , and The Dead.

Along with John Huston, Charles Grayson joined the service in WWII. They later worked on the film project The Barbarian and the Geisha together.

Here’s a photo of Captain Charles Grayson hanging out with John Huston during WWII:

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**photo credit  from The Hustons by Lawrence Grobel -Cooper Square Press, 2000

During the war, Charles worked on propaganda films like Underground (1941).  He also got the anthology of New Stories issued as an Armed Services Edition. Humphrey Bogart mentions it in a preface to The Fourth Round, “I even encountered it  among the troops of World War II in the overseas edition issued by the Special Services Editions people – shows how well it found friends”.

Photo of the New Stories For Men Armed Service Edition-

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Before getting married, Charles dated several women including Irene Hervey,  Carole Stone, Greta Nissen, June Knight, Nancy Carroll, film noir actress Audrey Totter and Joan Crawford. Apparently,  Hollywood actresses, the war, carousing and working with John Huston wasn’t enough because his wanderlust got the better of him. He hung out with the King of Cambodia which he fictionalized in his novel The Broken Gate.

He married Paddy Yeatts, and died at the age of 69 in 1973.

Besides his anthologies, he published several  novels:

Spotlight Madness – H. Liveright, 1931

Everything Goes – Macaulay Company, 1932

Flight South – Doubleday, 1935

Angel Town- Doubleday, 1946

Angel Town takes place in the Los Angeles.  In the book, he makes comparisons with the Los Angeles he knew as a youth.

“Now a sprawling pseudo metropolis, materially prosperous in its buildings and streets and formal parks, it was if a vivid wayward child had grown up into being an emotionally blowzy woman. Uncertain food had gone into its development. Too many vagrants had fed it, too many people with little money and a huge desire to spend their remaining days in a temperate zone; too many of those who wanted nothing more than to get along. The town’s climate was too favourable to keep it from invasion, its defenses too lax to keep it self-contained.” - excerpt from Angel Town

My copy of Angel Town was signed to Max Wilk who was a screenwriter himself and published  Schmucks with Underwoods – Conversations with Hollywood’s Classic Screenwriters - Hal Leonard Corporation , 2004 .

The Broken Gate – Doubleday (1948)

Arena – Rinehart, 1958

What I found doing this research has been interesting.  One thing is for sure, many screenwriters who worked in the 30′s and 40′s have very little information in their IMDB bios.

“Because Charles Grayson, the novelist, is blessed with a sense of humor, he came to an unexpected fortune.” – George Tucker