Richard Yates and Larry David

December 1, 2011 3:22 PM

Revolutionary Road author Richard Yates was the inspiration for the character Alton Benes, Elaine's father, in the memorable Seinfeld episode The Jacket. The backstory to this episode as well as details about Yate's complex relationship with David Milch are discussed here.

Inside Look: The Jacket

posted by beisny (5 comments total)

The Collected Stories Of Richard Yates is thoroughly bad-ass.

That is all.
posted by spoobnooble at 3:36 PM on December 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I had met Yates many years ago at Rutgers, introduced by a grad student friend who is mentioned some 5 times in the Bailey bio. And then, oddly, years later the film made
from his great novel was set in the small town (in part) where I had lived many years--Trumbull, Ct.
posted by Postroad at 3:44 PM on December 1, 2011

The recent bio on Yates is truly heartbreaking. He was a very great writer and a sad, miserable creature of a man. It must mention that Alton Benes was a derivation, because I was aware of that fact somehow.
posted by nevercalm at 4:28 PM on December 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's interesting that they draw parallels between Richard Yates and Lawrence Tierney, the actor who played the character based on him. Tierney's best known as Mr. Big from Reservoir Dogs, but I get the sense that he lost his career at the bottom of a bottle as well. I knew a guy in college whose family included a Hollywood Ten screenwriter, and he told me that his grandmother used to be drinking buddies with Lawrence Tierney.
posted by jonp72 at 4:38 PM on December 1, 2011

I knew Dick, a little, when he was at Alabama. I was a creative writing undergrad, and by coincidence was also his neighbor in a little cul de sac of gawdawful but cheap duplexes not far from campus.

I quit writing, like you do, but some of my contemporaries from those undergrad years have gotten some attention. A few of the MFA students I knew were first - stories here and there in literary magazines, or books you could only buy at fancy bookstores. It was definitely exciting to see the literary books for sale by people I actually knew, but let's be honest: nobody buys those. Eventually, though, two of my undergrad cronies (well, a crony and an acquaintance) broke out enough to have genuine bestsellers that got optioned by Hollywood. It was SUPER exciting to see Michelle's book for sale in a goddamn airport, and downright surreal to see Kathryn's used as a sales prop for Apple's iBooks. Proud by proxy, I guess.

I say all that for context: the best such feeling I ever got was when I saw the tie-in edition of _Revolutionary Road_ for sale, everywhere, and people actually reading it. The first time I saw that edition, it was on a plane, and I took a picture of it with my phone and sent it to one of my pals from those years. A slick paperback of RR, with movie stars on the cover, when the year before it'd been out of print.

All Dick ever wanted was readers (so said Andre Dubus, anyway). I'm damned sorry he missed it, but I'm very, very glad that movie brought so many more people to his amazing work.
posted by uberchet at 4:58 PM on December 16, 2011