What a relief to hear from you! I had a nightmarish suspicion that you and my verse had just dropped out of the world.
[ . . . ]
My agent has ordered me to remain here in Clayton another week or ten days till some mysterious negotiations with Hollywood have been concluded, at which time she will advise me whether to turn East or West. If I am allowed to go West, I will certainly pass through Salt Lake City, which I have never seen, and make an effort to see you.
I will enjoy writing the preface and will do it immediately.
Cordially,
10
P.S. I have written two prefaces, the first one seemed a little too serious and the second a little too frivolous, so I am letting you choose. I think the serious one is probably better.
My agent just wired me I am signed up in Hollywood, must go to New York first and then to the Coast. I will try to pass through Salt Lake City.
You can reach me either care of this address or Audrey Wood, 551 Fifth Ave., New York, until I have a place on the Coast.
« • »
two prefaces: Both were published as “Frivolous Preface” and “Serious Preface” for TW’s section, “The Summer Belvedere,” in FYAP (1944).
signed up in Hollywood: On April 30 Audrey Wood wired TW to inform him that she had secured a six-month contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer as a screenwriter at the salary of two hundred fifty dollars a week.
10. TL—1
[May 1943] [Alta, Utah]
DEAR TENNESSEE—
Thanks for your prefaces. I like them BOTH in their different way. Why not run both. “Frivolous Preface” and “Serious Preface.” It’s a good angle, don’t you think.
Hope you can stop off here on your way to the Coast. I haven’t seen a soul literary for months. Not that I’m trying to insult you by including you in a category which includes Parker Tyler etc. But what I mean is that skiers are very nice but sort of one sided.
Wire ahead and I’ll meet your train or plane or telephone l d Alta 4 when you get to town and I’ll come down for you.
REALLY I only lost one ms in a truck and that was later found. So keep up your hopes.
hastily, & regards
j
I don’t worry in the LEAST about Hoolywood spoiling you after the training you’ve been through. I rather like the place. I have a good friend there—Alvin Lustig—a Jewish boy who looks like Jesus and designs very well. Do you want to meet him?
« • »
Parker Tyler: (1904–1974), American poet and critic associated with Charles Henri Ford and his magazine View.
11. TLS—1
May 14, 1943 [Culver City, California]
DEAR JAY:
I was hoping to stop off in Salt Lake to see you on my way to the Coast, but I had to go by the Santa Fe which went way South of there.
I suppose you got the prefaces I wrote before leaving Clayton. I am enclosing a final draft of “The Summer Belvedere.” That and a short poem called “Beanstalk Country” I had addressed previously to your editorial office in Norfolk, Conn.
Perhaps you will come to the Coast before returning East. If you do, please look me up here. If you’re not already familiar with this fantastic filmland, perhaps I could show you about with some familiarity by that time. It is pretty fantastic to find myself writing a vehicle for Lana Turner, but I am getting paid what I think is a fabulous salary—at least when I compare it to the $18.50 a week I was making last winter ushering at the Strand, and I have a private office, a typewriter, and a lot of free time, so it is not, altogether, a bad deal. Also I have a motor scooter and an apartment on the beach at Santa Monica!
I have heard from Clark Mills. He has finished “The Circus” but hasn’t sent the final draft off yet—I think it is going to be published as soon as he releases it. I do hope it’s as good as those two or three superb poems of his.
Tennessee
« • »
“The Summer Belvedere”: The title poem from TW’s section in FYAP (1944).
“The Beanstalk Country”: A poem first published in FYAP (1944).
a vehicle for Lana Turner: TW was assigned to write additional dialogue for the film Marriage Is a Private Affair, starring the popular World War II pin-up, platinum-blonde actress.
Clark Mills: American poet (1913–1986). After they met in a poetry club at Washington University in 1936, Mills greatly influenced TW’s tastes in poetry, introducing him to the work of Hart Crane, as well as translations of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Lorca.
12. TLS—2
[late May/early June 1943] [Culver City]
DEAR JAY:
Your letter from Utah traveled back and forth across the continent before it reached me. What a pity they didn’t book me through Salt Lake City. I am sure that skiers are the opposite of writers and both of us must be reaching corresponding degrees of satiety though I can’t help thinking yours is better than mine. I would love to have gone there but they put me on the Santa Fe, through a beautiful blizzard in Arizona and New Mexico but way off the track of your skiers.
I could not decide between the two prefaces either. There is a paragraph about Joyce at which point the two could be joined—or if you like the serious and frivolous angle—that would do just as well, I think. Certainly I would be pleased to have them both printed if you can give me that much space in the volume.
This celluloid brassiere that I am making for Lana Turner is not unamusing; I have gone to movies so much, even ushering at them, that the script is almost automatic. I was somewhat disconcerted the other day—after writing many fiery dramatic speeches I thought I had better refresh my memory of the girl’s technique, so they ran her latest picture for me in the projection room—I discovered she talked baby-talk!—but nicely.
Do you know Christopher Isherwood or like his work? I visited him last night in his monastery. He has gone into one in Hollywood, of all places. It is a miniature copy, architecturally, of the Taj Mahal and when I entered about eight girls and three men, including one Hindu, were seated on cushions in a semi-circle about the fire-place, all with an absolutely expressionless silence. Which made me so uncomfortable that I turned to one of them and said, “Why is it that the word Krishnamurti comes into my mind?” It was the only thing Hindu I could think of, and I had no idea who or what it was. Turned out to be dreadful blunder, as they acidly explained that he was the follower of Annie Besant and she not hardly mentionable in their circles. The dead-pan atmosphere became even thicker—and Isherwood suggested we go out for a walk. I cannot surmise his real attitude toward “the family”—he is English enough not to speak his mind very frankly—but I am wondering a little if he is not going to write a wonderful story of what is going on there.
I would very much like to meet the designer you mention and I am hoping you will make the trip to L.A. Call me at the Studio when you get here.
If my teeth were not in such a bad condition already, I would have appreciated the 17th century couplet more deeply. At any rate, it reminded me to make an appointment with the dentist.
En Avant!
10
« • »
Joyce: James Joyce (1882–1941), Irish novelist and poet. ND published Joyce’s novel Stephen Hero (1944) and a reissue of Joyce’s play Exiles (1945).
Christopher Isherwood: (1904–1986), English novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and memoirist. ND published Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories (1945), The Memorial (1946), Lions and Shadows (1947), and All the Conspirators (1958).
Krishnamurti: Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), Indian theosophist and author.
Annie Besant: (1847–1933), English author, theosophist, and political radical.
13. TL—1
[late May/early June 1943] [Alta, Utah]
DEAR TENN—
The Isherwood fandang sounds wonderful. For goodness sake write a story about it. That will go fine with Henry Miller’s account of life with Dali at Caresse Crosby’s Virginia chateau.
I hope to get down th
e end of this month so will delay all matters till then. Something which is constitutionally easy for me to do. Don’t worry, wheels are rolling on the other end of the project. The book will get out OK.
It strikes me that I never sent you a contract. Hell, I’ll bat off a short one now. All contracts are the balls, being twistable, turnable and evadable at all the joints, but we seem to go on with them anyway.
Two feet of new snow here yesterday. Them pore little flowers they just haven’t got a chance.
Yrs,
J
« • »
Henry Miller: (1891–1980). ND publishes more than a dozen Miller titles, mostly his essays and nonfiction.
Dali: Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, known as Salvador Dalí, (1904–1989), a Spanish surrealist painter.
Caresse Crosby: (1891–1970), American patron of the arts. Crosby was known as “literary godmother to the Lost Generation of American expatriate writers in Paris.”
14. TLS—1
June 9, 1943 [Culver City]
DEAR J:
I guess I return one of these signed contracts to you and keep the one with your signature on it. Hope this is correct. The check for the verse looks more impressive to me than an MGM pay-check and I feel like it ought to be framed.
I am writing Isherwood a mildly sardonic letter requesting another audience in the seraglio. He may boil with rage over the suggestion that I do an article about him and his sacred calling. On the other hand, he may be pleased. He says he hates the British but I have never known anybody so British unless it is that other Anglo-phobe, D. H. Lawrence. Don’t be surprised at any reaction we get from him. Herr Issyvoo of Berlin Diary was a very sympathetic character but we must remember that all writers are pleasant only on paper, and rarely even then.—The juxtaposition with Dali is what he may find offensive. I like Dali’s work, most of it, but I think it is fashionable to deplore it lately.
Ever,
Tennessee
« • »
Herr Issyvoo of Berlin Diary: “Issyvoo” was Isherwood’s own rendering of the German pronunciation of his name.
Berlin Diary: Published as The Berlin Stories, containing the novels The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin (ND 1945).
15. TLS—1
7/8/43 [Culver City]
DEAR JAY:
I have been looking for you to arrive on the Coast. What’s happened?
I have been plunging into Hollywood society, sort of drafted into it by a visiting playwright, Horton Foote, the wonder boy from Texas who is re-writing a play under the Svengali influence of a movie producer. We have met Simone Simon, Geraldine Fitzgerald, to mention the most attractive.
I hope you get here before Horton leaves so that we can give you some intimate glimpses of the insanity here. You will be asked to contribute to or criticize all kinds of story-ideas for people like Charles Boyer. The only defense is pretending to be drunk or fallen asleep. These people, the Hollywood writers and producers, are regular vampires.
I had a long interview with Christopher Isherwood about the proposed article and learned plenty about him but nothing about Vedanta, which is just as well.
The title “Mornings on Bourbon Street” had been in my mind for a long time as I wanted to use it, possibly, for the collection, so I wrote the enclosed poem to fit it. It may seem a little sentimental or facile, in which case we won’t bother about it.
But let me know if you are still coming here and when.
Ever,
Tennessee
« • »
Horton Foote: (1916–2009), American playwright and screenwriter.
a play: Foote’s Only the Heart.
a movie producer: Jacques Thiery.
Simone Simon: (1910–2005), French film actress.
Geraldine Fitzgerald: (1913–2005), Irish-born American actress.
Charles Boyer: (1899–1978), French-born Hollywood actor.
Vedanta: In 1943 Isherwood joined the Vedanta Society monastery in Hollywood, and in 1945 would edit and contribute to Vedanta for the Modern World, a collection of essays on Vedanta philosophy.
“Mornings on Bourbon Street”: A poem from FYAP (1944) and included in In the Winter of Cities (ND 1956), TW’s first volume of poems.
16. TLS—2
July 23, 1943 [Culver City]
DEAR JAY:
It is wise of you to recognize the astringent value of life in the snow and mountains. Every artist needs such a place of refuge. New York makes you hard and grubby, California relaxes you too much. Reading back through my journal to the summer I was here before, Laguna Beach in 1939, just before the war broke out in Europe—those far-away days—I find myself observing that life here, on the beach, is like Gauguin’s picture Nave Nave Mahana, “The Careless Days.” I was disturbed at the time that life was too indolent and pleasurable and that I would almost welcome the return of interior storms after so much dreamy peace. Well, plenty of storms came along and I experienced, later, quite a nostalgia for the Nave Nave Mahana. During that summer I was care-taker on a chicken-ranch while the owners were away. For days I would forget to feed the chickens, life was so dreamy, then I would make up for it by feeding them too much. About half of them died, fell on their backs with their feet sticking rigidly up, and I left the ranch in disgrace for New Mexico.
When you first mentioned “The Ecuadorean Carrion” I thought it was the title of a long poem and it intrigued me immensely. Isn’t it a good title? I feel a keen desire to see this material, Latin American poetry is so much softer and yet stronger than ours, they are not afraid of tender feelings and lavish color nor of the cruelty that goes with it, like the bullfights in Mexico where the fighters have an almost feminine or tender grace but destroy the bulls so remorselessly, with such wonderful music and brilliant colors. I think the cold British influence has done us in a little. We ought to look south of us, since we can’t follow Crane with intensity enough to make it worth while.
I did not know you had relinquished your copy of the verse play until Margo Jones showed up with freshly typed copies of it in a very mysterious way and has gotten everybody at the Pasadena Playhouse very excited over it. I think she intercepted it on the way to the typist in New York, then fled for California with it. She has come out here to try out my plays with the hope of obtaining Hollywood money for New York productions.
I will see that you get a fresh copy, and apologize for the agent.
I have a little picture gallery in my office of persons of importance in my life, such as Crane and Chekhov and Katherine Anne Porter and this amazing new sponsor, Margo Jones. As my first real publisher, I would like to include one of you, if you have one to send me, preferably on skis.
My next picture assignment will probably be a folk-opera, the lyrics and libretto for it, on the saga of Billy The Kid. They despaired of getting me to write for Lana Turner, suitably, and until the right assignment comes along I am left to my own devices, happily.
I hope you haven’t given up on the trip out here entirely. There may be parts of my longer poems that you think need revisions, such as the end of “The Dangerous Painters,” which I think may slacken a bit in the end. If so, I have time now to do further work.
Salud!
Tennessee
« • »
Nave Nave Mahana: A scene of Tahitian life painted in 1896 by French impressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848–1903).
“The Ecuadorean Carrion”: TW is referring to an Ecuadorian poet, Alejandro Carrión, whose work was also included in FYAP (1944).
Chekhov: Anton Pavlovich Chekov (1860–1904), Russian playwright and short-story writer. TW often cited Chekhov as a great influence. In the late 1970s TW wrote what he called “a free adaptation” of Chekhov’s The Seagull entitled The Notebook of Trigorin (1981).
Katherine Anne Porter: (1890–1980), American short-story writer and novelist.
“The Dangerous Painters”: A poem included in In the Winter of Cities.
17. TLS—1
[Typed at the top of the page:] Read a terrific story called ‘The White Boat’ by Sidney Alexander and a nice piece by Kafka in Summer issue of Accent.
8–20–43 [Santa Monica, California]
DEAR JAY:
I’m very pleased with your choice of poems which is just about what mine would have been. Only two that I like more than casually were left out. “The Cataract” and “The Christus of Guadalajara.” The first is probably colored by personal meanings, the second by a nostalgia for Mexico—anyhow my regard for your judgment as an editor is altogether unqualified, for nearly every time something is printed that I didn’t look for, there is the name “New Directions.” Now I have the feeling that if I refine my out-put, narrow it into pure and individual channels, then there will [be] a place for it. That is, of course, all the difference in the world from thinking—Even if I do it, who will care?
About the title of “The Fox”—Put after it (to D.H.L.).
You did not enclose the Lincoln-like portrait you mention. I hope it will come along later. Both of the two gentlemen already up in my gallery, Crane and Chekhov, looking brooding, but Margo and KAP [Katherine Anne Porter] are grinning like Cheshires. KAP writes me that she has some smiling pictures of Crane, snap-shots taken in her Mexican garden when they were neighbors. I have asked for them but no response. I think they would be of more than private value, as she says they show a side of his nature usually not remembered.
Right now I am taking a six weeks lay-off from Metro, but doing a job for Goldwyn on a picture for Teresa Wright. The Play from the Lawrence story will go on in the Cleveland Playhouse and in Pasadena also in the month of October. If these productions should result in a successful Broadway showing, it may interest you as a publisher.
Isherwood has temporarily withdrawn from his monastery and become a fellow beach-comber. I am trying to agree with him upon a subject for dramatic collaboration—and if you read any stories or books that you think would make a wonderful play—I want to write a really wonderful one or none at all—let me know!
The Luck of Friendship Page 5