Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking. A Biography of Darryl F. Zanuck by Mel Gussow

Garden City: Doubleday, 1971. First Edition, First Printing. Signed presentation copy from Darryl F. Zanuck, film mogul of 20th Century - Fox, to artist Salvador Dali inscribed on the printed half-title: “My dear Salvador Dali, With great respect and friendship from your No 1 admirer - Darryl.” Opposite the inscription on the next page Zanuck has drawn an amusing imitation of Don Quixote on horseback mimicking Dali’s style and the fact that Dali would often do a Don Quixote drawing when presenting books. Salvador Dali and his wife Gala escaped the Nazis in 1940 and spent the next 8 years in the United States. In Hollywood, they became good friends with Darryl F. Zanuck, who hired Dali to create the dream sequence and be set decorator for the 1942 film, Moontide, starring Jean Gabin and Ida Lupino. On page 274 of this book, Gussow records that Darryl and his girlfriend Genevieve Gilles often had “... Salvador Dali and his wife join them. ‘He and Dali,” recalled Genevieve, “all they talked about was maisons de tolerance [brothels]. Always sex, between Dali and him. It’s boring when you talk about sex during dinner....” Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Illustrated. Zanuck was one of the finest producers of films in Hollywood's Golden Age and this a terrific association with the great surrealist artist Dali who was the darling of Hollywood in the 1940s. Enclosed in a morocco and cloth clamshell box.