Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  kundalini. “That which is coiled up”; the serpent power; usually symbolized by a serpent having three and a half coils and sleeping with its tail in its mouth. In Hindu physiology, kundalini is a reservoir of power at the base of the spine. When aroused, it moves upward along the spinal canal passing through several centers of consciousness or chakras. In the lower chakras, kundalini causes only material desires such as lust. In spiritual persons, kundalini rises to higher chakras causing greater degrees of enlightenment. At the seventh chakra, kundalini causes samadhi. Chastity can preserve the kundalini that is necessary for spiritual progress. The controlled awakening of kundalini is the main object of several branches of Hindu occultism, including yoga and tantrism, but kundalini must not be roused without the instruction of a guru as there are dangers attendant upon its awakening.

  Laguna. Swami Prabhavananda often spent summer months in Laguna Beach, south of Los Angeles, to escape the heat and tension of Hollywood. He stayed on Camel Point Drive at the oceanfront house of a devotee named Ruth Conrad, and other Ramakrishna followers visited and stayed with him there.

  Lambert, Gavin (b. 1924). British novelist and screenwriter. Lambert edited a British film magazine, Sight and Sound, before coming to Hollywood in 1956. He was working for Jerry Wald at Twentieth Century-Fox on Sons and Lovers when Ivan Moffat introduced him to Isherwood the same year; they became longterm friends. Lambert’s novel The Slide Area: Scenes of Hollywood Life (1959), which Isherwood read in manuscript in 1957, was influenced by Isherwood’s Berlin stories. The pair worked on a television comedy project for Hermione Gingold, Emily Ermingarde, and when Gingold decided not to do it, they rewrote it for Elsa Lanchester, but the series was never produced. Lambert also helped Isherwood to revise the film script of The Vacant Room, and during the 1950s he planned a musical version, never produced, of Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair. Lambert wrote the screenplay for his own 1963 novel Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and scripted Bitter Victory (1957), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961), I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), and others. He took mescaline with Isherwood in 1958. During the 1960s, he settled in Tangier for a time, returning to Los Angeles in the early 1980s.

  Lamkin, Marguerite. A southern beauty, born and raised in Monroe, Louisiana like her brother Speed. She followed Speed to Hollywood, and married the screenwriter Harry Brown in 1952, but the marriage broke up melodramatically in 1955. Marguerite Lamkin assisted Tennessee Williams as a dialogue coach during the production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and afterwards worked on other films and theatrical productions on both the East and West Coasts whenever southern accents were required. She was married to Rory Harrity from 1959 to 1963, then married again, successfully, in 1966 and settled in England. Bachardy had a room in the Browns’ apartment during the early months of his involvement with Isherwood, and the close friendship evidently made Isherwood jealous. In later years, Marguerite also became a close friend to Isherwood.

  Lamkin, Speed. American novelist; born and raised in Louisiana. Isherwood first met Speed Lamkin April 9, 1950 when Speed was twenty-two and about to publish his first novel, Tiger in the Garden. Lamkin had come to Los Angeles to research his second novel, The Easter Egg Hunt (1954)—about movie stars, in particular Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst—and dedicated the novel to Isherwood who appears in it as the character “Sebastian Saunders.” With a screenwriter, Gus Field, Lamkin tried to adapt Sally Bowles for the stage in 1950–1951, but the project foundered after the first draft when Dodie Beesley criticized it and encouraged John van Druten to try instead. Lamkin was attracted by power, money, and stardom, and was alert to nuances of status (he was for instance a snob about club ties, and shared a joke with Isherwood about a black and gold striped tie with thin stripes of red and white which he gave Isherwood and which Isherwood frequently wore). He was on the board at the Huntington Hartford Foundation. In the mid-1950s Lamkin wrote a play Out by the Country Club which was never produced, although Joshua Logan was briefly interested in it, and in 1956, he scripted an hour-long TV film about Perle Mesta, the political hostess who had been Truman’s ambassador to Luxembourg. During 1957, he wrote another play, Comes a Day, which later had a short run on Broadway, starring Judith Anderson and introducing George C. Scott. Eventually, Lamkin returned home to Louisiana.

  Lanchester, Elsa (1902–1986). British actress; wife of Charles Laughton. She settled in Hollywood in 1940 and became an American citizen. Lanchester began making films before Laughton and they acted in several together—for instance The Private Life of Henry VIII (1934), Rembrandt (1936), and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Her most famous film was The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but she was in many more, and she also worked in television—for many years she had her own show, Elsa Herself—and sang at a Los Angeles theater, The Turnabout. She met Isherwood socially in the late 1950s, was greatly attracted to him and introduced him to Laughton, afterwards vying with Laughton and Bachardy for Isherwood’s attention.

  Lane, Homer (1875–1925). American psychologist, healer, and juvenile reformer. Lane established a rural community in England called The Little Commonwealth where he nurtured young delinquents with love, farm work, and the responsibility of self-government. For Lane, the fundamental instinct of mankind “is the titanic craving for spiritual perfection,” and he conceived of individual growth as a process of spiritual evolution in which the full satisfaction of the instinctive desires of one stage bring an end to that stage and lay the ground for the next, higher stage; he believed that instinctive desires must be satisfied rather than repressed if the individual is to achieve psychological health and fulfillment. In practice, Lane identified himself with the patient’s neurosis in order to allow it to emerge from the unconscious; by personally loving the sinner and the sin, he freed the patient from his sense of guilt. W. H. Auden discovered the teachings of Homer Lane through his Berlin friend, John Layard, a former patient and disciple of Lane’s, and in late 1928 and early 1929, Auden became obsessed with Lane, preaching his theories to his friends and in his poems.

  Lange, Hope (b. 1931). American actress. She was married to Don Murray during the 1950s and her film career began, with his, in Bus Stop (1956). She played leads in numerous other films and later starred in a long-running TV comedy, “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” After two children, her marriage to Murray ended in 1960. She remained a longtime friend to Isherwood and Bachardy.

  Lansbury, George (1859–1940). Leader of the British Labour Party from 1931 to 1935, editor of Lansbury’s Weekly, Labour Weekly, and the Daily Herald, and President of the Peace Pledge Union from 1937 onward. Driven from the Labour leadership, Lansbury launched a final peace crusade, urging Roosevelt and other world leaders (including Hitler and Mussolini) to attend a world economic conference where existing treaties could be revised. Lansbury supported appeasement because he blamed German aggression on the punitive Treaty of Versailles; he proposed that Britain disarm unilaterally and renounce her colonial possessions in order that she be in a position to ask similar compromises of other countries.

  Lansing, Gerrit (Gerry). American poet. Isherwood met him in New York in March 1952 with Sam Costidy.

  Larmore, James and Alexandra (Xan). He was assistant to the film producer Charlie Brackett, her father. They were married during the war, when he was a soldier. Previously he had been a chorus boy, and, according to rumor, Brackett’s lover. Xan became an alcoholic, and their relationship was turbulent.

  Larson, Jack. American actor, playwright and librettist. Larson is best known for playing Jimmy Olsen in the original Superman TV series during the 1950s; he also wrote the libretto for Virgil Thomson’s opera Lord Byron. He lived for over thirty-five years with the film director James Bridges, and both were close friends of Isherwood and Bachardy from the 1950s onward.

  Lathwood, Jo. See Masselink, Jo.

  Laughton, Charles (1899–1962). British actor. Laughton played many roles on the London stage from the 1920s onward, and began making films during the
1930s—The Private Life of Henry VIII (1934), for which he won an Academy Award; Les Misérables (1935); Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), in which he played Captain Bligh; The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939); and many others. He also acted in New York and Paris, and gave dramatic readings throughout the U.S. from Shakespeare, the Bible, and other classic literature. He became an American citizen in 1950. Isherwood met Laughton in Hollywood in 1959 through Laughton’s wife, Elsa Lanchester, and later the two worked on various projects including a play about Socrates. They became neighbors on Adelaide Drive and close friends despite Laughton’s domineering character.

  Laura, also Laura Archera. See Huxley, Laura Archera.

  Laurents, Arthur (b. 1918). American playwright and screenwriter. Laurents is probably best known as author of the books for the musicals West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1960); he also wrote a number of plays. He rewrote several of his musicals and plays for the movies, and his other screenplays include Anastasia (1956), The Way We Were (1973) and The Turning Point (1977), which was nominated for an Academy Award. Isherwood and Bachardy first became friends with Laurents and his longterm companion Tom Hatcher in the mid-1950s.

  Laval, Jay. See de Laval, Jay.

  Lawrence, Jerome (Jerry) (b. 1915). American playwright; Lawrence worked in partnership with Robert Lee from 1942 onward. Together they wrote many plays, of which the best known are Inherit the Wind (1955) about the Scopes “monkey” trial, and their adaptation of Auntie Mame (1956). For the latter, they also wrote the libretto of the musical version, Mame (1966). Isherwood often went to parties at Lawrence’s house, in particular to meet goodlooking young men; many were actors whom Lawrence knew through his theater connections. Lawrence often claimed he had introduced Isherwood and Bachardy to each other because Bachardy and his brother, Ted, attended a party at his house around the time that Isherwood and Bachardy first became involved with each other. But, in fact, Isherwood and Bachardy met elsewhere.

  Layard, John (1891–1975). English anthropologist and Jungian psychoanalyst. Layard read Medieval and Modern Languages at Cambridge and did field work in the New Hebrides with the anthropologist and psychologist W. H. R. Rivers. In the early 1920s, he had a severe nervous breakdown and was partially cured by the American psychologist Homer Lane, to whom he became a devoted disciple. Lane died during the treatment, leaving Layard depressed and seeking further treatment, first unsuccessfully with Wilhelm Stekel and eventually more productively with Jung. W. H. Auden met Layard in Berlin late in 1928 and introduced him to Isherwood the following spring; for a time all three were obsessed with Lane’s theories which Layard told the other two about. During this period, Layard had a brief and tortured triangular affair with Auden and a German sailor, Gerhart Meyer, whereupon he tried to kill himself. Isherwood used the suicide attempt in The Memorial, and Layard also appears as “Barnard” in Lions and Shadows. In 1930, Isherwood asked Layard to speak to Kathleen Isherwood following a family row when she insisted that Richard Isherwood be tutored for Oxford. Richard lied to his mother, saying that he had found a job and did not need to attend university. Satisfying his personal wish to defy Kathleen, Isherwood sided with his brother against her. He revealed to Kathleen the details of his own homosexual life in Berlin, and Layard was equally frank. But Kathleen was unable to change her attitude toward her sons. Layard eventually recovered his psychological health so that he was able to work and write again, and he married and had a son. Like Auden, he also returned to the Anglican faith of his childhood.

  Ledebur, Christian (“Boon”) and Henrietta. Iris Tree’s second son (by Friedrich Ledebur) and his wife. They lived in Santa Monica intermittently, in a corner apartment in the merry-go-round building on Santa Monica Pier where, until 1954, Iris also lived. Boon studied psychology for many years, and this became his profession. The Ledeburs had a son, Marius, before divorcing, and Boon later remarried and had another family in Switzerland.

  Ledebur, Count Friedrich (b. 1908). Austrian actor; second husband of Iris Tree. The marriage ended in 1955. His films include Moby Dick (1956), The Blue Max (1966) and Slaughterhouse Five (1972).

  Lehmann, Beatrix (Peggy). English actress; an elder sister of John Lehmann. She met Isherwood when she was visiting Berlin in 1932 and they remained close friends. She had a triumph in O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra in 193 8 when Isherwood was in China, and he returned in time to see her in the Group Theatre’s performance of Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine in July. During 1938 she had an affair with Berthold Viertel.

  Lehmann, John (1907–1988). English author, publisher, editor, autobiographer; educated at Cambridge. Isherwood met Lehmann in 1932 at the Hogarth Press where Lehmann was assistant (later partner) to Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Lehmann persuaded the Woolfs to publish The Memorial after it had been rejected by Jonathan Cape, publisher of Isherwood’s first novel All the Conspirators. Isherwood helped Lehmann with his plans to found New Writing, discussing the manifesto and obtaining early contributions from friends such as W. H. Auden. Isherwood later said Lehmann’s demand for short, magazine-style pieces for New Writing helped shape the disconnected fragments collected in Goodbye to Berlin. When he left the Hogarth Press, Lehmann founded his own publishing firm and later edited The London Magazine. He wrote three revealing volumes of autobiography, beginning with The Whispering Gallery (1955). For many years he shared his house with the dancer Alexis Rassine.

  Lehmann, Rosamond (1901–1990). English novelist; another elder sister of Isherwood’s longtime friend John Lehmann. She made a reputation with the frankness of her first novel Dusty Answer (1927), and her later works—including Invitation to the Waltz (1932), The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Echoing Grove (1953)—also shocked with their candid handling of sexual and emotional themes. She was the first wife of the painter Wogan Philipps; their grown daughter, Sally (married to P.J. Kavanagh, the poet), died suddenly of polio in 1958 and Rosamond eventually described her continuing spiritual relationship with her daughter in The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life (1967).

  Leonardson, Dan. Husband and business partner of Isherwood’s Hollywood agent, Edna Schley; Leonardson took over when his wife suffered a brain hemorrhage.

  Leopold, Michael. A Texan, he was about eighteen years old when Isherwood met him at the apartment of a friend, Doug Ebersole, in December 1949. They began a minor affair soon afterwards. Leopold was interested in literature, admired Isherwood’s work, and later wrote some stories of his own. During the 1960s, Leopold lived with Henry Guerriero in Venice, California.

  Levant, Oscar (1906–1972). American composer, pianist, and actor. Levant wrote the music for several popular musicals (including The American Way, mentioned by Isherwood early in 1939) and had a live talk show in Hollywood, “The Oscar Levant Show,” broadcast out of a shed on a minor network. He was a peristent wag, and made comedy out of insults; his show was shut down by the sponsors in the early 1960s, despite its popularity, because Levant insulted their products and encouraged his guests to do the same. Isherwood was often a guest on the show in the mid-1950s, sometimes reading poetry. This led to his occasionally being recognized in the street. In 1958, Isherwood argued with Levant about Churchill and refused to appear on the show for a time because Levant attacked him for remaining in Hollywood during the war.

  Lewis, Hayden. Isherwood met Hayden Lewis in 1945 when Lewis arrived in California with Bill Caskey (Lewis and Caskey were friends, not lovers). Lewis had been employed by the navy in a civilian clerical job and had shared an apartment with Caskey during Caskey’s time in the navy. He lost his job as a result of the homosexual scandal which also led to Caskey’s discharge. In 1946 Hayden Lewis began a long relationship with Rod Owens. Together they started a successful ceramics business, making dinnerware and ashtrays.

  Lewis, Jack. Los Angeles doctor. A colleague of the endocrinologist Jessie Marmorston; he began to treat Isherwood in about 1957 and became his main doctor for some years.

  Lichtenberg, Bill. See de Lichtenberg, W
illiam.

  Lincoln. See Kirstein, Lincoln.

  List, Herbert. German photographer. Probably known to Isherwood through Stephen Spender who in 1929 became friends with List in Hamburg, where List was working as a coffee merchant in his family’s firm. List appears as “Joachim” in Spender’s World Within World and as “Joachim Lenz” in Spender’s The Temple. He introduced Isherwood to two friends, Robert Furst (not his real name), and Max Scheler, also a photographer.

  Liu, T.Y. Chinese bureaucrat and newspaper correspondent who served as guide and interpreter to W. H. Auden and Isherwood in China for ten days in May 1938. He appears in Journey to a War.

  Lodge, Carter. American friend of John van Druten. Lodge was van Druten’s lover in the late 1930s and early 1940s; afterwards he began a long-term relationship with Dick Foote, but remained an intimate friend of van Druten. Isherwood first met Lodge in November 1939. Lodge lived mostly in the Coachella Valley at the AJC Ranch, which he and van Druten purchased in the early 1940s with Auriol Lee, the British actress and director. Lodge managed the ranch, where they grew corn and tomatoes, and handled his own and van Druten’s financial affairs very successfully.