the novel Giant was a bestseller and it was controversial The movie is a classic and an Academy Award winner Julie Gilbert captures it all in her new book Giant Love Edna Ferber her best-selling novel of Texas and the making of a classic American film Julie Gilbert is the author of four books She has worked as a professional actress and writer and is currently head of the writer's academy at the Kravis Center for Performing Arts Her latest book explores Puliter Prizewinning author Edna Ferber the making of an American classic novel and the film that followed The title is Giant Love And I dare say that no one knows Edna Ferber more than you do At this point I think that's true Um I do have a cousin who remembers her about five years later than I did Um we're five years apart and so we can share some early memories but I I hold most of them Yeah The book really is a tribute And you know what it left me with i wish she had written more Now yes she was your great aunt but I I'm curious about the intimate access and the family history and yet and having it in the hands of such a gifted writer What a blessing for you She was a very strong uh and powerful Well powerful is better than strong She was a powerful woman um no nonsense in many ways but somehow the the old and the young came from equidistant points and we really seemed to click which was a very lucky break for me growing up As I'm reading the book to me it's three stories Yes there is the story of the novel Giant There's the story of the making of the film with Elizabeth Taylor Rock Hudson and James Dean And there's the story of this extraordinary woman herself Edna Ferber And I think that's where we should start Do you want to tell us about her growing up her background well um her father was an immigrant um he was Hungarian and he came to the United States and um met her mother Julia Newman and uh they were they settled in the Midwest They were in Chicago and um they were really quite nomadic in the early days of the of Ferber's girlhood with her sister Fanny her uh uh older and prettier sister Fanny And they traveled through the Midwest with a dry goods store called My Store Um and uh they were not prosperous but they weren't indigent either And um so the the childhood was um a very close family one but Ferber was exposed to the Ferber and her sister to anti-semitism in a Tamwa Iowa when they were about seven Um and uh I think it made both of them tougher Certainly Ferber Fanny was very pretty and Ferber was very smart She was the smart one And um that gave her a a certain veneer of um toughness And so when she was uh a teenager she did not go through all of those um angsty times and I think it made her imagination flourish so that she could take herself anywhere out of herself She was a remarkable woman and I will underline remarkable She had such success with the book and with the film But this is the 1950s This is a maledominated world So do you consider herself a pioneer a feminist you you wrote that she was a writer who happened to be female She was quite feminine People didn't think so because they equate power with or did with a certain kind of masculinity But she was always contrary to to earlier reports she was always dressed in pinks or blues soft colors Her hair was just beautifully marcelled at that time U beautiful uh designer shoes Uh so she she was very fashionable and and really it was the iron fist and the velvet glove Um she was uh a complete person um which sort of defies any kind of masculine feminine you know category She just uh was um her early leanings were as an actress and so she had the department of an actress and uh played a part to a certain extent um she could be extraordinarily charming but when faced with adversity she really she just stood up for herself more than anybody I've ever known So that there are myths about her if anybody knows her at all today But the myth is that she was um kind of uh snarky tough um on the masculine side Um there have been all kinds of brick bats thrown at her because she was so powerful in the 20th century the first half She had bestseller after bestseller and she was a single woman uh and childless She was leading the life that she had designed for herself So I'm trying to reintroduce uh what I consider um a extremely valuable human being to our human race Julie many older women feel marginalized As I read this book I'm thinking not Edna To me she grew more confident They the older she got she was very sensitive which a lot of people don't understand in strength Um she was uh she was prickly sometimes only because her feelings I think were um on the surface Every book was a success Every book was a bestseller except she did write two autobiographies Part one which was called A Peculiar Treasure and part two which was at the end of her life and um and and those stories hit a jugular with people with men and women In fact she was very very popular during the war She kind of represented America to them and home soil and became a New Yorker and part of the Algangquin circle in fact one of the founding members and uh so you know celebrity I is its own form of royalty and um and she held on to that all of her life The book giant was controversial It was a book about class and money and oil barons and there were social issues immigration racial disparity gender But Texans were not fans were they no No they were um hardly uh happy with Giant Everybody else was very happy her publisher and all of the other uh states in the union But um she called it the way she saw it She was an early reporter when she was a young woman um uh in Milwaukee and she sort of learned at the wheel to get her story And people didn't appreciate that in Texas because she uh she laid it out the way she saw it She does she did immense research um and uh and found reports of uh uh you know that that were hardly flattering um certainly concerning the MexicanAmerican situation in Texas at that time and um they she had death threats uh when Giant came out and um and then of course George Stevens came along and said "Well now let's just make everything all right We'll do a wonderful movie," which which is part two of the book Do you feel like Edna Ferber had an enhanced social consciousness because she was tackling all of these issues she would call fraud when she saw it and um and sometimes that sounded nasty and often she was right uh when she was traveling in Europe um during the 40s or early 50s and she came back to New York City and she she decided that New York City was very dirty that it was just filthy that that the garbage people weren't doing their jobs that nobody was doing their job and it became a kind of a it it it she said it verbally and in writing And there was a bit of a backlash uh again because she was you know this small woman with a with a a trumpet about what she saw as as uh injustice to a city And it so it it left her less than popular But I think you know nobody likes to be scolded and she was not afraid to scold Um which you know has its downside but but at least she called it the way she saw it always She had such success with the novel And then as you write in the book now we're going to Hollywood and there is this superstar cast Now writing is a very solitary undertaking Movie making is anything but How did she maneuver in the Hollywood world fine She was quite happy Um she uh felt um empowered because in this situation usually with her books Showboat and Simmeron and So Big andless others she would just sell the book to Samuel Goldwin or to to a studio and walk away with this one George Stevens uh and Henry Ginsburg and Ferber formed a triumphirate and they were producing they were producing partners in the movie So she had more clout and uh really a great deal of participation A third a third and a third and then Warner Brothers footed the bill Um but uh she her there are certain factors that I brought out in the book which set somebody free and on a new path She had a say but but uh um George Stevens had you know had the final word as director And um so she really um had a very vivid time and she had uh uh tried to contribute to the screenplay So she had um a whirlwind of a time with Giant very and and she was ageless She looked pretty and fresh and she visited the set and everybody made a big thing of her and uh I think it was a high time for her You write about this interesting relationship with James Dean Can you talk a little bit about that a little bit Um yeah Uh I don't want to give away my aces but um you know I think that uh Dean felt um abandoned maternally His mother had died when he was very young He was very young when he filmed Giant People don't realize it was the last film of his career and he was 24 years old when he died and he 23 when he was cast and and shot the film Um and Ferber was in her early 70s It was uh a kind of a friendship Um it's hard to categorize it Uh but he he affected her very deeply and she was preient about the fact that he could burn out quickly and um and unfortunately she proved right you know that uh he did They had a good sense of humor between them and um and it was unusual It was quite unusual and that's that's all I'll say at this time Let's look at Marfa Marfa is this small Texas town and usually films were shot on set They didn't use a set They used this this little town which as you write in the book made quite an impression on your great aunt Marfa was the last place that anybody would think to film except for George Stevens who thought that it was the best place to bring out the Texas uh uh the real indigenous Texas feel And um what he did was he made all of the morphins part of the process and he would show uh dailies to them and they would all come around and and watch them And I think everybody it was memorable for everybody uh involved in that movie Um and there are not that many people left in the movie today but certainly Earl Hollowman I spoke to him and he just that was just quite a time Um and I think with the with certainly the death shortly after of James Dean um people reflect on that time as that precious last period with Dean Edna Ferber had an incredible circle of friends I way too many to to name But Katherine Heepburn said that together they were unicorn women So after writing the book what do you think she meant by that well adventurous women Um uh when I first heard the phrase I was very young and I thought it meant women you know who who were singular who go through life kind of with a single horn pointed out Um I I think I think that she was experimental in many ways Um let me say that the novel giant as we said explores gender class race She had such a grasp on American life on America in transition What do you think of the relevance of that writing today um I think it's a good read I that never grows old She knew how to get her story The characters they pulse I mean they're just wonderful Giant is it's an unhappy novel in many ways and certainly a feminist novel which people don't know but it is And um and and I think it it's worthy of a of a look if if if you know people haven't discovered it Certainly a whole new generation could discover it in a different way because it really is quite hardboiled in a lot of ways She was not a sentimental writer Is Giant on reading list today and I I'm like like Hemingway or Fitzgerald and if not why i this is such a question such a good question she's gone into a kind of eclipse and and um I I don't I think maybe there's an element of proitizing that because she points out the injustices She she loves her characters and lavishes um understanding and love on them but the but she does point out the injustices that go on in America in you know state by state and also um the difficulty for women during that time and we hope not again but in being heard and I think she's more relevant today and right now than ever than she ever has been um since I was a child and she was a big [Music] bestseller Having Edna Ferber in your life I imagine you grew up with a love of reading Am I correct yes And what did you gravitate to as a young girl so much Uh I I remember early early on reading Pearl Buck I thought Pearl Buck was just wonderful and The Good Earth Um and um I read a little ahead of my myself a little bit um not too much until I was maybe nine eight or nine My mother did say that I couldn't grow up happily if I didn't read Edna Fervor Um and I remember she sent me off to camp when I was about 10 with uh So Big uh Showboat and Simon Um so and some short stories because she was a wonderful short story writer I was a good reader and I loved biographies I remember just adoring biographies mainly of women Um so I guess I was kind of an early feminist reader I liked reading about women Um uh and then of course as I as I grew up I I was a a I was always a very passionate reader and had to have a book with me and um yeah but I but reading Ferour was quite an experience because as a child you know you don't like to be made to do things and my mother said you know you have to and I resisted I remember And then just forgetting that she was my relative and that you know I saw her quite often Just forgetting all of that she took me right away into uh into America uh the the heartland And um and that's that was the best history for me She really is a terrific history lesson as you learn state by state so much about this country and how it was developed and what we fought for When you were putting this book together was there something you wish you could have called Aunt Edna and asked her yeah unicorn women Um yeah I her personal life her private life I don't know if I could ever dare h have done that but just talking a little bit about um about lost chances perhaps lost loves Um there were there in the book I ask quite a few questions about this about her personal life Um George Kaufman George S Kaufman the very great playwright and witty witty playwright was her partner Uh and they wrote plays together They wrote five plays together six plays together Um the hits were uh Stage Door Dinner at 8 and The Royal Family and um and he was very uh tough on her And um at one point um when war broke out in in Europe and then the United States came into the war the Second World War and she said to him "Oh George I must do something I need to do something What do you think I should do?"

and he said 'Well Edna you could be a tank And um and it's funny It's funny but I but I think that it's a little hurtful And there was a part of her that that went right directly into the romantic life of a book but a part that was maybe um unfulfilled And I I would like to just ask her a little bit but you had to be careful in the way you phrased it So yeah I I'm just curious And there was a young man years and years ago when she was very young and and it it burned out I don't know what or how Um but I did find uh when I was sorting through things to send to her archive in Wisconsin and I found some letters from him uh that were very interesting When I read this book I came away with the feeling that she Edna Ferber was larger than life That she was the giant The book is giant love Edna Ferber her best-selling novel of Texas and the making of a classic American film Julie Gilbert I want to thank you so much Thank you It was my total pleasure I'm Anne Bok Please join me on the next Between the Covers [Music] [Applause]