Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  59 Not his real name.

  60 Reading, not writing; none of Heard’s own books is about mescaline.

  61 Possibly The Seven Deadly Sins. Isherwood never translated Brecht for Kirstein, though he translated the verses in Desmond Vesey’s 1937 version of Dreigroschenroman, A Penny for the Poor, later republished as Three Penny Novel (1958).

  62 A journey to the end of the night (echoing Céline’s title).

  63 British actor, filming in Raintree County.

  64 British novelist and screenwriter (he scripted The Barbarian and the Geisha, among others).

  65 The film of Irwin Shaw’s novel.

  66 American stage star (1884–1946); long after her retirement, she originated the role of Amanda Wakefield in The Glass Menagerie (1945) on Broadway.

  67 Probably The Five Ages of Man: The Psychology of Human History (1963).

  68 New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation—Manus 1928–1953 (1956); Manus, named for its tribal inhabitants, is the largest of the Admiralty Islands, northwest of New Guinea.

  69 An unfinished novel by “Corvo.”

  70 An autobiographical novel, written mostly in 1909 after Corvo moved to Venice (subtitled A Romance of Modern Venice).

  71 Later, in the margin, Isherwood added: “Mr. Skeffington, I now remember.”

  72 Beside this paragraph Isherwood wrote: “Used in A Single Man.” The neighbors were Mr. Hine, next door, and Mr Hine’s good friend Mr. Stickel, across the street.

  73 A restaurant and bar next to Jo Masselink’s apartment.

  74 Louis (his first name) owned a motel and gas station (later just a parking lot) next door to Jo Masselink’s building and an apartment building across the street.

  75 Producer; head of studio at Fox from 1956.

  76 The Santa Monica airport.

  77 Isherwood later added in the margin: “My impotence.”

  78 I.e., for the monk who had been arrested.

  79 Later Isherwood underlined word and put an exclamation mark in the margin.

  80 Logan was to direct a play by Lamkin, Out by the Country Club, but the production never came about.

  81 Francis Bacon told Isherwood this was his intention in his paintings; see diary entry for February 10, 1956.

  82 By Charlotte Anne Elizabeth Moberly and Eleanor Frances Jourdain, first published in 1911 under the pseudonyms “Elisabeth Morison” and “Frances Lamont.”

  83 In Proust’s Le Côté de Guermantes (The Guermantes Way), when Swann reveals he is dying and the Duchess does not pause to react because the Duke says they will be late for supper—but then sends her upstairs to change her shoes which do not match her dress.

  84 Longstanding differences between neighboring Turkey and Syria were heightened by the Suez war; see Glossary under Suez crisis.

  85 History of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (1957).

  86 Romain Rolland, The Life of Ramakrishna (1929).

  87 Isherwood’s introduction to “The Speckled Band” characterized Holmes as essentially comic; he dropped Conan Doyle from the anthology, but later printed the introduction in Exhumations.

  88 American actor.

  89 Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, torn down in the 1960s.

  90 Henry Fonda’s second wife, Frances, mother of Peter and Jane, cut her own throat over a proposed divorce in 1950.

  91 Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer” was included.

  92 Authentically Viennese.

  93 American painter.

  94 Shaw’s play starred Glynis Johns, Charles Laughton, Burgess Meredith, and Cornelia Otis Skinner.

  95 José Quintero’s original posthumous production of O’Neill’s masterpiece, with Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Jason Robards Jr., and Bradford Dillman.

  96 A retrospective of the Swiss painter at the Museum of Modern Art.

  97 Eastern European novelist and folklorist, best-known for his gypsy stories and for The Volga Boatmen (1926).

  98 South African novelist.

  99 British novelist.

  100 Screenwriter (often for Shirley Temple and Alice Faye) and producer.

  101 Film star.

  102 The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.

  103 Swami Gambhirananda’s History of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission.

  104 Anne Cramer, a wealthy client and friend of the Duquettes; fires are frequent in the Topanga, Malibu, and Trancas area.

  105 Isherwood later added in the margin: “(Impotence—why was I so mealy mouthed about this?)”

  106 The Maids of Honor.

  107 Margaret Spender, wife of Stephen Spender’s brother Humphrey, died of Hodgkin’s disease on Christmas Day 1945.

  108 Isherwood added in the margin: “(This became permanent, in both thumbs.)”

  109 Natasha Spender explains that she was in fact repeating a remark made by Auden, that as an undergraduate in Oxford during the 1920s, Spender had been asexual.

  110 309 Monterey Road.

  111 Christopher Fry’s translation of Jean Giraudoux’s play La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu.

  112 Isherwood and Bachardy first spent the night together on Valentine’s Day 1953.

  113 By Petronius.

  114 Isherwood added in the margin, “As Speed put it: ‘I’m going to jerk him.’”

  115 A favorite actress of Bachardy.

  116 Isherwood added in the margin: “(Impotence again, I guess).”

  117 The actress, Janet Gaynor, and her husband, Gilbert Adrian, celebrated costume and fashion designer (known as “Adrian”).

  118 About to be republished by Jonathan Cape (for the second time, in 1957) and by New Directions (in 1958); Isherwood wrote a new foreword for each edition and eventually reprinted the later American one, which he preferred, in Exhumations.

  119 Sherwood later published at least one novel, Stradella (1966), set in Hollywood.

  120 “The Goldbergs,” on TV.

  121 Huston’s film about a nun and a marine stranded on a desert island in WWII (starring Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum).

  122 Wasson and his wife lived in La Paz; he made documentary films.

  123 By W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman.

  124 Isherwood had Katharine Prescott Wormeley’s translation of The Vicar of Tours.

  125 Pavel Tchelitchev, the Russian-born painter.

  126 Van Druten based a play on the Crippen murder; see Glossary under Crippen.

  127 Since contracting hepatitis.

  128 Sam Zimbalist (he died in 1958 while producing Ben Hur).

  129 Jensen Yow, an artist and curator, was a friend of Lincoln Kirstein and had a room in Kirstein’s house.

  130 “Twenty-Five Years of the Novel” by Francis Wyndham, in Lehmann’s The Craft of Letters in England (1956).

  131 The Bhagavatam Purana; see Glossary under Avadhuta.

  132 A. E. Housman, “Additional Poems,” IX, in Collected Poems.

  133 Chiaroscuro: Fragments of Autobiography, First Series (1952).

  134 June de Baum.

  135 Isherwood and Bachardy saw her show at the Coconut Grove on July 3, and Bachardy wanted to visit Horne at home, which they did on July 13.

  136 They had seen the same production of Thornton Wilder’s play, starring Ruth Gordon, in New York.

  137 An acting school.

  138 Weingarten, her husband.

  139 Possibly referring to the Broadway musical The Bandwagon; Isherwood visited the set of the film, released in 1953.

  140 I.e., Trader Vic’s.

  141 German character actor (1893–1943).

  142 Five Modern No Plays.

  143 Laclos’ 1782 novel.

  144 A road off Mulholland Drive.

  145 Erica Steele was the professional name of Gay Vaughan (later Gayle), a redheaded, tough-talking New York madam who supplied women for the friends of oleomargarine heir Minot Jelke; she was one of the photographer Peter Gowland’s first nude models in 1938 and became a friend.

  146 A Hindu saying, “Thou art that.” />
  147 She was an Astor, and wealthy.

  148 The TV series with Gavin Lambert for Hermione Gingold; see Glossary for the Burns brothers.

  149 The British revue star.

  150 Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860–1869; see diary entry for December 1, 1952.

  151 Leftover Life to Kill (1957).

  152 On Saturday, September 14 Isherwood went with Bachardy and Thom Gunn to visit Jerry Lawrence; Cecil Beaton joined them for supper at Sinbad’s on the Santa Monica Pier. The scene evidently occurred afterwards, possibly over Bachardy’s frustration in trying to befriend Gunn. Isherwood may have been drunk.

  153 The 1958 film of Charles Locke’s novel was actually called From Hell to Texas; Murray starred with Diane Varsi and Dennis Hopper.

  154 MGM’s star hairdresser.

  155 See diary entry for February 15, 1956.

  156 Screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist; longtime collaborator and friend of Roger Edens.

  157 A serious talk.

  158 He was a potter by profession.

  159 By Maria Dermoût, translated from the Dutch by Hans Koningsberger.

  160 Isherwood’s new editor at Simon and Schuster; see Glossary.

  161 One of the earliest homosexual organizations.

  162 Vincente Minnelli was the director of Gigi.

  163 From the novel by Robert Travers; the script was finished by Wendell Mayes.

  164 English novelist with whom van Druten corresponded and swapped limericks; she lived on the East Coast.

  165 The rapist is beaten up by his victim’s husband and leaves town.

  166 In fact, Kiskadden recovered; see Glossary.

  167 The Russian-born painter, Nicholas de Staël, made woodcuts to illustrate Char’s volume Poèmes (1952).

  168 The sports wear manufacturer.

  169 Finnish actress; she had a small part in Diane, and Isherwood got to know and like her.

  170 For sannyas, the aspirant must renounce caste and life itself; thus Krishna first had to join a caste, the Brahmins, and then “die.” See Glossary under sannyas.

  171 The 1939 film, shown on TV.

  172 On Mary Magdalene.

  173 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975), scholar of Hindu religion and philosophy, Vice President of India throughout the 1950s and President from 1962 until 1967.

  174 The wife of Los Angeles architect John Lautner, who was a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple and a mentor to Charlton.

  175 The boyfriend was a smalltime gangster, Johnny Stompanato; the daughter was Cheryl Crane.

  176 German modernist dancer.

  177 Raymond Leopold Bruckberger, a French Dominican friar who was a twice-captured hero of the Resistance and an intellectual figure in post-war France, had published a biography of Mary Magdalene, Marie-Madeleine (1952; English translation, 1954) and, during the war, had made a prize-winning film, set in a Dominican convent Les Anges du péché (Angels of Sin). See also Glossary under Selznick, David O.

  178 A line from the stripper’s song, “Zip,” in Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey.

  179 “It has a beginning, has an end, but it is not a whole.” From “Abkündigung” (“Curtain Speech”), a posthumously published epigram which Goethe wrote for but did not use in Faust.

  180 The Huntington Hartford Foundation; see Glossary under Huntington.

  181 Vice-President Richard Nixon made a goodwill tour of South America from April 27 to May 15; hostile demonstrations in Peru and especially Venezuela prompted Eisenhower to order U.S. forces into the Caribbean as a precaution.

  182 The city in Japan; Isherwood and Bachardy visited Nara in October 1957.

  183 In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

  May 26, 1958—August 26, 1960

  MAY 26. HAD lunch with Carter Lodge and Dick Foote today. As a memento of Johnnie, Carter gave me a pair of gold cuff links which he had given Johnnie at the opening of I Am a Camera. They are made of gold, in the shape of cameras, each with a tiny ruby in it. In one camera is engraved: “I am a camera”; and in the other: “What are you?” Not very nice, and quite useless to me. But a logical present, I suppose; and it must have been very hard for Carter, picking out gifts for all Johnie’s friends.

  Lesley Blanch (Mrs. Gary) called this morning and asked me what were the latest bulletins from France in the crisis1—a funny question for the wife of the French consul to ask! Their radio had broken down.

  Very warm, brilliantly clear weather after a cold night. All of Catalina sharply visible as I left Selznick’s. David is bad to work with in the afternoons. His attention strays, he yawns, lies down on the sofa, apologizes, snores. The grim nanny of Mary Jennifer came up to report that, “We and Frank have reached the parting of the ways.” Frank is the tall arrogant chauffeur. He is to leave at once.

  My hand very painful as I write this.

  Don is spending the night in town and not with his folks; they are motoring through Mexico. I hope I hit the right tone of voice on the phone when he told me he was going to do this. “Oh, good.” Not “Oh, good!” Or “Oh,—good.”

  May 28. As a matter of fact, Don showed up later, saying that he’d been unable to find anywhere to sleep—whatever that meant. But tonight, again, he’s called to say he’ll stay away. Not that I mind that, particularly. I’d just as soon not have him around when I feel sad as I do now—and yet his not being here makes me sadder.

  Why are you sad, you stupid creature? Because I’m old, old, old—and getting older, older, older. A dying animal. And even though my health is relatively good right now, I have no sparkle left, no joy in me, as I had even a few years ago.

  I dread loneliness. I dread losing Don.

  Worked all day on the Mary Magdalene script, which I’ve just started. It reads like inch-deep shallow Shaw.

  Yesterday we went to see the Stravinskys, and Igor talked with nervous anxiety about the severe bleeding he has had from a broken vein in the intestine, and that was so sad. And I got drunk and was nasty to Don for not taking more interest in our money problems. And that was so ugly.

  Oh, I’m sick of myself.

  June 2. My hand got so bad the day before yesterday that I had to go to Dr. Sellars, who wrapped it in an elastic bandage and told me to take aspirin. Igor is now in hospital—Cedars of Lebanon—with two bleeding ulcers. Jo has a mysterious pain in her kidneys.

  Saddened by Don’s approaching departure for New York. He has done two really amazing flower paintings.

  Selznick continues to hound me on. On Friday last we had him to dinner—with the absurd Garys, the enigmatic Alan Pakula2 and the bright-eyed glassy-girlish bitch, Anita Colby.3 Afterwards, he went into the downstair bedroom and slept. Jennifer, just back from India, and her battle with the Italian police chief at the airport, woke him up and apologized to us. These power figures are actually intolerable except in their own homes.

  Waiting to get the Sunbeam-Talbot fixed the other day, I was accosted by a round-faced little Jewboy of about twenty. “Gee, Mr. Isherwood,” he said. “I hope when I’m your age I’ll be as famous as you are. Why, even my sister has heard of you!” He was a great reader of Dostoevsky.4

  June 5. Changes are on foot.

  Selznick leaves for New York on Monday, instructing me to forget all about the treatment and the screenplay and write a synopsis, “As you would for one of your own novels.” How very surprised he’d be if I did just that!

  Every so often during the day I feel sad, remembering that Don is soon leaving for New York. He stayed away last night, again. I don’t ask where. I suppose I should, in a way, just to make it more natural.

  I feel a great urge to pull myself together, stop being fat and sedentary, get on with the Ramakrishna book and my novel. “One instant’s toil to Thee denied”5 does not apply to Selznick.

  Ernie Brossard’s tale of his paranoia-train journey in Florida, shortly before his breakdown. Detectives watched him at the station. He was put into an old-fashioned car with no lights, after
being the only passenger who was asked for his ticket. His bag was dusted. Men banged chains against his seat. He decided that the FBI thought he had a bomb in his bag. And yet all these were real incidents. Paranoia is a kind of heightened awareness which makes one see how extraordinarily sinister ordinary life is—or can seem, if one wishes. What else but this were Edward and I cultivating at Cambridge, when we invented Mortmere?

  Sellars has more or less told me to bear my thumb, and wait and see if my wrist gets worse. It may be gout.

  Who are you—who writes all this? Why do you write? Is it compulsion? Or an alibi—to disprove the charge of what crime? What am I, I wonder? God seems real but very remote. Daily life seems remote but very near. Don is real, but I take him for granted. I ought to be far, far more interested in him. I don’t mean—for his sake; for mine. Through him I could understand a lot.

  Oh Lord, help me to understand where I am going. Take me up high and show me my life.

  June 9. Heavenly weather, clear, bright, a breeze, no smog, not too hot. I went on the beach, frittered the day away—but who cares? Selznick has left for New York.

  Last night we went up to supper there. Betty Bacall said that she’d never known what a woman’s life was for until she felt a baby kick inside her—this for the benefit of a hugely pregnant Frenchwoman who’d come along with the Louis Jourdans. (Jourdan took off his shirt to play ping-pong rather too readily—though he certainly looked good without it—and beat Romain Gary, but was defeated by Greg Bautzer6—and Gary exclaimed: “The French are beaten—good! I loathe the French!”) Later, Gary proclaimed that he doesn’t give a damn what people think of him, and this he proved by telling how he goes track running at UCLA and how a press photographer got pictures of him doing it and published them. Betty Bacall was gleeful because of the mess Peter Viertel is in with Deborah Kerr. She ruled that this was more serious than Peter’s involvement with Joan Fontaine, because Joan is older than he is. After supper, Lenore Cotten was telling, also with zest, how Lesley Gary had been snubbed by David Selznick when she asked him about his career.

  A good—because psychologically true—Hollywood story. A maid boasts to her friend—also a maid—about the house she works at: wonderful people—they entertain every night—and always big celebrities, top stars. The friend is thrilled: “And what do they talk about?” The maid: “Us.”