The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

by Christopher Isherwood

  Watts, Alan (1915–1973). English mystic, religious philosopher, teacher, and Dean of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, where he settled. He became a Zen Buddhist while still a schoolboy at King’s College, Canterbury, and was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1945. He was a friend of Aldous Huxley, experimented with LSD in the 1950s, and became a figure on the Beat scene. He opposed the Hindu emphasis on asceticism, asserting that sex improved spiritual presence, and he married three times. His many books and pamphlets include An Outline of Zen Buddhism (1932), Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion (1947), The Supreme Identity: An Essay on Oriental Metaphysic and the Christian Religion (1950), The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)—which, in D.1, Isherwood records had a profound effect on the young Bachardy—Nature, Man and Woman: A New Approach to Sexual Experience (1958), and Psychotherapy East and West (1961). Isherwood first met Watts in 1950, and he is mentioned in D.1 and Lost Years.

  Weidenfeld, George (b. 1919). Viennese-born British publisher; trained as a lawyer and diplomat. He emigrated in 1938 and worked for the BBC during World War II, mostly commentating on European Affairs; he also wrote a foreign affairs column for the News Chronicle. After the war, he began publishing a magazine, Contact, and then founded Weidenfeld & Nicolson with Nigel Nicolson. Their first books appeared in 1949, focusing initially on history and biography. In the 1950s, they turned to fiction as well; Nabokov’s Lolita (1959) was their first best-seller. Weidenfeld & Nicolson also became known for its books by world political leaders and for diaries, letters, and memoirs of public figures. In 1949, Weidenfeld spent a year in Israel as a political adviser and Chief of Cabinet to President Chaim Weizmann, and afterwards he sustained close ties there. He wrote The Goebbels Experiment (1943) and an autobiography; for a time he had a column in Die Welt. He married four times and had one daughter with his first wife; his second wife, Barbara Skelton, had previously been married to Cyril Connolly.

  Wescott, Glenway (1901–1987). American writer, born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Chicago, lived in France in the 1920s, partly in Paris, and travelled in Europe and England. Afterwards he lived in New York. Early in his career he wrote poetry and reviews, later turning to fiction. His best-known works are The Pilgrim Hawk (1940) and Apartment in Athens (1945). Wescott was President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters from 1957 to 1961. His longterm companion was Monroe Wheeler, although each had other lovers. In 1949, Wescott went to Los Angeles expressly to read Isherwood’s 1939–1945 diaries. While he was there, Isherwood introduced Wescott to Jim Charlton with whom Wescott had an affair. Wescott appears in D.1 and Lost Years.

  Wesker, Arnold (b. 1932). English playwright; his early plays were staged at the Royal Court, where Roots (1959) was a hit. In 1961, when Isherwood first met him, he was running Centre 42 at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, a project to make the arts accessible among the working classes. His other plays include The Kitchen (1957), Chips with Everything (1962), and Shylock (1976).

  Wheeler, Monroe (1899–1988). American arts publisher, from the Midwest. He met the writer Glenway Wescott in Chicago in 1919, and they became lifelong companions. During the 1920s and early 1930s, they lived in Paris, where Wheeler designed and published deluxe-edition books, mostly with California millionare Barbara Harrison, who married Wescott’s brother, Lloyd Wescott, in 1935. He returned to New York in the mid-1930s, joined the staff of the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1941 became director of exhibitions and publications. He oversaw 350 books during his career and became a trustee of the museum in 1967. He appears in D.1.

  Whitcomb, Ian (b. 1941). British pianist, singer, ukulele player, record producer; educated at Bryanston and at Trinity College, Dublin. He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 when his song “You Turn Me On” reached number eight in the American Top Ten, and he performed there with The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and The Kinks, among others. Later, he hosted a Los Angeles radio show and published books about the history of popular music, including After the Ball: Pop Music from Rag to Rock (1972), Tin Pan Alley: A Pictorial History (1919–1939), and Rock Odyssey: A Chronical of the Sixties (1983).

  White, Alan J. See Methuen.

  Wilcox, Collin (1937–2009). American actress, also known as Collin Horne and sometimes credited as Wilcox-Horne or Wilcox-Paxton. She was educated at the University of Tennessee, the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, and Actors Studio. She attracted praise on Broadway in The Day the Money Stopped (1958) and appeared in a few films, including To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Catch-22 (1970), and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). She also worked in T.V. She was married for a time to actor Geoffrey Horne. Later, she taught acting on the East Coast.

  Wilding, Michael (1912–1979). British actor of stage and screen. His films include In Which We Serve (1942), Dear Octopus (1943), English Without Tears (1944), An Ideal Husband (1947), Torch Song (1953), and Waterloo (1970), and he played Sir Richard Fanshawe in the Isherwood-Bachardy “Frankenstein.” He married four times. He was Elizabeth Taylor’s second husband, from 1952 to 1957, and father of two of her children. His last marriage was to actress Margaret Leighton.

  Williams, Clifford (1926–2005). British actor and director, educated at Highbury County Grammar School in London. He worked in mining, served in the army, and acted and directed in South Africa during the 1950s. In 1961, he became a staff producer at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and from 1963 until 1991 a prolific associate director. His many independent productions, some of which went on to successful Broadway runs, include an all-male As You Like It, Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth, both in 1967, and Kenneth Tynan’s Oh! Calcutta! in 1970. He was married twice and had two daughters with his second wife.

  Williams, Emlyn (1905–1987). Welsh playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He wrote psychological thrillers for the London stage, including Night Must Fall (1935), and is best known for The Corn is Green (1935), based on his own background in a coal-mining community in Wales and in which he played the lead; both of these plays were later filmed. His many other stage roles included Shakespeare and contemporary theater, and from the 1950s, he toured with oneman shows of Charles Dickens and Dylan Thomas. Among his films are The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Dictator (1935), Dead Men Tell No Tales (1938), Jamaica Inn (1939), The Stars Look Down (1939), Major Barbara (1941), Ivanhoe (1952), The Deep Blue Sea (1955), I Accuse! (1958), The L-Shaped Room (1962), and David Copperfield (1970). His wife, Mary Carus-Wilson, known as Molly (d. 1970), was an actress under her maiden name, Molly O’Shann. Isherwood first met Williams and his wife in Hollywood in 1950; they appear in D.1.

  Williams, Tennessee (1911–1983). American playwright; Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Mississippi and raised in St. Louis. His father was a travelling salesman, his mother felt herself to be a glamorous southern belle in reduced circumstances. The Glass Menagerie made him famous in 1945, followed by A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). Many of his subsequent plays are equally well known—The Rose Tattoo (1950), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), The Night of the Iguana (1961)—and were made into films. He also wrote a novella, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950). When he first came to Hollywood in 1943 to work for MGM, he bore a letter of introduction to Isherwood from Lincoln Kirstein; this began a long and close friendship which Isherwood tells about in D.1 and Lost Years. Period of Adjustment, for which, as Isherwood records, Bachardy designed the poster, opened in New York in November 1960, directed by George Roy Hill, with James Daley, Barbara Baxley and Robert Webber and was moderately successful, running to 132 performances. Later George Roy Hill directed Tony Franciosa and Jane Fonda in the film version.

  Willie. See Maugham, William Somerset.

  Wilson, Angus (1913–1991). British novelist and literary critic, educated at Westminster and Oxford. He worked as a decoder for the Foreign Office during World War II and otherwise made his career in the library of the British Museum before turning to writing full time in 1955. His novels include
Hemlock and After (1952), Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956), The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot (1958), The Old Men at the Zoo (1961), No Laughing Matter (1967), and Setting the World on Fire (1980). He also published short stories and literary-critical books about Zola, Dickens, and Kipling. From 1966, he was a professor of English literature at the University of East Anglia, where, with Malcoln Bradbury, he oversaw the first respected university course in creative writing in Britain. In D.1 Isherwood tells that he met Wilson at a party in London in 1956. Wilson’s companion, from the late 1940s onward, was Anthony Garrett.

  Wilson, Colin (b. 1931). English novelist and critic. Author of psychological thrillers, studies of literature and philosophy, criminology, the imagination, the occult, and the supernatural. He became well known with his 1956 book, The Outsider—which Isherwood mentions twice in D.1—about the figure of the alienated solitary in modern literature. Isherwood met him in London in 1959.

  Winslow, Al (d. 200[6]). American doctor and monk of the Ramakrishna Order, roughly five or six years younger than Isherwood. He was later known as Swami Sarveshananda. He was a disciple of Swami Nikhilananda at the New York Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center on the Upper East Side, until they had an extreme falling-out, and Winslow left New York and settled in Chicago.

  Winters, Shelley (1922–2006). American actress, from St. Louis. She worked on the New York stage and moved to Hollywood in 1943. She won Academy Awards for her supporting roles in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965), and was nominated again for The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She played Natalia Landauer in the film of I Am a Camera in 1955. From the early 1990s, she played Roseanne’s grandmother in the T.V. comedy series “Roseanne.” Isherwood met her at the start of the 1950s, and she appears in D.1. She was married to actor Tony Franciosa from 1957 to 1960.

  Wintle, Hector. Isherwood’s contemporary at Repton, where his novel about life in the sixth form inspired Isherwood to start writing one, too. Later, Isherwood followed Wintle to medical school. Wintle became a doctor, and he published three novels, The Final Victory (1935), Edgar Prothero (1936), and The Hodsall Wizard (1938). He appears as Philip Linsley in Lions and Shadows, and the character Philip Lindsay in All the Conspirators is partly based on him.

  Wonner, Paul (1920–2008). American painter, originally from Arizona. He settled on the West Coast, first in Los Angeles, and from the early 1980s in San Francisco, with his longtime partner, the painter Bill Brown. Wonner’s work has been called American Realist or Californian Realist, and he has been grouped with other painters who came to maturity in the 1950s—Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, David Park, Nathan Oliveira—as a Bay Area Figurative Artist or Figurative Abstractionist. He taught painting at UCLA and elsewhere, and, with Brown, had close friendships with a number of writers, for instance, May Sarton, Diane Johnson, and Janet Frame.

  Wood, Christopher (Chris) (d. 1976). Isherwood met Chris Wood in September 1932 when Auden took him to meet Gerald Heard, then sharing Wood’s luxurious London flat. Wood was about ten years younger than Heard, handsome and friendly but shy about his maverick talents. He played the piano well, but never professionally, wrote short stories, but not for publication, had a pilot’s license, and rode a bicycle for transport. He was extremely rich (the family business made jams and other canned and bottled goods), sometimes extravagant, and always generous; he secretly funded many of Heard’s projects and loaned or gave money to many other friends (including Isherwood). In 1937, he emigrated with Heard to Los Angeles and, in 1941, moved with him to Laguna. Their domestic commitment persisted for a time despite Heard’s increasing asceticism and religious activities, but eventually they lived separately though they remained friends. From 1939, Wood was involved with Paul Sorel, also a member of their shared household for about five years. Wood appears throughout D.1 and Lost Years.

  Wood, Natalie (1938–1981). American actress, of French and Russian background; her mother was a ballet dancer. She appeared in her first movie when she was five years old and was a star by the time she was nine. Her films include: Happy Land (1943), Tomorrow is Forever (1946), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Searchers (1956), Splendor in the Grass (1961), West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1962), Inside Daisy Clover (1966), Penelope (1966), and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969). She married twice to the same man, actor Robert Wagner, and in between married Richard Gregson, father of her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner, also an actress. She drowned after falling overboard from a yacht.

  Woodbury, Dana. A neighbor of Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell; he lived across the street from them on Norma Place in West Hollywood, and they introduced him to Isherwood. Bachardy painted his portrait several times.

  Woodcock, Patrick (1920–2002). British doctor. His patients included many London theater stars—including John Gielgud and Noel Coward—and also actors based in New York and Hollywood. Isherwood and Bachardy first met him with Gielgud and Hugh Wheeler in London in 1956, and a few days later Woodcock visited Bachardy at the Cavendish Hotel to treat him for stomach cramps. Woodcock also prescribed vitamins for Isherwood at the same time and became a friend. He appears in D.1.

  Woolf, James ( Jimmy) (1919–1966). British film producer. With his older brother, John Woolf, he produced Room at the Top (1958) starring Simone Signoret (who won an Academy Award) and Laurence Harvey, rumored to have been his lover. The brothers also produced Moulin Rouge (1952), Of Human Bondage (1964), Life at the Top (1965), and Oliver! (1968). Jimmy Woolf committed suicide.

  Worsley, T.C. (Cuthbert) (1907–1977). English writer, theater critic, and school master. He was a friend of Stephen Spender and in 1937 accompanied him to the Spanish Civil War on an assignment for The Daily Worker. He returned to Spain to join an ambulance unit and wrote about this period for The Left Review and in Behind the Battle (1939), as well as in a later fictionalized memoir, Fellow Travellers (1971). During the 1950s, he was a theater critic for The Financial Times. John Luscombe was his much younger companion. Worsley appears in D.1 and Lost Years.

  Worton, Len (d. late 1990s). English-born monk of the Ramakrishna Order; he settled at Trabuco and became Swami Bhadrananda. He was a British army medic during World War II, stationed in Hong Kong, and was captured there by the Japanese when he remained behind tending the wounded. He was spared execution because of his medical skills and because he was wearing Red Cross insignia. He spent four years as a prisoner of war in Japan.

  Wright, Thomas E. (Tom). American writer, from New Orleans. Isherwood met him while both were fellows-in-residence at the Huntington Hartford Foundation in 1951, and they had a casual affair which lasted about eight months. Wright was then about twenty-four years old and had taught at New York University. He was a childhood friend of Speed Lamkin and of Speed’s sister, Marguerite, and he knew Tennessee Williams and Howard Griffin. He also became close to Edward James and lived at James’s Hollywood house as a caretaker for a number of years. Bachardy drew the first of several portraits of Wright in 1960. Wright published novels, travel books—including one about Mexico which Isherwood mentions reading, Into the Maya World (1969)—and Growing Up with Legends: A Literary Memoir. He eventually settled in Guatemala. He appears in D.1.

  Wyberslegh Hall. The fifteenth-century manor house where Isherwood was born and where his mother returned to live with his brother after the war; it was part of the Bradshaw Isherwood estate. During most of the nineteenth century, Wyberslegh was leased to a family called Cooper who farmed the surrounding fields, lived in the rear wing of the house, and rented out the front rooms. When Isherwood’s parents married in 1903, his grandfather, John Isherwood, divided Wyberslegh Hall into two separate houses. Frank and Kathleen Isherwood moved into the front of the house, and, for roughly half the twentieth century, the Coopers continued to live in the back overlooking the farmyard. The Nazi incendiary bombs which Isherwood mentions were dropped on January 9, 1941, when a tenant was occupying the front half of Wyberslegh. Richard was then performing his wartime n
ational service as a farmhand at Wyberslegh farm and helped Jack Smith and other farmhands put out the fires.

  Wystan. See Auden, W.H.

  Yatiswarananda, Swami. Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order. He was sent from India to live at the Vedanta centers in Switzerland and Philadelphia. In the early 1940s, he supervised the Hollywood Vedanta Society during an absence of Prabhavananda. The visit is described in D.1.

  yoga. Union with the Godhead or one of the methods by which the individual soul may achieve such union. Isherwood and Prabhavananda translated the yoga sutras or aphorisms of the Hindu sage Patanjali (circa 4th c. bc to 4th c. ad) as How to Know God (1953); they describe the aphorisms as a compilation and reformulation of yoga philosophy and practices—spiritual disciplines and techniques of meditation—referred to even earlier in four of the Upanishads and in fact handed down from pre-historic times.

  York, Michael (b. 1942) and Pat McCallum. British film star and his wife, a photographer and writer. He was educated at Oxford, where he acted for the Oxford University Dramatic Society. His real name is Michael York-Johnson. In 1965, he had a small role in Franco Zeffirelli’s stage production of The Taming of the Shrew, for Olivier’s National Theatre Company and afterwards appeared in the movie with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Subsequent films include Romeo and Juliet (1968), Justine (1969), Something for Everyone (1970), Cabaret (1972), England Made Me (1973), The Three Musketeers (1974), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Weather in the Streets (1983), The Wide Sargasso Sea (1993), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Borstal Boy (2000), Megiddo (2001), and Austin Powers: Goldmember (2002). He has often appeared on television, notably in “The Forsyte Saga” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and on Broadway, and he has a prize-winning career recording audio books. She was born in Jamaica to an English diplomat and his American wife, educated in England and France, married for the first time as a teenager, and in 1952 had a son, Rick McCallum, later a Hollywood producer. From the early 1960s, she worked as a fashion journalist at Vogue, then as a photographer and travel editor at Glamor before becoming a freelance photographer with a few lessons from David Bailey. Her portraits of celebrities have appeared in Life, People, Town and Country, Playboy, and Newsweek; she has published several books and had numerous gallery exhibitions, in particular of her later avant-garde work featurig dissected cadavers and nude portraits of professional people at work. She met Michael York when photographing him for a magazine profile, and they married a year later, in 1968. Isherwood was introduced to them in 1969, probably at the Vadims’ lunch party described in the diary entry of January 15.