Famous writers and the French Riviera

The Earful Tower: Paris

Oliver Gee

Arts, Paris, Society & Culture, Travel, Places & Travel, France

4.8 • 749 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Author John Baxter is back - this time discussing literature from the French Riviera. We tackle a lot, with a bigger focus on F Scott Fitzgerald and Marina Picasso (and her tell-all book).

Book a walking tour with John and find his books here.

Support The Earful Tower on Patreon and get the second half of this conversation.

Find more from this French Riviera miniseries here.

Things we mentioned (to help you with spelling and searching...)

First ten mins

John tasted bouillabaisse in Sète
John's friend was in the town of Cabris
The Villa Noailles in Hyères for the work of architect Robert Mallet-Stevens
French Riviera and its Artists: Book by John Baxter
Menton as the notorious place to die (tales of Yates, Beardsley, de Maupassant)

10mins to 20mins

Cole Porter and his wife, their friends Gerald and Sara Murphy
Hotel du Cap and the Fitzgeralds
Le Train Bleu with gamblers and prostitutes (now a restaurant, saved by Georges André Malraux)
Le Balzar restaurant in Paris
Cafe de Flore, Le Coupole, Les Deux Magots restaurants in Paris
Hotel Belles Rives where F Scott Fitzgerald stayed (in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes) - and he also stayed in the nearby town of Saint-Raphaël
Tender is the Night: Dedicated "To Gerald and Sara—Many Fêtes"

20 mins onwards

Sophia Antipolis where Super-Cannes is set (a book by J. G. Ballard)
Zelda Fitzgerald's book: Save Me the Waltz
Marina Picasso and and her tell-all book "Picasso, My Grandfather"
La California - Picasso's summer shack/chateau/palace (featuring Matisse and Balthus too)
Picasso's Portait of Olga in an Armchair
Colombe D'Or in Saint Paul de Vence
Carlton Hotel in Cannes
Hotel Belles Rives

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello everybody. This is the Earful Tower podcast. Oliver G. here for part two of our mini-series
0:06.0	about the French Riviera. And I had to rewind a little bit because I thought, not everybody has
0:12.0	plans to visit the Riviera, maybe not soon, maybe not ever, but that doesn't mean that you
0:17.9	can't go there through the medium of literature. So today's episode is
0:23.3	going to focus not just on some of the books that were written down there or written about the
0:28.2	area. It's also going to focus on the idea of why so many creative people throughout history
0:34.5	have headed down to the French Riviera seeking inspiration. And who better to
0:40.0	explain all this to us than the Wizard of Literature himself, John Baxter, author John Baxter,
0:46.7	who's lived in Paris for decades. He's from Australia. He's written almost endless books about France,
0:53.3	the French,
0:56.3	even one about the French Riviera.
0:59.6	Now, to save you some time, every single book,
1:03.5	every single thing we talk about is written down in the show notes.
1:05.2	So no need to scribble anything down.
1:07.0	I'll write it all out in order, and there will be blog posts on the website about the specific books that we talk about.
1:12.9	The Earfultower.com slash Riviera is the easiest way to find it all.
1:17.5	Thanks for all the positive feedback about this miniseries.
1:19.9	I'll be back at the end with some stories about that.
1:22.5	But for now, our musician, Press Maxon, is going to take us to the Riviera with one of his signature tunes,
1:28.8	and then you're going to hear from Mr. John Baxter himself.
1:32.6	Enjoy the show. When it comes to the Riviera in the south of France, a lot of people think of beautiful bronze bodies on sun-kissed beaches.
2:02.8	Me, I think of author John Baxter, who's sitting with me now.
	...

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