The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

by Christopher Isherwood

  On the 22nd, I was laid off The Loved One, because my screenplay is finished and nothing more can be done until Tony Richardson returns and starts work on it. I don’t think this is merely a brush-off. However, when Robin French went to John Calley and tried to up my price for the future, Calley turned him down flat.

  Now I am beginning to think about the bits and pieces book. The night before Don left, we were talking about a possible title with Gavin, and Gavin suggested Digging up the Past—or rather, he said, “What a pity you can’t use it!” And then that made me think of Exhumations; so I shall call it that, provisionally.

  My latest symptom: shooting pains in the groin.

  A very vivid dream which I had about a month ago. . . . I was standing with some others, including Don, on the terrace of a house high up on a steep hillside above the ocean. (I think it was Joseph Cotten’s house, but this didn’t have any significance in the dream.596) Attached to the side of this terrace—though quite unrelated to it in architectural style—was a wooden platform, a balcony without handrails. . . . Suddenly there was a tremendous blast of wind, and this platform was blown clear of its supports. Because of the updraft, it remained almost motionless, however, swaying slightly and hovering in empty air like a helicopter. There were four people on the platform: Arthur Loew, Natalie Wood, Sarada and another woman (unidentified). We all gasped, for they were obviously doomed; it could only be a matter of moments before the platform fell. What was so shocking was that they were quite near us, only a few feet away, and yet beyond all possible help. . . . The chief interest and vividness of the dream was in the behavior of the victims. Arthur (whom I don’t actually like much) behaved with a kind of heroism. He obviously wanted to cheer Natalie up and keep her from thinking of her imminent fate, and so he grinningly crossed himself, thus alluding to it and yet taking the curse off it, as it seemed to me, by his deliberate sacrilege. Also, there was the gallows humor of the self-conscious Jew making this Catholic gesture. And Natalie smiled bravely back at him. These two were playing parts, both for each other’s benefit and for ours.597 But Sarada, meanwhile, was obviously and frightfully scared; she had turned white with terror. (Did I think at the time, or was it later, that it was shocking to see that the thought of Ramakrishna gave her no support at all?) The third woman was neutral; I don’t know what she was feeling. . . . Well, all this was quite appalling and yet at the same time exhilarating, as any ghastly accident is to the spectator. And then the wind swirled the platform away, and it fell, far below, on the ocean highway and, I think, caused a huge traffic pileup.

  Well, I reopened this record, which is all I really wanted to do. I am in a brisk housekeeping-choredoing mood which always immediately follows a parting from Don. You might call it a mild form of shock.

  June 7. Just about to take off for a trip to Big Sur with Bart Johnson. Why in hell did I agree to this? I couldn’t want it less.

  Nothing from Don yet.

  The weather is clearing, after much greyness. Dorothy blames it on underground atomic testing. “They’ve shaken the veins of the earth.” She said she was tired, last time she was here, so I made her drink some bourbon. After this, she laughed wildly because I told her how Don will mop the floor with the sponge meant for the dishes.

  Still this pain in my groin, through the left nut and down my leg. Also pain in my little finger, which is serious because it interferes with typing. I’m afraid it is the arthritis spreading.

  Chris Wood has a new dachshund named Beau.

  Ted, still nutty, claims he has found an agent who wants to get him into a Las Vegas show.

  Have finished typing “Gems of Belgian Architecture” for my Exhumations book. An advance copy of A Single Man arrived yesterday. It could be worse looking. The type is good.

  Arup refused to do some domestic work for the girls up at Vedanta Place, saying, “How dare you ask a swami to do that!” Swami told him off, saying that a swami should be humble, helpful, gentle, etc. etc. Prema also is in the doghouse because of his intriguing to get sent to the Paris center.

  Jo says that Ben still refuses to see Betty [Arizu]’s children. The very thought that they exist upsets him.

  June 18. Starting to feel very low and sad, because I miss Don so. Also because the discomfort in the groin persists. Dr. Allen saw it and took it as calmly as usual.

  Big Sur was magnificent but Big Johnson wasn’t. I behaved badly, but made up for it later, I guess. Can’t be bored to relate all this.

  Working on The Loved One again since yesterday, at the nice pool house of the house Tony Richardson has rented. Jan [Niem], the Polish chauffeur, has a respectful-sassy relationship to Tony, Bud[d Cherry] and Neil [Hartley], throws them the pool ball he bought at the filling station.

  September 7. Labor Day. A restart after a big lapse.

  What’s to report? They are shooting The Loved One, with dialogue about ninety-nine percent Terry Southern’s; all that’s left of my script is some of the skeleton. And now I have finished a first draft script of Reflections in a Golden Eye, and Tony says he’s delighted with it. So now the decks are cleared for my own work. All I have to do is get the proofs of Ramakrishna and His Disciples corrected.

  Then I can get on with Exhumations and think about my new novel.

  Despite the sour reception of A Single Man in this country, I still feel very good about it. Not so much as a work of art but as a deed. I feel: I spoke the truth, and now let them swallow it or not as they see fit. That’s a very good feeling, and this is the first time that I have really felt it.

  The only other thing I feel like reporting right now is some table talk of Tony Richardson’s. This was mostly said on August 17, while Don and I were having supper with him and Vanessa (she has gone back to England now). A few of the remarks seemed aimed at Vanessa. However—

  He said that now he has lost interest in the theater. He wants to do movies. In the theater, you have to keep carefully to the interpretation of the author’s text. In the movies, you are much freer. The script is something you can depart from. You are free to improvise. Also, you are not so much at the mercy of the actors.

  But actors are wonderful, because they accept life. When stars get old and are no longer stars, they accept this and take little jobs and don’t complain, as other people in other professions would.

  Richard and Liz Burton are completely corrupt; they think only of money.

  Samuel Beckett is a great writer. He has real compassion.

  Chekhov is as great as Shakespeare.

  Brando has a Japanese girlfriend. She appears at meals but leaves at once when the men are talking business. That’s the way women should be.

  September 18. The day before yesterday, I went up to Vedanta Place and Swami and Vidya and Vandanananda and Usha and another girl who has been proofreading went right through the proofs of Ramakrishna and His Disciples and incorporated all our corrections and my changes, and so now, aside from checking the captions under the photographs, the whole work is done and the rest is up to Methuen.

  India had a last straw to throw on my back—after all this while, they wrote to say that they hadn’t got my talk straightened out, because it was never properly recorded. So now they want me to rewrite it. No, I told Swami. Whereupon he said he would do it. Oh, the blackmail! So, of course, I had to say that, if he did it, I would revise it later. Didn’t even bother to look and see what talk it is.

  Five days ago, I woke up with my back hurting. It has hurt ever since, not really getting much better. Dr. Allen gives it heat treatment and I take pills to relax the muscles. Oh dear, it is so tiresome being sick! I seem to go from one ailment to another, without a pause, and of course that means I’m toxic, physically and mentally. I do wish I could snap out of this. I am such a mess. And for no reason. I have money, fame, a happy home. Don is being marvellous. Tony wants me to do more work for him—either Marguerite Duras’ Le Marin de Gibraltar or Colette’s Chéri.

  I must try to get back into some sort o
f regular meditation, however brief. I must try to prepare myself for death. I must try to be less of a cantankerous nuisance and more of a public convenience.

  September 26. I finished the screenplay of Golden Eye on the 4th and since then all I’ve done has been the final correcting of the Ramakrishna material. Well, and why shouldn’t I take a holiday? I have certainly earned one. But the truth is, I am bad at holidays. Instead of relaxing—whatever that means—I just idle without joy and (consequently, I do sincerely believe) get sick. My back still hurts, but it is better than it was. The X rays showed a disc which has worn thin. Sooner or later, barring accidents, it will fuse and then the pain will stop.

  The fire up at Santa Barbara came right to the eucalyptus grove at the edge of the convent land. The girls were evacuated, taking the relics from the shrine with them. Then the wind changed. Vidya and the other monks from Vedanta Place went up there to help. Vidya is under some sort of a cloud. Apparently he lied to Swami, but I haven’t heard the whole story of this yet, because Don was with me the last time I went to Vedanta Place, so Swami didn’t talk about it.

  Am still waiting to get the English translation of the Duras novel, Le Marin de Gibraltar. Then I must make up my mind, do I want to do a screenplay on it. If I do, I shan’t go to New York with Don on October 8 or 9. I don’t really want to go, because anyhow I should be quite inactive there, and I ought to get on with my book of bits and pieces. I wrote to Alan White, asking if they would approve the title Exhumations, but no answer yet.

  Have been making a tape for Don of various poems. He wants to play them to himself while he is painting in the studio.

  Don is now getting quite enthusiastic about his painting—partly because Paul Wonner and Bill Brown have at last told him that they like it and think he ought to exhibit some of it. But the New York gallery (the Banfer) only wants drawings. Dr. Oderburg tells him that he ought not to stop painting at this time; so there is the problem of trying to work at it while he is in New York.

  October 1. Thick fog in the Canyon all day, and my back and ribs as bad as ever, but somehow I felt gay and full of love—not only for Don but also for Budd Cherry, Phil Anderson and most everyone else on earth who isn’t old, hideous, pro-Goldwater or otherwise impossible.

  Lyle Fox massaged my back, probably without any effect but never mind. Told him this story—I think I got it from Paul Wonner:

  A young man boards a plane, sits down next to a lady, takes out a copy of Playboy, pins up the two-page photo of a nude cutie on the back of the seat in front of him and jacks off, looking at it. When he has finished, he wipes his cock with his handkerchief, puts it back in, takes out a pack of cigarettes, turns to the lady and asks very politely, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  October 28. Don left for New York on the 15th. His show opened there yesterday at the Banfer Gallery.598 Stephen Spender called me last night to tell me that he had been there and there was quite a big crowd.

  Strange weather. At lunchtime yesterday it was warm enough to go in swimming. Later it rained. Today it is grey and more rain is said to be coming. I am plugging away at The Sailor from Gibraltar. There is an awful lot of it and I still really do not know just what I am doing. The chief technical problem is the fragmentation of the flashback.

  Neil Hartley told me today that Tony should be through shooting The Loved One by Thanksgiving.

  I still feel a sick foreboding about the elections, despite all the pollsters who declare that Johnson has it in the bag. It is the mere smell of Goldwater that sickens me. Horrible to think that he got even this far toward being elected.

  Supper with Cecil Beaton last night. He was very gleeful because George Cukor had made a poor showing at the big press conference which was held for the opening of My Fair Lady. The opening is tonight, and I have not been invited, despite the fact that I am such friends with Cecil and on good terms, even, with Cukor and Rex Harrison—not to mention Audrey Hepburn.599 Well, I don’t regret it; it would really bore me to go, without Don. Also Tony Richardson (who, like me, hasn’t been invited) is showing the Jean Genet prison film tonight.600 Even to miss seeing that again doesn’t break my heart. I would far rather be doing what I am doing—going to Vedanta Place and then looking in on Bob Rosen. Isn’t that typical of me!

  Rib still hurts; lower back more or less all right. A nasty lump in the mouth cleared up as soon as Dr. Stevens filed a bit off my lower bridge. He is now preparing my $400 upper bridge, which is to combine the three separate bits.

  Am fat and drinking too much, but feel a good deal more energy since I went back on the high potency vitamins. As usual, I am bored without Don—nothing bounces off anything; it just falls flat to the floor. He won’t be returning till the 15th, at the earliest.

  Reading wonderful Byron (his letters) and a drag-queen autobiography Gavin lent me, called Mr. Madam.601 And now Peter Viertel’s novel, Love Lies Bleeding, has arrived—a wretched title and I do so hate bulls and their annoyers.

  October 30. Budd Cherry took me to the Kirov Ballet last night, and to supper at Perino’s, where we sat in splendor in the best banquette because, apparently, the waiter had mistaken Budd for a Dr. Cherry who is one of their best customers. Budd told how Tony resists all possessiveness and security, and how he uses people. All this with a despairing affection; for Budd still feels that Tony is the greatest artist he ever met and the most marvellous person, and he loves him. Actually, I think Budd’s inviting me was in itself a gesture—not exactly of defiance but of self-assertion; he was determined to show Tony that he can still have his own relationships, even with Tony’s friends. And, of course, I’m quite ready to play along with this, if it makes Budd feel better.

  When we got back to their house, after the ballet, Tony was engaged in a typical piece of mischief—trying to persuade a boy who supports Goldwater to come to a party on Tuesday night, to share in the (presumed) Democratic triumph.

  Neil made me a big speech about how they all love me and wish I would work right along with them on all of their undertakings, and why don’t we see each other more, etc. Well, fine—but, while this strokes me up the right way, and would make me purr deeply if I were a pussy, I see the deep workings. No doubt Neil felt that Tony had been ungracious and might lose a valuable assistant in consequence. But the truth is, I prefer Tony’s ungraciousness. This American business warmth makes me nervous, because I know so well how quickly it can cool. All I have to do is fail, once.

  I was about to add, “Just the same, I like Neil”; but, God, what a meaningless word “like” is! You can say you love people or that you, temporarily, desire them. The rest is really mutual convenience—are you going my way? Do we both want to get drunk, or double date, or see that play or movie, or vote for Johnson, or visit San Simeon, or talk about Proust—all right, then, we’ll do it together and call ourselves friends. And if we keep going each other’s way over a long period, well, something else may start to happen—and that’s love. Or is it, even then? Is there any love until there has been friction and a clash of wills and an understanding that one does not agree on everything? Until, in fact, the mutual convenience relationship has been broken.

  The Kirov Ballet was the squarest theatrical performance I have ever seen. They danced with exquisite precision, very very slowly, with glum faces or pained smiles. (One girl kept making exits which always seemed just a shade too long—it was as if she kept dashing for the stage door in an effort to defect and being dragged back again.) Only one man, in red boots, had a big American grin on his face as he jumped. So the audience loved him, though some of the others jumped higher. I think it was chiefly the boots.

  Tony says all ballet is dead except for the New York City Ballet, and that he refuses to see any other.

  Yesterday was the last day of shooting at Greystone. Now the house will either be torn down or remodelled and made into an art gallery. Such a huge ugly expensive place; such a waste of perfectly good building materials. Really, its existence was only justified duri
ng the few weeks that it was used for this film.602

  At the gym, Vince Eder, the Chinese boy—or is he Japanese or American Indian or all three?—was wearing a sweater with FUCK written across its chest, backwards. Vince and a couple of others had had these sweaters lettered for them at a sports shop. This is the kind of thing that just would not have been possible, five years ago.

  Truman Capote has been staying in town. I saw him three times and read the first three parts of In Cold Blood. I don’t know what I really think of it until I have read it all, but it is terrifically impressive. (Reading in Show Magazine that he was born with the name of Persons, I thought that a good title for his autobiography would be Persons Known.)

  Truman is wonderful to be with. (I do almost love him.) We were comparing our fantasies of revenge on our enemies, and I told him how I always start my trial of the chief criminal by killing a couple of his relatives right there in front of him, to show him I’m not kidding. Truman said, “I know exactly what you mean— just to sort of establish the mood.”

  November 1. Got drunk yesterday because I spent the afternoon drinking with Budd Cherry and listening to more of his woe. (The most interesting piece of new information is that Tony is absolutely passive sexually!) Then I went on into Hollywood and drank some more at dinner with Bob Rosen and Phil Anderson, with the result that I fell asleep during the Belmondo movie, [That] Man from Rio. Woke up this morning deeply depressed by this sloppy behavior. But I have managed to do some work on the Sailor from Gibraltar script this afternoon.

  Don called this morning. It seems that his show hasn’t amounted to much. But I could tell that he is having a good time. His mood was good. I am starting to miss him terribly. Just the mere blankness of his not being here. But, when I am in this state, it is really better that he isn’t here.

  To work!

  November 15. Don called this morning and told me that he is definitely going to take on this assignment of drawing the twelve principal dancers of the New York City Ballet. So he will stay in New York for several weeks yet; maybe right through till Christmas, when he would join me at John Goodwin’s in Santa Fe. Furthermore, Don says, if he comes home now he’ll feel depressed and disappointed, because his show hasn’t done well; only four drawings sold. He says he is determined never again to have a show of drawings. And that he hates Ferdinand, who runs the Banfer Gallery.603