by Sam Weller
Page 152: “They sent it back …”: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
CHAPTER 15
Page 153: “He also had a new short-story collection in mind …”: RB to Derleth, Oct. 15, 1948, from RB’s private collection.
Page 153: “Ray came close to working with New Yorker cartoonist …”: RB to Addams, Feb. 11, 1948, from RB’s private collection.
Page 154: “… Don Congdon had managed to drum up some interest from Doubleday …”: Author interview with Don Congdon.
Page 155: “It was a typical hot June night in New York …”: RB, “The Long Road to Mars,” an introduction to the fortieth-anniversary edition of The Martian Chronicles, Doubleday, 1990.
Page 155: “… How I Wrote My Book”: Unpublished RB essay, from RB’s private collection.
Page 157: “$750 for The Creatures That Time Forgot …”: Eller and Touponce, Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction.
Page 157: “Ray bought a ticket for a seat on the Union Pacific train …”: Union Pacific Railroad receipt, dated June 23, 1949, from RB’s private collection.
Page 159: “[Bradbury] created moods with few words …”: Asimov, Asimov on Science Fiction.
Page 160: “At 9:38 a.m....”: Author interview with Susan Bradbury.
Page 160: “I am pleased to announce that we have a baby girl!”: RB to Derleth, Nov. 22, 1949, from RB’s private collection.
Page 160: “The eleven-page manuscript …”: Original manuscript from RB’s private collection.
Page 161: “In early 1950 …”: Ray recalled attending Norman Corwin’s United Nations broadcast before his trip to New York in June 1949. He was adamant about this. However, in the 1961 Cunningham UCLA Oral History Program transcript, he recalled the broadcast as early 1950. Since this was Ray’s first, albeit at a distance, encounter with John Huston, he also remembered that Huston was with his new wife, Ricki, who was pregnant at the time. Ricki gave birth to their first child on April 16, 1950. She was not even pregnant when Ray ventured off to New York, so it is likely that this pivotal encounter transpired in early 1950. Ray insisted otherwise.
Page 162: “Well, it’s one of those times in your life …”: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
CHAPTER 16
Page 163: “Ray had begun to lecture sporadically at colleges and universities …”: Daily Trojan, Friday, April 30, 1948.
Page 163: “If the story is good …”: Ibid.
Page 165: “My nephew—you awe me …”: Letter from Neva Bradbury to RB, dated Aug. 21, 1950, from RB’s private collection.
Page 166: “Early on in the assembly …”: Preliminary table of contents dated “May 20, 1950” from RB’s private collection. The tentative title for the collection at this point was “Frost and Fire.”
Page 167: “I think it’s better …”: Walter Bradbury to RB, July 13, 1950, from RB’s private collection.
Page 167: “The dinosaur, hearing the foghorn blowing …”: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
Page 169: “Another possibility was taken …”: Walter Bradbury to RB, Aug. 3, 1950, from RB’s private collection.
Page 169: “They moved in on August 3, 1950 …”: Moving receipt from Bay Cities Van & Storage Co., from RB’s private collection, dated Aug. 3, 1950. The total cost of the move, which included two men and a moving truck, from the apartment at 33 South Venice Boulevard to the new house at 10750 Clarkson Road was the princely fee of just $18.42.
Page 169: “Poe’s name comes up …”: Isherwood, Tomorrow.
Page 170: “His brilliant …”: Ibid.
Page 171: “May I ask now, very humbly …”: RB to Walter I. Bradbury, Sept. 29, 1950, from RB’s private collection.
Page 172: “The Art Department tells me …”: Walter I. Bradbury to RB, Oct. 10, 1950, from RB’s private collection.
Page 173: “… Heard had the ability …”: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
Page 173: “I was really frightened …”: Ibid.
Page 173: “He put me at ease immediately …”: Ibid.
Page 174: “Gerald Heard was a charming man …”: Author interview with Sid Stebel.
Page 174: “There was quite a to-do …”: Ibid.
Page 175: “It was the first time …”: Ibid.
Page 175: “… but in the early to mid-1950s …”: Dunaway, Huxley in Hollywood.
Page 176: “offered an advance of $500 …”: Don Congdon to RB, Mar. 2, 1951, and Mar. 26, 1951, from RB’s private collection.
Page 178: “Dore Schary, then vice president …”: Grobel, The Hustons.
Page 178: “By the end of the screening, Huston knew his film was doomed …”: Huston, An Open Book.
Page 178: “Impressed is hardly the word …”: Undated, handwritten letter from John Huston to Ray Bradbury written on Claridge’s stationery, Brook Street, London W1. Given Ray Bradbury’s recollection of the timing and the reference of the recent meeting between the two men in the letter, it can be presumed that this correspondence was written in Feb. 1951.
CHAPTER 17
Page 180: “My first …”: King, Danse Macabre.
Page 180: “This would have been broadcast in 1951 …”: According to the Dimension X radio logs, the episode of “Mars is Heaven” that Stephen King referred to aired on Jan. 7, 1951, which was a rebroadcast of the original airing on July 7, 1950. Logs at http://www.oldtime.com/otrlgs/dx_.log.
Page 181: “Ray wrote Hart-Davis in wholehearted agreement …”: Letter from RB to Rupert Hart-Davis, Nov. 16, 1950, from RB’s private collection.
Page 184: “In April 1952 …”: The details of Ray and Maggie’s visit to the gallery and Ray’s introduction to the work of Joe Mugnaini have varied slightly depending on the source. Ray steadfastly insisted that the gallery was in Beverly Hills, in the space that would later be occupied by Sloan’s Gallery. Joe Mugnaini remembered the exhibit occurring in Hollywood. In the 2002 book, Bradbury: An Illustrated Life, by Jerry Weist (William Morrow), the author cited the location as Venice, California. In the end, Ray Bradbury was positive the gallery where he met his lifelong artist collaborator was in Beverly Hills. Further clouding the details of the evening, Joe Mugnaini remembered the lithograph that Ray bought that night was of The Caravan. Again, Ray was positive that the lithograph he saw in the window that night was Modern Gothic. “There was no lithograph of The Caravan until twenty years later,” Ray insisted. “But the painting of The Caravan was inside the gallery that night.”
Page 185: “… sort of place a beast like myself might want to live in …”: Tibbetts, “The Third Elephant,” Outré.
Page 186: “Joe Mugnaini was an Italian-born …”: Ibid.
Page 186: “California artist Mary Anderson …”: Author interview with Mary Anderson.
Page 186: “I had heard of [Ray Bradbury] …”: Tibbetts, “The Third Elephant,” Outré.
Page 188: “Ray has always been a very open …”: Ibid.
Page 189: “As the artist recalled …”: Ibid.
Page 190: “His jaw dropped, his eyes bugged …”: Kunert, Take One, May–June 1972, interview by Arnold Kunert.
Page 190: “On July 3, 1952, Hal Chester’s company …”: Motion Picture Rights Agreement between RB and Mutual Pictures of California, Inc., dated July 3, 1952, from RB’s private collection.
Page 193: “First established in 1938 …”: Cunningham, The McCarthy Hearings.
Page 193: “In my estimation …”: Huston, An Open Book.
Page 193: “Yet even as Hollywood’s elite …”: Cunningham, The McCarthy Hearings.
Page 194: “Along with Chairman J. Parnell Thomas …”: Ibid.
Page 195: “Letter to the Republican Party …”: Daily Variety, Nov. 10, 1952, from RB’s private collection.
Page 197: “I was proud …”: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 197: “I was all …”: Author interview with Don Congdon.
CHAP
TER 18
Page 199: “When Hitler burned a book …”: RB, from “Burning Bright,” a foreword by RB for the fortieth-anniversary edition of Fahrenheit 451.
Page 203: “Being hit and run over …”: From the introduction to Fahrenheit 451, 1966 edition.
Page 203: “Certainly the paperbacks …”: Author interview with Professor Jonathan R. Eller.
Page 204: “He writes in a style …”: New York Times review by Charles Poore, Mar. 19, 1953.
Page 205: “I feared for refiring the book …”: from “Burning Bright,” a foreword by RB for the fortieth-anniversary edition of Fahrenheit 451.
Page 207: “… looking at far places—Rome and Paris and London and Egypt …”: RB, Confederation, Guest of Honor Speech, from Science Fiction Chronicle, Dec. 1986.
Page 207: “We did that …”: Author interview with Stanley Kauffmann.
Page 207: “None of us at Ballantine”: Ibid.
Page 208: “Ray’s attention span …”: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 208: “I’ve never eaten more ice cream …”: Author interview with Stanley Kauffmann.
Page 208: “We knew it was brilliant”: Ibid.
Page 208: “Noted New York Times critic Orville Prescott lauded …”: New York Times, Oct. 21, 1953.
Page 209: “The first hardcover printing was 4,250 copies …”: Eller and Touponce, Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction.
Page 209: “… the novel was in its seventy-ninth printing …”: RB, Fahrenheit 451, 1989 Ballantine paperback.
Page 210: “On Tuesday, August 18 …”: RB’s 1953 datebook, from RB’s private collection.
Page 211: “It’s an ocean of fantastic bits and pieces …”: Kunert, May–June 1972, Take One.
Page 212: “He would be paid $12,500 …”: Moby Dick contract, dated Sept. 2, 1953, from RB’s private collection.
CHAPTER 19
Page 214: On Saturday, September 12, 1953 …”: RB’s 1953 datebook, from RB’s private collection.
Page 214: “It took me all of about an hour …”: Author interview with Dr. H. Regina Ferguson.
Page 214: “Two days later …”: RB’s 1953 datebook, from RB’s private collection.
Page 214: “We forgot to pack diapers …”: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 215: “The Bradburys boarded the SS United States …”: www.ss-united-states.com.
Page 215: “Regina Ferguson had been on ships before …”: Author interview with Dr. H. Regina Ferguson.
Page 215: “Ray was on the edge …”: RB’s 1953 datebook, from RB’s private collection.
Page 215: “It was a very strong storm …”: Author interview with Dr. H. Regina Ferguson.
Page 215: “There were lots of bumps and bruises …”: Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 23, 1953.
Page 216: “… the SS United States arrived …”: RB’s 1953 datebook, from RB’s private collection.
Page 216: “In the 2000 essay ‘Beautiful Bad Weather’ …”: RB, “Beautiful Bad Weather,” May–June 2000, National Geographic Traveler.
Page 218: “Left to our devices …”: Viertel, Dangerous Friends: At Large with Huston and Hemingway in the Fifties.
Page 218: “The screenplay they presented Huston …”: Huston, An Open Book.
Page 218: “Luckily for Huston …”: Ibid.
Page 218: “As the train sped through the dark …”: Author interview with Dr. H. Regina Ferguson.
Page 219: “There was snow everywhere …”: Author interview with Susan Bradbury.
Page 219: “I was really very fond …”: Author interview with Dr. H. Regina Ferguson.
Page 219: “When the curtain went up …”: Ray Bradbury, speech at the Sons of the Desert annual banquet, Oct. 6, 2001.
Page 220: “‘Very simply,’ said Huston to Ricki …” RB, Green Shadows, White Whale.
Page 220: “John Huston and Enrica Soma …”: Madsen, John Huston.
Page 221: “John Huston had fallen …”: Huston, An Open Book.
Page 224: “He was weird …”: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 224: “Peter was a very intelligent man …”: Ibid.
Page 224: “Huston had bought Ricki …”: This scene is described exactly how RB remembered it in Peter Viertel’s book Dangerous Friends: At Large with Huston and Hemingway in the Fifties.
Page 224: “The normal reaction …”: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 226: “Huston very wisely …”: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
Page 226: “John had a rough way …”: Author interview with Peter Viertel.
Page 226: “Huston was really …”: Ibid.
Page 227: “This man …”: Huston, Open Book.
Page 227: “Author Gary Fishgall …”: Fishgall, Gregory Peck.
Page 228: “politically very liberal …”: Author interview with Don Congdon.
Page 229: “Hugh Marston Hefner …”: Author interview with Hugh Hefner.
Page 229: “… Hefner bought the fifty-thousand-word …”: 1954 story sales, from RB’s private collection.
Page 229: “The story seemed …”: Author interview with Hugh Hefner.
Page 229: “… after seven months of hard work …”: Ray Bradbury, acceptance speech for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, at the National Book Awards, Nov. 15, 2000.
Page 229: “… the script was completed …”: Ray noted the date he completed work on Moby Dick on a one-page notation titled “90 Minutes in Paris,” from RB’s private collection.
Page 230: “Ray left London on April 16, 1954 …”: Ibid.
Page 230: “… the most difficult picture I ever made …”: Huston, Open Book.
Page 230: “Gregory Peck acknowledged …”: Fishgall, Gregory Peck.
Page 230: “Huston was not that good …”: Ibid.
Page 230: “… placing ninth among the ten top-grossing films …”: Daily Variety.
Page 231: “On Saturday, April 17, 1954 …”: “90 Minutes in Paris,” from RB’s private collection.
Page 231: “It was as if …”: Author interview with Dr. H. Regina Ferguson.
Page 233: “When you go to museums …”: Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend.
CHAPTER 20
Page 235: “My understanding …”: Leon Uris to RB, May 19, 2001, from RB’s private collection.
Page 235: “Cowards! McCarthyites! …”: The entire episode at the Crystal Room was substantiated by Martin A. Berkeley, a confessed former member of the Communist Party, in the FBI’s secret file on Ray Bradbury. Freedom of Information/Privacy Act No. 0966766-001.
Page 235: “As for Leon Uris …”: Ibid.
Page 236: “… that country where it is …”: RB, The October Country.
Page 237: “He was paid $2,250 for the script …”: Story sales record for 1955, from RB’s private collection.
Page 237: “Alfred Hitchcock left the day-to-day …”: Author interview with Norman Lloyd.
Page 237: “The director, according to Norman Lloyd …”: Ibid.
Page 237: “Ray’s strength …”: Ibid.
Page 240: “My Irish cabdriver was a human being when drunk …”: RB to Playboy editor A. C. Spectrosky, May 17, 1965, from RB’s private collection.
Page 240: “All of the months of walking the Dublin rains …”: RB to Walter Bradbury, Jan. 27, 1955, from RB’s private collection.
Page 241: “Somehow the people …”: RB, Dandelion Wine.
Page 242: “If you just take hold …”: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
Page 244: “As Gay recalled …”: Author interview with John Gay.
Page 244: “Ray was a most unusual character …”: Ibid.
Page 245: “God knows …”: Ibid.
Page 245: “They were fine with it …”: Ibid.
Page 246: “We were reunited in joy …”: RB, “The Renaissance Prince and the Baptist Martian,” Horizon, Ju
ly 1979.
Page 248: “The funeral for Leonard Spaulding Bradbury was held …”: Obituary, Waukegan News-Sun, Oct. 21, 1957.
CHAPTER 21
Page 250: “I was trying to get out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner! …”: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 250: “helped define television as a dramatic art form …”: Presnell and McGee, A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone, 1959–1964.
Page 252: “… the bureau began investigating …”: Freedom of Information/Privacy Act No. 0966766-001.
Page 253: “… the pilot episode …”: Presnell and McGee, A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone, 1959–1964.
Page 254: “… the fifth episode of The Twilight Zone, ‘Walking Distance’ …”: Ironically, despite Ray’s assertions that “Walking Distance” had its origins in his story “The Black Ferris,” Rod Serling, as well as Twilight Zone fans the world over, consider the fifth episode of the series to be one of the very best.
Page 254: “On one level …”: Conlon, “The Many Fathers of Martin Sloan,” Filmfax, Dec. 2000–Jan. 2001.
Page 255: “The authors also present another theory, quoting Rod Serling …”: Presnell and McGee, A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone, 1959–1964.
Page 255: “… as his agent, Don Congdon, complained …”: Author interview with Don Congdon.
Page 256: “… As you know, I’ve been under contract to you people now for 11 years …”: Ray Bradbury to Doubleday, Tim Seldes, June 2, 1960, from RB’s private collection.
Page 257: “After eleven years …”: Letter from Ray Bradbury to Tim Seldes, July 8, 1960, from RB’s private collection.
Page 258: “We used to run down Washington Street …”: Author interview with Skip Bradbury.
Page 259: “… producer Sam Goldwyn Jr. purchased ‘Black Ferris’ for six hundred dollars …”: Story sales record for 1954, from RB’s private collection.
Page 261: “I was very excited about it …”: Kunert, May–June 1972, Take One.
Page 262: “In an unpublished Paris Review interview …”: Handwritten Paris Review interview done by RB, date unknown, from RB’s private collection.