The Luck of Friendship
Page 10
I got all the books and am delighted with 27 Wagons, it is perfectly gotten out. Bob’s jacket is a dream! I hope the critics don’t make you suffer for it. Some of the characters are a bit peculiar and the author does not come thru as a terribly wholesome individual. I wrote Audrey at once about W.C.W.’s play—I hope she will feel inclined to do something about it. She will if it appears at all marketable.
In spite of what you say about my prose I think it is pretty awkward and I think I can get my best effects, with good directors and actors, on the stage when there is so much besides verbal values to work with—except when there is a subject like “One Arm” that you can’t put on the stage as it now exists.—If you have a chance to—see a picture with the awful name of Fallen Angel. I think it’s extraordinary in some respects. It could almost be happening, the characters come as close to life as any the screen has ever touched and some of the scenes—the psychological suggestions, perhaps undeliberate—are really haunting.
I hope that this new girl will continue to give you interest if not happiness in New York or Vermont.
Ever,
Tenn.
P.S. I am so shy with this girl Sylvia that I suffer acutely when alone in a room with her. Have you ever felt that way with anyone? I have told her I feel that way—she makes it worse by enquiring every few minutes “Am I making you uncomfortable? Do you want me to go out now? Is it all right if I sit here? Don’t talk to me unless you want to, Etc.” Then she sits there with her brilliant eyes taking in every embarrassed change of expression as if she were conducting some marvelous experiment in a lab so that I don’t know where to look, let alone what to say. Exactly like Lillian Gish or at best Harold Lloyd in an old silent film. What are women made of?!
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“command performance”: The Glass Menagerie was honored by the National Theatre with a command performance on January 27, 1946, in commemoration of the Roosevelt birthday celebration. It was billed as a “Drama Critics Circle Award Command Performance, starring ‘Helen MacKellar in America’s Greatest Play.’ ”
the dark lady of the sonnets in New York: Gertrude Huston (1919–1998) was a young war widow whom JL met at a Halloween dance party in 1945. They began an affair that continued intermittently through both of JL’s earlier marriages until Gertrude became his third wife on December 5, 1990. Gertrude trained at the Pratt Institute of Art and designed many books for New Directions from the late forties to the late seventies.
Sylvia—yes, that is her name: Sylvia has yet to be identified.
poems about the girl and her lost husband: A reference to “The Summons,” which talks of making love under the picture of a husband lost at sea, a picture JL saw in Gertrude Huston’s apartment. It would appear in JL’s second book of verse, A Small Book of Poems (1948).
Bigelow: TW’s friend and traveling companion, Paul Bigelow (1905–1988).
Bob’s jacket: Robert Lowry created the original jacket design for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (ND 1945).
Fallen Angel: A 1945 suspense thriller starring Alice Faye and Dana Andrews.
a 30 to 35 p. Ms.: The Rich and Eventful Death of Oliver Winemiller (an early draft of Camino Real).
44. TLS—2
April 23, 1946 [Blytheville, Arkansas]
DEAR JAY:
Here is one of two stories which I have recently finished. The other one, called “The Night of the Iguana,” I have sent to Audrey to have typed up, requesting that she send you copy of it. I didn’t dare send her this one. The other one will shock her but this one would give her fits. I wish you would have this one typed up for me, billing me for the cost or deducting it from my royalties which may be coming in from the one-acts. Return a copy of it to me when I have acquired a mailing address. Right now I am on the road between New Orleans and Saint Louis. I have bought a super-jalopy, a 1937 model Packard convertible roadster. It is still beautiful in spite of its age, the motor is O.K., but all four tires blew out on the road and the radiator developed a leak which I am now having mended while I wait here in the middle of Arkansas, sharing a room with a stranger who works on the levee.
I might have stayed in New Orleans for the summer but trouble with the landlord forced me to give up my lovely apartment and I couldn’t find another that was suitable. So I am going home for about a week. Then I will probably drive out West, to Taos for at least a while.
I worked all the while I was in New Orleans but only two or three short items were finished to my satisfaction, or anything near it. Two long plays are still a good way from completion. I hope I’ll get one of them done this summer.
I don’t know if I thanked you for the reviews you sent me. I know I wrote but may not have mailed the letter. The review in the Times was painful but I guess it contained some good pointers. I know the editor of their Book Review so I wrote him to enquire why he gave the book to this obviously unfriendly person. He answered that the person came to him highly recommended as a student of poetry and the theatre. Invited me to write an answer but I thought I’d better not. Author’s defense of own works is always foolish. And it is not to be argued that my imagination is peopled with peculiar types. Trouble is I don’t run into any other types, or if I do I don’t seem to have anything to say about them. Bad fix!
Creekmore’s publishers sent me his novel in proofs. I was agreeably surprised by his writing. Parts of it have a very powerful simplicity and much more seriousness than his good looks and easy manner would lead you to expect. I liked it all but the ending.
Tennessee
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this one would give her fits: Probably the story “Desire and the Black Masseur.”
Two long plays: Most likely Summer and Smoke and A Streetcar Named Desire.
this obviously unfriendly person: Weldon Kees unsympathetically reviewed FYAP (1944) for the New York Times, June 17, 1945.
Creekmore’s publishers: Hubert Creekmore (1907–1966), American poet and novelist, worked for JL in the 1940s. Fingers of the Night was published in 1946, The Welcome (Appleton-Century-Crofts) in 1948.
45. TLS—2
[circa June 1946] [Nantucket, Massachusetts]
DEAR JAY:
It is good to know that you still think of me. I have been having a bad time of it and have felt disassociated from almost everything else. The physical machine in a state of collapse and what may politely be called the spiritual element, crouching in the corner with both hands clapped to its eyes.
I was on my way to New Mexico in an ancient Packard convertible which I bought in New Orleans when I took suddenly and without any warning quite ill. Had to have an emergency operation in Taos, performed by an almost amateur doctor and some nervous Nuns. They thought it was acute appendix but it turned out to be an acute “Meccles diverticulum” which they say is a section of the small intestine. It was cut out and I have been in a prolonged state of shock ever since. The day after the operation one of the good Sisters of the Holy Cross came into my room and advised me to make my peace with the Lord as whatever improvement I showed would only be temporary. Ever since then, and despite the assurance of the doctors, I have been expecting to die, which is something I have never really looked forward to at all. So I gave up my plan of remaining in Taos for the summer and rushed East and took a house on Nantucket—and tried to forget my apprehensions in hard work on a long play. But it is not so easy. I had x-ray pictures taken last week which they told me did not show anything wrong but even if this is quite true, I will probably remain in a state of morbid alertness for a long time. Consequences of having nerves!—“Oh, for a robust conscience and the Viking spirit of life!”
I am interested to hear you are going to Europe. I am planning (if I don’t die!) to go to Spain next
year. And Constantinople, Greece, and Russia. My Mexican friend, Pancho, is still with me and wants to go to Europe, too. Perhaps we can make a party of it.
I got the typed story. The Masseur does not eat the bones. It is clearly stated that he puts them in a sack which he drops in the lake at the end of the car-line. So the story is all right on the realistic level.
I am sending two more. Have the “Saint” one typed for me, it’s the original only copy. The long one gets a bit too preachy toward the end as I started thinking of it as a one-act or two-act play. It would be good theatre if one could get it produced, I think.
Audrey read this long one and showed it to my kid brother, just out of the CBI air-force, when he visited New York while I was out West. She asked him if she ought to show it to anybody and he said “Yes.” But right afterwards wrote me a letter saying I was going to come to an end like Edgar Allan Poe, if not worse. On the whole, a sympathetic letter, however. He is a bright kid, though not at all like me. Has a law-degree. I want him to practice law in New York so he could take a hand in my affairs (theatrical). I think they have been bungled. The Menagerie has not been sold to the movies and it is slowly dying at the box-office—should have been sold in the very beginning when it was hot! But I am kept in the dark about such matters and never really know how things stand. Not even what I have in the bank!
Have you read Carson McCullers’s new book? I think it’s superb.
Ever,
Tenn
P.S. I wrote this some time ago. Just discovered I hadn’t mailed it. Damned gloomy letter! Ought to tear it up as I am feeling more cheerful now. Carson McCullers is here, visiting me as the result of a brief correspondence. The minute I met her she seemed like one of my oldest and best friends! We are planning to collaborate on a dramatization of her last book soon as I get my present play finished. I think this play will be last effort to write for Broadway. From now on I shall write for a nonexistent art-theatre.
I am enclosing the two “myths” which belong with the one about the “Masseur.” Will you have these typed for me, as you did with the other? Either send me a bill for them or deduct the typing cost from royalties. And send me copies. I read them to Carson and she seemed very pleased with them.—Tell Lowry I think his story in ND 9 is magnificent!
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“Oh, for a robust conscience and the Viking spirit of life!”: The paraphrasing of a sentiment from Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder (1892).
My Mexican friend, Pancho: Amado “Pancho” Rodríguez y González (1920–1993), TW’s boyfriend from 1945 to 1947.
CBI air-force: Dakin served in the Army Air Corps (the predecessor of the U.S. Air Force) in the China and Southeast Asian (or India-Burma) Theater, commonly called the China Burma India (CBI) Theater by the Allies. U.S. forces were overseen by General Joseph Stilwell.
Carson McCullers’s new book: (1917–1967), American novelist. McCullers’s novel The Member of the Wedding was published in 1946.
my present play: Summer and Smoke.
two “myths”: Most likely the short stories “One Arm” and “The Malediction.”
“Masseur”: The main character in the short story “Desire and the Black Masseur.”
46. ALS—4
[after December 7, 1946] [New York]
DEAR JAY—
I have been in the final throes of work on the long play [Summer and Smoke] so have neglected correspondence. Tonight, having finished, I am going around the used car lots to pick out a serviceable jalopy that will take me down the Gulf coast for a much-needed rest and change.
Isn’t it awful about Laurette? The Times gave me 12 hours’ notice (before deadline) to do an article on her. I’m afraid it was sloppy. Hard to write anything at all adequate about her.
I will try to send you a few more stories though I am feeling sort of witless, like a land-bird, a cuckoo, that has been blown way out to sea.
I wind up every day at the club which has a natural salt water pool. It revives me. Pancho is with me, working in a department store.
I am so anxious to get a copy of Huis Clos, Giraudoux or Camus—Do you have them?
I will ask Audrey to give you a copy of my new play [Summer and Smoke]. I mail her the final draft tomorrow. It is intensely romantic—what else I don’t know.
Thanks for the three books—Isherwood’s is definitely the best. My response to Dylan Thomas is admiring but passive.
Bernarda Alba is the best thing I’ve had lately.
Ever,
Tennessee
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Isn’t it awful about Laurette?: Actress Laurette Taylor died during the Broadway run of The Glass Menagerie on December 7, 1946.
Huis Clos: The English title of the existentialist play by Jean-Paul Sartre is No Exit.
Giraudoux: Jean Giraudoux (1882–1844), French novelist and playwright.
Dylan Thomas: (1914–1953), Welsh poet. ND was the first and remains the only American publisher of Thomas’s volumes of poetry and prose.
Bernarda Alba: García Lorca’s play The House of Bernarda Alba.
47. TLS—2
December 20th [1946] [Alta]
DEAR TENN—
Was so pleased to get your letter, and look forward to seeing the new play when Audrey gets it typed.
Anytime that you have the bunch of stories ready we can get started on that. I sent Audrey all the ones I had—at her request—because she wanted to make copies or something.
About the French books. Huis Clos is almost impossible to find. I couldn’t find one in Paris or London. In time there is to be an English translation in London.
The Camus and Giraudoux I have but alas they are up at Norfolk and there is nobody up there this winter to dig them out for you. But I’ll get them for you when I go up in the Spring.
Have just been down in Los Angeles but it wasn’t much fun as I got sulpha poisoning and was sick all the time. Had one nice walk with Christopher [Isherwood] along the sands near where you used to live. He seems fine. Very peaceful and giving off a kind of aura of content. He has mapped out the rough for three big novels, he tells me.
I saw Henry Miller up at Big Sur. His Polish wife is just the most wonderful thing for him in the world. They have a little baby girl and Henry spends all his time dandling—I believe that’s the word—her. What a change. Imagine his falling into young love domesticity at his age, and in his career. It’s a world.
I have had no luck getting my English one over here and am more or less reconciled to a stolid dull winter trying to get a lot of work done. There’s plenty to do if I can just get my mind onto it.
Lots of luck,
J
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His Polish wife: Miller was married to Janina Martha Lepska from 1944 to 1952. The baby girl was their daughter Valentine.
my English one: JL had been in London in late November 1946 and is probably referring to an English girlfriend.
SECTION V
PF: Tennessee seems to have liked the way the plays looked—the physical look of the plays was very important to him.
JL: Oh, he did, and we always had him see sketches by Alvin [Lustig] or other jacket people and he took a great interest in them. And then there was the event with Streetcar—the cover had first a crimson, a strong red background, or was it the other way around, then he scotched that or was it the lavender?
PF: He didn’t like the lavender. That’s in here.
JL: So we used the stronger color. He was very much interested in that. Well, he was very difficult about establishing a text. He never really knew what the final text was going to be, and he kept on changing it, changing it through rehearsals, and in the end I think we tried to get hold of the director’s script or the prompter’s script.
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48. TLS—2
April 9, 1947 [New Orleans]
DEAR JAY:
I was afraid you had decided that I was “Derriere garde” and crossed me off your list.
&nbs
p; The heat and dampness are descending on New Orleans and it is like a Turkish bath only not as socially inspiring. So I am wondering whether to go East or West. From the looks of things generally, one would do well to get clear out of the country and stay out for at least the opening stages of “The American Century.” I have a feeling that if we survive the next ten years, there will be a great purgation, and this country will once more have the cleanest air on earth, but right now there seems to be an unspeakable foulness. All the people at the controls are opportunists or gangsters. The sweetness of reason died out of our public life with FDR. There doesn’t even seem to be a normal intelligence at work in the affairs of the nation. Aren’t you frightened by it?!
I have done a lot of work, finished two long plays. One of them, laid in New Orleans, A Streetcar Called Desire, turned out quite well. It is a strong play, closer to Battle of Angels than any of my other work, but is not what critics call “pleasant.” In fact, it is pretty unpleasant. But Audrey is enthusiastic about it and we already have a producer “in the bag.” A lady named Irene Selznick (estranged wife of David Selznick and a daughter of Louis B. Mayer). Her chief apparent advantage is that she seems to have millions. Audrey says that she also has good taste. Of course I am skeptical. But I am going halfway to meet her. She is flying down to Charleston and I up and we are to have a meeting-conference tomorrow evening at the Hotel Fort Sumter. This is all Audrey’s idea. I recognize the danger of working with a Female Moneybags from Hollywood but Audrey claims the woman is “safe” and will give an “all-out” production, which is what the play requires to put it over. Unfortunately we have fallen out with Dowling and the main problem is to find a really strong but fastidious director. (And a good female star.)