J. D. Salinger, Movie Lover
In the wake of J. D. Salinger’s death last week, at age ninety-one, appreciations of the reclusive Catcher in the Rye author will undoubtedly be sprouting up for quite some time. A new remembrance from Lillian Ross, in the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town,” is a particularly personal take, full of small, rich details only a friend would be able to relate. One point that caught our eye was this: “Salinger loved movies, and he was more fun than anyone to discuss them with.” Not a surprise, perhaps, but we were tickled by the fact that he had fondnesses for Anne Bancroft, Brigitte Bardot (“a cute, talented, lost enfante”), and Grand Illusion, which he said he had seen ten times. Another highlight in Ross’s lovely little piece: a quote from a letter in which Salinger tells her that he took his kids to a showing of Robinson Crusoe at London’s Palladium theater, mainly because “that’s where the last scene of The 39 Steps was set.”
