Grace Metalious

2025-09-09T05:05:54Z

2600:4041:41E6:4B00:CD88:EDB2:B339:28D1: /* Later works */

{{Short description|American-French writer (1924–1964)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2013}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Grace Metalious
| image = Grace Metalious (1957).jpg
| caption = Metalious in 1957
| pseudonym =
| birth_name = Marie Grace DeRepentigny
| birth_date = {{birth date|1924|9|8|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Manchester, New Hampshire]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1964|2|25|1924|9|8|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Boston, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| occupation = Novelist
| period =
| genre =
| subject =
| movement =
| notableworks = ''[[Peyton Place (novel)|Peyton Place]]''
| spouse = George Metalious (1943-1958; div. remarried 1960-1963. separated) <br /> T.J. Martin (1958-1960; div.)
| children = 3
| relatives =
| influences =
| influenced =
| awards =
}}
'''Grace Metalious''' (September 8, 1924 – February 25, 1964) was an American author known for her novel ''[[Peyton Place (novel)|Peyton Place]]'', one of the best selling works in publishing history.

==Early life==
'''Marie Grace DeRepentigny''' was born into poverty and a [[wiktionary:broken home|broken home]] in the [[mill town]] of [[Manchester, New Hampshire]]. Writing from an early age, at [[Manchester Central High School]], she acted in school plays. After graduation, she married George Metalious in a Catholic church in Manchester in 1943, and became a housewife and mother. The couple lived in near squalor, but she continued to write. With one child, the couple moved to [[Durham, New Hampshire]], where George attended the [[University of New Hampshire]]. In Durham, Grace Metalious began writing seriously. When George graduated, he took a position as principal at a school in [[Gilmanton, New Hampshire]].<ref name=george/>

==''Peyton Place''==
In the fall of 1954, at age 30, Metalious began work on a manuscript about the dark secrets of a small [[New England]] town. The novel had the working title ''The Tree and the Blossom''.<ref name=fox>[[Margalit Fox|Fox, Margalit]], [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/arts/15nevler.html "Leona Nevler, Editor, Dies at 79; Shepherded ''Peyton Place''"]. ''The New York Times'', December 15, 2005.</ref> By the spring of 1955, she had finished the first draft. By her husband's account, both Metaliouses regarded ''The Tree and the Blossom'' as an unwieldy title and decided to give the town a name that could be the book's title. They first considered "Potter Place" (the name of a real community near [[Andover, New Hampshire]]). Realizing their town should have a fictional name, they looked through an atlas and found "Payton" (a town in Texas). They combined this with Place and changed the "a" to an "e". Thus ''Peyton Place'' was born, prompting her comment, "Wonderful—that's it, George. Peyton Place. Peyton Place, New Hampshire. Peyton Place, New England. Peyton Place, USA. Truly a composite of all small towns where ugliness rears its head, and where the people try to hide all the skeletons in their closets."<ref name=george>Metalious, George, and June O'Shea, ''The Girl from Peyton Place'', Dell, 1965.</ref> Other accounts say her publishers changed the name.<ref>{{cite book|last=Toth|first=Emily|title=Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XVdI6PQsZaUC&pg=PA99|year=1981|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-631-1|page=96}}</ref>

Metalious found an agent, [[M. Jacques Chambrun|Jacques Chambrun]], who submitted the draft manuscript to three major publishers. In the summer of 1955, [[Leona Nevler]], a freelance manuscript reader, read it for [[J. B. Lippincott & Co.|Lippincott]] and liked it, but knew it was too steamy for a major publisher to accept. She showed it to Kathryn G. ("Kitty") Messner, president and editor-in-chief of the small firm [[Julian Messner]]. Messner immediately acquired the novel and asked Nevler to step in as a freelance editor for final polishing before publication.<ref>Nevler would go on to spend 26 years at [[Fawcett Publications]], becoming the publisher of Fawcett Books and also launching Crest Books.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/arts/15nevler.html | title=Leona Nevler, Editor, Dies at 79; Shepherded ''Peyton Place''| author=Fox, Margalit | newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 15, 2005}}</ref>

==Publishing phenomenon==
In the summer of 1956, the Metalious family moved into a new hilltop house, and a publicity campaign was launched for the book, published on September 24, 1956. Dismissed by most critics, it nevertheless remained on ''[[The New York Times]]'' bestseller list for more than a year and became an international phenomenon.

The town of Peyton Place was a combination of several [[New Hampshire]] towns: [[Gilmanton, New Hampshire|Gilmanton]], where Metalious lived (and which resented the notoriety); [[Laconia, New Hampshire|Laconia]], the only nearby town of comparable size to Peyton Place and site of Metalious's favorite bar; and the neighboring towns of [[Alton, New Hampshire|Alton]] and [[Belmont, New Hampshire|Belmont]]. The village of [[Gilmanton Ironworks, New Hampshire|Gilmanton Ironworks]] is where in December 1946, a daughter had murdered her sexually abusive father (upon which incident the book is partly based). The sheriff of Belknap County, Homer Crockett, and members of the New Hampshire State Police investigated the murder. [[Hollywood, Los Angeles, California|Hollywood]] lost no time in cashing in on the book's success—a year after its publication, the heavily sanitized movie ''[[Peyton Place (film)|Peyton Place]]'' was a major box-office hit. The movie's premiere was held at the Colonial Theatre in Laconia, New Hampshire. A [[Peyton Place (TV series)|prime-time television series]] that began airing the fall after Metalious's death (on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC-TV]], from 1964 to 1969) was a ratings success as well.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/ap/20060311/114211038000.html |title=AP: "50 Years Later, ''Peyton'' Memories Remain" |access-date=2010-12-10 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060316022856/http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/ap/20060311/114211038000.html |archive-date=March 16, 2006 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

Metalious's publisher promoted her in a photo captioned "Pandora in Blue Jeans".<ref name=lent>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_bio/ai_2419200833|title= Grace Metalious|last=Lent|first=Robin|publisher=St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture|access-date=2008-08-07 | year=2002}}</ref> Commenting on her critics, she observed, "If I'm a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/books/review/31TBR.html|title=Inside the List|last=Garner|first=Dwight|date=July 31, 2005|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=2008-08-07}}</ref> Of her work's frankness, she said, "Even [[Tom Sawyer]] had a girlfriend, and to talk about adults without talking about their sex drives is like talking about a window without glass."<ref>{{cite book|last=Simpson|first=James Beasley |title=Simpson's Contemporary Quotations|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=1998|pages=311|isbn=0-395-43085-2}}</ref>

==Later works==
Metalious's other novels sold well but not as well as her first. ''[[Return to Peyton Place]]'' (Nov. 24, 1959) was followed by ''The Tight White Collar'' (Sept. 24, 1960) and ''No Adam in Eden'' (Sept. 24, 1963).<ref name=lent/> September 24 must have been a lucky date for Metalious because three of her four novels were published on September 24.

==Death==
Suffering from [[cirrhosis]] of the liver from years of heavy drinking, Metalious died on February 25, 1964, at age 39. "If I had to do it over again", she once said, "it would be easier to be poor. Before I was successful, I was as happy as anyone gets."<ref>{{cite book|last=Toth|first=Emily|title=Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2000|pages=309|isbn=1-57806-268-3}}</ref> She is buried in Smith Meeting House Cemetery in Gilmanton.

Hours before her death, Metalious was convinced by her final lover, [[John Rees (journalist)|John Rees]], to sign a will leaving him her entire estate, with the understanding that he would take care of her children. Her family was able to invalidate the will, but to little avail, as her estate proved to be insolvent from years of lavish living, generosity to "friends", and [[embezzlement]] by an agent. At the time of her death, she had bank accounts totaling $41,174 and debts of more than $200,000.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2006/03/peytonplace200603|title=Grace Metalious: Peyton Place's Real Victim|magazine=Vanity Fair|first=Michael|last=Callahan|date=January 22, 2007}}</ref>

==Legacy==
After Metalious's death, ''Peyton Place'' resurfaced as the setting for nine novels by Don Tracy (1905–1976), writing as Roger Fuller, including ''Evils of Peyton Place'' (1969) and ''Temptations of Peyton Place'' (1970), but this series had only modest sales.<ref name=lent/>

In 1968, songwriter [[Tom T. Hall]] compared his fictional small town of Harper Valley, also a cauldron of scandal bubbling under the surface, to Peyton Place. His song "[[Harper Valley PTA]]" became a number one hit for [[Jeannie C. Riley]], who also recorded a song called "Satan Place".

In 2005, novelist [[Barbara Delinsky]] used Metalious and ''Peyton Place'' as a springboard for ''Looking for Peyton Place'', her novel about the impact of Metalious's book on a small New Hampshire town, Middle River, where residents believe ''Peyton Place'' is about their community.<ref>[http://barbaradelinsky.com/delinsky-peyton-summary.htm Delinsky, Barbara. "Summary and Contents"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101209060047/http://barbaradelinsky.com/delinsky-peyton-summary.htm |date=December 9, 2010 }}</ref>

In 2006, it was announced that [[Sandra Bullock]] was slated to star in and co-produce a biopic of Metalious's life, but the film was never made.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.today.com/popculture/bullock-star-peyton-place-author-wbna11748278|title=Bullock to star as 'Peyton Place' author|date=March 9, 2006|publisher=Today.com|access-date=2008-08-07}}</ref>

In 2007, the Manchester Historic Association and the [[University of New Hampshire]] at Manchester honored Metalious with an in-depth examination of her life and most famous book. The celebration, which included lectures, readings of her work, and screenings of the 1957 film, marked the area's first public acknowledgment of its native daughter.<ref>Schweitzer, Sarah [http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/04/08/finally_a_return_to_peyton_place/ "Finally, a return to 'Peyton Place'"], ''Boston Globe'', April 8, 2007.</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Biography}}
*[[Illegitimacy in fiction#Written works|Illegitimacy in fiction]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Find a Grave|710}}
*{{FadedPage|id=Metalious, Grace|name=Grace Metalious|author=yes}}
*[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/03/peytonplace200603 ''Vanity Fair'' article "Peyton Place's Real Victim" by Michael Callahan March 2006]
*{{IMDb name|582374}}
*[https://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/09/peyton-place-contagion-model.html Loren Coleman: "Peyton Place: A Contagion Model"]

{{Peyton Place}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Metalious, Grace}}
[[Category:1924 births]]
[[Category:1964 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:Alcohol-related deaths in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:American people of French-Canadian descent]]
[[Category:Manchester Central High School alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Manchester, New Hampshire]]
[[Category:20th-century American women novelists]]
[[Category:Deaths from cirrhosis]]
[[Category:People from Gilmanton, New Hampshire]]
[[Category:People from Manchester, New Hampshire]]

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Grace Metalious