Lipton’s Journal/December 29, 1954/79

The breakup with Lulu[1] at Dorothea O’Faye’s party:[2]



notes

  1. Lulu Meyers, a Hollywood actress in The Deer Park who was once married to Charles Eitel, aspires to be the most popular actress in America and has an affair with Sergius O’Shaugnessey through most of the novel.
  2. The long paragraph following these words describing how Lulu’s life had become nothing but a series of screen images was intended by Mailer to be used in the final draft of The Deer Park, and echoes of it can be seen in chapter 17. Mailer discusses the impoverishment of the lives of movie stars again in his biography, Marilyn (1973).
  3. The highlighted text indicates Mailer’s handwritten additions to the entry, and the crossed-out text are his deletions.