Key facts

Product:
COFFEE TABLE (Nunnally Johnson R.)
Manufacturer:
Sotheby´s
Architonic ID:
4107718
Country:
United Kingdom
Category:
Furnishings

Product description

Wood, leather and metal
Impressed DESIGNED BY/ WM. HAINES/LEATHER BY STERGIS
Leather executed by Stergis M. Stergis
17 5/8 x 97 1/8 x 42 3/8 in. (44.8 x 246.7 x 107.6 cm)

Nunnally Johnson began his career as a journalist in New York and from 1930 to the late 1960s, he was one of the most celebrated screenwriters in Hollywood. Known for both his adaptation of novels, most notably John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath in 1940, and his own screenplays, he was one of the highest paid screenwriters of the decade. Following his success in Hollywood and his marriage to his third wife, Dorris Bowdon, Johnson hired Billy Haines to decorate his home at 625 Mountain Drive. Johnson also worked as an independent producer with his partners Leo Spitz and William Goetz, whose interior Haines designed with a similar coffee table.

Provenance:
Nunally Johnson and Dorris Bowdon, Beverly Hills, CA
Private collection

Literature and References:
Pete Martin, “Hollywood’s No. 1 Wit,” The Saturday Evening Post, November 2, 1946, p. 11
Peter Schifando and Jean H. Mathison, Class Act: William Haines, Legendary Hollywood Decorator, New York, 2005, p. 113 (for a similar coffee table designed by Haines for the Goetz House, Holmby Hills, CA, in 1949)