The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

by Christopher Isherwood

  805 Time Present, opening at the Royal Court, May 23.

  806 Atropine, to reduce secretions and relieve spasm in the digestive tract.

  807 Auden did not attend either. Isherwood’s citation was read out by Glenway Wescott.

  808 Selections from the Bhagavad-Gita (The Song of God ), A New Translation in Prose and Poetry by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. Caedmon TC 1249 (1968). Isherwood read from the Gita translation made with Prabhavananda in 1944.

  809 Probably his commonplace book.

  810 Draper (1923–2003) recorded gold-selling singles throughout the 1950s, had stage roles in Oklahoma and Annie Get Your Gun, and appeared on T.V. in “Rawhide” and “Laramie.”

  811 The Hotel in Amsterdam opening July 3 at the Royal Court.

  812 The Old Globe.

  813 She played the role on Broadway in 1969, had a few small movie parts in the 1970s, and appeared in ABC T.V.’s “One Life to Live.”

  814 Robert Kennedy was assassinated June 5 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California Democratic presidential primary.

  815 Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, was arrested and convicted after confessing to the murder.

  816 Actors’ Equity struck June 17–21, mostly over pay, foreign actors, and chorus sizes. Nineteen Broadway shows and nine touring shows closed. Cabaret was then in Los Angeles.

  817 Both were novels to be adapted as films.

  818 American Civil Liberties Union; see Glossary.

  819 California State University, Los Angeles, where Isherwood taught when it was still Los Angeles State College.

  820 Noël Coward’s 1931 play (filmed in 1933) chronicling the first decades of the twentieth century through the eyes of a well-to-do English family and their servants; widely regarded as a sell-out to middle-class values.

  821 The 1923 play also by Shaw.

  822 It appeared only in 1973 from Faber, and from Octagon books in New York in 1972.

  823 Not his real name.

  824 See Glossary under Buckley.

  825 American film critic and arts columnist (b. 1938), he wrote for The New York Post, The New York Daily News, The New York Observer, Vogue, and GQ and published a number of books.

  826 Irish-born actor, singer, film star (1930–2002) made famous in This Sporting Life (1963) and as King Arthur in the screen musical Camelot (1967). Later, he played Dumbledore in two Harry Potter films.

  827 Third wife, 1960–1971, of film director Vincente Minnelli (1903–1986).

  828 William M. Glavin, paid companion to Williams from 1965 to 1970.

  829 The House of Representatives decides a tie in the presidential race; see Glossary under Presidential Election 1968.

  830 The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, Being Conversations and Letters of Brother Lawrence (English translation, 1855); Frère Laurent (1611–1691) was a lay brother of the barefoot Carmelites in Paris.

  831 In “Twilight (1901),” chptr. XXVI.

  832 He discovered Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson, who was strategically married to Willson’s secretary, Phyllis Gates, from 1955 to 1958.

  833 Clusters of five cell types in the pancreas; each type secretes a different hormone to break down food; they are named after the German scientist, Paul Langerhans, who discovered them in 1869 and described the clusters as islets.

  834 Association of Producing Artists; see Glossary under Ellis Rabb.

  835 Where Davidson was Artistic Director; see Glossary.

  836 Tyson (b. 1933, in Harlem) and Keach (b. 1941, in Savannah, Georgia) had appeared together in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), his first film.

  837 A present from Fräulein Thurau and described in Goodbye to Berlin: “a brass dolphin holding on the end of its tail a small broken clock” (p. 15). Finkelstein was a neighbor in the house directly below Isherwood.

  838 Jaqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Artistotle Onassis on October 20, 1968.

  839 Vitamin B complex with trace minerals and a mild stimulant.

  840 Grinnich was an actor who occasionally spent weekends with Lanchester.

  841 The first manned lunar mission was launched December 21 and returned December 27; the crew read Genesis 1.1–12 to conclude their live T.V. broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve.

  842 Referring to the characters in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908).

  843 Hideki Takami, houseboy and cook for the Stravinskys from 1967 until Stravinsky’s death in 1971; later he opened a Japanese restaurant in Manhattan.

  844 American journalist (b. 1928) for The New York Times, Washington Post, and others; on T.V., he was Diplomatic Correspondent for ABC and a longtime White House Correspondent for NBC.

  845 I.e., televised.

  846 Order of Merit, for exceptional service, especially to the arts, learning, literature, and science. There are only twenty-four members at one time.

  847 Leonard was writing a Ph.D. thesis in linguistics at Lancaster University; she later published The Interpretation of English Noun Sequences on the Computer (1984).

  848 The 1967 play was by Canadian playwright John Herbert. Mineo (1939– 1976), a movie star since appearing in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), directed it, launching Johnson’s (b. 1949) film and, later, T.V. career, which culminated in “Miami Vice” during the 1980s.

  849 Prolific Hollywood journalist and biographer (b. 1922), his Selznick appeared in 1970.

  850 Fisher, clinical psychologist and professor at the UCLA School of Public Health, treated schizophrenics, autistic children, and cancer patients; he published a number of articles on LSD and psilocybin therapy.

  851 Perry (1930–1995) directed David and Lisa (1962), The Swimmer (1968), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), Play It as It Lays (1972), Mommie Dearest (1981), and worked on Broadway; he was to split in 1970 from his first wife, Ellen Perry (1916–1981), who wrote his screenplays.

  852 In Answered Prayers.

  853 George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood (b. 1923), a grandson of George V and first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, then director of the Royal Opera House; his publications include Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book. His second wife was Patricia Tuckwell (b. 1926), an Australian violinist.

  854 Paul Bogart (b. 1919), American director of T.V.—“The Defenders,” “Get Smart,” “All in the Family,” “Golden Girls”—and movies—Marlowe (1969), Cancel My Reservation (1972), Torch Song Trilogy (1988).

  855 Spencer was an architect. He designed and built the house himself. Eventually it broke in half and had to be removed.

  856 Michael Laughlin.

  857 Where she lived in her own house; see Glossary.

  858 Probably “Losers Weepers” (1967) and “Deadlock” (1969); see Glossary.

  859 Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (the Gambler), first of the two-part 1922 film.

  860 Probably Frances Inglis (b. 1910), a Stanford graduate, once concert manager and director of the Writers Guild of America West, who ran the Committee on Fine Art Productions and helped with the Professional Theater Group.

  861 Their own bed.

  862 Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, for service to the nation.

  863 At UCLA on March 16.

  864 Sabato Rodia, a local workman, spent more than twenty-five years building the junk towers; see Glossary.

  865 Beckerman had a production company and worked with various studios; his best-known film was Marathon Man (1976) at Paramount.

  866 I.e., that Carter Lodge, as van Druten’s heir, had rights in the material; see Glossary.

  867 Evans’s companion, also his silent partner in the gallery.

  868 Maugham (1916–1981)—barrister, soldier, author of fiction, plays, and screenplays, and a nephew of Somerset Maugham—published the novel in 1968.

  869 The most sacred mantra of the Hindu tradition.

  870 Isherwood also loved this ballad, from the end of Billy Budd, which contains the line, “Heaven kno
ws who will have the running of me up!” “Up,” meaning heaven, was a special habitat of Bachardy’s Kitty persona.

  871 Made by Lawrence from a twisted branch fixed to a hand-cut, oval, wooden base possibly from the same tree; given to Isherwood by Frieda Lawrence, Dorothy Brett, or Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos in 1950. During the same visit, Georgia O’Keeffe gave him a cedar root she found at the Lawrence ranch; he mentions the root in D.1.

  872 Not his real name.

  873 “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.”

  874 Winston Churchill’s war correspondence—London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900) and Ian Hamilton’s March, Together with Extracts from the Diary of Lieut. H. Frankland, a Prisoner of War at Pretoria (1900)—appeared in a one-volume edition in 1962.

  875 Goodbye Dolly Grey: The Story of the Boer War (1959).

  876 A.H.C. Kearsey, War Record of the York and Lancaster Regiment 1900–1902 (1903).

  877 On May 24, 1969 in London for possession of cannabis. The trial was delayed until September 29 so he could make Ned Kelly. He was previously arrested on May 10, 1967 at Redlands, the home of Rolling Stone Keith Richards, and convicted of possessing amphetamines.

  878 Ryan (d. 1991), an electronics engineer, helped design Mattel’s Barbie and Chattie Cathy talking dolls; he was later a husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor. The party was a UCLA alumni fundraiser.

  879 American talent agent, movie producer, and studio executive at CBS and Twentieth Century-Fox (b. 1935).

  880 When Gautama renounces the world to wander alone.

  881 Gable (1940–1998), a star at the Royal Ballet, played Eric Fenby, the composer’s amanuensis, in Ken Russell’s Delius: Song of Summer (1968); later he founded the Central School of Ballet and was artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre.

  882 Anamananda, previously Arup Chaitanya and before that, Kenny.

  883 Choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan, 1965.

  884 Robert Hoffman (1921–1997), twice-married monk who also lived at the Hollywood Vedanta Society. He founded the Hoffman Institute to promote his 1967 insight that unconditional love is a universal birthright and published Getting Divorced from Mother and Dad (1976).

  885 See Aug. 12, 1961.

  886 Apollo 11 was launched July 16; Nixon declared July 20 a national holiday so that Americans could watch Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin walk on the moon.

  887 Isherwood and Bachardy eventually received satisfactory payment.

  888 I.e., Union de Transports Aériens, a French airline.

  889 Richard Dreyfuss; see Glossary.

  890 Rudolph Graf Strachwitz von Gross-Zauche und Camminetz helped plan the assassination attempt against Hitler in 1944; see Glossary.

  891 The murders in Benedict Canyon and Silver Lake were committed by the Manson gang; the third incident was unrelated. See Glossary.

  892 A bar.

  893 Cf. Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XXX, l. 75.

  894 Samoan houses.

  895 Agnes Genevieve Grey (1897–1988), of British-Samoan descent, ran a bar, once called the Cosmopolitan Club, which flourished when the U.S. military arrived in Samoa in 1942; she is rumored to have been a model for “Bloody Mary” in James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific (1948).

  896 Traditional Samoan feast with music and dancing.

  897 Medavoy (b. 1941) became a powerful studio executive at United Artists, was a founder of Orion Pictures in 1978, and later chairman of Tri-Star Pictures. Isherwood typed Midavoy.

  898 Stevenson’s house.

  899 The last two lines of “Requiem” appear on the tomb; Isherwood first read Stevenson in childhood with Frank.

  900 Published as Narada’s Way of Divine Love (1971), translated and with a commentary by Prabhavananda, introduced by Isherwood.

  901 72 Drawings: Chosen by the Artist (1971); Isherwood’s introduction was not used.

  902 His first wife.

  903 Anne Heywood, Miss Britain 1949 (b. Violet Pretty, 1932), appeared in the film of another D.H. Lawrence story, The Fox (1968), and was being promoted by her producer husband, Stross (1916–1988). Their other films include A Terrible Beauty (1960), Midas Run (1969), and Good Luck Miss Wyckoff (1979), but they did not make the two Isherwood mentions.

  904 An Australian studio.

  905 In The Boy in the Bush (1924), chptr. 4, “Wandoo.”

  906 Passages about the visit appear in D.1.

  907 British production director and costume designer (1917–2003) for Ned Kelly; production designer for the English Stage Company since painting scenery for its first season at the Royal Court. She lived with company co-founder George Devine and worked on other Richardson films.

  908 Christopher Jagger, musician, songwriter, bandleader.

  909 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (b. 1917), who devised and promoted Transcendental Meditation. He initiated the Beatles in 1967, and they went on a retreat at his Himalayan ashram; Jagger and Faithfull were also there.

  910 Australian journalist (1910–1983), celebrated for his coverage of W.W.II; his books include the prize-winning Gallipoli (1956).

  911 The bungalow where Lawrence and Frieda lived in 1922 when he was writing Kangaroo, in which he used it.

  912 Isherwood’s ancestor Judge John Bradshaw (1602–1659) sentenced Charles I to death. Thomas Fairfax (1612–1671) led the Parliamentary forces to victory against the king but stayed away from the trial and tried to get the execution postponed.

  913 I.e., cliff; it is well over a thousand feet high.

  914 The raid on the Variety, December 1, 1949, mentioned in D.1 in Isherwood’s “Outline” and in his entry for December 6, 1949.

  915 Schenck was a studio executive; see Glossary.

  916 The San Pedro Channel, between the Los Angeles coastline and Santa Catalina Island.

  917 Manhattan lawyer (1927–1986); he helped prosecute Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs for the New York District Attorney and then became chief council to Joseph McCarthy.

  918 Richard J. Daley (1902–1976), mayor of Chicago from 1955 to his death and president of the corrupt Cook County Democratic Central Committee; he issued a shoot-to-kill order against rioters following Martin Luther King’s assassination and appeared to encourage police violence against demonstrators outside the 1968 Democratic convention.

  919 Lewis Blaine Hershey (1893–1977), director of the Selective Service System (the U.S. draft) 1940-1970.

  920 Pro-segregation, four-time governor of Alabama (1919–1998); he ran for president four times.

  921 Of figurative art over abstract.

  922 I.e., St. John’s College.

  923 I.e., George Lazenby instead of Sean Connery.

  924 Isherwood devised the pseudonym as a comment on the T.V. show. “Bergmann” is the character in Prater Violet whose wife tells him, “Go and write your poems. When I have cooked the dinner, I will invent this idiotic story for you. After all, prostitution is a woman’s business.” “Magda” is indeed a woman’s name, borrowed from one of the Gabor sisters, at Bachardy’s suggestion.