The history of America’s finest novelists going to Hollywood and being chewed up and spit out by the crass moviemaking machinery is legend. Greats such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner were famously used, abused and tossed aside by gross studio moguls who cared little about their literary stature.

But Texas novelist Larry McMurtry tells a different story of his own profitable and generally positive encounters with the film industry. In “Hollywood: A Third Memoir” (Simon & Schuster, $24), the author of such literary classics as “Lonesome Dove,” “The Last Picture Show” and “Terms of Endearment” relates an essentially breezy and upbeat narrative of his own unlikely initiation into the fraternity of screenwriters and his subsequent frolics in the land of make-believe that is Tinseltown.

Following up on McMurtry’s previous memoirs of the writer’s life – “Books” and “Literary Life” – this slim volume sports the signature short chapters and sparkling anecdotes that have marked the author to be as sterling a memoirist as he is a novelist.

By all evidence, he’s enjoyed a charmed life in a movie culture that generally views screenwriters as disposable hired hands. As a writer, he’s experienced both sides of the equation – having his novels adapted to the screen by others (“Terms of Endearment,” “Lonesome Dove” and Emmy-nominated “The Murder of Mary Phagan”) and penning his own screenplays (“The Last Picture Show” with Peter Bogdanovich and “Streets of Laredo” and the Oscar-winning “Brokeback Mountain,” both with writing partner Diana Ossana). And with characteristic wryness and absence of sentiment he recounts the triumphs, and occasional failures, that have animated his long movie career.

To hear him tell it, the secret to his success was in keeping his prices reasonable, his expectations in check and his attitude positive.

The adaptation of his first novel, “Horseman, Pass By” into the 1963 film “Hud” earned McMurtry enough money to leave behind a teaching job at Texas Christian University and pursue his passions for fiction writing and book collecting.

“I had nothing to do with the filming of ‘Hud,’” McMurtry writes. “Similarly I had nothing to do with the filming of the fine CBS miniseries of my book ‘Lonesome Dove.’ The same holds true for ‘Terms of Endearment.’ I just wrote the book! The fact that ‘Hud’ was made from my book had one extremely important effect: somehow through the illogic of show business it enabled me to get work on scripts for no better reason than that I was from the West – cowboy country. … I will always be grateful to Hollywood for, well, it’s essentially financed my fiction, my rare book business and, to a huge degree, my adult life.”

McMurtry writes that he was easily seduced by Hollywood’s allure and movie-business perks, such as first-class air travel. He also loved L.A.’s laid-back vibe, its lack of traffic and its good book shops and restaurants.

“I must mention that I liked Hollywood from the moment I first visited it, and I like it still, even though it must be said that the traffic now is a serious problem … As Jack Kerouac aptly said, Los Angeles is still the West Coast’s one and only golden town. Say it’s glitter all you want; at least it’s real glitter, applied at a level that for me never fades.”

Characteristically, McMurtry is in top form in constructing entertaining portraits of celebrities he’s brushed shoulders with along the way. Of super-agent Swifty Lazar (who represented the author) there is enduring affection even in the story of how Lazar’s bungling of a deal may have cost McMurtry $15 million. Equally pithy stories emerge from McMurtry’s encounters with Barbra Streisand (she was such an intimidating tennis partner that he vomited after their match) and Warren Beatty (a million-question man who eventually lost interest in a proposed script about evangelist Billy Sunday). Less than flattering anecdotes illuminate his dealings with actors Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson, whom the author believes let their success in “The Last Picture Show” go to their heads.

Thin and economically written, “Hollywood: A Third Memoir” is nonetheless a juicy, teeming, entertaining read and a show-business fairy tale that most screenwriters would probably deem a story far too good to be true.

- Dennis King

BY DENNIS KING

Spring is jam-packed with film festivals in varying shades of hipness, exclusivity and adventurousness, most of them aimed at showcasing the latest, cutting-edge works of cinema.

But for the old popcorn-munchers among us, for whom cinema dreams most often occur in black-and-white (and, well OK, occasionally in widescreen Technicolor with plush curtains and footlights), a brave new film festival is in the offing. And it’s one that’s both exhilarating in its originality and comforting in its traditionalism.

It’s the first, and one hopes annual, TCM Classic Film Festival taking place April 22-25 in that most mythic of movie meccas – Hollywood.

Turner Classic Movies has since its founding in 1994 been the go-to cable TV channel for lovers of old movies. Its extensive library is a priceless treasure trove of everything from silent films, to screwball comedies of the 1930s and ’40s, film noir of the 1950s, glamorous escapist musicals, weepy melodramas, tingling mysteries, galloping cowboy movies and virtually anything else that might be classified in film as “classic.”

So, who better to initiate such a celebration?

Over four days and nights, the TCM festival – taking place at storied venues such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Egyptian Theatre – will feature some 50 film screenings with special appearances by actors, actresses, directors, producers and other notables. There will also be red-carpet galas, tributes to classic stars and filmmakers, first looks at newly restored films, a sneak preview of the new documentary “Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood” and interviews and panel discussions with an impressive roster of movie luminaries.

Naturally, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood blue-bloods such as directors Mel Brooks (who’ll unveil his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame) and Peter Bogdanovich, actors Norman Lloyd, Tony Curtis, Martin Landau and Jerry Lewis, writer Buck Henry, film critic and historian Leonard Maltin, 100-year-old actress Luise Rainer and, of course, TCM’s own host with the most, Robert Osborne, doesn’t come free.

From out here in the deep balcony seats of Oklahoma, it’s a far piece to Tinseltown. But for those who can spring for air fare and lodging, festival tickets are now being sold through TCM’s website (www.tcm.com/festival).

Passes are available on three levels – The Classic, The Essential and The Spotlight – carrying escalating perks and access. And they’ll set you back, respectively, $499, $599 and a whopping $1,199 (which provides V.I.P. entry to all events and venues).

But the opportunity to view such classics as “Casablanca,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Magnificent Ambersons,” “The Producers” and more on the big screen in archival prints is reason enough to celebrate this rare festival.

TCM’s website contains a list of films being screened, special events, panel discussions, invited guests and amenities for festival-goers. The site is updated regularly as new festival features are announced.