The Last Tycoon (Playhouse 90)

"The Last Tycoon" is a 1957 episode of the American television series Playhouse 90 based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Production
Humphrey Bogart expressed interest in appearing in the production opposite to Lauren Bacall but was ultimately too ill with the cancer that would kill him. The production was filmed in Los Angeles with some location work shot at Malibu Beach. Director John Frankenheimer recalled: We didn't try to improve on Fitzgerald. We stopped it where he stopped it. We left it with Monroe Stahr in his beach house knowing he was dying and we closed with a shot of Palance. I think the narrator says that Fitzgerald died before he finished the book. Some of the best dialogue in that show is not Fitzgerald, it's Don Mankiewicz. Jack Palance was superb. I remember that the night before the show he slept in the office because he wanted that office to be so much a part of him. Frankenheimer later worked with Palance on The Horsemen (1971).

Cast

 * Jack Palance as Monroe Stahr
 * Keenan Wynn as Lou Myrick
 * Peter Lorre as Pete Zavras
 * Viveca Lindfors as Kathleen Moore
 * Lee Remick as Cecelia Brady
 * Robert F. Simon as Brady
 * John Hudson as Wylie White
 * Reginald Denny as Dean
 * William Roerick as Kellogg
 * Helen Kleeb as Birdy
 * Arthur Batanides as Van Dyke
 * Edward McNally as Whitey