After a slow start, Franklin Roosevelt became one of the top "Golden Age of Hollywood" screenwriters, especially after he started collaborating with Franklin Scott Fitzgerald at the suggestion of Paramount.
People are well aware he was the relative of a President, but there is also the unusual fact that Roosevelt had a political career first, and then went into the movie business. Usually with Hollywood and politics, its the other way round, though the career of Gore Vidal may be another example. But Roosevelt went much further than Vidal in politics, he was the Veep nominee for President for the Democrats in 1920.
Supposed he had returned to politics and run for President? The most obvious POD is to avoid his being afflicted with polio, the most common reason given for ending his political career.
But obviously he could not have gotten off the ground with the screenwriting -by all accounts the first draft of his first script stunk, and he pretty much had to finance and produce his first movie himself. Another POD is that he seriously considered running for Governor of New York anyway, even with the polio, once Al Smith got the Democratic nomination for President, but of course the Democrats never nominated Al Smith for President.
There are a number of PODs where the Democrats don't screw things up as badly as IOTL when they do get into power federally in 1932 due to the Great Depression. Given that it was pretty much a party of machine hacks and Southern Bourbons by that point, I've never found these timelines credible. But Roosevelt was different enough from the typical Democratic pol that maybe he could have pulled it off?
But then presumably "Gone with the Wind" and other movies in the 1930s and 40s turn out very differently.
People are well aware he was the relative of a President, but there is also the unusual fact that Roosevelt had a political career first, and then went into the movie business. Usually with Hollywood and politics, its the other way round, though the career of Gore Vidal may be another example. But Roosevelt went much further than Vidal in politics, he was the Veep nominee for President for the Democrats in 1920.
Supposed he had returned to politics and run for President? The most obvious POD is to avoid his being afflicted with polio, the most common reason given for ending his political career.
But obviously he could not have gotten off the ground with the screenwriting -by all accounts the first draft of his first script stunk, and he pretty much had to finance and produce his first movie himself. Another POD is that he seriously considered running for Governor of New York anyway, even with the polio, once Al Smith got the Democratic nomination for President, but of course the Democrats never nominated Al Smith for President.
There are a number of PODs where the Democrats don't screw things up as badly as IOTL when they do get into power federally in 1932 due to the Great Depression. Given that it was pretty much a party of machine hacks and Southern Bourbons by that point, I've never found these timelines credible. But Roosevelt was different enough from the typical Democratic pol that maybe he could have pulled it off?
But then presumably "Gone with the Wind" and other movies in the 1930s and 40s turn out very differently.