The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder
Page 28
Well, we all went off into different corners and wrote the scene. I appeared with mine at 3:00 on Thursday. The plan was to pool the best points of all three scenes, but the final scene was almost entirely mine. But it took from 3:00 to half past eleven to cut it and shape it in endless long conferences
It wasn’t funny; it was tragic.
The shooting took place the next day. The pimple was indubitably there, right on the end of her nose. Her close-ups could be taken after March’s absence, but the shots with them both in couldn’t be taken closer than eight feet, which greatly damaged the intimacy and intensity of the scene.
As usual they took the scene twenty-thirty times. March had had to memorize my lines at 8:00 o’clock and play them at 10:00 and kept forgetting them.
Anyway, I am baptized in the movies. My first lines have gone over, directed by Reuben Mamoulian.
Mr. Goldwyn met me in the corridor and said he had seen the film; that it was a very beautiful scene; that it topped everything that preceded it; that he was very grateful to me.
Draw your conclusions.
Charles Laughton was rushed off to the hospital and operated on for an abcess in the rectum.
I am calling on him this afternoon.
Today is Sat and I am driving up to the Mt Wilson observatory to see the nebula in Andromeda. (Going with Dick Hemingway an ex-pupil at Lawrenceville: I gave him 28 on the final exam: he is now a contract player at Columbia.)
Ruthie-the-Pooh leaves for N.Y. next Tuesday and a wonderful part in the first Guild Play.100 In the meantime she is being given very elaborate tests at Metro—four of them.
I think I leave for Taos Sept 10.
I just got your letter about Isabel’s being up and about again. Never to swim? All yesterday I thought about her book’s coming out and have orders in 3 stores here, but they are slow getting here.
A thousand salutes & best wishes.
Ever
Thornt.
129. TO CHARLES LAUGHTON. ALS 2 pp. UCLA
Chateau Elysee Hollywood
Sept 2 1934
Dear and splendid Charles,
No wonder they discourage visitors when the visitors are as excitable as I was on my last visit, one minute enthralled by medical stories and the next minute overcome by something plus forte que moi.101 At any event I earn my living by my imagination and if every now and then it takes things into its own hands, it’s not for me to complain.
I have been very eager to come and call on you to show you these two clippings from the Neues Wiener Journal (Sept. 12 and 19th).
You said you admired Raimu102 and here is Raimu admiring you. He is being interviewed in Paris by an unnamed correspondent:
Und was sagt der Schauspieler? “Ich gehe gern ins Kino,” erzählt Raimu, der unbestrittene Liebling der Pariser, ”um mich zu sehen. Auch gestern sah ich mir den Korda-Film “Das Privatleben Heinrichs VIII.” an.”—“Wieso?” frage ich erstaunt, “Den Heinrich im Korda-Film spielen doch nicht Sie, sondern Charles Laughton!”—“Pas Possible!” entsetzt sich Raimu. “Ich sagte mir während der ganzen Dauer des Films: das kann nur ein einziger Schauspieler so blendend spielen und dieser Schauspieler bin ich…”
“And what does the actor say? ‘I enjoy going to the movies,’ says Raimu, the uncontested favorite of the Parisians, ‘in order to see myself. Only yesterday I was looking at myself in the Korda film The Private Life of Henry VIII.’ ‘What!’ I cried, amazed, ‘it wasn’t you who played Henry, but Charles Laughton!’ ‘Not possible!’ replied Raimu, ‘the whole time the film was going on I kept saying to myself: there’s only one actor who can play as dazzlingly as that, and that one actor is myself.<’>”
The second clipping is from an interview with Stefan Zweig:
“Das Privatleben Heinrichs VIII.” etwa, in dem sich Charles Laughton zu einem der populärsten Schauspieler der Welt emporarbeitete. Laughton, der übrigens in der Verfilmung meines Buches über “Maria Antoinette” mit Norma Shearer die führende Rolle spielen wird, könnte heute selbst in der europäischen Hauptstädten Haftspiele bei vollen Häusern veranstalten, ein Wagnis, das sich vor ihm kein anderer englischer Schauspieler leisten konnte.
“The Private Life of Henry VIII. for example, in which Charles Laughton has elevated himself to being one of the most popular actors in the world. Laughton, who moreover will, with Norma Shearer play the leading rôle in the picturization of my book Marie Antoinette would be able today to fulfill guest performances to full houses in all the capitals of the Europe, a venture which before him no English actor could undertake.”103
I’m not so sure of my words in this translation, but that’s the general idea.
I hope you’ll be out and well again before long. I’m as eager to see the Ruggles as I am the Barrett.104 When I realized the other day that it was your Epikhodov I saw, the breath went out of me in my pleasure at adding a new item to my collection:
Cherry Orchard
Silver Tassie
Pickwick
Payment Deferred
Fatal Alibi
and the movies:
Payment Deferred
(in a submarine with Tallulah Bankhead and Cary Grant)105
Henry VIII
But then what a lot I’ve missed.
Bella Gordon got off, leaving Bella Hayes106 terribly solitary. Bella Gordon’s tests at MGM dazzled the powers over there and I think something big will come of them. Bello Wilder’s life goes on much as usual. Tuesday he must turn in a WHOLE SCRIPT of an intermittently interesting movie to Jupiter Goldwyn. Tell Bella Lanchester107 that Wednesday night I am going to Jupiter’s dinner for Prospero Reinhardt and then I shall get the man’s own ear to sow the 20th and last of my urgent persuasions that God and Shakespeare’s own Puck is right in town. Also tell Bella Lanchester to call me at once if there is any book you want, any errand I can do, etc.
I hope earnestly that you are already well restored, that you are tranquil in mind, that in the long stretches when you are alone you turn over in your mind all the wonderful creations of the imaginations that you were sent into the world to perform, and that you realize that you are surrounded by the thoughts of so many that admire you as an artist and love you as a person,—among whom remember
Your devoted friend
Thornton
130. TO ISABELLA N. WILDER. Wire 1 p. Yale
1934 SEP 8 PM 6 48
HOLLYWOOD CALIF 8 31 8P
MRS AMOS WILDER =
50 DEEPWOOD DR NEWHAVEN CONN = WAS OFFERED AND TURNED DOWN SOLO JOB ON NEXT GARBO PICTURE STOP ROLLER SKATED WITH WALT DISNEY TAOS NEXT TUESDAY LOVE = THORNTON.
131. TO HARPER & BROTHERS. TL (Copy)108 1 p. Private
September 29, 1934
Harper & Brothers
49 West 33rd Street
New York, NY.
Dear Sirs:
I hereby consent to the assignment and transfer by Albert & Charles Boni, Inc., to you of the book rights in the United States and Canada, first serial rights and the manuscript so far as it has been completed, of my new novel entitled “Heaven’s My Destination”, it being understood that in consideration of such assignment and of my consent thereto you assume and agree to perform all of the undertakings of said Albert & Charles Boni, Inc., contained in the written agreement between said Albert & Charles Boni, Inc., and myself, dated July 18. 1934, in so far as they relate to the rights thus assigned to you.109
Very truly yours,
Thornton N. Wilder
132. TO MABEL DODGE LUHAN. ALS 4 pp. Yale
The best University
Oct 7 1934
Dear Mabel:
You will be astonished to hear that I am happy. Yes, ma’am,—partly the after-effect
of the breadth and clarity of the days in your valley, and the breadth and clarity of your nature, and partly the warming absurdity of two things that happened since I returned here. The first of these (confidentialissimo) was that President Roosevelt asked Bob Hutchins to leave the university for nine months and assume the directorship of the whole NRA.110 The absurdity of that call does not lie in any inadequacy on Bob’s part; nor in any difficulty of the job itself. It lies in the spectacle of how the world works; how merit finds its own level; how the threads of life—I first knew Bob as a gangling evangelist’s son being elected to the presidency of my Freshman class at Oberlin, Ohio, and have known him ever since in hot water with a large company of bystanders continually predicting his downfall,—cross and recross. There is something beautiful and lyrical to the Comic Spirit about the emergence of certain threads from the shuffling and reshuffling of apparently aimless circumstances. And for that something I can only find the word Absurdity. Bob wrote the President a letter of acceptance asking however for a more distinct statement of his powers. We will know today or tomorrow whether it is settled. Then Bob and Maude, two rather lonely young souls, beautiful as pards, articulated like race-horses, will move to Washington,—Bob indifferent to the fact that the post is unlovely, doomed to checkmate at best, dangerous,—grateful aware only that it is difficult, unboring. C’est beau! C’est tres beau!111
Similarly I was called up from New York the other day. William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies have just arrived in the country, filled with an impassioned idea: Marion Davies wants to do Twelfth Night in the movies.112 Will I prepare the script? Will I assume the audacity of writing additional dialogue? Of course, I will. I’m an adventurer; that means: that all the values of life fluctuate. One minute honor and decorum seem to be a worthy price to pay; the next minute impulse seems superior to society’s respect; One minute art’s discipline; the next minute, observing and interfering. The fact that such a curious nexus as an ex-follies girl and a newspaper millionaire who pathetically adores her and Wm. Shakespeare and myself should appear is more interesting than all the dignity and artistic honor in the world. Uncle Pio is the most loving portrait I ever made of myself—not Chrysis.113 ¶ Since in the 20th Century the Sublime has departed the earth, let us at least cherish the beautiful image of the ridiculous.
The next night.
In a few minutes I shall call New York to ask Ruth Gordon how her great opening tonight went.114
A few weeks ago Maude Hutchins was in New York. Leonard Hanna115 invited her out to lunch. He inquired whether she would like to meet anyone else. She, Marie-Antoinette-disdainful said: “No, no—I don’t want to meet anyone else.” Later Leonard told her he had thought of having her meet Ruth Gordon; and Maude was cut to the heart with regret and remorse: that was the one person in the world she wanted to look at. ¶ For years I have jokingly said goodnight to Maude with the words: “You’re the second finest girl in the world”, and she always knew that I meant she was only surpassed by Ruth.
I told all this to La Gordon adding: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a second best crown.”
She telegraphed back: “I loved your letter.”
No wonder!
After I left you in Santa Fé I went to the Santa Fé Art Gallery and then took a nap. I bought my ticket for the Chief that night, and went to dinner at Witter Bynner’s.116 There was a considerable company: The Knees, McCarthy, that writing woman, etc.117 After dinner Witter read from his satirical sonnets. The reception was sycophantic and tongue-tied. I grew more and more sombre. Finally my opinion was asked. You would have been proud of your little Thornton (né Caspar Milquetoast). For once in my life I spoke up. I said they were not only monotonous in form and cadence, but in attitude. The average reader—in spite of the brilliant verbal coinage—would finally push out his lip in repudiation. “You have invective without passion and yet analysis without objectivity.” I tried not to be too harsh to Witter among his idolators but he got the idea that the portrait of the portraitist emerges from the portraits as even more unlovely than the sitters.
The Knees drove me to the train,—Mrs Knee is a gracious very-young presence.
The observation car of the Chief takes on the quality of the smoking-car of an ocean-liner. I played craps with John Boles, Francis X Shields and Jacques Catelier.118 If you don’t know who these world figures are, ask Spud.119
Tomorrow at nine I give a lecture on the Second Canto of the Inferno—Beatrice, the Virgin Mary and Virgil. Isn’t that ridiculous? The earth is old; the mind of man is crammed with a strange hodgepodge; let us extract from it what intellectual delight we may from a sheer admiration of its strangeness.
Give my deep regard to Tony. I sincerely hope he can call on me when he comes to town. The telephone in my new apartment is Midway 7030. If I’m not in, telephone messages can be left for me at the office of the apartment house downstairs Dorchester 7080.
Today I mailed some Bach-Stokowski gramaphone records to Brett,120 in your care. Do play them over before you pass them on: they represent my religious ideas: sentimental, personal anthropomorphic, intimate. My notion of God is much like that of a negro revivalist, and Bach’s wasn’t far from it. There are two pieces of music I would like to be performed at my funeral (Westminster Abby) Weelkes’ madrigal “ ‘Happy, oh happy he’ who despising earth’s rewards, lives far from<”> etc and Bach’s last choral prelude “Schmucke dich, oh meine Seele”—’adorn thyself, oh my soul’—
Well, it’s two o’clock in New York and Ruth hasn’t got home from her curtain calls yet.
I have been scouring the town for some very good chocolates to send you.
Ma’am, I am bound to you in great admiration and affection all my life and am
devotedly yours
Thornton
133. TO SARAH M. FRANTZ.121 ALS 2 pp. Princeton
Faculty Exchange
University of Chicago
Oct 13 1934
Dear Mrs. Frantz:
What’s become of all my hopes and plans to come into New Jersey, look at my old homes, take my accustomed walks and greet my friends again? Apparently this division of my life between Chicago and New Haven is cutting down my chances of free impulsive excursions. I no longer get to Peterborough in the summers, either; and now a new element has entered: I work in Hollywood a few months every year. I am very interested in the movies as a form; I am working very hard at its peculiar technique, and after a few years of apprenticeship I hope to be allowed a chance to write one that is all myself and all deeply felt. Besides it has fallen upon me to sustain several members of my family and the earnings out there are a great help.
The Fall Quarter has been going for two weeks. I enjoy the teaching as much as ever; am very proud of the university and its wunder-kind president.
I was so dilatory in handing in the closing pages of my novel that I am afraid the publishers will not be able to get it out by Xmas. Once a book is written I lose all interest in its further journey—its cover, its promotion, its appearance. The publishers go insane over my delays; at heart they enjoy that kind of worry and all the scheming that goes with salesmanship.
A good deal of the book is tough, full of bad words and life’s unlovelier traps; but I hope you will see that none of the coarseness is there for cheap display. The subject of the book goes quietly on under the surface din: the earnest humorless undefeated hero trying to live an extravagantly idealistic life in the middle of a cynical defeatist world—a Gideon-Bible travelling salesman. On the title page I placed the motto from The Woman of Andros so that readers wouldn’t think it was merely a rowdy comic book—“Of all forms of genius, goodness has the longest awkward age”—namely priggishness, preachiness, confusion etc. I hope it will be somehow useful to a lot of troubled young people.
Has your St. Bernard grown up to be enormous? Have you grown accustomed to the High Church ritualism at the First Church?
Give my best to Janet and Alison. When my Greek gets better I
shall write a letter in it to Alison and she can return it with red-pencil corrections.
When Sunday evenings you sing the Blake hymn or the one about “The day thou gavest now is ended” with its long loping melodic line, remember me and my great pleasure in being at any time in your company.
Always devotedly and affectionately yours
Thornton
134. TO AMOS P. WILDER. ALS 4 pp. Yale
University of Chicago
Oct 25 1934
Dear Da:
Many thanks for your notes.
Please do not think I am sensitive about which secretaries share our correspondence. I am grateful also to anyone who is kind enough to help you.122 I have never had any sense of secrecy about any of my affairs.
I am glad you say you are pretty well. I am feeling fine—but by Friday afternoon of every week I am ready for a rest. ¶ I wish I could get back to the geneological shelves of the Yale Library and polish up that Houghton ancestry. ¶ Rumors have begun to tell me that my new book will find friends. ¶ Am looking forward to Isabel’s visit. Mrs Hobart Johnson asked us both up to Madison for Sunday night, but Isabel will arrive too late for it. Mrs Johnson spoke of you with great regard and affection and sends cordial greetings
Isabel will sleep in the bedroom of my nice little apartment and I shall snooze away in the sittingroom. I leave the house for WORK at seven and I hope she’ll sleep until ten and get a big rest. ¶ I will talk to her on the subject you mention; and then she can talk to me on the subject you dictated to her. We are both over THIRTY years old, but we will talk to one another as tho’ we were seventeen and we will come out very sensible, cautious, joyless and shrewd.