John Fante

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John Fante (April 8, 1909 – May 8, 1983) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.

In Los Angeles, he is best known for his semi-autobiographical book Ask the Dust (1939) about a struggling writer Arturo Bandini's life.

It is widely regarded as the best Los Angeles novel and is the first in a series of four that were released between 1938 and 1985 and are now collectively known as "The Bandini Quartet."

Ask the Dust was turned into a film made in 2006 starring Colin Farrell.

Fante has published five books, one novella, and a short story collection over his lifetime.

Posthumously published two books, two novellas, and two short story collections.

His screenwriting credits include Full of Life (1956), based on Jeanne Eagels' 1949 novel, and The Reluctant Saint.

Early life

Fante was born in Denver, Colorado, on April 8, 1909, to Nicola Fante of Torricella Peligna (Abruzzo) and Mary Capolungo, a devout Catholic of Lucanian descent who was born in Chicago, Illinois. Nicola Fante, a bricklayer and stonemason, who drank and gambled to excess, brought the Fante family and her family through bouts of poverty. Fante attended various Catholic schools in Boulder, Colorado, before briefly enrolling at the University of Colorado. In 1929, he dropped out of college and "hitchhiked to Los Angeles at the age 24" to work on his writing.

Fante and Joyce Smart were born in January 30, 1937, and they were married in Reno, Nevada, on July 31 of the same year.

Later life and death

In 1955, Fante was diagnosed with diabetes, which eventually cost him his eyesight and led to the amputation of his toes and feet, as well as later legs. He died on May 8, 1983.

Four children were born in Malibu, California, including Dan Fante, an author and playwright who died in 2015.

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Career

"Altar Boy," the magazine's editor's conditionally accepted his short story after many failed attempts to publish stories in the highly respected literary journal The American Mercury, H. L. Mencken's short story "Altar Boy" was accepted conditionally by the magazine's editor. In 1938 Fante published his first book, Wait Until Spring, Bandini, with Mencken's help. The semi-autobiographical Ask the Dust, his best-known book, came out the following year. The novel's protagonist, "poor Los Angeles poet" was based on Main Street and Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles, in the book's natural habitat."

Bandini performed in a series of four books, including "The Bandini Quartet," from the first novel in the story (chronologically second), Ask the Dust (1939) and then Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982), which was dictated to his wife, Joyce "from his hospital bed," Bandini wrote.

Dago Red, a short story collection, was first published in 1940 and then republished in 1985 under the title The Wine of Youth.

Fante made a living off writing mostly unproduced screenplays beginning in the 1950s. "He wrote film scripts with drinking buddy William Faulkner in the 1940s and was still working in the studios in the 1950s and 1960s," a local historian writes.

Full of Life (1957), based on his 1952 book of the same name, starred Judy Holliday and Richard Conte, and was nominated for Best Written American Comedy at the 1957 WGA Awards, is one of Fante's screenwriting credits. He also co-wrote Walk on the Wild Side (1962), which stars Jane Fonda in her second credit film role based on Nelson Algren's book. Dinky, Jeanne Eagels, My Man and I, The Reluctant Saint, Something for a Lonely Man, and Six Loves are among his screenplay credits. The bulk of what he wrote for the film, as Fante himself explained, was simply hackwork intended to bring in a paycheck.

Black Sparrow Press began to reprint Fante's (then out-of-print) works in the late 1970s, sparking a revival of his fame.

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