ABSTRACT
In 1943, Edmund Wilson lamented the rise of what he called “the two great enemies of literary talent in our time: Hollywood and Henry Luce.” 1 Wilson’s hostility was certainly not shared by Gertrude Stein, whose relationships with Hollywood and Time magazine were solidified in the 1930s. Not only did she appear on the cover of Time before her tour in September 1934, become friends with Henry and Clare Boothe Luce in the late 1930s, and arrange social encounters with Charlie Chaplin and Dashiell Hammett and other Hollywood celebrities while she was in the United States, Stein was mentioned in two popular films in 1935: Top Hat, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and The Man on the Flying Trapeze, starring W. C. Fields. 2
