Liberation: Diaries:1970-1983

by Christopher Isherwood

  The day before yesterday, Don and I went down to Palm Springs to see Truman Capote and John O’Shea; they had two other men with them, sort of business types, and Truman insisted with his devilish gleeful whim that we should smoke pot, and I got very aggressive, feeling I was being pushed around. However, we emerged from the situation—thanks to Don—without getting into a quarrel. Only result next day was that I weighed 155 (not due to pot but cracked crab!) and today, after abstaining from practi[c]ally everything, as I fondly imagined, I weigh 155 and ½!

  Last night, Salka came to supper here, with Jack Larson. She is so shaky and deaf and it is sadly dreary and exhausting being with her. You have to shout and she takes forever understanding what you’re saying. I had to bear the brunt of this, naturally, but I really wish I had been quite alone with her. Don detected in her face a look of obstinacy and I can understand this—when you get in that state you are all the more obstinately determined to be part of the scene, so you instinctively make it impossible for others to talk about their own affairs in your presence; at least you try to. Actually, I was distracted from my efforts to cope with Salka by hearing snatches of a fascinating conversation Jack was having with Don. Jack was telling how Jim suffers when an actor puts him down for being gay. Jon Voight did this during the rehearsals of Streetcar, telling [ Jim] (or anyhow implying) that he couldn’t possibly understand the play because he couldn’t understand how a man feels about a woman! Jack says that Jim sheds tears on these occasions and smashes things when he’s alone, later, in his room.

  (The above sentence is misleading, as I now see, rereading it. I meant to say that Jim will shed tears in Jack’s presence—not in the presence of the actor—while he is describing what took place, and then, later, go into his room alone and smash things.)

  December 20. The filming is all over, thank God. I quite enjoyed the first day of it, the 17th, because we were out of doors, on Muscle Beach, and I clowned around, jogging and sitting on the swings and then under a palm tree, reading from Goodbye to Berlin. But the day before yesterday and yesterday they filmed in this house, mostly in my workroom, and disturbed everything and made me feel jostled out of my nest. (To restore my morale, I’ve made a point of restarting work on Wanderings, and doing a small entry in the 1950 journal, and writing up this diary.)

  Just the same, I think the interview may turn out quite well, and I feel Julian handled it not only professionally but tactfully, as far as I was concerned. I like his assistant, Rosemary Bowen

  Jones; she is one of those smiling unflappable British treasures who can manage everything without being bossy. I also thought that the sound recordist, David MacMillan, was sweetly sympathetic as well as being powerfully sexy; I felt quite dizzy while he was attaching the mike to my shirt. He is—small world!—the boyfriend of Ann Gowland, Peter and Alice’s daughter—and, less creditably, a member of the Francis Ford Coppola film colony in San Francisco.127 The cameraman, Bryan Anderson, I liked less; he acted a bit over-virile, maybe because I was saying a good deal about being queer in my answers to Julian’s interview questions. Bryan has an Asian wife named Tamiko—I mean racially Asian—she is technically an American and speaks perfect English. Tamiko is a palmist and an astrologer. She knew at once that Don belonged to one of the earth signs—by looking at his hands, she claimed. She asked Don—not while I was there—“How long have you and Christopher been married?” Don firmly informed her that we don’t regard ourselves as married: “We want to avoid the mistakes the heterosexuals have been making.”

  I pointed out to Julian that it would be absurd to show me at home and not show Don. It might even look, I said, as if I were trying to conceal his existence. Julian was very sensible about this, and agreed, and so Don and I were filmed going up to the mailbox and getting our letters, and then sorting out which ones were for which of us!

  December 25. This year, I’ve celebrated Christmas Day by working quite a bit—on my Wanderings book and on the reconstructed diary for 1950. Also, I’ve been out jogging on San Vicente. Don is with his parents. Later, we’re to go to the Norton Simons’ catchall party for their families and other hangers-on. I write this nastily, because I am still mad at Jennifer for ignoring Don’s show at the Barnsdall Gallery last summer. I’m mad at Norton too, come to that. But Don, who so rightly puts business before grudges, says that he’ll have a last try at getting Jennifer to sit for him and maybe even remind her of her promise to do so before Christmas, if he drew and exhibited a portrait of Norton.

  Yesterday, we drove down to Palm Springs, to spend the day with John Schlesinger, who has been lent a house there by Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood. On the way, I asked Don a lot of questions about himself—about how he is feeling nowadays. Of course he is in a flap about this forthcoming show in New York, but less so, I think, than ever before—because this time he has got all the pictures he needs for it and because he has the prospect of this quite different kind of show (of his paintings), and of the work he must do for it, ahead of him. In other words, this is the end of a period with the satisfaction of knowing that it isn’t a dead end. He can see his next move. I asked how he feels about his meditation and he said that it is now definitely part of his life but that he doesn’t at all share my reliance on Swami as a guru. “If anybody’s my guru, you are.” Well, that’s okay, as long as he merely believes in my belief in Swami. Then I asked him about sex. He said that he doesn’t mind our not having sex together any more; he agreed with me that our relationship is still very physical.128 The difficulty is that what he now wants is a sex object, not a big relationship, because he’s got that with me. But no attractive boy wants to be merely a sex object; he wants to be a big relationship. I suppose I knew all this, kind of. But it was good to talk about it. Our long drives in the car are now almost our only opportunities to have real talks. As Don himself says, he is obsessed by time and always feels in a hurry, unless he is actually getting on with doing something. He says that there are now quite often moments, while he is drawing, when he feels that this is the one thing he really wants to do and experiences a great joy that he is actually doing it. But, even during the drawing, he says that he also feels harassed because he isn’t drawing as quickly and economically as he could wish.

  The house party at Schlesinger’s was crowded and often noisy with children and dogs. John, perhaps with the friendly desire to show me off to the other guests, took me through a long cross-examination about my pacifism, Hindu beliefs, etc. etc., which I found embarrassing. Also, John wanted to argue: how could one be a pacifist in Israel, when it is fighting for its existence? At this, an extremely cute young man named Roger—who is the boyfriend of the daughter of Jim Clark, John’s film editor129—spoke up unasked and said that the Jews always exaggerate and he challenged the statement about Israel’s position. This of course deeply offended John130—and indeed the young man went on to make a lot of uncharming, right-wing remarks, although he had previously been attacking Nixon. By the end of the evening, he seemed rather sinister. He is planning to become a lawyer.131

  Also at the party were a nice musician named Andrew,132 who is a cousin of Schlesinger’s, and a rather snooty man named Michael Oliver, who is Schlesinger’s lawyer.133 Oliver said that Palm Springs was “unreal.” So I went after him, saying I’d much rather live in an “unreal” place than in a seemingly “real” one, like for example, Oxford or Cambridge. Both Andrew and Oliver are queer and British.

  We had a big Mexican dinner at a restaurant in Rancho Mirage. All these desert-fringe communities have run together into a single roadside shopping alley, which is truly depressing. But the mission of our day was well and truly accomplished: Don did a drawing of John which John liked so much he wants to buy it. This was also another triumph of Don’s iron nerves over interruptions and barking dogs. No, no—his nerves aren’t iron—they are terribly sensitive and yet capable of being strained to an almost incredible extent without snapping, like some kind of super rubber.

  December 27
. Yesterday was Swami’s eightieth birthday. We both went to see him, but Don skipped lunch; he finds these functions even more painful than I do and he isn’t obligated, as I am, to attend them.

  However, Swami was “well worth the visit.” Before lunch, talking to the boys from Trabuco, he really gave forth power. After he had retold that spooky story of Brahmananda coming up behind him and saying, “Lovest thou me?”134 he added, “And I didn’t love him.” Despite all my years of indoctrination, my responses are so conventional that I was puzzled and rather shocked, and I asked almost indignantly, “What do you mean?” To which Swami replied, “How many of us can love God—how many of us can return that love? It’s too big for us. We can’t understand it. He loves all of us, everybody, and without any motive. How can we understand that?” What is so overwhelming about Swami at these moments is that he speaks with such absolute, matter-of-fact certainty and at the same time with awe, not the familiarity which breeds contempt. It’s as if he were talking about Mount Everest. God’s love is there, I do believe, for him just as obviously as Mount Everest is for all of us. And he is awed by it as we are awed by the mountain.

  After lunch, he signed to me to take his arm and to help him walk back to his room. When he lets me do this, I always feel it is a special grace and I try to meditate as we are walking. But this time, on his way to his room, he had to stop and receive the pranams of every single monastic member who was present. My first instinct was to draw my hand away, but he held it firmly under his left arm. So there I stood, like an inferior Siamese twin, attached to this being through whom Brahmananda’s blessing was being conferred by the touch of Swami’s right hand upon all those who came and bowed down before him! All I could do was to keep my eyes lowered and try not to seem to participate outwardly in the giving of the benediction. It was an absurd and embarrassing and beautiful situation to be in.

  1974

  January 4. Have been too busy to write anything here until today. This is a busy time. Not only are Don and I both working to a deadline—Don getting ready for his show in New York, I trying to finish a rough draft of the opening chapters of my book before I go east—but there are these out-of-towners who have to be coped with; at present, Salka Viertel, John Collier and the Boormans.

  Salka really is a trial, poor thing, because she is so deaf. It’s a tremendous effort talking to her. She is scheduled to leave at the beginning of next week and at present it seems that Jack Larson and Jim Bridges will fly with her to Switzerland and spend some time there skiing. But this—I only yesterday discovered—depends on Jim’s commitments as a director. Jim now has a deal to direct three pictures for Warner Brothers—it may not be firm but it’s been proposed. One of these pictures is to be Meeting by the River, another Peter Viertel’s White Hunter, Black Heart. However, there is still some question as to whether Jim will be paid for writing a script of White Hunter with Peter Viertel—this is called a “development deal” in the jargon. Jim had planned to do this in the intervals of his Swiss skiing, but he says that he won’t work for free. If he gets no money he may not go to Switzerland at all. Jim makes plans and abandons them like a child—well, that’s show biz. But he does seem utterly unrealistic when he says things like, we’ll do Peter’s film in Africa this summer, then we’ll do Meeting in the fall. At such moments he talks as though he were a complete amateur. How can he imagine a picture like White Hunter could be prepared for in a couple of months? And, before Hunter, he wants to whizz off to India with us!

  John Collier, whom I had lunch with the day before yesterday, looks older but seems exactly the same person. I do like and respect him very much. If we lived in the same town, we should become close friends at once. Alas, he’s leaving almost immediately.

  The Boormans we are to see for the first time tonight, at a preview of his film, Zardoz. I have fears about this. It’s something he wrote himself.

  Heavy rain all night and this morning, but clearing now. My disgraceful weight, 154 and ¾, due to gluttony. My worst weight last year was 155 and ½, my best (August 8) was 149 and ¼, which isn’t nearly low enough.

  January 6. More heavy rain, yesterday and today. Zardoz was awful beyond description. I could hardly bring out even a flattering lie to John Boorman. We are afraid this picture will make it hard for him to raise any money for another.

  A big dinner party last night. We had invited Salka, Jack and Jim for a farewell. Then John Houseman showed up in town, so they asked if they might invite him. Then Don, who drew John Collier in the morning, asked him and his wife Harriet and his son John to come to dinner on their way to the airport, to take a midnight plane to England. It wasn’t a success. John is less than himself when his wife is around. And Salka is so deaf. And Don dislikes her—I see exactly why; she is awfully arrogant. And Houseman was tired and didn’t bother not to show it; our company didn’t thrill him. Collier’s son is cute, will perhaps be beautiful. He has a kind of animal fixation on his father, keeps touching him. This embarrasses John and makes him very British; he puts on an air of disowning John Junior, of whom he’s obviously very proud.

  Today I’ve stayed at home working. Every day I get some more of the book done. It’s hopeless, almost incoherent, but that doesn’t matter; one never regrets writing anything. The jungle is being cleared.

  I suppose Salka and the boys are taking off tomorrow. Nobody has called. I called twice, got no answer, decided not to call again. For one thing, Peggy Kiskadden was to see Salka this afternoon and I don’t want to get entangled in that. Salka irritated me by urging me to make it up with Peggy. She simply does not understand. I don’t have a quarrel with Peggy. I have a peace treaty, which is based on our never seeing each other again.

  Today they started daylight-saving time, in the name of power conservation. More and more, people are saying that the oil companies have lied and that there is no real gas shortage.135 I think there will be a big stink soon. Houseman told us last night that in the East they still expect that Nixon will be forced out, one way or another. I’m not so sure.

  A dream last night: Don and I were going into people’s houses and Don was looking at their letters, diaries, photographs, etc., to find out what they were like. He was caught doing this by one family; I was standing in the porch and didn’t become involved. They weren’t really mad at him and I knew they wouldn’t do anything serious. But they demanded that he should apologize, and he did—making it into a marvellous parody of their way of talking and their general philosophy. I realized what a great actor he was. Then I said “Ganga!”136 (to astonish the others) and Don and I began to fly. I said, as we flew, “The Animals skimmed low over the meadows,” but, in fact, we were skimming over a freeway. . . . This was a very happy and propitious dream.

  January 17. Am working away on Wanderings, hoping to get a very rough draft of the introductory (pre-1939) chapters finished before I go to New York to join Don at the opening of his show. It now looks as if he will go on ahead, around the beginning of February, and that I shall arrive only a few days before the opening party on the 14th. (Incidentally, Jack Fontan has predicted, on the basis of Don’s horoscope, that his show of paintings at the Nick Wilder gallery will open on October the 8th.)

  Tony Richardson has shown up here again, saying he will stay at least a month. He seems to have a project going but is mysterious about it, as usual. He was very amusing about Vanessa, and altogether on his best behavior, when we had dinner together last night. This may be because he has found out what Derek Dietz137 told Don, when they met on the 8th. (Derek was Tony’s constant companion on his last visit here.) Derek misunderstood something Don had said and thought it was, “Tony likes me,” to which he replied, “He doesn’t like you, he says you’re nothing but a mimic.” (This kind of unmotivated malice—malice for the sake of malice—makes me sick with rage; I could kill Derek for it.) Of course this upset Don a lot. At first he didn’t want to meet Tony again; then he said, “No, I’ll play it cool.” Then Tony called, yesterday afternoo
n, and asked Don if he thought Derek was dishonest. Don said he hadn’t suspected it. Tony said, “Well, I’m pretty sure it was he who stole quite a large sum of money from me.” So then Don said, “Well, that surprises me—but I do think he’s very malicious, he said all kinds of things about you which I didn’t want to listen to.” After this, we felt sure that Tony would cross-question Don at supper, and thus Don would have a perfect cue to repeat to him what Derek had said he’d said. (Derek had also described Tony’s masochism, in and out of bed.) But Tony didn’t refer to Derek once throughout the evening. This was perhaps because he had another companion with him, Buddy Trone, a boy who used to be around in the days when we were writing and filming The Loved One.138 He’s fat now and looks rather like Margo,139 but is still the same amiable easygoing partly Latin character. When we knew that Buddy was coming, we invited Mike Van Horn, whom Tony rather fancied.

  Tony said that Vanessa has become a sort of Trotskyite—I forget what it’s called nowadays. Whenever she gets a job in a play, she tries to indoctrinate the entire cast. The young impressionable inexperienced actors and actresses are terribly flattered at first, to be asked to attend meetings after rehearsals by this great star. But soon she bores them to death and they try to wriggle out of it. According to Tony, Vanessa is completely under the influence of her brother Corin who is even more fanatical than she is.

  On January 9, Swami wasn’t feeling well, so Chetanananda talked at the reading—mostly about Vijnanananda, who was the last of the direct disciples to become president of the order. He told how Vijnanananda came to Belur Math on a visit but only wanted to stay one day. When they urged him to stay at least three, he said he would do it if they gave him a fountain pen. So they did, and he did. Later, they asked him to be vice-president and he said the same thing and got another pen. Chetanananda giggled wildly: “Those knowers of Brahman—you never know what they will do!” I think quite a lot of people in the audience were slightly shocked and more were puzzled. This kind of talk makes them uneasy. They want to understand everybody, even if it’s Jesus or Ramakrishna. What they can’t understand, or dismiss as crazy, seems to them a bit unwholesome, sinister. Surely there must be a motive?