Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  On Saturday (May 14) we went up to supper with Gerald Heard and Michael—with the Stravinskys and Bob Craft. Gerald looks wonderfully trim and youthful these days. He bitched the Stravinskys and monopolized the conversation all evening.

  For example: Gerald had a postcard of a volcanic eruption on Hawaii. “It looks just like one of your paintings,” he told Vera. “Won’t you sign it?” So Vera signed it, “From Vera to Gerald.” But Gerald insisted she should add: “To my good friend Gerald, from Vera.”

  Gerald kept saying, “Vera has that sad, distant look,” and “Maestro is aloof.”

  As for poor Igor, all he wanted to talk about was his health. One felt they were ill at ease with Gerald—quite different from when they come to our house.

  On Sunday, we went to the Selznicks’ and I got drunk and hugged Marilyn Monroe a lot, and then banged with my fist on the piano, saying, “That’s how I feel.” In the morning, my wrist was so sore I had to stop typing. Otherwise, I’d have finished a rough draft of “The Others.”165

  Dr. Stuurman phoned to tell me that, after all, the chancellor has agreed to have me, so the Santa Barbara offer is definite.

  When I told my evening class, yesterday, that I would let them off next week, they all loudly protested. Which made me feel good. So I told them funny stories.

  Jill Macklem had one of our picnic lunches in the park. She tells me that she and her husband “live together like brother and sister” now. They have two children. In between the children, they got divorced and she married a man who was a painter and really romantic. He used to go into the fields in the early morning and pick daisies for her. But he was so possessive she left him and remarried Les, the first husband.

  The big stink made by Mr. Khrushchev continues to spread.166 At a party we went to last night, Selznick and Ivan agreed that he certainly does not want war. But there are dangerous times ahead.

  The party was at the beach home of Tim Durant’s167 daughter, a big blonde brute who has married a footballer. Football photographs over the bar, and, behind it, Jeff Richards—a former MGM hope, now going to fat. Durant’s daughter accused Ivan Moffat of being a pansy and said approvingly that Jeff Richards was cruel to “the poor little fags.” Jeff had mimicked Don’s voice girlishly.

  Ivan was rather grim, what with the summit breakdown and the decision of the screenwriters not to settle the strike.

  David Selznick walked with me on the beach and talked about Wendell Willkie. David supported him for a while, then realized he was a lush and a girl chaser.

  May 19. Yesterday I was approached through Geller by MGM—would I work for them? No doubt there’s a lot of scabbing already.

  Don has just called to say he’s staying the night in town, which annoys me, because I’m stuck with spending the evening seeing that boring Brecht’s play.168 He is always telling me these things at the last moment—and of course it’s partly a subconscious wish to prevent me from making any dates.

  However, his birthday yesterday was very harmonious. We spent the evening watching Laughton hamming it up on TV, as a rabbi.169

  May 30. One of my longest lapses in months. I don’t really know why. I have certainly been no busier than usual.

  On the 19th, I finished a rough draft of “The Others”—the Munich crisis episode of my novel. It is very rough—the Waldemar-Karin170 relationship hardly integrated at all, as yet, with my diary material. Nevertheless, I still feel that it’s greatly needed. Since then, I haven’t done anything to it. Hope to start the revision tomorrow.

  On the 21st, Eddie James came to supper, with an exceedingly square British secretary named Michael Bryan. Eddie was fascinating, as usual, telling of the attempt to murder him by a boy at his Mexican ranch. The boy fixed a booby trap, a dead tree log, with a trip line attached to a rare orchid floating in Eddie’s swimming pool.

  But since then, Eddie has been a damned bore, fussing about the safety of his pictures in Paul Millard’s apartment, now that Paul is away and his friend Dick Dobyns is giving drunken parties there.

  That day, both Don and I stopped drinking and we have agreed to keep off it for a month, at any rate. What chiefly upsets me about drinking is the smoking that goes with it. I feel so awful in the morning. I’d hoped that giving up drinking would make me lose weight—but I don’t seem to be—or only very slowly.

  Charles Laughton is at the Cedars of Lebanon with gallbladder trouble. He’ll have to have an operation later. He talks of buying Hal Greene’s house next door, so as to have a place to get away from Elsa. Meanwhile, he’s inviting his friend Terry [Jenkins] to come over from England.

  Charles and I are much better friends now than before. I lent him “Afterwards,” which he liked, and Maurice.171 Don has been drawing him.

  In addition to the Plato project, Charles wants me to do a modern version of The School for Scandal,172 set in Hollywood. Am very dubious about this.

  Jed Harris wants me to do a revised version of Hedda Gabler for Bette Davis at the Pasadena Playhouse.

  On the 24th, they had a “reception” for me at State College, fruit punch and cookies, in the afternoon. The president shook my hand and told me, “You’re the kind of person we want here.” How often I have been told the opposite! He gave me a printed testimonial and we were photographed as it changed hands.

  But a much better testimonial was from the cute blonde girl (Nancy Bernard? Gay Robertson?173) in my morning class, who said, “Don’t ever change, Mr. Isherwood!”

  On the 25th, I drove up to Goleta and got the job at UCSB174 for next fall. They agreed to all my requests and I think I shall like it there.

  May 26 was Rory Harrity’s birthday. Don and I had the worst scene we’ve had in six months or more, because I’d forgotten to have the steaks cut up for barbecuing. Don became quite hysterical and screamed at me like a mistress at a servant. Then he was ashamed and furious with me. He’s still sulking about this, but things are better. When shall I learn how to handle this kind of thing? Maybe never.

  The worst of not getting drunk is that most people bore me pissless—at least, parties bore me pissless. Hideously bored by Marguerite, Rory and Gavin. Bored last night at the Selznicks’ till I could have screamed.

  Two of Don’s friends came in to draw today, and then announced they were going on the beach. So Don’s working day is ruined. He’ll probably be in a bad mood about this later. Also, the girl announces with a certain glee that she and her husband are going to emigrate to Brazil, because there’s certain to be an atomic war. This too has probably upset Don.

  He is at present tremendously fascinated by astrology. Carter Lodge gave him From Pioneer to Poet by Isabelle M. Pagan.

  June 5. Another shorter lapse, because this week has been so busy.

  Gore Vidal arrived at the beginning of it; we had supper with him last Monday the 31st. Gore is running for Congress and full of politics, which, he rather hints, is his alternative to writing. (As a matter of fact, his play The Best Man is probably the best thing he has done, and it is the vilest spite of bad luck that the strike should have cut it short.) He thoroughly enjoys the rat race, even including huge shindigs at his home for his backers and their wives, and the danger that the Republicans may smear his private life. He seems to view without alarm the prospect of Washington, and hole-and-corner sex. He has made some deal with a bank which guarantees him $50,000 a year for the next ten years; this he did by selling all rights to The Best Man. He is sure Jack Kennedy will win, and he expresses enormous admiration for Kennedy, as the happy-go-lucky kid who turned tough and ambitious. “Russell” in his play is obviously part Kennedy, part Gore.

  What one feels and rather loves in Gore is his courage. He’s most definitely not a crybaby. He has a great good-humored brazen air of playing the game—constantly using the latest fashionable expressions, such as “grimsville” and “closetwise.” Last night, he nearly got into a fight on a parking lot, because the man in front of him wouldn’t move on. He jumped out of the c
ar, ready for battle. Later he told us with self-satisfaction, that he finds a fistfight so relaxing; and that no young delinquent has ever attacked him, because they all sense immediately that Gore would fight back.

  Then, on June 2, Tennessee came down to the house for drinks—bringing his mother (who is right out of The Glass Menagerie, and boasts of it), his younger brother Dakin and his sister-in-law Joyce. Also the ubiquitous Mike Steen. Dakin and Joyce look so like the relatives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that I wanted to roar with laughter when they came in. But actually Dakin is rather charming and quite bright, and so is she—relatively. Tennessee was utterly doped. He says the only way he can face being with the family is to put a Seconal in his drink every evening.

  A minor miracle. On the very day Tennessee came here, the fern he gave us last year—which has been withered all this time—began to uncurl its new fronds.

  On June 2, Jill Macklem came and went through the term papers and graded them.

  On June 3, Jed Harris came and talked some more to me about the Hedda Gabler project, which really seems interesting.

  Yesterday, there was a big party for Tennessee at the Duquettes’. Mary Pickford was there, stoned, and Edwina, Tennessee’s mother, said to her: “Do you remember your long yellow curls?” Gore said, “She’s the last of the great room-emptiers.” Buddy Rogers,175 also stoned, was there in evening tails, a really shall-we-dance? figure out of a twenties musical: his mottled red face and elegant figure. And Rory [Harrity] has gone off the wagon again. He looks marvellous still, however; about nineteen. But he is certainly the most boring of all drunks.

  Today, Gore has left for New York again, flying. He was quite scared, last night, and kept saying, “See you in July, if I’m not killed.”

  Last night, after we left them, Ten, Mike, Jim Charlton, Gavin all went up to Ivan Moffat’s and swam. Iris jumped into the pool with her clothes on. Today she is driving up to San Francisco for a round of parties. She really is turning into a dancing grandmother.

  Don and I are still holding to our nondrinking resolution, despite tremendous pressure. The boredom is excruciating—but it’s good in the mornings. Our relations are much much better again, now. Don’s state of mind is always precarious, of course. He is buffetted by storms of anxiety, resentment and melancholia. Against these, he takes Dexamyl, which worries me a bit, but Dr. Lewis doesn’t seem bothered by it. He did a good drawing of Jan Clayton176 this week, a poor one of Gore, and two goodish ones of Tennessee. Jan and Ten bought theirs. So that wasn’t bad. And all the time, underneath all of this, I have the feeling that things are all right. I can never be thankful enough for our life here, in this beautiful house. I only wish Don could have a proper studio. Then it would be really home for both of us.

  June 8. Yesterday, Swami phoned to tell me that Amiya had written to him to “prepare me” for the news of M.’s death; she is failing rapidly, and Amiya will go up to Wyberslegh just as soon as she’s well enough, after an operation she’s had. But, as yet, no cable has come from Richard—although, when M. had the stroke, he let me know at once.

  Jo and Ben left this morning for Mexico, where Ben is to write some travel pieces. Jo had a stomach upset, and our parting—we drove them to the airport—lacked the usual effusiveness.

  They went through a big fuss with Marguerite and Rory last Sunday. Rory came down to the Canyon, told them that Marguerite was impossible […] — [that she was even] calling him a fat drunken faggot and accusing him of going to bed with Ben! Rory got very drunk, telling his woes, and had to stay the night. Next morning, Marguerite called—where was Rory? Jo, instructed by Rory, said they didn’t know. Half an hour later, Marguerite burst in, found Rory still there and one of Jo’s girl customers in the back room, with her pants off because Jo was fixing them. Tableau! On top of that, Rory had left his billfold at the house of some girl […] in the Canyon, with whom he’d been screwing. The girl (mother of several children, who picked Rory up at the art show at the Canyon school, where he’d gone with Jo and Ben because Jo had watercolors exhibited there) brought the billfold to Jo and Ben, not knowing how to reach Rory. So now we have to return it to him!

  And, on Saturday night, after the drunken evening, Jim Charlton stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with Tennessee. So there was a stink with Hilde. Jim took his clothes and autographed books and left the house, for his Canyon apartment, saying, “There must be someone somewhere who’ll accept me as I am.” Then he got drunk. No doubt all is peace by this time.

  June 9. No word from Wyberslegh, yet.

  Swami told me last night that he’s decided to let Tito come back to Trabuco—this is for the fifth time! A record.

  Don read “The Others” yesterday and liked it. So now I’m going to go right ahead with “Paul” and rewrite both of them later.

  Two nights ago, we saw Ivan the Terrible—the second part177 for the first time. I think it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. The furred Tsar and his courtiers, like great heavy animals in their winter coats, suddenly whisking around and disappearing through the small rounded doorways of the palace, which are like rat holes. The flaming dance, the curly-haired jealous boy in the woman’s mask, the crowning of the drunken pretender. God!

  A theory—maybe all crap: if you confine drama in a room and want to keep it truly cinematic, you must stylize it, slow it down (in this instance) into a kind of slow symbolic dance, and heighten the mood until it approaches the mood of opera. Otherwise—if it’s confined—if there are no great surges of movement—all you are left with is a dull canned realistic play, which belongs in the theater.

  Today, for the first time, after days and days of greyness, we have the bright sun and sparkling sea. Don and I on the beach together. Very happy.

  But work must start tomorrow on the two projects: “Paul,” and the introduction to the Vivekananda selections.178

  Laughton, meanwhile, begins to fuss about the proposed adaptation of School for Scandal. He’ll be a nuisance, now he’s better. And Terry has agreed to come and visit him here; so he’s eager to buy Hal Greene’s house.

  Swami spoke, last night, of the fear that precedes a vision. A fear of going into nothingness, like death. But then, bliss.

  June 12. On the 10th, I’m happy to say, I started both my introduction to Prema’s book of selections from Vivekananda, and “Paul,” the last of the four sections of my novel. It’ll be impossible to know, for some time yet, what the difficulties of “Paul” are going to be.

  Right now, I rather incline to calling the whole book The Lost.

  Don, on a boy named Chuck van Haren, whom he has been drawing: “He doesn’t want to be a hairdresser more than he wants to be an actor.”

  Tennessee returned from La Jolla and then left again yesterday. He wants us to visit him in Key West, this summer. I felt a warmth toward and from him yesterday which I hadn’t otherwise felt during this visit. Most of the time, he’s been so bothered by his mother, and so dazed with drink and sleeping pills. Yet he seems as keen witted and creative as ever, underneath this. He is very pleased with Don’s drawings of him.

  We are going through a good period now, in many ways. Don of course is always poised on the knife-edge of melancholia, but he has formed an image of himself as “being brave,” which is very helpful. I’ve started using the record player to raise our spirits in the mornings—ballet music seems best. We both take lots of Dexamyl—Don does, nearly every day.

  I don’t think I have ever, in my entire life, felt so involved with another human being as I am with Don. But this is a relatively good kind of involvement. Rereading the Vedanta Society part of my 1944 journal (which I’ve just gotten back from the Stravinskys) I note that I rejoiced, at that time, in having ceased to feel any desire for personal relationships. But the kind of personal relationships I meant then were obsessive and fundamentally degrading. This time, it really is different.

  Yesterday, we went to a party held by Paul Sorel in his newly acquired room at the Sun
set Towers West—another gem of modernistic expensive squalor. A miserable little hole, hot and viewless and claustrophobic. What a relief to go on to the (in every sense) spacious Stravinskys for supper! They have built a huge new living room onto the house. Igor was quite reproachful because we’re still not drinking. But we certainly do feel better for it—and I’m very slowly losing weight: 147 pounds to date.

  June 14. Yesterday, I got a letter from Richard. M. is very weak and dying slowly, without pain. Richard says she’s drowsy most of the time but quite clear headed. I feel sad about this, and vaguely guilty that I’m not with them, but I can’t possibly afford to go to England now.

  Don could not be sweeter. And I’m so deeply happy that his work is going so well. Donna O’Neill and Ivan were in yesterday evening very enthusiastic about Don’s drawings of Donna. Ivan has bought two, and Donna has ordered two more. And the Selznicks are going to pay for theirs of Mary Jennifer. And Tennessee bought his.

  Have told Laughton I won’t do School for Scandal, but we’re more or less committed to Socrates. Today he came, with his friend Bill Phipps, to see Hal Greene’s house, and loved it—thus completely reversing Elsa’s judgement. He at once got the point—that Elsa had panned the house out of jealousy—of what Charles plans to do with it. He determined to tax her with this at once, but then got so bothered that he couldn’t make up his mind to go home, and instead, oiled the fronds of the palms in our living room. (He knew how to do this, he explained, because of his early hotel experience.)

  Marguerite on the phone, drooling on and on about her difficulties with Rory, who is drunk and out with this woman in the Canyon. At length, an emergency call cut us short.

  Am stuck with “Paul.” It needs more thought.

  June 16. Yesterday at noon, I got a cable from Richard to say that M. is dead. She died yesterday afternoon, and the cable was sent so promptly that it reached me before California had caught up with English time.