the last book I ever read (Mary Astor's Purple Diary, The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936, excerpt four)

from Mary Astor's Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936 by Edward Sorel:

Many thought Goldwyn a complete idiot, but the playwright Sidney Howard had hard evidence to support his belief. Years earlier he had urged the producer to buy Dodsworth—it was only $20,000—and Howard offered to write the script. The produced declined. So Howard adapted it for the stage, and it became a smash. Now Goldwyn had to have it—for $160,000. When Howard teased him, the former Samuel Goldfish, née Schmuel Gelbfisz, said he’d actually been canny to wait: “This way I bought a successful play. Before it was only a novel.”