by John Lahr
106 “I am sitting up here smoking”: Williams to Donald Windham, May 1946, TWLDW, p. 191.
106 “This was when the desperate time started”: Williams to Kenneth Tynan, July 26, 1955, Ibid., p. 306.
106 “a dying man”: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 42.
106 “As everyone remarked”: Williams to Margo Jones, Sept. 5, 1946, HRC.
106 “She was a crashing bore”: JLI with Gore Vidal, 2000, JLC.
106 “The minute I met her”: Williams to James Laughlin, July 1946, L2, p. 58.
107 “Those who find it a little harder to live”: From “Love and the Rind of Time,” the lines continues: “As struggling gene in oceanic plant / Predestine voluntary cells that give / The evolutionary turn to fish, then beast . . . ” Carson McCullers, The Mortgaged Heart: Selected Writings, ed. Margarita G. Smith (London: Penguin, 1975), pp. 290–91.
107 “I feel that once”: Carson McCullers to Williams, May 11, 1948, Columbia.
107 “the last good year”: CWTW, p. 199.
107 his first sighting of McCullers: Ibid.
107 “Are you Tennessee or Pancho?”: Virginia Spencer Carr, The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers (New York: Doubleday, 1975), p. 272.
107 “For some reason Pancho”: M, p. 107.
107 “by no means convinced of this”: Ibid.
107 “spuds Carson”: Ibid., p. 275.
108 “Carson is the only person”: CWTW, p. 200.
108 “I feel you are a true collaborator”: Carson McCullers to Williams, May 11, 1948, Columbia.
109 “Pancho was subdued for a while”: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 37.
109 “My friend Pancho has been cooking”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 29, 1946, HRC.
109 “As you ought to know”: Williams to Pancho Rodriguez, July 1946, L2, p. 61.
110 “When Tennessee would mention”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
110 “a violent dislike”: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massie, Oct. 16, 1946, LLC.
110 “the Mexican problem”: Williams to Margo Jones, Oct. 1947, L2, p. 129. “The Mexican problem returned to Manhattan a couple of days ago, quite unexpectedly, and is now sharing the one-room apartment with me. Manana he will look for a job. (Always Manana).”
110 “Don’t, for God’s sake”: Carson McCullers to Williams, undated, Columbia.
110 “Carson says that Ten’s Mexican”: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massie, Oct. 16, 1946, LLC.
110 “I had peeled down”: TWIB, p. 142.
110 “Dakin stayed up all night”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
110 “an asset to you socially”: Dakin Williams to Williams, Mar. 8, 1947, HRC.
110 “How can you do this to me”: TWIB, p. 142.
111 “had the predictable effect”: Ibid.
111 “No amount of reassurance”: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massie, Sept. 20, 1946, LLC. “I refused to go, of course, and gave Liebling some stern instructions about not ever mentioning any of this, even obliquely, to Tenn. Since to do so would mean that Audrey would no longer be Tenn’s agent—Pancho would see to that, even if Tenn did not get sufficiently offended—and that is unfair to Audrey’s long and unselfish interest in Tenn’s work.”
111 “She resented me”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
111 outraged her: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massie, Oct. 30, 1946, LLC. “I don’t blame Audrey for having felt deeply offended when Tenn brought Pancho to all meetings with her, turned to him for opinion and consultation on points that concerned only Audrey as his representative, and particularly by the extremely patronizing tone Pancho assumed toward her, including a reference to the delay in bringing the elaborate moving picture arrangements to a conclusion.”
111 “Audrey, what happened to the money”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
111 “Audrey wanted to ask my advice”: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massie, Sept. 29, 1946, LLC.
111 “A deal has been completed”: Tennessee Williams/Pancho Rodriguez record, BRTC.
112 “It was an error”: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massie, Oct. 30, 1946, LLC. In the same letter, Bigelow writes, “I am horrified that such tales are circulating about in the circles where his career must be, for the theatre has always been curiously prudish and like many a slut is more cautious of scandal than the respectable. And as for Hollywood, there is no more certain end to a career. I simply don’t believe there have been attacks upon Tenn’s life.”
112 “I was jealous of all of them”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
112 detail of passion in A Streetcar Named Desire: Stella: “No, it isn’t all right for anybody to make such a terrible row, but—people do sometimes. Stanley’s always smashed things. Why, on our wedding night—soon as we came in here—he snatched off one of my slippers and rushed about the place smashing the light bulbs with it. . . . He smashed all the light-bulbs with the heel of my shoe. . . . I was–sort of—thrilled by it.” (LOA1, p. 504.)
112 “You take your friends out”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
113 “We’re the sugar daddies!”: Windham, As If, p. 81.
113 “Tenn . . . disappeared”: Ibid.
113 “You ought to see your room”: Ibid.
113 “A portable typewriter”: Williams to Donald Windham, June 6, 1947, TWLDW, p. 200.
113 “on the other side of a center”: CS, “Rubio y Morena,” p. 263.
114 quiet days to write: In the manuscript of “Memoirs” (p. 42), Williams wrote, “I would work from early morning to early afternoon, and then, spent from the rigors of creation, I would go around the corner to a bar called Victor’s and revive myself with a marvelous drink called a brandy Alexander which was a specialty of the bar. I would always play the Ink Spots rendition of ‘If I Didn’t Care’ on the juke box. Then I’d eat a sandwich and then I’d go to the Athletic Club on North Rampart Street.”
114 “the always turbulent return of Pancho”: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 42.
114 “Situation of my psyche”: N, Nov. 15, 1946, p. 447.
114 “The nightingales can’t sing anymore”: Ibid., Dec. 16, 1946, p. 451.
114 “Nausea persists”: Ibid., Dec. 19, 1946, p. 453.
114 “Undoubtedly a lot of my symptoms”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Dec. 3, 1946, HRC.
114 “STILL DISSATISFIED”: Audrey Wood to Williams, Nov. 18, 1948, HRC.
114 “I agree with Guthrie”: Ibid.
115 “Still here, still working”: N, Dec. 1, 1946, p. 449.
115 “He kept yawning as I read”: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 41.
115 “Maurice’s negative reaction”: N, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 451.
115 Jones liked: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 43. “Margo Jones and her friend Joanna Albus arrived from Dallas and I read the first draft of Streetcar aloud to them. I think they were shocked by it. So was I. Blanche seemed too far out. You might say out of sight.” (M, p. 111.)
115 “Quarreled with Pancho”: N, Dec. 19, 1946, p. 453.
115 “feeling pretty desolate”: Ibid.
115 “with newspaper and Crane and Hemingway”: Ibid.
115 “Somehow or other”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Jan. 9, 1947, L2, p. 83.
115 “I haven’t caught sight”: N, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 451. The “pipe dream” is a reference to The Iceman Cometh.
116 “Pancho is home with me”: N, Dec. 24, 1946, p. 455.
116 “I . . . find it surprisingly close”: Ibid.
116 “rather harsh, violent”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Jan. 9, 1947, L2, p. 83.
116 “desultorily”: N, Jan. 2, 1947, p. 457.
116 “She is probably disgusted”: Ibid.
116 “this huge, dreadful game”: Victor Campbell Collection, Oct. 2, 1946, THNOC.
116 “Thinking of driving down”: N, Jan. 2, 1947, p. 457.
116 “Grandfather was a wonderful”: M, p. 111.
116 “over a clean sweep of the sea”: Williams to Donald Windham, Jan. 28, 1947, TWLDW, p. 193.
116 “You cann
ot imagine”: Williams to Pancho Rodriguez, ca. Jan. 31, 1947, L2, p. 85.
117 “By the calendar”: Williams to Rev. Walter Dakin, Oct. 10, 1946, ibid., pp. 71–72.
117 “You are one of the youngest people”: Ibid. The other is “Grand,” Dakin’s wife; see Williams’s story “Grand.”
118 “Just being with him”: M, p. 111.
118 “I think the change was good”: Williams to Pancho Rodriguez, ca. Jan. 31, 1947, L2, p. 85.
118 “It went like a house on fire”: M, p. 111.
118 first-draft scenes of “The Poker Night”: Under the title page, Williams wrote, “With careful editing, I think a reasonably complete play script could be made out of these rough scenes: that is, if I am unable to do this myself.” Tennessee Williams, “The Poker Night” (unpublished), HRC.
118 “loved me with everything”: Ibid.
118 “an awful city wilderness”: Ibid.
118 “a different species”: Ibid.
118 changed to “Stanley”: In the original manuscript, Williams wrote at the top of the script, “Typist—change name ‘Ralph’ to ‘Stanley’ when you find it in script.” Williams, “Poker Night,” HRC.
119 “the soft people”: LOA1, p. 515.
119 “Be comfortable is my motto”: Ibid., p. 482.
119 “slowly and emphatically”: Ibid., p. 506.
119 “Nobody sees anybody truly”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 19, 1947, L2, p. 95.
119 “Damsel in Distress”: Kazan notebook, WUCA.
120 “I kept puzzling over the play”: KAL, p. 349.
120 “threatened to leave”: Williams to Donald Windham, Mar. 26, 1947, TWLDW, p. 197.
120 “Somehow in my life”: N, Mar. 30, 1947, p. 461.
121 “a desperate driven creature”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 19, 1947, L2, p. 95.
121 “To breathe quietly”: N, Mar. 29, 1947, p. 459.
121 “a cleft in the rock”: LOA1, p. 546.
121 “It was because”: Ibid., p. 528.
121 “the searchlight”: Ibid., p. 538.
122 “Sometimes—there’s God”: Ibid., p. 529.
122 “mortuary equipment and appliances”: Tennessee Williams, “The Primary Colors” (unpublished early version), HRC.
122 “The first time I laid eyes on him”: Ibid.
122 “He’s common!”: LOA1, p. 510.
122 “This Stanley never forgets”: Production script of A Streetcar Named Desire, WUCA. Elsewhere in his notes, Kazan writes of Stanley, “The one thing that Stanley can’t bear is someone who thinks that he or she is better than him. His only way of explaining himself—he thinks he stinks—is that everyone else stinks. This is symbolic. True of our National State of Cynicism. No values. There is nothing to command his loyalty. Stanley rapes Blanche because has tried and tried to keep her down to his level.”
122 “red-stained”: LOA1, p. 470.
122 “We’ve had this date”: Ibid., p. 565.
122 “I’ll put it to you plainly”: Jeff Young, Kazan: The Master Director Discusses His Films (New York: Newmarket Press, 1999), p. 83.
122 “She simply seemed to exist”: M, p. 109.
122 “He is a man of thirty-two”: Williams, “Primary Colors,” HRC.
123 “Sometimes my violence”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.
123 “I felt that he was exploiting me”: Ibid.
123 “I had a great fondness”: M, p. 133.
123 handsome, well-built young man: Frank Merlo, who would later become Williams’s companion for fifteen years.
124 “I have never regarded sand”: M, p. 133.
124 “Pancho gave her a clout in the eye”: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 56.
124 “With that protective instinct of mine”: Ibid., p. 58.
124 “Pancho drove the car into the field”: Ibid.
124 “It looks like P and I”: N, Mar. 16, 1947, p. 457.
124 “A relative success”: Ibid.
124 “It makes me shiver and shake”: NSE, p. 132.
124 “She said something like this”: Ibid.
125 “Tennessee’s script was as close”: RBAW, p. 152.
125 “Don’t think about this”: Audrey Wood to Williams, Mar. 22, 1947, HRC.
125 smacked of a Western action novel: RBAW, p. 151.
125 “Do you think anything will be done”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 1947, L2, p. 89.
125 “safe”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 9, 1947, ibid., p. 92.
125 “MY TRAIN LEAVES 5:30”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Apr. 8, 1947, ibid., p. 91.
125 “Audrey repeated twice on the phone”: Williams to Donald Windham, Apr. 10, 1947, TWLDW, p. 198.
125 “the Princess”: Ibid.
126 highest-paid man in the United States: From 1937 to 1946, Mayer earned one million dollars a year, the equivalent in today’s money of over twenty million a year.
126 “I did not know that Mrs. Selznick”: Williams to Donald Windham, Apr. 10, 1947, TWLDW, p. 198.
126 “I have always proceeded on the theory”: RBAW, p. 141.
126 “Lawrence Stanislavsky Langner”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 20, 1945, L1, p. 565.
126 “wanted any part of Singer”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 1947, L2, p. 88.
126 “deeply indignant”: Ibid. “It is really a travesty of the play, mainly because of the glaring, stupefying incompetence of one member of the cast, Eddie Andrews [the Gentleman Caller]. I think if they had really respected the play, even just as a commodity, they would not have allowed it to drag about the country in this disgraceful condition when all they had to do was fire or buy out one intolerable actor to make a creditable company of it. Of course I realize that Singer probably does not know a bad actor from a good actor but Dowling certainly does and he should have paid some attention.”
126 Heartsong: Arthur Laurents’s second play was later reworked into his hit, The Time of the Cuckoo.
126 “My heart was with the playwright”: Irene Selznick, A Private View (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p. 291.
126 “I wanted to find someone with money”: RBAW, p. 152.
126 “Third and last call, my girl”: Selznick, Private View, p. 294.
127 “Why me?”: Ibid., p. 295.
127 “Find me someone else”: Ibid.
127 “The play was bigger than I wanted”: Ibid.
127 “I have a distinct feeling”: Audrey Wood to Irene Selznick, June 1, 1947, ISC.
127 “Feeling like a marriage broker”: RBAW, p. 153.
127 “I walked looking straight ahead”: Selznick, Private View, pp. 296–97.
127 “The only time he seemed impressed”: Ibid., p. 297.
127 “Enough”: Ibid.
128 “Let’s get this over with”: Ibid.
128 contract: Williams received a $2,000 advance; he agreed to extend the production date from November 15, 1947, to January 15, 1948, if the production team could show that they had “signed a director meeting with the approval of the author; and signed a leading player for the part of ‘Blanche’ or ‘Stella’ meeting with the approval of the author.” (Apr. 19, 1947, ISC.) The author also had approval of scenic designer and incidental music. He was guaranteed four and a half weeks on the road prior to opening, and four house seats in the first six rows.
128 “a Female Moneybags from Hollywood”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 9, 1947, L2, p. 92.
128 “I was prepared for anything but this”: Selznick, Private View, p. 297.
128 “BLANCHE HAS COME TO LIVE”: Ibid.
128 “shocked”: KAL, p. 327.
128 “seething”: Cheryl Crawford, One Naked Individual: My Fifty Years in the Theatre (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977), pp. 184–85.
128 “There was a hysteria of snobbery”: KAL, p. 327.
128 “none of his clients”: Ibid., p. 328.
128 “Irene is nice”: Williams to Pancho Rodriguez, Apr. 15, 1947, L2, p. 94.
129 “strong but fastidious dir
ector”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 9, 1947, ibid., p. 93.
129 “peculiar vitality”: Williams to Audrey Wood, undated, LLC.
129 “The cloudy dreamy type”: KAL, p. 328.
129 “Gadg likes a thesis”: Ibid., p. 327.
129 “reservations”: Ibid.
129 “I wasn’t sure Williams and I were the same”: Ibid., p. 328.
130 “What our stage does”: Elia Kazan, Elia Kazan: Interviews, ed. William Baer (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), p. 67.
130 rabble-rousing theatrical mantra of the decade: KAL, p. 116. “It was the most overwhelming reception I’ve ever heard in the theatre. The audience of Death of a Salesman may have been more deeply stirred; I believe they were. And Streetcar Named Desire may have stayed in the audience’s memories more enduringly—it did. But Lefty ‘killed’ them.” (Ibid., p. 115.)
130 “Proletarian Thunderbolt”: Ibid., p. 116.
130 “I was intense”: Ibid.
130 “The best actors’ director”: Marlon Brando with Robert Lindsey, Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 170.
130 “emotionalism”: Kazan, Elia Kazan, p. 16.
130 “All his characters are felt for”: Ibid.
130 “His modestly took me by surprise”: KAL, p. 328.
130 “We were both freaks”: Ibid., p. 335.
130 “My curiosity was satisfied”: Ibid., p. 336.
130 “a perfect team”: Williams to Bill Barnes, Dec. 28, 1973, private collection.
130 “Our union, immediate”: KAL, pp. 334–35.
131 “I read the play again last night”: Ibid., p. 329.
131 “I believed that those same powers”: Ibid., p. 338.
131 “pretty stiff”: Williams to Irene Selznick, May 1947, L2, p. 102.
131 “Considering that I felt our producer”: KAL, p. 331.
131 “an alternative”: Williams to Irene Selznick, May 1947, L2, p. 102.
131 “In writing a play”: Ibid.
132 “I was not going to knuckle under”: Selznick, Private View, p. 300.
132 “In time she would”: KAL, p. 338.
132 “I was rude”: Ibid., p. 339.
133 “Tennessee went off his noodle”: Irene Selznick to Irving Schneider, July 2, 1947, ISC. “Jo’s designs for Streetcar are almost the best I’ve ever seen,” Williams wrote to Margo Jones. “The back wall of the interior is translucent with a stylized panorama showing through it of the railroad yards and the city (when lighted behind). It will add immensely to the poetic quality.” (Williams to Margo Jones, July 1947, L2, p. 109.)