Robert Briggs (character)

Robert "Bob" Briggs is a fictional screenwriter living in 1940s Hollywood. His one appearance to date is in Aldous Huxley's dystopian satire Ape and Essence.

Briggs is famous for his fascinating smile.

Briggs writes for Lou Lublin Productions. (Huxley wrote screen versions of 19th century English novels for producers Hunt Stromberg, William Goetz, Kenneth Macgowan and Orson Welles, as well as a life of Mme. Curie for Sidney Franklin). He has just been denied a raise, a disappointment with repercussions for his love life. The industry is tightening its belt; Hollywood mogul Schmuel Gelbfisz has announced to the press that those under him may well see their salaries reduced by half.

He has no automobile of his own, but uses his wife Miriam's Buick convertible.

Briggs is—or was—serious about art; he deplores popular escapism as an abuse of it. He knows exactly how many tens of millions of dollars were raked in by Amanda, a vapid musical love story, three winters previously—during the Ardennes Offensive.

In early 1946 he began scripting a life of Catherine of Siena, who in 1366 had mystically married Jesus. Having to sex it up, he elaborated a character from a suitor mentioned in her letters. His script has been reworked three times by others before getting to production, but the lover-character remains; Lublin hopes to get Humphrey Bogart for the part (an unlikely prospect, as 1948 will see him starring in several films by John Huston).

Brigg's relationship with Elaine began as his involvement in the Catherine script was concluding. His long avoidance of its physical consummation—i.e. of technical adultery—mirrors his disenchantment with what in Hollywood passes for the creative process. "When you finally get what you want," he tells his friend, Huxley's narrator, "it's never what you thought it was going to be."

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