"The Down Slope" (cont.)

From Conversations with Shelby Foote:

A few years ago when Stanley Kubrick asked me to come out to Hollywood and write a script about James Mosby, I asked Faulkner's advice. He said, and I remember his exact words: "Go if you want to. But let me give you a piece of advice. If you go, never take the work seriously, but always take the people seriously. Hollywood is the only place where you can get stabbed in the back while you're climbing a ladder."

I didn't go because I knew I'd do just the opposite. I would have taken the work seriously and not the people. I told Kubrick I'd do the script if I could do it in Memphis. That was all right with him and I did it, but nothing ever came of it because he got mixed up with Lolita about that time.

(Faulkner shown, top right, in a Hollywood moment.)