56 Allan (1913–1991), a journalist until 1955, handled public relations for Marilyn Monroe and other major stars.
57 Osborne’s fourth wife; see Glossary.
58 London-born Australian actor of stage and screen (1916–1977) and his third wife; his films include The Heart of the Matter (1953), A Town Like Alice (1956), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1972), and Network (1976), for which he posthumously won an Academy Award for best actor.
59 Robert Ossorio (1923–1996), ballet dancer and patron, born in the Philippines, son of a wealthy sugar refiner; he founded the Manhattan School of Ballet and co-founded Manhattan Festival Ballet.
60 Straus (1917–2004), co-founder and longtime chairman of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Isherwood’s new American publisher, and his wife.
61 (1914–2008), Straus’s partner since 1955, and from 1964, chairman.
62 American philosopher, critic, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, director (1933–2004). She contributed to The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Partisan Review, The New Yorker, The Times Literary Supplement, Granta and others. Her books, including the next, On Photography (1977), were published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
63 Poet, playwright, actor, essayist (1934–1999), born in Brooklyn. He was a professor of Slavic Languages at the University of Texas at Austin, translated French and Russian poetry, then returned to New York to write and translate for the stage and act in avant garde theater, on T.V., and in film.
64 Vaughan Edwards (b. 1955), Welsh stage and film set designer working in the U.S.
65 The play by Frantz Salieri, at the Round House.
66 BBC radio director; in 1952–1953, John Lehmann broadcast a literary magazine for him called New Soundings, on the Third Programme.
67 Eric Walter White (1905–1985), poet and musicologist. He worked at the Arts Council, produced many volumes of verse and critical works about music and poetry, including studies of Benjamin Britten and Stravinsky which Lehmann published in the late 194os.
68 Gay porn star (1952–1992), born in Natick, Massachusetts, settled in Los Angeles; his professional name was Al Parker. He died of AIDS.
69 British actor, singer, composer (b. 1946), Stevie Streeter in “Rock Follies”; he was in the original London cast of Hair, played Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show (1973) and in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and on Broadway, Tristan Tzara in Stoppard’s Travesties (1975), and Mozart in Amadeus (1980).
70 British-born Margaret “Peg” Geddes, Princess of Hesse and by Rhine (1913–1997), wife of Prince Ludwig. He was a cousin of Lord Harewood, who introduced them to Britten in the early 1950s, beginning a close friendship.
71 American assistant on Joseph Andrews, then in his twenties; he went into publishing, became head of Little Brown’s Books for Young Readers in New York and later a Managing Director of Walker Books U.K.
72 Gladys Lawson.
73 Peggy Stark, her unmarried sister.
74 Student teacher (b. 1948, Montrose, Scotland), then at Moray House preparing to teach English as a foreign language. As an undergraduate reading history at Edinburgh University, he had lodged in Mrs. Lawson and Miss Stark’s basement flat.
75 Playwright and local theater owner; he and his wife, novelist and playwright Christine Orr, helped to start the Edinburgh Festival in 1947.
76 I.e., the large stream flowing through the suburbs of Edinburgh to the port of Leith.
77 I.e., in Wuthering Heights; the Taylors ran it as a weaving center and a bed and breakfast.
78 Longtime friend who was a painter, now dead.
79 Alexander “Ali” Boyt (b. 1957).
80 I.e., Muriel Belcher’s bar, The Colony.
81 Barrister and, later, Queen’s Counsel (1936–1993), from New Zealand. He rowed for Cambridge University and became Chairman of Henley Royal Regatta and a member of Britain’s Olympic Committee.
82 A friend of Coni, known as “Mrs.” Brewer; Charles Bronson’s chef in Hollywood. He died of AIDS in the early 1990s.
83 British actor, comedian, musician, composer (1935–2002), first known in Beyond the Fringe; he appeared often on T.V. and, later, made films, including 10 (1979) and Arthur (1981).
84 New York-born actress (b. 1943), in Play It as It Lays (1972), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), and others. His second of four marriages, her second of three.
85 Wife of Scottish art dealer and author Ian Dunlop, whose books include The Shock of the New (1972); he worked at Sotheby’s in New York in the 1970s.
86 John Hayes (1929–2005), the director.
87 Aka Graeme McDonald (d. 1997), British T.V. executive. He produced BBC’s “The Wednesday Play” and its successor “Play for Today.” From 1981, he was head of BBC drama, then, 1983–1987, controller of BBC 2.
88 McDonald’s longtime companion, perhaps a lawyer, now dead.
89 British actor and aspiring playwright, now dead; he had small roles in Derek Jarman’s films Sebastiane (1976), co-directed with Paul Humfress, and Jubilee (1977), and in one episode of “Rock Follies.” His T.V. play “The Judy Queen” was never produced. Later, he performed in porn in Los Angeles.
90 Cambridge-educated British geologist (1903–1991) and, from 1960, an official of the World Health Organization. He worked mostly in India and retired to London in 1970. Older brother of W.H. Auden.
91 British actress Jill Balcon; see Day-Lewis in Glossary.
92 British painter and printmaker (1937–1988), fromYorkshire; he studied with Hockney at the Bradford School of Art and the Royal College of Art.
93 Los Angeles school teacher, a regular member of Tony Richardson’s tennis foursome.
94 British T.V. and, later, independent film producer (1935–2007); she launched BBC’s “Dr. Who” in the early 1960s and, from 1974, was controller of drama at Thames T.V., where she oversaw production of “Rock Follies” and “Edward and Mrs. Simpson” for Brown, as well as “Rumpole of the Bailey” and others.
95 Reginald Donald Smith (1914–1985), Professor of Liberal Studies at the New University of Ulster, ex-communist friend of Louis MacNeice. He formerly wrote and produced drama for BBC radio.
96 British biographer and journalist (b. 1939). In the 1970s, he wrote about British royals and aristocrats; later, he focused on serial killers.
97 The French winemaker (1902–1988), also a poet, translator, playwright, screenwriter, stage and film producer.
98 Warhol designed the label for the 1975 vintage of Château Mouton Rothschild.
99 Independent American T.V. producer (b. 1933), of specials for Bing Crosby in 1976 and 1977, then serials, mini-series and made-for-T.V. movies. The Gertrude Stein project did not go forward.
100 Upton, née McKechnie, divorced British painter Michael Upton (1938– 2002) in 1964, and their son Byron died at sixteen in 1982. Her second husband, David Graves, managed Hockney’s London studio and did research and writing for him. Hockney painted Anne and David Graves several times.
101 Mohammed Mrabet (b. 1936), Moroccan storyteller and painter; Paul Bowles transcribed some of his stories and translated them from Moghrebi into English, including Love with a Few Hairs (1967), The Lemon (1969), M’hashish (1969), Harmless Poisons, Blameless Sins (1976), The Big Mirror (1977).
102 Young American teacher at the American School in Tangier.
103 American watercolorist (1905–1999), born Marguerite Loeb to a wealthy Philadelphia family, widow of Scottish painter and printmaker James McBey (1883–1959), with whom she settled in Tangier in 1932.
104 To replace the one taken by the burglars, July 1; only replaceable items such as the T.V. and cameras had been stolen.
105 American artist (b. 1943), educated at the University of Oregon, UCLA and Claremont; she showed at the Cirrus Gallery in the 1970s and, from 1979 onward, at Rosamund Felsen and taught at California State University at Northridge, 1972–1977, and, later, UCLA.
106 Jerome Hellman (b. 1928, New York), talent agent an
d T.V. and film producer, including Midnight Cowboy (1969) and The Day of the Locust (1975) for John Schlesinger.
107 American composer (1924–2008), from Brooklyn. His many T.V. and film scores include East of Eden (1955), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Barry Lyndon (1975, Academy Award), Bound for Glory (1976, Academy Award), and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).
108 The British actress and Cotten’s second wife; see Glossary under Cotten.
109 I.e., Jean Santoro.
1 The recording was released in 1976 in the U.S. as “Christopher Isherwood Reads.”
2 A state in which work can be carried out with least waste; characterized by positive feelings, psychological activation, spontaneous motivation, complete concentration.
3 When Ford pardoned Nixon (see September 11, above), he proclaimed that a fair trial was impossible, that Nixon had suffered enough, and above all that he wished “to firmly shut and seal this book” rather than allow a nationally divisive matter to drag on through legal channels. All three arguments might equally have supported a pardon for the deserters.
4 He was on the faculty at USC for over thirty years, taught at UCSB, Westmont College, and Antioch University in Santa Barbara, published fiction, essays and book reviews, and worked as an editor.
5 American film and T.V. actress (b. 1934); she won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).
6 A Los Angeles press agent organizing the publicity campaign for Christopher and His Kind.
7 A T.V. show.
8 A local radio station.
9 An 810-foot Liberian tanker, Sansinena, exploded at a Union Oil berth in Los Angeles Harbor on December 17; eight crew and a security guard were killed, twenty-two crew and thirty-six members of the public were injured.
10 ABC’s Los Angeles radio station.
11 March 26, 1962.
12 Edward Gordon Craig (1872–1966) first designed Macbeth in 1908 for Beerbohm Tree, and his last work for the stage was a New York production in 1928; his models and drawings for Shakespeare, with their stark, vertiginous backdrops, were widely exhibited and reproduced in books.
13 He had several shows in Los Angeles in the 1970s before moving to Las Vegas and giving up painting. He sat for Don Bachardy several times.
14 Renée “Zizi” Jeanmaire, French ballerina (b. 1924), left the Ballet de l’Opéra with her husband, dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, to star in his company and in Hollywood musicals—Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and Anything Goes (1956). Their daughter, Valentine Petit (b. 1955), twice sat for Bachardy.
15 Pavla Ustinov (b. 1954) appeared in some of her father’s films, including The Thief of Baghdad (1978), and produced, wrote and directed for movies and T.V.
16 The main objective in rebuilding the studio was to give Bachardy more room to paint.
17 Isherwood was evidently helping Chetanananda with his translation; see Glossary.
18 Federico Fellini.
19 Sister Mary Carita Pendergast (1904–2002), Roman Catholic nun from New Jersey, a missionary in China, 1924–1951. Nin was Roman Catholic.
20 The half-hour documentary, Christopher Isherwood: Over There on a Visit, was broadcast February 5, 1977 by London Weekend Television on “Aquarius,” series 10.
21 She was a local real estate agent.
22 A generous Isherwood fan, son of a North Carolina state senator; he worked at I. Magnin in Beverly Hills, got bathrobes for Isherwood and Bachardy at cut-rates, found paying sitters for Bachardy, and even offered to be a vigil nurse at Bachardy’s deathbed.
23 Stevie by Hugh Whitemore. “Not Waving but Drowning” is the title poem in the 1957 collection by British poet and novelist Stevie Smith (1902–1972).
24 In Yahoo, which Guinness co-wrote with Alan Strachan.
25 Death date of Isherwood’s father, Frank, in 1915, of his grandfather, John Bradshaw-Isherwood, in 1924, and of his aunt, Muriel Bradshaw-IsherwoodBagshawe, wife of Frank Isherwood’s older brother, Henry, in 1966.
26 On June 7—following the “Save Our Children” campaign of Southern Baptist, beauty queen, singer, and Florida orange juice promoter, Anita Bryant (b. 1940)—sixty-nine percent of the turn-out in Dade County (now Miami-Dade County) voted to repeal its ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
27 Taken out expressly to finance the property; they did not know her personally.
28 By Ross Thomas, published 1970.
29 In 1973, Congress imposed a national speed limit of 55 mph in response to the energy crisis. Before that, California required “reasonable and prudent” speed, which could be much faster than 55 on highways. Cars towing trailers were limited to 55 both before and after the change.
30 He did become a monk for two or three years and remained a devotee; he works in film editing, on dialogue sound effects.
31 Black comic Richard Pryor (1940–2005) attacked the audience of about 17,000 for ignoring the plight of blacks during the 1965 Watts riots, waved his backside saying, “Kiss my rich, black ass,” and was ferociously booed off the stage.
32 Rock promoter, filmmaker, and, later, political activist (1943–2007); he was Midler’s manager and planned the benefit.
33 Dancer and Broadway choreographer (1934–1989), for instance of Cabaret, which won him a Tony Award.
34 Possibly A. Alfred Taubman (b. 1924), the Michigan shopping-mall magnate who later acquired Sotheby’s and served a prison sentence for price-fixing with Christie’s. He was building an art collection and bought Rothkos, Calders, Warhols, Lichtensteins, and Betty Ashers from nearby gallery Newspace around this time.
35 Burden (b. 1946) became famous with his first show, “Shoot” (1971), in which a friend shot him in the left arm as he stood against a blank gallery wall. The 1977 show presented Burden’s 1976 income tax return and other personal financial documents with a T.V. spot giving “Full Financial Disclosure.”
36 Isherwood was interviewed on tape by Kelly Lange for Tom Snyder’s late-night “The Tomorrow Show” (following Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show”) on NBC.
37 Chptr. 3.
38 I.e., The Smithers Alcoholism Center.
39 Probably Dick Clement (b. 1937), British screenwriter and director; with Ian La Frenais, he wrote T.V. comedy for the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s— “The Likely Lads,” “Porridge”—and films—The Jokers (1967) and the 1992 adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s novel The Commitments (1987).
40 Flaubert in Egypt, mentioned above, May 8, 1973.
41 I.e., pursuing other men, in his role as Kitty.
42 Egypt’s President Sadat addressed the Knesset in Jerusalem on November 19, 1977 while working all year with U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to prepare peace talks, but on January 19, 1978, he withdrew his Foreign Minister from negotiations in protest over Israel’s tactics.
43 Diversions and Delights; see Glossary.
44 Barbara Little, Penny’s older sister; administrator at the James Corcoran Gallery for a few years.
45 Tyler had been a child actor and worked in T.V.
46 Leonardo de Arrizabálaga y Prado, Spanish poet (b. 1946), from Madrid. He became friendly with Bowles in Tangier, where he lived for several years, and was dedicatee of a chapbook edition of Bowles’s story “In the Red Room.” He published Poemas del Silencio (1976) and Nueve Prosas Ejemplares (1983; New Exemplary Prose).
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