Liberation

by Christopher Isherwood

  On the beach this morning and yesterday and every day this week, in fact. Yesterday, I heard a queen bragging about the man she’d met who wore a chain round his neck: “He took it off and put it around the two of us—well—I’d never been through that before, and let me tell you—!” Nearly everybody has big whiskers, most have moustaches, many have beards. I yearn for a new Razor Age. Never mind, the water is getting warmer at last.

  July 8. Last night I called Hunt. He was drunk. He assured me that all is well. “Just let me play the game in my own way. You’ll see, we’re going to get Boorman. . . . But, please, do finish ‘The Mummy’ as soon as you can—that’s all part of it—” This time, I didn’t even heckle him, it seems so hopeless. Meanwhile, Jon Voight has written Sid Sheinberg a very pompous letter, saying that he won’t do “Frankenstein” if it’s going to be for television, and continuing: “Had you suggested a strong director I would have done all I could to accommodate him and try to make it possible to include the very best actors for the project . . . so it is all the more distressing to me that I must terminate my interest at this time. . . .” He ends by saying that he would like to buy the script if Universal ever wants to sell it. He’s a good boy and a loyal ally, but Jesus what a stuffed shirt he’ll be when he’s older!

  Also last night, I talked to Bob Ennis and found out that his house was burned down last December. He lost nearly everything in it, including his dog. But Don’s drawing and painting of him were saved because they were out in the hallway. Troy Perry told him the burning of the house was a blessing in disguise, because he had gotten himself married to it!

  July 9. Last night, Rick Brown called with a message from Truman Capote; Truman had told him to tell me that Tony Bower has been murdered. I had heard this already—from Paul Sorel, of all people—and had been meaning to mention it here as soon as I knew more details. But Rick told me more or less the same story as Sorel did. Tony was found sitting in a chair in his apartment with two bullet holes in his chest. Both Paul and Rick take it for granted that this was done by a hustler. It is “shocking” as they say, but I’m not particularly shocked. Surely such a death is lucky—like a sudden unexpected fatal heart attack—when you compare it with deaths by painful disease, long weary sufferings in a hospital? Of course my objective attitude is due to the fact that I hadn’t seen Tony in a long while before this and that we’d anyhow lost touch with each other. There was a time when he had a crush on me and a time when I wanted (not violently) to go to bed with him. We never did. And I never felt more for him than the affection which goes with having known someone for more than thirty years. I always thought of him as being very unhappy, underneath a show of cocktail-party high spirits, and of being a bitch because he felt afraid of nearly everybody. I was fondest of him during the war because I identified with the miserable time he had in boot camp. I made him one of my characters (Ronny) in “Paul,”170 not merely because he had known Denny but because he seemed to me to be a perfect specimen of the denier, the person who is roused to fury by any mention of the spiritual life and those who try to practise it. The denier’s fury is caused by fear and Tony was full of it. There was something childlike about him. Poor Tony—the more I think about him, the more I feel my fondness for him coming back. But I still say he was comparatively lucky.

  There is a very good notice of our play in the July issue of Coast, by Sam Eisenstein.

  This morning we went with Mike Van Horn to a studio show of Billy Al Bengston’s work. We would like to have bought one of his paintings or even one of his tables, as a gesture of friendship, but they are so expensive; hardly anything under $2,000. Billy and Penny put on a wonderful breakfast snack of Chinese cookies and puddingy cakes; they both wore Chinese hats. Whenever I go to his place, I always admire the style he lives in; it is all contrived, down to the last detail, as artificial as a palace but with fun—that’s the difference between him and, say, Tony Duquette.

  July 10. We went on the beach again this morning and in the water, although the ocean was dirty and the sky full of thin fog which kept breaking open and closing in. We met Bill Bopp, grey haired but with the figure of a muscular young man. Don says he still finds Bill attractive but can’t forget what a bore he was to be with. He really is a dog person in the best sense, so friendly and willing to be amused and eager for companionship.

  Last night, John Gielgud and Martin Hensler had a goodbye party; they leave the day after tomorrow, as John’s part in the picture is finished.171 Bumble Dawson the stage designer is staying with them, a sick old woman in agonies of arthritis with a huge bent heavy-bellied body who nevertheless manages to create an effect of extreme elegance by wearing beautiful full robes which cover her right down to the ground. We both like her. Don has done a subtle sympathetic drawing of her which Martin says he wants to buy; but now Don is worried because he asked $200 for it and feels that was too much. Sweet kissy Michael York was there and Pat, who has become intense and potentially tiresome since reading An Approach to Vedanta. Also Leslie, being bitched by [her] Michael; he really does behave like a petulant child. And Roddy McDowall, with his curly-haired sexy boyfriend Paul Anderson. We both think Paul is terrifically cute. He keeps looking adoringly at Roddy. Don says he’s stagestruck.

  July 11. Don had a bad day. His sitter in the morning—an actress we had met with Jack and Jim—showed up and calmly announced she could only stay one hour! And Leslie, who had promised to sit in the afternoon, called up two hours late to say she wasn’t coming! I went to the beach alone but unfortunately ran into Jess Flood, who is going to Stella Adler’s acting school because they told him in France or Italy that he really must learn to act a tiny bit before being in any more of their pictures. He’s a nice boy but I would have enjoyed the ocean much more without him.

  In the afternoon I spent two hours telling about Huxley to a young man named Jeff Sadler who just hadn’t done his homework.172

  We went later to say goodbye to John Gielgud and Martin Hensler and Bumble Dawson, and that was sad. My opinion of Bumble rose even higher because she suggested getting a London gallery for Don to exhibit in and because she ran out after us to thank him extra, having suddenly realized that she was getting one [of ] his actual drawings of her as a Christmas present from John and Martin, and not just a photograph of it. Martin paid Don $200 for the drawing, in cash!

  July 12. Last night we saw a saddening Japanese film called Lake of Dracula—saddening because every glimpse of modern Japanese life in it seemed so hopelessly and drably Americanized.

  This morning, after doing our stint on “The Mummy,” we decided to tape an interview with Don about his work methods and his attitude to his sitters, to be used for a magazine article. We were both amazed to find how alike our voices sounded. If bits of this tape had been played to me, I couldn’t have been certain who was speaking.

  July 13. So sad to read in Newsweek that Brandon de Wilde,173 that beautiful boy, was killed on July 6 in a car accident.

  Last night we had supper with Gavin, after seeing Ozu’s film The End of Summer—so clear, so haunting, so full of love and noble irony, and so unhurried that you have to slow down for the first half hour in order to get in step with it. We ate on the pier at Sinbad’s, which is one of the snuggest places I know on a foggy night, with all the weird pier folk wandering past the windows. Lenny174 doesn’t work there any more. And before long it will be closed and the pier torn down, condemned for being old, like Dobbin.

  Gavin came back with us later and astonished us by asking our advice on “a very delicate subject”; he said it was like Hitchcock’s Suspicion (or was it Shadow of a Doubt?)—well, anyhow, he is nearly certain that Mark is stealing from him, and what shall he do about it? It turned out that he has a place where he keeps money and he has been noticing that some of it was missing; and then he happened to look in a drawer in Mark’s room (for an address book) and there were some dollar bills and he knew that Mark didn’t have that much. Then came the real surprise—as far as
Don and I were concerned; the bills in question were tens, just a couple of them, I think. So I asked tactfully how did Mark get money and Gavin said, “Oh, I give it him when he needs it.” Then I had to get very very tactful and suggest that perhaps it embarrasses Mark to have to ask for money in this way (I didn’t of course add, and for such very small sums) and wouldn’t it perhaps be better to give him a lump sum (I told him you can give $3,000 a year without paying gift tax) and thus make things easier for him. Gavin thought this was a good idea and is going to act on it, I guess. But what an odd light it cast on their life together! (Don reminded me that I used to say Gavin was a miser at heart.) How odd, too, that we should be in the position of defending Mark’s behavior!

  July 14. Saw Swami last night. He is all excited because Mrs. (Xerox) Carlson has given the society $25,000.175 With that and other funds, the work on the girls’ dormitory can definitely go ahead. Swami and Pavitrananda leave for their Malibu holiday tomorrow; Pavitrananda is thinner than ever, but seems fairly well.

  Swami says that Gerald, just before he got sick, had a dream that he was at Dakshineswar, and that Ramakrishna pointed to him and said, “He belongs to me.” Can’t remember if I’ve heard this before. (Looking back through this diary, I came on it, quite by chance: August 4, 1971!)

  Later in the evening, we sat up watching McGovern and Thomas Eagleton making their acceptance speeches.176 Both were fluent and Eagleton was even quite witty and youngish and full of energy. But, oh dear, they do not for one minute look like winners. And all the groovy young people, who’d been working their asses off and who were cheering and vowing victory in November, had the heroic pathos of a lost cause. When Ted Kennedy appeared and spoke he was like a veteran actor at high-school theatricals. The whole building felt this and roared for him. He was so conscious of his power, but not ready to use it yet. I suppose he thinks another four years of Nixon will produce a backlash, and then he’ll stand up and America will hug him.177 But he shouldn’t be too sure. There may have been somebody in that crowd last night at the convention—a gay black abortionist with a Mexican mother, who has been married by Troy Perry to a Chinese Maoist boy. The Mexican mother would be women’s lib, of course. Our first truly all-American president.

  July 15. Hunt called from Texas yesterday to say that Boorman’s agent had told him that Boorman’s science fiction story has been turned down by Columbia. The agent wanted to make a deal with Hunt; Boorman will direct “Frankenstein” if Universal will buy the sci-fi story as well. Hunt said he’d read the sci-fi but would make no promises. Hunt also said he had talked to Sheinberg who had told him to “keep the faith.” Whatever that may mean. I do hope I shall one day get the chance to tell Sheinberg what I think of him.

  We had supper with Paul Wonner and Bill Brown. Once again they are planning to move. Probably up to San Francisco. But they did say they wished they had had a chance to buy Gavin’s house and that they might be interested in Elsa’s, next door to us, if it’s for sale. Bill ran on about the great Stravinsky ballet memorial festival, which he had been in New York for,178 and Bob Craft’s new book of his collected diaries; he had told Bill that he has only mentioned famous people because they “describe themselves” whereas the unfamous have to be described. Bill, not having been mentioned, was a shade sour about this; and he claimed that Bob had quoted something he said without giving him credit for it. (I think it was a parody title for a Stravinsky biography.)

  Bill also talked about Vera, how marvellous she is; gets the breakfast in the morning and fixes the last post-midnight snack and goes to all the necessary parties and performances and manages to paint in between, and drinks and smokes and entertains people. Meanwhile, Paul sat glum, wearing an unbecoming patchy sparse beard; he really is very sulky. Don said he is sure Paul dislikes him—and then added that most people do. Whenever Don makes a statement of this kind, I am apt to get irritated and contradict him, and then we have an argument and he says I hate him when he complains, because it is “rocking the boat.” Last night, I was careful not to contradict him too much. I admit it, monster that I am, I do not want to rock the boat. Why in hell should I? The seas I am sailing on are so beautiful, most of the time, and I know I can’t expect to enjoy them very much longer. Maybe I should be sadder and more thoughtful and more mindful of my latter end. But there is some virtue, surely, in just not being a miserable old man and polluting the emotional atmosphere?

  July 16. This morning, on the beach, Don accused me once again of taking him for granted, and a long discussion followed. I’m not going to write anything about this now. For reasons—

  A note came from Michael Barrie yesterday. He is at Trabuco and wants to find Edward James’s address, in order to give him back some letters he once wrote Gerald. In his note, Michael also refers archly to an exhibition of temper by Swami, when he was at Trabuco for July 4: “Swami P. sent back his chicken, saying that it was undercooked and referring darkly to the fact that if there were no one here who could cook for him he would be forced to return to Hollywood.” Perhaps I misjudge Michael, but I sense in that remark the moralism of a Peggy Kiskadden. Why shouldn’t Swami complain and get angry? Even from a Kiskadden point of view, monks need discipline. I must confess, I don’t believe I could live at Trabuco as long as Michael was there. And yet I am really quite fond of him. What makes me vomit is his smug brand of piety.

  Last night, we saw Franju’s film of Cocteau’s Thomas the Imposter. It isn’t well cast or acted, but it did seem to me full of haunting atmosphere; amazing that they could have made it in the sixties. Even the ruins seemed characteristically World War I. A terrible glimpse of a dobbin with his mane on fire! We went with Pat Faure. I can’t help it, I don’t warm to victims—especially a woman victim of a Frog who leaves her for a boy.179

  Sunshine at last—but that means the Canyon is crammed to the top with cars.

  July 17. Ken Anderson lives in a house on the Sherman Canal in Venice, only a few doors along from where Jim Gates and Peter Schneider used to live. These little wooden shacks seem holy and pure, because they have nothing to do with the culture of the marina, whose highrises and cranes are visible in the distance. We spent a couple of hours deciding which painting and which drawings of Ken’s to buy.180 Ken asked us a thousand for the painting but came down instantly to five hundred; the two drawings cost us another hundred. Ken is bearded, mild eyed, nonchalant and absolutely sure of himself. When he speaks of painting he is apt to use art jargon. He is very cool but could become friendly, I think. Later, we had supper at a French place called Puce, where they make pancakes. Kind of hippie. Boys tend to have two girls apiece and wear open waistcoats over bare bodies. The service very slow because all the cooking was being done by a little woman singlehanded, though there were two women to wait and a proprietor who did absolutely nothing but nag the help. Don thought the pancakes good; I didn’t. While I was eating mine I felt like a spy trying to chew and swallow a very tough secret document before the police arrive.

  Am reading, or rather rereading, Cocteau’s Thomas the Imposter. Between the leaves, I found a photo of Larry Paxton and me, mugging and wearing derby hats, which must have been taken in San Francisco only a short while before his death.181

  July 18. Have been dipping into my old journals of the early sixties; a mistake. Now I feel sad as shit, but must admit things are much better nowadays, at least from my point of view. Is it really good to keep a journal? I loathe doing it at the time and I get depressed when I read it. But it’s such a marvellous treasure trove. I have vowed to make an entry a day throughout July, so I’ll stick to this, but I protest, I protest.

  Actually, the current blue phase with Don is clearing up. We had a beautiful beach morning with big waves. Don has typed out our “interview” of him for the Wyatt Cooper magazine182 and really it is awfully well expressed: he talks with such authority—not at all like a downtrodden kitten, as I told him.

  Books I am in the process of reading—some of them for many mon
ths, already: The Way We Live Now, Trollope; Forbidden Colors and Spring Snow, Mishima; Nijinsky’s Diary; Inside the Third Reich, Speer; She Knew She Was Right, Ivy Litvinov; Mysteries, [Knut] Hamsun; Thomas the Imposter, Cocteau.

  July 19. Yesterday afternoon another representative came around from Occidental Petroleum; this one looked like a Jewish college professor and smoked a big pipe. I shut the door in his face without saying a word; he didn’t seem surprised, no doubt the others had reported on their reception. This aroused all the paranoid fury I try to suppress; I wanted to order a wholesale massacre. Only a day or two ago, we got a letter from [James] Covington, who is selling his house and moving to Miami; he is still interested in getting us and our neighbors, Elsa, John Hardine, Donald Fareed and Dr. Christian Herrmann, to sign a group agreement with the corporation, claiming that it might in the future bring us in $10,000 each. But how loathsome to take their money!183

  Another spurt of fury today; for the second time lately, there’s been a girl in the gym.

  Last night we saw Dr. Strangelove again. It is brilliant. That endless flight over the arctic regions. Those shots of the war room at the Pentagon, with the great circle of faces. Sterling Hayden’s mouth and cigar. Strangelove’s obscene mechanical arm.

  Faride Mantilla came in this morning to clean for us. We like her so much, better than any of the others. We really pay her less than we ought, two dollars an hour and bus fare, so we’ve had bad consciences. Today we eased them considerably by giving her fifty dollars toward a dentist’s bill; she owed $117.

  July 20. Cloudy morning; sunshine too late for beachgoing. Last night we had supper with Swami, who is with Pavitrananda, Bhadrananda and Krishna at the house on Malibu Road where they stay for their holiday. Swami’s eyes are getting worse—he strained them working on a new translation of Saradananda’s book184—and his doctor is against letting him have the cataract opera tion. He told us how some young girls who were devotees of the Baby Krishna once insisted on feeding Brahmananda with milk like a baby, which caused him to go into samadhi. Swami said he couldn’t put this story into The Eternal Companion185 because people in the West wouldn’t understand. The long lines of the evening breakers rolling into the bay—our eyes kept being pulled away from Swami’s kind of beauty to theirs.