The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

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The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969 Page 109

by Christopher Isherwood


  Yorkshire Post, The 96

  You Only Live Twice (film) 468–9

  Young One, The (film) 44

  Youngblood Hawke (film) 365

  Zeffirelli, Franco 124

  Zeigel, John (Johnny; Jack): C.I.’s relations with 46, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 56, 56 –7; visits C.I. 46, 47–8, 56 –7, 143, 144; relationship with Ed Halsey 47, 49, 50, 53, 57, 144, 230; C.I. visits in Claremont 51n, 54; C.I. visits Santa Barbara with 51, 53; at C.I.’s party for Jo Masselink 56; and death of Halsey 230, 233, 238; studies at Cal. Tech. 230; and Don Bachardy 239; proposes meeting in Mexico 240; C.I. visits in Pasadena 268; sees apparition of Halsey 268; and Thom Gunn 488; 722

  Zimbalist, Mary 539

  Zola, Emile, Restless House 184

  Zorina, Vera 57n

  Zortman, Bruce 139, 193, 201, 281, 284, 293

  Books by Christopher Isherwood

  NOVELS

  All the Conspirators

  The Memorial

  Mr. Norris Changes Trains

  Goodbye to Berlin

  Prater Violet

  The World in the Evening

  Down There on a Visit

  A Single Man

  A Meeting by the River

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY & DIARIES

  Lions and Shadows

  Kathleen and Frank

  Christopher and His Kind

  My Guru and His Disciple

  October (with Don Bachardy)

  Volume One: 1939–1960

  Lost Years: A Memoir: 1945–1951

  BIOGRAPHY

  Ramakrishna and His Disciples

  PLAYS (with W.H.Auden)

  The Dog Beneath the Skin

  The Ascent of F6

  On the Frontier

  TRAVEL

  Journey to a War (with W.H.Auden)

  The Condor and the Cows

  COLLECTIONS

  Exhumations

  Where Joy Resides

  About the Author

  CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD (1904–1986) was one of the most celebrated writers of his generation. He left Cambridge without graduating, briefly studied medicine, and then turned to writing his first novels, All the Conspirators and The Memorial. Between 1929 and 1939, he lived mainly abroad in Europe, spending four years in Berlin and writing the novels Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, on which the musical Cabaret was based. He wrote three plays with W. H. Auden and emigrated with him to the United States in 1939. Auden settled in New York, and Isherwood went on to California, where he became a successful screenwriter. He took United States citizenship in 1946 and wrote another five novels, including Prater Violet, D own T here o n a Visit, and A Single Man. He also wrote a travel book about South America and a biography of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, he turned to autobiography—Kathleen and Frank, Christopher and His Kind, My Guru and His Disciple—and published October, one month of his diary illustrated with drawings by Don Bachardy.

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  Copyright

  THE SIXTIES. Copyright © 2010 by Don Bachardy. Introduction

  copyright © 2010 by Katherine Bucknell. Foreword copyright © 2010

  by Christopher Hitchens. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2010 by Chatto & Windus.

  FIRST U. S . EDITION

  Library of Congress Control Number: 97005501

  ISBN: 978-0-06-118019-4

  EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780062063274

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  1 Even the passage cited above from Down There on a Visit concludes by saying: “Whatever happens, I mean to work a lot on the China book. And I’ll start doing my exercises again. For the first time this year.” Isherwood was also working throughout the sixties on the genealogical and other research for what became Kathleen and Frank, his oblique homage to the Victorian and Edwardian—not the “eighties and nineties and noughties”—values of his parents and other forebears.

  2 “The Choice,” The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933).

  3 “Writing,” The Dyer’s Hand (1962), p. 19.

  4 June 20, 1961.

  5 Feb. 12, 1962.

  6 Feb. 23, 1962.

  7 Apr. 16, 1962.

  8 June 25 and 27, 1962.

  9 Aug. 26, 1962.

  10 Sept. 10, 1962.

  11 Sept. 18, 1962.

  12 Aug. 22, 1962.

  13 Aug. 26, 1962.

  14 Nov. 29, 1962.

  15 See Aug. 2, 1963.

  16 Sept. 7, 1964.

  17 See Oct. 31, 1963 and Nov. 23, 1964.

  18 Nov. 27, 1962.

  19 July 10, 1962.

  20 Conversation with me, Oct. 2006.

  21 Dec. 26, 1962.

  22 Feb. 6, 1963.

  23 Feb. 9, 1963.

  24 Feb. 9, 1963.

  25 Jan. 3, 1963.

  26 Letter to me, Apr. 26, 2008.

  27 March 20, 1963.

  28 Apr. 14, 1963.

  29 Apr. 26, 1963.

  30 May 3, 1963.

  31 May 18, 1963.

  32 Feb. 12, 1962.

  33 Oct. 31, 1963.

  34 Aug. 9 and 20, 1963.

  35 Chptr. VII.

  36 Oct. 16, 1962.

  37 Prt. II, chptr. 3.

  38 June 2, 1963.

  39 Sept. 19, 1963.

  40 Nov. 1, 1963.

  41 Nov. 22, 1962.

  42 Dec. 31, 1963.

  43 Jan. 2, 1964.

  44 Jan. 2, 1963.

  45 Jan. 3, 1963.

  46 “Notes on ‘Camp’,” Partisan Review, vol. 31, no. 4, 1964, pp. 515–530; rpt. Against Interpretation (1966).

  47 Jan. 7, 1965.

  48 Apr. 19, 1961.

  49 May 13, 1962.

  50 Jan. 8, 1966.

  51 Jan. 8, 1966.

  52 Jul. 19, 1967. Heard was still alive but increasingly unwell from an ongoing series of strokes.

  53 Jan. 4, 1966.

  54 Nov. 30, 1966.

  55 Jan. 22, 1967.

  56 Kathleen and Frank (K&F), chptr. 1.

  57 K&F, chptr. 1.

  58 Sept. 5, 1969.

  59 Sept. 5, 1969.

  60 Dec. 10, 1969.

  61 Aug. 29, 1967.

  62 Apr. 11, 1968.

  63 May 31, 1969.

  64 Apr. 26, 1968.

  65 Isherwood often began a fresh notebook of diarie
s near his birthday, August 26. He titled this one “August 26, 1960–October 16, 1962” with a note: “(A separate volume covers April–October 1961—a visit to England).”

  66 Isherwood had worsening arthritis in his right thumb, so in this entry he gave up writing by hand and began to type his diaries on loose sheets which he clipped into a binder.

  67 Down There on a Visit (1962), begun in 1955 and now nearing its final form though still titled The Lost.

  68 A gated community on the beach.

  69 For a film for Richard Burton; see Glossary under Burton.

  70 Props for Tony Richardson’s New York production of Shelagh Delaney’s play.

  71 First-ever think tank. The Research ANd Development Institute, created by the U.S. Army Air Forces at the end of W.W. II to advise them on aircrafts, rockets, satellites, and other new technology; based in Santa Monica, California.

  72 The Algerians had been fighting for independence since 1954, attracting growing public support in France where activists refused to fight against them and even secretly assisted them. In February 1960, President de Gaulle promised self-determination for Algeria, but the war continued until 1962.

  73 Last section of Down There on a Visit.

  74 In May, Isherwood had accepted a new job teaching English at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB); he was to begin September 22.

  75 Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965); see Glossary for Ramakrishna and for other Hindu names and terms.

  76 The magazine of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, Vedanta and the West, in which Isherwood’s Ramakrishna biography was appearing in installments; it was edited by Prema Chaitanya.

  77 Charles Laughton had taken a break from the play they were writing about Socrates while he did some television work and underwent a gall bladder operation in mid-August.

  78 Geller was then Isherwood’s film agent; French, representing Richard Burton, was trying to make a package deal of the project. Later French became Isherwood’s film agent. See Glossary.

  79 I.e., the University of California at Los Angeles. Richardson’s adaptation of the Orestes myth was nominated for several drama awards in 1959–1960.

  80 Laughton’s spare house next door to Isherwood and Bachardy.

  81 Solomon Hurok (1888–1974), Russian-born impresario who produced classical music, ballet and theatrical events under his rubric, “Sol Hurok presents . . . .”

  82 “How I Write a Novel,” delivered May 5, 1960 at the University of Southern California.

  83 “What Is the Nerve of the Interest in a Novel”; see Glossary under Lectures 1960.

  84 The American pianist (b. 1934), also a southerner.

  85 Isherwood and his guru, Swami Prabhavananda, began translating the Bhagavad Gita in October 1942; it was published in August 1944. Isherwood tells about living as a monk at Vedanta Place in Diaries: Volume One 1939–1960 (D.1). See also Glossary under Prabhavananda and Vedanta Place.

  86 The third section of Down There on a Visit, set during August and September 1938.

  87 Isherwood’s first university post, at Los Angeles State College, from September 22, 1959 to June 1960.

  88 Angela Lansbury, Plowright, Nigel Davenport, Andrew Ray, and Billy Dee Williams were to open on Broadway on October 4; Ure was not in the play but was sharing Tony Richardson’s West L.A. house.

  89 A veterans’ hospital on Sawtelle Boulevard.

  90 The 1945 collection of essays edited and introduced by Isherwood. Davenport (b. 1928), an Oxford-educated British actor, played supporting and character roles on the London stage, in films—including Look Back in Anger (1959), A High Wind in Jamaica (1965), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Chariots of Fire (1981)—and on T.V.

  91 Williams (b. 1937) is black; he was raised in Harlem, was a child actor and entertainer, and later became known in the made-for-T.V. film “Brian’s Song” (1971), in two films opposite Diana Ross—Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and Mahogany (1975)—and others.

  92 Drawing portraits and fashion illustrations.

  93 Not his real name.

  94 Not her real name.

  95 Before marrying, Flam had homosexual affairs.

  96 British colonial administrator (1732–1818); Governor of Bengal (1772), first Governor General of India (1773–1785).

  97 Warshaw was a painter (see Glossary); Bachardy’s drawing of Vera Stravinsky was reproduced by photostat.

  98 Not his real name.

  99 English translation of Jean Anouilh’s Becket, ou l’Honneur de Dieu (1959).

  100 Lanchester, his wife. The Laughtons’ main residence was on Curson Avenue in Hollywood.

  101 Not his real name.

  102 Not his real name.

  103 Not his real name.

  104 Elsa Lanchester—Herself, at UCLA.

  105 William Randolph Hearst’s first Los Angeles paper, a New York-style tabloid.

  106 R. R. Bouché (1906–1963), Czech-born portrait artist and fashion illustrator whose work often appeared in Vogue.

  107 By James Costigan; it opened December 1 but lasted only two weeks. Both poster designs were based on Bachardy’s drawings of cast members.

  108 Evidently, to the Channel City Club in Santa Barbara on October 21. Isherwood was to reuse this lecture, or the title anyway, on February 10, 1965 at UCLA.

  109 The Herald and Express was Hearst’s evening paper; the Examiner, mentioned October 3, appeared in the morning. The Examiner merged with the Herald, but not until 1962; possibly Isherwood didn’t know (or care) enough about the papers to distinguish between them.

  110 An optical phenomenon caused by the refraction of light through the atmosphere as the sun drops below the horizon; most easily seen in clear air across an unobstructed view like the ocean.

  111 With six students, at KEYT in Santa Barbara, October 20.

  112 In Goodbye to Berlin, Sally Bowles “practically live[s] on” Prairie Oysters— raw eggs mixed with Worcester sauce—and she offers one to the Christopher Isherwood character when he visits her flat in the Kurfürstendamm. See Glossary for Layard, a Berlin friend.

  113 In his day-to-day diary, Isherwood noted: “Marge?”

  114 A pleasant, dark-haired gay friend in his mid-thirties; he kept an apartment in New York.

  115 Russian-born, English-educated producer and writer Anatole de Grunwald (1910–1967) and his wife.

  116 The fourth and final presidential debate took place October 21; Richard Nixon, formerly a congressman and a senator for California and currently Eisenhower’s vice president, was deemed to have lost to John Kennedy, then senator for Massachusetts.

  117 English playwright and screenwriter (1907–2005), often on Christian subjects; best known for The Lady’s Not for Burning (1948) and Venus Observed (1950), and his translations of Anouilh, Giraudoux, and Ibsen.

 

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