Liberation

by Christopher Isherwood

  166 Lassally, born in Berlin in 1926, refugeed to England in 1939. He worked for Richardson on A Taste of Honey, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, and Tom Jones, and he won an Academy Award for Zorba the Greek (1964).

  167 Prince (1913–1996), American actor of stage, screen, and T.V. soaps, played Christopher Isherwood in the original Broadway production of I Am a Camera.

  168 Mentioned in D.1 as typifying the Tragic American who is broke yet has a fancy car which symbolizes the success for which he longs; see December 1939, pp. 59 ff.

  169 I.e., the 1925 film, starring Lon Chaney, of Gaston Leroux’s novel.

  170 American novelist and short story writer (1907–1997); he won a Pulitzer Prize for Tales of the South Pacific (1947), which became the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Other best-selling works include Hawaii (1959), The Source (1965), Kent State: What Happened and Why (1971), and Centennial (1974).

  171 In Lost Years, which Isherwood was writing at this time, he describes how Jack Fontan was required to dress in shorts and sit front and center exactly like this for his role in South Pacific. See Glossary under Fontan.

  172 Mona Meredith, once married to Greg Meredith; her Sanskrit name was Chinmayi, and later she became Mona Reddick. Devotees took sides strongly.

  173 Former tennis star, mentioned in D.1.

  174 Ross and Cockburn were in Berlin at the same time, but did not meet until after she moved back to London; see Glossary.

  175 John 14.8–11.

  176 Pronounced Avoya, but spelled Abhaya, as in the entry for March 25, 1973 (above), or Aboyha as in the entry for January 24, 1975 (below).

  177 When she tells how Falstaff cried out “God, God, God!” and then died, II.iii.

  178 The 1976 film of Maurice Maeterlinck’s play L’Oiseau Bleu (1909) was a U.S.–Soviet coproduction.

  179 By President Gerald Ford on September 8 for any offences committed in office.

  180 The motorcycle stuntman (1938–2007) used a jet-powered sled launched from metal tracks for the three-quarter-mile leap, but his parachute deployed prematurely, and he fell into the canyon.

  181 Mary Anita Loos (1910–2004), screenwriter and novelist; her first novel, The Beggars Are Coming, was published that year.

  182 Dewey Spriegel.

  183 Loos’s adopted daughter.

  184 Dipika; she later became Pravrajika Vivekaprana.

  185 “And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe in me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea.” Mark 9.42; see also Matthew 18.6, Luke 17.2.

  186 An early title for No Home But the Struggle.

  187 A memorial stone was unveiled in Poets’ Corner on October 2.

  188 Philip Carey as a secret agent who rescued women in danger—for Granny Goose Potato Chips.

  189 O’Brien beat Pope-Hennessy so that he choked to death; see Glossary.

  190 At Nicholas Wilder, 8225½ Santa Monica Boulevard, until November 23.

  191 Mengers, Hollywood super-agent (she represented Vidal), was born in Germany in 1938 and escaped with her Jewish parents to New York, where she grew up. Her husband, Belgian-born screenwriter and director Jean-Claude Tramont (1934–1996), was half-Jewish. Producer Howard Rosenman—whose films include Father of the Bride (1991), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), and a 1996 documentary based on Vito Russo’s book about homosexuality in the movies, The Celluloid Closet (1981)—was born in New York in 1945 to Israeli parents. Austen was also Jewish.

  192 Corderman was living in one of the Hilldale Avenue apartments owned by Isherwood and Bachardy and managing the building while Dobyns was out of town.

  193 Mahogany; see Glossary.

  194 Evidently a proposed pseudonym for Heinz Neddermeyer.

  195 Departing Bengali travellers repeat the name of the protectress of the universe so she will watch over their journey.

  1 Photography assistant and lab man for Peter Gowland.

  2 Isherwood spoke at the MLA Forum on Homosexuality and Literature, December 27, 1974, then had a drink with William S. Gray (d. 1992), born and educated in Louisiana, at Exeter, and briefly at Harvard, a friend of Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and once employed by The New Yorker. That evening Isherwood attended an MLA symposium at which Alan Wilde and Carolyn Heilbrun discussed his work. On January 14, he wrote to Judith Moffett who was working on James Merrill: An Introduction to the Poetry (1984), deflecting her questions about Merrill’s “sexual nature” and telling her he didn’t know Merrill, though he admired what poems he had read.

  3 American portrait painter (b. 1950).

  * Larry Miller.

  4 See D.2.

  5 A Hollywood devotee in the late 1940s; he helped with the magazine Vedanta and the West.

  6 Awarded by Brandeis University in recognition of lifetime achievement; Brandeis is in Waltham, Massachusetts, but until 1990, the ceremony was held in New York.

  7 Maupiti is in the Leeward Islands, northwest of Tahiti; the youthful love affair is described October 19, 1967 in D.2.

  8 Spender had already edited W.H. Auden: A Tribute (1974), a collection about Auden; in the end, Mendelson wrote a two-part literary-critical biography of Auden on his own; see Glossary.

  9 Neither piece was used. Von Wiedenmen had already published an interview with Bachardy, and W.I. Scobie contributed a piece about Isherwood a few months later; see below, April 19, October 23, and December 31, 1975.

  10 Bachardy was on the cover of the March 12, 1975 Advocate, No. 159. Two more photos of him appeared inside along with the earlier von Wiedenmen interview, a 1953 Arthur Mitchell shot of Isherwood and Bachardy together, and three Bachardy drawings—of Isherwood, Warhol, and Bette Davis.

  11 Assembly Bill 489 removed criminal penalties for adultery, oral sex, and sodomy between consenting adults; see Glossary.

  12 Douglas Schoolfield Cramer (a producer of “Love Boat”) and his partner and companion Bud Baumes planned to produce the program, but it was never made.

  13 Brian Finney, see Glossary.

  14 Called “GayThink.”

  15 Sieber (1898–1976), a Czech, married Dietrich in 1924, after giving her a small role in Tragedy of Love (1923), a German film for which he was a production assistant. They lived together for only about five years (and had a daughter), but the marriage was never dissolved. He was dying of cancer.

  16 Spelled Swananda; in the end, Swananda became head of the Vedanta center in Berkeley, and Swahananda, head of the Berkeley center and with a confusingly similar name, took over in Hollywood. See Glossary.

  17 December 4 at the Dootson-Calderhead Gallery, 311½ Occidental Street. Bachardy flew up with Nick Wilder, December 3, and did two commissioned sittings during the trip.

  18 Also a manager, promoter, and producer (1941–1999) of the film musical Grease (1978) and the stage musical La Cage aux Folles (1983), among others.

  19 Published December 17, 1975.

  20 Clark Waterman, a monk for a year or two; his wife, Elin, was renamed Kamala by Prabhavananda.

  1 His weight.

  2 For this lecture and others mentioned in the day-to-day diary below, see The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.

  3 Son (b. 1955) of Richardson’s friend Jeremy Fry; educated at a Rudolf Steiner School in England. He had a small part in the Anthony Shaffer thriller Absolution (1978), directed by Anthony Page, but never turned up on the set.

  4 Christian-Albrecht Gollub, German-born American scholar, translator, poet, and, later, jewelry designer; he published an interview with Isherwood in a German periodical Litfass: Berliner Zeitschrift für Literatur, December 1978.

  5 English literary scholar; he edited the Abinger critical edition of Forster’s works with Elizabeth Heine and translated Knut Hamsen from Norwegian assisted by his wife, Gunvor.

  6 Husband of Romney Tree and former companion of Hugh Chisolm with whom he appears in D.1.

  7 New York art cr
itic, curator, author; he wrote books, catalogues and introductions on de Kooning and others. In 1966 with John Byers, he founded the Bykert Gallery, which he ran for a decade.

  8 Wife of journalist and documentary maker, John Nugent, a reporter for Newsweek. The Nugents lived in Santa Monica.

  9 Gay activist (b. 1950); he lobbied for A.B. 489 in Sacramento, and in 1977, with a health brief, was part of the first-ever gay and lesbian delegation admitted for meetings at the White House.

  10 British stage actress (1883–1984), perhaps celebrating a few years late. She debuted on Broadway in 1916, made a small number of films—including The Misfits (1961), Camelot (1967), The Producers (1968), and Murder by Death (1976)—and often appeared on T.V.

  11 Rospo Pallenberg wrote the original story for Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and later worked on the screenplays for The Emerald Forest and Excalibur; his wife, an actress, published a book about making Exorcist II.

  12 American colorist (1923–1994), born in San Mateo, California, educated at Berkeley and at the School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He worked in Paris in the 1950s, then settled in Santa Monica.

  13 American sculptor and video artist (b. 1941), from Louisiana; notorious for her 1974 ad in ArtForum in which she appeared naked holding a dildo at her crotch.

  14 Their gardener, from Mexico.

  15 Musician, playwright, film director (1944–1994), son of Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel, who invented the Barbie doll, named after her daughter Barbara, and of Barbie’s boyfriend doll, named after Ken.

  16 Hillbrand was directing plays at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA; he and Fusco later married. He sat for Bachardy several times; she sat once. Eventually he settled in San Francisco.

  17 Journalist and author, born in the Bronx and raised in Fresno, then working for Goodstein at The Advocate. He later wrote the bestseller Recreating Yourself (1988).

  18 A doctor.

  19 Director of the Gay Media Task Force, founded in 1972 to monitor gay themes on network T.V., and an Advocate contributor.

  20 Dieter’s lover and partner; he sat for Bachardy in 1977.

  21 Lawyer (b. 1939); Los Angeles City Councilman 1971–2000, mayoral candidate in 1973 and subsequently. He wrote the first U.S. law prohibiting discrimination against AIDS sufferers. In 2001, he became president of the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York.

  22 Flowers (1939–1988) was famous for “Madame,” a bawdy old woman puppet. They appeared on T.V. in “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” and “Hollywood Squares” and eventually on her own show, “Madame’s Place.”

  23 Sandra Holtz, fifth wife, 1981–1984, of British film director David Lean (1908–1991). His sixth wife, from 1990 to his death, was Sandra Cooke. His award-winning films include The Bridge On the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and A Passage to India (1984).

  24 Maggie Smith’s second husband; see Glossary.

  25 British moral philosopher (1920–2010), educated at Oxford, where she was a tutor for twenty years. She was a professor at UCLA from 1969 until 2002.

  26 Art collector and curator, part owner of the Dootson-Calderhead Gallery in Seattle, where Bachardy exhibited in December 1975.

  27 Austrian actor (1939–1993), in German-language films, and in many small Hollywood roles, including Venus in Furs (1968) and Skyraiders (1976), and on T.V.

  28 American photojournalist and portrait photographer (b. 1940), educated at the University of Pennsylvania; she contributed to Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.

  29 Later a powerful agent, branching out into management, production and packaging.

  30 Evidently old ones, for Littman to review so he could understand the rights situation.

  31 A 1970 graduate of U.C. Riverside, where he majored in history, starred at water polo, and attended Isherwood’s lectures; he also wrestled and weight lifted competitively.

  32 Art dealer (b. 1919, New York); he ran a Los Angeles gallery until 1966 where, as early as 1952, he showed Motherwell, Rothko, and de Kooning. He was Diebenkorn’s first dealer, from 1950.

  33 Austrian-born Canadian film critic, author, collector (1940–1991); he mounted major exhibitions from his personal archive of images of Hollywood stars and drew on the archive for his more than thirty books about American entertainment.

  34 English-born Hollywood hairstylist (d. 1997), long at MGM.

  35 Co-founder, with Sidney Felsen in 1966, of Gemini Graphic Editions Limited, and his wife, an architect. Isherwood wrongly wrote her name as “Aileen.”

  36 Vedanta devotee (1928–1981) and cellist, one of the “Venice gang”; he ran a jewelry store in Santa Monica with his wife Lavanya (Felicia Michel).

  37 New York art collector and philanthropist (1898–1986) settled in San Francisco, a long-time friend of Cukor; he was a cousin of the Vanderbilts, and his father was an architect of Grand Central Station.

  38 Isherwood and Bachardy’s architect.

  39 Evidently assisting Day; he was later a local real estate agent.

  40 A lawyer neighbor.

  41 The 1974 Japanese film, sometimes translated as Brothel 8.

  42 New York model; he met Hockney in Paris and was a subject of “Friends,” a series of prints Hockney made at Gemini that year, and of other portraits. He died of AIDS.

  43 A young, blond friend of Dambacher; he occasionally sat for Bachardy.

  44 A restaurant.

  45 Gallegly played Cinderella in the musical comedy by Bill Solly and Donald Ward.

  46 Isherwood mistakenly wrote Vincent Haacke.

  47 Costume designer, from Philadelphia; he won a BAFTA with Charles Knode for Blade Runner (1982).

  48 Leslie Caron recalls this was close friend Guy Webster (b. 1939), photographer of rock musicians—The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Doors—film stars, and other celebrities.

  49 A different person than Nellie Carroll, whose real name was Jean Dobrin.

  50 American stage and screen actress (1910–2010); she was a film star in the 1930s—The Invisible Man (1933), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), The Three Musketeers (1939)—retired in the 1940s and learned to paint, then returned to T.V. and appeared in Titanic (1977).

  51 Broadway playwright, screenwriter, novelist, biographer (1906–1998), long at Warner Brothers; her films include Mildred Pierce (1945), A Stolen Life (1946), The Man I Love (1946) and Winter Meeting (1947).

  52 Professor of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, since 1972.

  53 Not his real name.

  54 Curator (b. 1936, New York) of the Los Angeles County Museum. His books include American Sculpture of the Sixties (1967). He later organized the 1988 Hockney retrospective which travelled to the Met and the Tate.

  55 Kopay (b. 1942) was a running back for the San Francisco Forty-niners and other National Football League teams until 1972; in 1975, he was the first professional athlete in America to come out publicly. Perry Dean Young, non-fiction author and playwright, was co-writing The David Kopay Story (1977) with him, a best-seller.