- Fiction/Signed
- >
- Under the Riviera Sun, Signed to Mervyn LeRoy
Under the Riviera Sun, Signed to Mervyn LeRoy
[Signed Presentation to Mervyn LeRoy] Zielke, Herta, Under the Riviera Sun. First Edition. 1952. Book is in very good condition; dust jacket is in good plus condition—jacket spine is discolored and has small piece missing from the middle of the spine. Book is inscribed to one of the great director/producers of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mervyn LeRoy: “For Mervin LeRoy, Good luck always, Herta Zielke, Sept. 14, 1956.”
In this madcap novel set in and out of the French Riviera, an American ingenue must decide between multiple suitors, as she contends with the various plot twists that the author throws at her. The book is somewhat unusual in that it includes six songs with music and lyrics by the author. It sounds as if the hope was the book would be adapted into a Hollywood musical—perhaps directed by Mervyn LeRoy (who helmed The Wizard of Oz (for which he was uncredited) and several of the top-grossing musicals of the 1950s). Leading credence to this is that its imprint is Exposition Press, one of the leading vanity publishers of that era. The book is in short supply, but alas, it is not Hemingway.
“The Riviera … Europe’s most beautiful spot on the Mediterranean Sea. For miles runs the flower-bordered and palm-fringed seacoast, reflecting itself in the azure-blue water.”
--Herta Zielke