Robert A. Heinlein, In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2
Page 62
On Thanksgiving Day in 2002, Mrs. Heinlein fell and broke a hip. She had been hospitalized twice earlier in that year. In the following months, Dr. Robert James, who had been in contact with Mrs. Heinlein researching Leslyn Heinlein’s biography, found a surviving photocopy of Heinlein’s unsold first novel, For Us, the Living. He put off discussing it with Mrs. Heinlein while she was in the hospital, but in fact she passed away in her sleep on the morning of January 18, 2003, and For Us, the Living (Simon & Schuster, 2004) was published by the Heinlein Prize Trust. In April 2003, a few days after what would have been her 87th birthday, her ashes were scattered at sea outside San Diego harbor by a small gathering of friends and family.
The value of the Heinlein estate had grown under Mrs. Heinlein’s management from $1 million to $10 million.9 She left a simple will, giving all the personal property, including a large amount of correspondence and other documents not already sent, to the University of California for the benefit of the Robert A. Heinlein Archive at Special Collections and Archives of the University Library at UC Santa Cruz. The investment accounts and the intellectual property (that is, those not already given to the Butler Library Foundation), endowed the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust “to encourage and reward progress in commercial space activities that advances Robert and his wife Virginia’s dream of humanity’s future in space.”10 The first Heinlein Prize, in the amount of $500,000, was awarded to Dr. Peter Diamandis (Ansari X Prize, among many other accomplishments) on July 7, 2006 (Heinlein’s ninety-ninth birthday); the second was awarded to Elon Musk (founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX—Space Exploration Technologies) on June 29, 2011.
On the three days before and including the centennial of Heinlein’s birth, July 7, 2007, a conference and gala was held in Kansas City, Missouri, with an attendance of about 750 of “Heinlein’s Children.”
Learning Curve, the first volume of this biography, was published on August 17, 2010, with a trade paper issue in June 2011. An author site, www.whpattersonjr.com, archives progress updates and corrections of errors and omissions incorporated into the trade paper edition.
APPENDIX 2
“THE GOOD STUFF”
It is a truism of biographies that “all the good stuff” comes out after the first major biography is published. This is particularly true in the case of Robert A. Heinlein, as he was so protective of his personal privacy during his lifetime. His friends and family respected his wishes, for the most part, and did not discuss him or his life for public consumption. Even in such circumstances, though, when a biography is published, the bonds of privacy are loosed, and people become willing to share their memories.1
A good many of Heinlein’s younger colleagues and friends did assist in the biography, and their kindness and generosity is acknowledged throughout, in the endnotes and elsewhere. However, the protracted process of the biography, through three starts over twenty-three years, had the unfortunate side effect of seeing almost all of Heinlein’s contemporaries pass away, their recollections gone with them.
There was, however, one remarkable exception to this general rule: A comment on Facebook revealed that one of Heinlein’s close friends acquired while in Philadelphia during World War II, Grace Dugan Sang (you met her as a character in chapters 27 through 30 of Learning Curve), still lived, now in her early nineties—was in the process of reading the biography—and wanted to correspond about various subjects therein once she was finished.
Sang—now Mrs. Howard Wurtz—was a very lively person in 2011, as lively and alive and full of beans as she was in 1945 through 1947, the time at which she and the Heinleins lived in close proximity. She generously gave her time in correspondence and digging through boxes of old documents and turned up some truly remarkable memorabilia (including the only known surviving full copy of Heinlein’s 1938 campaign poster photograph, a full sheet of fragile, much-folded newsprint).
The process of first-pass revisions of this second volume of the biography was well under way by the time Mrs. Wurtz and I came into correspondence, but the generous fruits of her searches are reflected in endnote commentary and additions at various places in the second volume. Among the copies of letters she provided, however, were some items that could not be made to fit within the compass of the second volume, because they deal with events in the first volume. In a fragment of a letter written to her friend Theodore Sturgeon (she had been close with Jerome Stanton before knowing the Heinleins and ultimately marrying Henry Sang, and so came to know Sturgeon—Stanton’s roommate—well, independently of the Heinleins), Mrs. Wurtz describes an occasion at which she was present, at which Heinlein for the only time spoke candidly of his breakup with Leslyn, which had then taken place only a few weeks before. At that time, tentatively fixed to mid-September 1947, Heinlein was “hiding out” in the San Fernando Valley (the Big Valley immediately north of Los Angeles), avoiding friends and getting ready to leave Los Angeles as soon as the divorce proceedings should be heard. The hearing was continued to September 22, 1947, after which he did leave the Los Angeles area entirely—with Virginia Gerstenfeld.
Much of the fragment deals also with details of Leslyn’s erratic and unpleasant behavior before she left Los Angeles for Point Mugu (Leslyn was actually living in the same house as the Sangs at the time), but that portion, adequately documented, has been omitted here.
Fragment of a Letter
mid-September 1947
Grace Dugan Sang to Theodore Sturgeon
.…The next night we came home from dinner and a call came for us. Henry went upstairs and came down to ask, “How’d you like to see Bob Heinlein tonight?” Pierre Gordon had called earlier to say Bob was on his way over and wanted to see us and the Corsons to say good-bye, as he expected to go east when the divorce was granted. I was delighted, because I rather expected Bob’s side of the separation to vindicate my cold and cr-u-el conduct [toward Leslyn] of the previous night. But I was surprised to find he had no intention of even mentioning Leslyn. (Unlike Leslyn, who describes Bob’s conduct to everyone she meets.) From 6 to 12, he discussed everything in the world but his personal problem. At 12, we all left, bade the Gordons good-night, and went out to our cars. We were down to our final goodbyes, and everyone was thoughtfully avoiding mentioning Leslyn, but at the last moment, I couldn’t stand it, and out of my horrid little mouth popped the words, “I’d gladly take a message to your ex-elect, except that I’m not speaking to her.” Bob came alive and looked like himself for the first time all evening. “What happened?” he asked and then, turning to the Corsons, and Henry, he said “Let’s go some place and talk; I’ve got to hear about this.” So you see, were it not for a doogan what has lots of guts we should never have heard Bob’s side of the story. We went to a drive in, and Bob, Bill, and I sat together and talked for nearly two hours leaving Henry and Lucy Corson down the counter, dying to know what Bob was saying. His story was simple: that Leslyn has been an alcoholic for years, that she throws herself at terrified men and concludes that Bob is madly jealous when he rescues the men, at their request, and that she is getting more like her Donald,2 every day: i.e., psychopathic, slightly nuts. Said Bob, he spent the best years of his life trying to get her to eat instead of drinking, but that she always had a way of sneaking in liquor and deceiving him, and if she did go on the wagon it was only for a few weeks, and then she’d be back at her tricks of hiding bottles around the place and sneaking quick nips now and then, until she’d have a mysterious collapse. But, said he, it never occurred to him that he wasn’t forever responsible for her welfare, till Dr. Fink advised him not to throw away his life on her, that he had no moral obligation to see that she doesn’t ruin her health. Ginny had nothing to do with it, he said, he’d had an affair with her, and it was nothing more than the other affairs which Leslyn had condoned. Bob agreed with us that Ginny was a queer sort, but said he hated to see her a scapegoat for Leslyn’s wrath. No, he told us, he hadn’t been seeing Ginny, or anyone—he was too upset by the whole thing, that divo
rce was the last thing he’d wanted, it just seemed the only thing to do. He was still terribly in love with Leslyn, he said, and he’d never have been able to stay away if she had not sold the house and thereby broken up the pattern he could so easily have returned to. Bill [Corson] at this point deplored Bob’s taste in women, pointed out that Leslyn had never been able to forget her days at the Pasadena Playhouse, that she still felt herself a femme fatale, although with her skeletal frame and general repugnance no one would touch her with a ninety foot pole, unless he’d been 20 years in the south seas without seeing a white woman. Tho[ugh] Bob had been telling of the difficulty he had in indicating that to Leslyn that John Arwine and Fritz Lang and others were not interested in f[ai]r. wh[ite]. body,3 he obviously resented Bill’s saying this. He stiffened and declared that Leslyn was a very attractive woman, if she’d gain a little weight. Bill couldn’t see it, and said so, with conviction. I thought Bob might rise up and smite him, in Leslyn’s honor, but he desisted. He told us he was sorry he had dashed away without seeing any of us, but that he found it sickening to go around to his friends, saying “And she’s another!” For, he said, she had assured him if he left her, he would have not a friend left in the world, and she supplied him with elaborate quotations from all his friends about his ugly faults. His plans were to go east for awhile and then perhaps return to some isolated place in Arizona or New Mexico; he hopes to marry again, he told us, but the girl must indicate that the very taste of alcohol is sickening to her. And so we said good-bye to Bob—he intended to go back into hibernation till his trek eastward—and he kissed me with more abandon than ever before, and it was most interesting.
So there you have the thing, Leslyn’s side, and Bob’s side—you takes your cherce. I’ll admit I’m horribly prejudiced, but I think anyone must admit that Bob’s conduct has been more admirable since the separation. Volumes, I suppose, could be written about the Heinleins, and their curious relationship, and no one would ever know what they were really like.
I had a plan for the reuniting of the Heinleins to save the rest of the people who will meet them some day from the shock and confusion of knowing them, but only Bernice [Hicks] supports it. Bill Corson is all for Bob, and has always considered Leslyn a filthy influence, Pierre [Gordon] feels about the same; Estill Hicks [Bernice Hicks’s husband] likewise, while Bernice agrees with me, and Henry feels they bring out the worst qualities in each other and should remain separated, but he hopes to avoid both of them. What do YOU think?
True to Bob’s theory that is you leave anyone exposed to Leslyn long enough, they will see why it’s impossible to live with her—so there’s no need to explain, just give her a little time. It’s certainly worked out in the Hicks household, since we abandoned Leslyn and she became a full time house guest. Estill is a nervous wreck from worrying about her smoking in bed while plastered, and Bernice, who is hard to humiliate, has at least been embarrassed at the way she staggers and tumbles around the house in full view of the innocent daughters and fascinated visitors. She has made passes at Estill, told him of her need for a MAN, and even tried to whisk up a little misunderstanding between him and Bernice; she has lied to the gals, telling them they needn’t be shocked at her drinking, that their parents drink plenty, too, when they’re not around. And meanwhile she has drunk everything in sight, and found everything that’s hidden away, from plain beers to exotic liqueurs stashed away for special occasions. She has the Corsons over a financial barrel of some sort; I don’t know just what it is,4 but she uses their indebtedness as a goad to make them drive her to places she’s too wobbly to walk to. She had them take her to Laguna when sister Keith was slugged and raped while drunk, and returned from Laguna in a taxi (the rich Mrs. Heinlein) so drunk that the cab-driver had to haul her inside the house. Pierre made the mistake of inviting her to a party which we accordingly avoided, and had to carry her home, and Bernice had to put her to bed.
Yet Leslyn may surprise everyone, for she came out of her stupor last week and got herself a job, editing some publication at the Point Mugu Navy experimental station up the coast. Bud Scoles (don’t recall if you know him) got her the job, and everyone hopes to Christ she stays sober, since Bud just sluffed off his alcoholic wife a little while ago, and it would be just too much for the poor man. If she bounces back, Bernice plans to take her to a sanitarium and thence to the Valley A.A. people.
Anent Leslyn, last night Henry, Bernice and I had the most awfully embarrassing moment ever suffered, but I [end of ms.]
Mrs. Wurtz included a handwritten notation on the back of the second page of this fragment:
I don’t have the rest of this, but this is the story: We had rented a room-and-bath from Bernice [Hicks] in her sprawling house in the canyon. The uppermost level is Seaview Trail, the lower level Woodland Lane. Our room had its own entrance on Woodland Lane. Leslyn was a house-guest, using daughter Dotty’s room (Dot was away). Between our room and Dotty’s was a little sitting room. Henry and I were there with Bernice. Leslyn had gone out for a walk, but after we’d talked a long time, the curtain between rooms was pulled aside, and Leslyn said “Did I hear my name mentioned?”!! Henry and I fled, leaving Leslyn to Bernice’s wrath. B has no patience with eavesdroppers! (I don’t think L went for a walk at all!)
As it happens, the main incident of this fragment, Heinlein’s late-night meeting with friends, is mentioned in a letter Heinlein wrote to Bill Corson, on September 18, 1947:
I have been sorely tempted to take you up on your kind invitation, but don’t think I will, despite the point about no discussion of my “domestic thing.” The reason is that my emotional reaction to the last evening I spent with my friends—you and Mouse, Sangs, and Gordons—was intense and unfavorable. I went into the mulligrubs. I am able to stay on an even keel only by dissociating myself as completely as possible from my former life.
I plan to stay away from former associates and haunts until my emotional experiences have had time to age a bit, until I have become more or less indifferent to my Piglet. Even writing this letter brings up such emotions of sorrow that I can hardly control my tears. I have no doubt as to my course of action—my life with her had become intolerable—but I am by no means indifferent to her. No need to go on about it.
When I said good-by to you folks I honestly expected to be leaving Los Angeles within twenty-four or forty-eight hours and to be leaving California within the week. However the trial was delayed beyond the estimated date—it is now set for the 22nd [of September 1947]—and I did not dare leave California until my affairs were straightened up. So I found a court [trailer court] where I could hole up at the far end of San Fernando valley, about thirty miles from Hollywood. Not in Van Nuys—apparently Leslyn thinks I am in Van Nuys because I happened to mail two items to her on Ventura Blvd., I must have been in the V.N. postal zone. (I had to go to a bank to get a money order for her alimony payment; like a dope I mailed it at the time, instead of waiting until the next time I picked up my mail. Not that it matters, I suppose, but what you told me about her talk of detectives has made me jumpy. I’ve been meticulous in my conduct, continue to be, and am damn glad I have been. I’ve no way of guessing what she might do.)
(I have to hang around town because of her unpredictability. I don’t want to find myself in the East, with my get-away money gone, when my next stop should be Nevada5—I’ve got to wait until she actually goes through with it. This stalling around has put the damndest pinch on me financially that I have experienced in years. And the waiting makes it hard to write decent copy.)
I may possibly look you and Mouse up after the trial and just before leaving, provided my emotions are in shape. I don’t know, because I don’t know just what the effect of the fait accompli will be on me. If it throws me into a tailspin, I’ll want to sweat it out alone. You, more than any other person alive, know what is good about Leslyn and why I can’t forget her—and you know also, better than anyone but me, what her characteristics were that finally made it impossible f
or me to go on any longer. I don’t have to explain anything to you—and I wont explain anything to anyone else. I prefer being thought a heel to undergoing the disgraceful and undignified process of justifying myself by telling tales on my lost Pig.
My love to both of you,
Bob
Mrs. Sang also found a fragment of an earlier letter, also to Theodore Sturgeon or possibly to Jerome Stanton, which suggests how the “outsiders’” view of the breakup evolved over the summer of 1947. This letter appears to have been written in late July or possibly early August 1947—that is, before the events of the previous fragment, which took place in mid-September 1947. This summary of the breakup places the blame squarely on Ginny Gerstenfeld:
.… Leslyn resented and criticized her, the more Bob defended her. At last Ginny got Bob to turn agin Vida [Jameson], and Vida moved out. Then she began working to get herself moved in. Leslyn said no. Bob was irked, and finally Leslyn gave in, and invited Ginny to come live with them and be their love. Well, when the Snow Maiden got her skate in the door, things were different. Leslyn slept in the studio whilst Bob and the femme fatale cavorted in the master bedroom. Ginny was a virgin, but she learned fast. She and Bob drank and smoked a lot, but Leslyn was not to smoke or drink. One night when Fritz Lang was up, Leslyn kissed him when he was leaving, and Bob bawled her out for repulsive conduct. Leslyn’s claim is that Bob had become very puritanical about her conduct, tho Bob had his harem, liquor, and cigarettes. Bob and Ginny left her home when they went skating (Ginny had given all the skating lessons to Bob, anyway, leaving Leslyn to cool her heels on the sidelines), and when all three went anyplace together, Ginny would cling possessively to him and paw him in public. At last Ginny decided she was tired of having Leslyn around and wanted Bob all to herself. Leslyn declined the suggestion that she move out, and Bob tried to keep things as they were, but Ginny was more and more possessive, and somehow Bob couldn’t seem to concentrate on his writing any more. At last he said he thought they ought to go away for awhile, he and Leslyn, to some quiet place in Arizona where he could write.6 When we moved in at the Hicks’ house,7 Leslyn was preparing for the trip, but a few days later I called and she was in tears because Bob told her he was only taking her along for appearance, that he intended to go off by himself for awhile, and she could go wherever she liked. This was too much, and Leslyn packed her bags and moved out to her cousin Marion Baird’s house. A few days later Sam Kamens, their lawyer, called Leslyn and asked that she come to the office a certain day to discuss with Bob divorce arrangements. When she did so, she was offered a choice of getting the divorce herself with $30 a month8 and the house being awarded her, or Bob’s getting the divorce, keeping the house, and providing her with larger alimony. On Sam’s advice, she chose the former.