Liberation

by Christopher Isherwood

  Selznick, David O. (1902–1965). American movie producer, most famous for Gone with the Wind (1939). He also brought Alfred Hitchcock to Hollywood to direct Rebecca (1940). Among Selznick’s many other movies are King Kong (1933), David Copperfield (1934), Reckless (1935), Anna Karenina (1935), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), A Star Is Born (1937), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Intermezzo (1939), Spellbound (1945), Duel in the Sun (1946), Portrait of Jennie (1948), and The Third Man (1949). He worked for his father’s movie company until Lewis Selznick went bankrupt in 1923; in 1926, his father’s former partner, Louis B. Mayer, hired him as an assistant story editor in MGM. Selznick soon moved to Paramount, then RKO, then back to MGM until 1935 when he formed Selznick International Pictures with John Hay Whitney. Selznick’s aspirations were monumental, and he tried to control every detail of his pictures. Despite his box-office success, he went into debt, and by the end of the 1940s he had to close his companies. He married Louis B. Mayer’s daughter Irene in 1931, and they had two sons, Jeffrey and Daniel, before separating in 1945. When their divorce was finalized in 1949, he married Jennifer Jones. During the 1950s, he took Jones to Europe to work, and her career absorbed him at the end of his life. He traded his rights in A Star is Born to get Jones the lead in A Farewell to Arms (1957); the film failed, and it proved to be his last. Isherwood worked for Selznick in 1958, developing a script for a proposed film, Mary Magdalene, and they became friends, as Isherwood records in D.1 and D.2.

  Selznick, Jennifer. See Jones, Jennifer.

  Seymour, Jane (b. 1951). British actress, educated in Hertfordshire. She played Winston Churchill’s mistress in Young Winston (1972) directed by Richard Attenborough, then appeared as Prima in “Frankenstein: The True Story” and as the Bond Girl Solitaire in Live and Let Die (1973). Later she had numerous T.V. roles. The first of her four husbands was Richard Attenborough’s son, Michael Attenborough, from 1971 to 1973.

  Shadduck, Tom. Isherwood and Bachardy’s gardener for several years in the mid-1970s. He was the younger brother of Jim Shadduck, whom they knew from the gym.

  Shaw, Irwin (1913–1984). American novelist, playwright, screenwriter; raised in Brooklyn and educated at Brooklyn College, where he was a football star. He began his career writing for radio during the Depression, served with George Stevens’s filmmaking unit during World War II, was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and lived largely in Europe after 1951. His plays include Bury the Dead (1937) and Gentle People (1939). His best-selling novels, many of which were adapted for film and T.V., include The Young Lions (1948), Lucy Crown (1956), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970), Evening in Byzantium (1973), and Acceptable Losses (1982). He appears in D.1. His wife, Marian Edwards, an actress and chorus girl from Los Angeles, was a friend of Peter Viertel’s first wife, Jigee, and Shaw remained close to Peter Viertel all his life. The Shaws married in 1939, divorced in 1969, and remarried in 1982. Their only child, Adam (b. 1950), was a journalist and aspiring novelist in youth and later became a commercial pilot. According to Larry Collins, a friend skiing with the group on the afternoon of the fatal avalanche Isherwood tells about in his diary account for February 12, 1973, Peter Viertel himself proposed the dangerous route, whereupon Irwin Shaw and Collins dropped out of the party; Collins’s version appears in Michael Shnayerson’s Irwin Shaw: A Biography.

  Sheinberg, Sidney (Sid) (b. 1935). Studio executive; born in Texas, educated at Columbia College, the University of Texas Law School and Columbia Law School. He joined a T.V. division of Universal Studios in 1959 as a lawyer and soon moved into production as an executive. When he was just thirty-eight years old, in 1973, he became President and Chief Operating Officer of MCA, the parent company of Universal. While he was head, Universal Pictures released three of the top-grossing films of all time, Jaws (1975), E.T. (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), all directed by Steven Spielberg, whom Sheinberg originally hired to work in T.V. Sheinberg later started his own production company, The Bubble Factory.

  Shiva. The final aspect of the Hindu triad: Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Shiva, the Dissolver. Shiva is the father aspect, balancing the creative mother aspect of the godhead personified as Shakti Parvati, Kali, Durga, and other female gods. When worshipped as the chosen ideal, Shiva represents Brahman, the transcendent Absolute. Shiva also has other names and is represented in many different ways. Shiva is the lord of renunciation and of compassion. Shiva Ratri, or Shiva Night, in the early spring about four days before Ramakrishna’s birthday, is observed by worship, meditation and fasting, all day and through four pujas, from 6 p.m. until the early hours, when there is a meal.

  Shone, Richard (b. 1949). British art historian, curator, author; editor of The Burlington Magazine since 2003. His books and monographs include Toulouse-Lautrec (1974), The Century of Change: British Painting Since 1900 (1977), Manet (1978), The Charleston Artists (1984), The Art of Rodrigo Moynihan (1988), Walter Sickert (1988), Bloomsbury Portraits (1994), Sisley (1999), and The Art of Bloomsbury: Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant (1999).

  Shroyer, Frederick B. (Fred) (191[7]–1983). Professor in the English department at Los Angeles State College, where he was responsible for Isherwood being hired to teach in 1959. He wrote novels—Wall Against the Night (1957), Wayland 33 (1962), There None Embrace (1966)—and he produced a number of college English books and anthologies—College Treasury: Prose Fiction, Drama (1956) edited with Paul Jorgensen, Informal Essay (1961), Art of Prose (1965) both with Paul Jorgensen, Short Story: A Thematic Anthology (1965) edited with Dorothy Parker, Types of Drama (1970) with Louis Gardemal, and Muse of Fire: Approaches to Poetry (1971) compiled with H. Edward Richardson. He appears in D.1 and D.2.

  Simon & Schuster. Isherwood’s U.S. publisher from the late 1950s until the mid-1970s; founded in 1924 by M. Lincoln (Max) Schuster (1897–1970) and Richard L. Simon (1899–1960). Isherwood moved from Random House to Simon & Schuster in 1957 in order to work with John Goodman. When Goodman unexpectedly died, Isherwood’s new editor was Peter Schwed. After several changes of heart, Isherwood remained at Simon & Schuster anyway, and the firm published Down There on a Visit, A Single Man, A Meeting by the River, Kathleen and Frank, and Exhumations. He then moved to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the publication of Christopher and His Kind.

  Simon, Norton (1907–1993). American industrialist, art collector, philanthropist; born in Portland, Oregon. He dropped out of Berkeley to go into the sheet metal business, and at twenty-two, at the start of the Depression, bought an orange juice bottling plant which he developed with enormous success and merged with Hunt Foods in the early 1940s. Norton Simon Inc., eventually diversified to control other household brands, including McCall’s Publishing, Canada Dry, Max Factor Cosmetics, and Avis car rentals. In 1969, Simon’s son Robert committed suicide. He withdrew from his corporate roles, and the following year, he divorced his first wife. In 1971, he married Jennifer Jones. He began collecting Impressionist paintings in the 1950s, and over the following thirty years amassed one of the finest ever private art collections, including Old Masters and modern work, Indian and South Asian. During the 1960s, he loaned widely from his collection, especially to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which he helped to found; then in 1974, he agreed to give his name and financial resources to the former Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, transforming it into the Norton Simon Museum. In 1970 he ran for the Senate as a Republican.

  Simon, Richard (b. 1932). One of Isherwood’s literary agents, at Curtis Brown in London. In 1971–1972, he set up his own firm, Richard Scott Simon Ltd., and Isherwood briefly considered leaving Curtis Brown to go with him. Like Isherwood, Simon suffers from Depuytren’s Contracture.

  Sister Lalita (Sister) (d. 1949). Carrie Mead Wyckoff was an American widow who met Vivekananda on one of his trips to America and became a disciple of Swami Turiyananda (a direct disciple of Ramakrishna). Turiyananda gave her the name Sister Lalita. She met Swami Prabhavananda when he opened the Vedanta center in Portland, Oregon, and in 1929 invited him
to live in her house in Hollywood. By 1938, they had gathered a congregation around them, and they built the Hollywood temple in her garden. She appears in D.1.

  Sleep, Wayne (b. 1948). British ballet dancer; educated at the Royal Ballet School; in 1966, he joined the Royal Ballet Company, where he became a Principal with numerous roles choreographed on him. He also appeared as a guest dancer with other ballet companies and starred in West End musicals, including Cats (1981). He is a choreographer and teacher and created his own review of dance, Dash, in which he toured world wide. He appears in D.2.

  Smight, Jack (1925–2003). American director, mostly for T.V., beginning in the 1940s; he directed episodes of many regular shows including “The Twilight Zone,” “Route 66,” and “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.” He also made films—for instance, Harper (1966), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), Rabbit, Run (1970), and Midway (1976)—and a number of made-for-T.V. movies.

  Smith, David. A young admirer of Isherwood’s work; he occasionally paid court at the house in Adelaide Drive and once sat for Bachardy.

  Smith, Dodie. See Beesley, Alec and Dodie Smith Beesley.

  Smith, Emily Machell (Granny Emmy) (1840–1924). Isherwood’s grandmother on his mother’s side. Emily’s husband, Isherwood’s grandfather Frederick Machell Smith, was a wine merchant in Bury St. Edmunds; they married in 1864 and in 1885 moved to London with Kathleen, their only child, due to Emily’s unpredictable health (Isherwood describes Emily in Kathleen and Frank as “a great psychosomatic virtuoso”). She was beautiful, passionate about the theater, and liked to travel with Kathleen, who helped her to prepare a book of guided walks, Our Rambles in Old London (1895). Emily’s maiden name was Greene; her brother Walter Greene was a prosperous brewer in Bury St. Edmunds, went into politics, and became a baronet. Walter Greene entertained lavishly at his country house, Nether Hall, and Kathleen enthusiastically attended house parties and dances there as a young woman. Through Emily’s family, Isherwood was related to the novelist Graham Greene.

  Smith, Katharine (Kate) (1933–2000). English second wife of Ivan Moffat, from 1961 until 1972. She was a daughter of the 3rd Viscount Hambleden whose family fortune derived from the book and stationery chain W.H. Smith and Lady Patricia Herbert, daughter of the 15th Earl of Pembroke, elder sister of Isherwood’s Tangier friend, David Herbert, and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Kate Smith was a bridesmaid to Princess Alexandra and a close friend of Princess Margaret. She had two sons with Moffat, Jonathan (b. 1963) and Patrick (b. 1968), a godson of Princess Margaret. In 1973, she married thriller-writer Peter Townend, author of Out of Focus (1971), Zoom! (1972), and Fisheye (1974). She appears in D.2.

  Smith, Maggie (b. 1934). British stage and screen star raised in Oxford; she trained at the Oxford Playhouse School and began her stage career at the Oxford Playhouse. She has won many awards for stage and film appearances since then, including a Tony Award for Lettice and Lovage in 1990. Her movies include Othello (1965) opposite Olivier, adapted from their stage production at the Royal National Theatre, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969, Academy Award), California Suite (1978, Academy Award), A Room with a View (1985), Tea with Mussolini (1999), Gosford Park (2001), Ladies in Lavender (2004), and the Harry Potter movies. She was married to British actor Robert Stephens from 1967 to 1975 and had two sons with him, both actors. In 1975, she married British playwright, screenwriter, and children’s author Beverley Cross (1931–1998). His plays include Strip the Willow (1960), in which he cast Smith when she was still unknown, One More River (1959), Half a Sixpence (1963), and the English translation of Mark Camoletti’s farce Boeing-Boeing (1962). For the movies, he wrote Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981), in which Smith also appeared.

  Sorel, Paul (1918–circa 2008). American painter, of Midwestern background; born Karl Dibble. He was a close friend of Chris Wood and lived with him in Laguna in the early 1940s, but moved out in 1943 after disagreements over money, living intermittently in New York. Wood continued to support him, though they never lived together again. Sorel painted portraits of Isherwood and Bill Caskey in 1950, and he appears in D.1, D.2, and Lost Years.

  Spender, Elizabeth (Lizzie) (b. 1950). British actress and writer; educated at North London Collegiate School; daughter of Stephen and Natasha Spender. She had small parts in Isherwood and Bachardy’s “Frankenstein” and in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), and she worked in publishing. In 1990, she married Australian actor and satirist Barry Humphries—best known for his character “Dame Edna Everage.” She appears in D.2.

  Spender, Natasha Litvin (1919–2010). British concert pianist; her mother was a Russian émigré. She married Stephen Spender in 1941 and had two children with him, Matthew and Lizzie. She appears in D.1, D.2, and Lost Years.

  Spender, Stephen (1909–1995). English poet, critic, autobiographer, editor. Auden introduced him to Isherwood in 1928; Spender was then an under graduate at University College, Oxford, and Isherwood became a mentor. Afterwards Spender lived in Hamburg and near Isherwood in Berlin, and the two briefly shared a house in Sintra, Portugal, with Heinz Neddermeyer and Tony Hyndman. Spender was the youngest of the writers who came to prominence with Auden and Isherwood in the 1930s; after Auden and Isherwood emigrated, he cultivated the public roles they abjured in England. He worked as a propagandist for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War and was a member of the National Fire Service during the Blitz. He moved away from his early enthusiasm for communism but remained liberal in politics. His 1936 marriage to Inez Pearn was over by 1939; in 1941, he married Natasha Litvin, and they had two children, Matthew and Lizzie. He appears as “Stephen Savage” in Lions and Shadows and is further described in Christopher and His Kind, D.1, D.2, and Lost Years. He published an autobiography, World Within World, in 1951, and his Journals 1939–1983 appeared in 1985. Spender was co-editor with Cyril Connolly of Horizon and later of Encounter, and in 1968, he helped to found Index on Censorship to report on the circumstances of persecuted writers and artists around the world.

  Spigelgass, Leonard (Lenny) (1908–1985). American screenwriter and Broadway playwright, born in Brooklyn. The many films he worked on—some based on his stage plays—include I Was a Male War Bride (1949), Silk Stockings (1957), and Gypsy (1962), and he adapted his Broadway hit A Majority of One (1959) for film. He was also a producer and later wrote for T.V., turning out scripts for eleven annual Academy Awards ceremonies. Isherwood met him at MGM when they both worked there during the 1950s, and he appears in D.1.

  Stangos, Nicolas (Nikos) (1936–2004). Greek poet and translator, educated at Harvard. He was an editor at Penguin and, from 1974, of art history books at Thames and Hudson. He was the long-time companion of David Plante.

  Steen, Mike (1928–1983). American stuntman, actor, author, from Louisiana, where he was friendly with Speed Lamkin, Tom Wright, and Henry Guerriero. Lamkin introduced him to Isherwood in the early 1950s. Gavin Lambert became romantically involved with Steen during 1958, and Steen also had relationships, perhaps sexual, with Nicholas Ray, William Inge, and Tennessee Williams. He worked as a stuntman in Ray’s Party Girl and did stunts or played bit parts in other movies in the late 1950s and 1960s, including a tiny part in the 1962 film of Williams’s Sweet Bird of Youth. He published two books: A Look at Tennessee Williams (1969) and Hollywood Speaks: An Oral History (1974). He appears in D.1 and D.2.

  Stephen. See Spender, Stephen.

  Stern, Alan (1947–1986). Film producer. He was Michelle Rappaport’s associate producer on Old Boyfriends (1979) and began developing with her, Isherwood, and Bachardy plans for a film of “Paul” from Down There on a Visit.

  Stevens, Marti (b. 1931). American singer and actress; she appeared in a few films, including All Night Long (1961), several times on Broadway, and often on T.V. Isherwood also writes about her in D.2.

  Strasser, Robin (b. 1945). American actress, trained at the Yale School of Drama. She was a daytime soap regular on “Another World” (1967–1972) and we
nt on to an award-winning role in “One Life to Live” from 1979 onward. She also worked on Broadway and in repertory. She was the first wife of Larry Luckinbill, with whom she had two sons.

  Stravinsky, Igor (1882–1971). Russian-born composer; he went to Paris with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1910 and brought about a rhythmic revolution in Western music with The Rite of Spring (1911–1913), the most sensational of his many works commissioned for the company. He composed in a wide range of musical forms and styles; many of his early works evoke Russian folk music, and he was influenced by jazz. Around 1923, he began a long neo-classical period responding to the compositions of his great European predecessors. During the 1950s, with the encouragement of Robert Craft, he took up the twelve-note serial methods invented by Schoenberg and extended by Webern—he was already past seventy. After the Russian revolution, Stravinsky remained in Europe, making his home first in Switzerland and then in Paris, and he turned to performing and conducting to support his family. In 1926, he rejoined the Russian Orthodox Church, and religious music became an increasing preoccupation during the later part of his career. At the outbreak of World War II, he emigrated to America, settled in Los Angeles, and eventually became a citizen in 1945. Although he was asked to, he never composed for films. His first and most important work for English words was his opera, The Rake’s Progress (1951), for which Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto. Isherwood first met Stravinsky in August 1949 at lunch in the Farmer’s Market in Hollywood with Aldous and Maria Huxley. He was soon invited to the Stravinskys’ house for supper where he fell asleep listening to a Stravinsky recording; Stravinsky later told Robert Craft that this was the start of his great affection for Isherwood. He appears throughout D.1, D.2, and Lost Years.