Charles Bukowski

by Howard Sounes

  With little to distract him, he worked harder than ever, writing on a sophisticated IBM Selectric typewriter, which his accountant said was tax deductible, and drinking expensive French wine. If there was Mozart on the radio, or ‘The Bee’ as he affectionately called Beethoven, he kept going into the early hours of the morning, producing a new book of short stories, Hot Water Music, and a large anthology of poems, War All the Time, the last Black Sparrow book he did original paintings for.

  R. Crumb was commissioned to illustrate two Bukowski short stories which were published in individual editions. Bring Me Your Love concerns a man whose wife is in an asylum. There’s No Business describes the declining fortunes of cocktail lounge comedian Manny Hyman. His old-fashioned routine is failing to entertain the customers at Joe Silver’s lounge at the Sunset Hotel:

  Joe shook his head: ‘Manny, you’re going out there like a bitter old man. People know the world is shit! They want to forget that.’

  Manny took a hit of vodka. ‘You’re right, Joe. I don’t know what’s got into me. You know, we got soup lines in this country again. It’s just like the 30’s [sic] …’

  Although these new stories were written in the third person about characters other than Henry Chinaski, showing a greater sophistication in Bukowski’s prose style, there was still a strong element of autobiography underlying the work. John Martin believes that in creating a loser like Manny Hyman, Bukowski was writing about what he feared he might become if people stopped buying his books. He had been down so long it seemed logical hard times might return. And the impression that Manny is Bukowski is reinforced by R. Crumb’s illustrations, as Crumb explains: ‘The character Manny Hyman was such a close variation on Bukowski’s own self-portrayals, I ended up making him look Bukowski-like, but maybe a little more Jewish, not quite so heavy-set or seedy-scruffy as Bukowski.’

  Bukowski and Linda Lee lived apart for much of 1983, although he saw her regularly and helped with her domestic crises and depressions. He felt she was not coping well without him and decided to alter his will in her favor to give her some long-term security if he dropped dead. In April, 1984, Bukowski informed his attorney that Linda Lee was to receive one third the value of his estate, including royalties and property, upon his death. Marina, who had previously stood to inherit everything, was not informed. In August he amended his will again, increasing Linda Lee’s share to half. This was not an inconsiderable sum as Bukowski earned in excess of $110,000 in 1984 alone, and most of his income was saved.*

  He was making so much money he was able to write a check to clear his mortgage. Bukowski remembered how his father nagged at him when they lived at Longwood Avenue, saying he had no ambition. ‘Son, how are you ever going to make it?’ he repeatedly asked. Well, he had made it. The car was paid for. The house was paid for, and there was money in the bank.

  When their relationship was really rocky, Linda Lee went on a hunger strike refusing to eat or talk to him. Bukowski wrote to a friend that he feared she might die, so he asked her to marry him. That cheered her up. She was very nice again. A more romantic version of the proposal appeared in the limited edition book, The Wedding, where Bukowski wrote that he and Linda Lee were in the garden with their four cats when he suddenly said: ‘Let’s get married!’ as the perfect end to the perfect day.

  Linda Lee knew they would never have children together. She was still only forty-one, but Bukowski was sixty-four, ‘old enough to be my father’, and had absolutely no desire to go through fatherhood again. ‘I knew I had to make a very big choice in my life: marry Hank and not have children, or not marry Hank. It was tough.’ But she chose to marry and the wedding was arranged for the first Sunday after Bukowski’s birthday.

  Plants were brought in to prettify the house. A room was specially prepared for Linda Lee’s mother. Timber arrived for the construction of a screen to hide the trash cans. A Persian rug was purchased to cover stains where Bukowski had spilt wine. Meanwhile builders were knocking through a wall so there would be easy access to the hot tub being installed in the garden.

  Bukowski became anxious about paying for so much extravagance. The dollar was high against the European currencies, and he feared foreign royalties were declining, so he went back to writing for the porn magazines. Some of the stories were incredibly strange and one, about three men having intercourse with a pig, was rejected as too strong even for Hustler.

  It was while he was preparing for his second marriage, after almost thirty years as a bachelor, that Bukowski discovered the fate of his first wife, Barbara Frye. For a couple of years after they split she had sent Christmas cards and the occasional note about how well she was getting on with her new husband in Aniak, Alaska. They had two beautiful daughters and were very happy. She was writing children’s books and had discovered she was psychic. Then there was a telephone call, but nothing since.

  It turned out that one of Barbara’s daughters developed a drug problem and burned down the family home. Unable to face rebuilding, Barbara and the daughter travelled to India where they became involved in a weird religious group and where Barbara died in mysterious circumstances. The daughter returned to the US without the body and the family never received a death certificate. The final macabre twist came when the daughter committed suicide.

  The wedding was scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday 18 August, 1985, at the Church of the People in Los Feliz, east of Hollywood. As the big day approached, with thousands of dollars spent, and guests arriving from out of state to stay with them at the house, Linda Lee took to her bed with the flu, leaving Bukowski to cope with the arrangements on his own. She asked him to pray for her recovery. ‘FUCK IT ALL!’ Bukowski exploded. ‘DON’T YOU REALIZE THAT THERE ISN’T A GOD?’

  He smashed a full-length mirror to the floor in exasperation. Linda Lee’s mother, Honora, looked at him like he was the devil.

  Marina arrived with her boyfriend, Jeffrey Stone. Michael Montfort and his wife arrived. Barbara and John Martin came down from Santa Barbara. They found that Bukowski had undergone an astonishing sartorial transformation. For the first time since anyone could remember he was dressed in a suit. It was cream-colored with a blue pinstripe. He was also wearing a floral tie and snake skin shoes.

  John Martin was best man and Bukowski insisted they had a glass of champagne together, even though Martin had never drunk alcohol in his life. He became dizzy after one sip and decided the room was spinning.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ growled Bukowski, as if encountering a form of alien life. ‘How can you go your whole life without drinking?’

  ‘How can you drink all your life?’ asked Martin.

  A doctor had been summoned to see Linda Lee and told Bukowski to take her to a clinic because she was not well enough to get married. Meanwhile the house was filling with people, all talking excitedly and looking at their watches. Just when it seemed Bukowski would have to tell them the wedding was called off, Linda Lee appeared on the stairs, in her wedding dress. ‘Ladies and gentleman, the bride!’ announced Bukowski, mightily relieved.

  He led her out to a white Rolls Royce which whisked them along the freeway to the church. Handel’s Water Music played and sunshine streamed in through the glass.

  There was a reception afterwards for eighty friends and family at a Thai restaurant in San Pedro. As he passed through the room greeting his guests, and accepting their congratulations, Bukowski reminded them that he was paying for everything so they better enjoy it. He also treated his friends Steve Richmond and Gerald Locklin to an impromptu speech about the shortcomings of women, perhaps not an entirely appropriate subject for a wedding reception. The bride and groom drank and ate, cut a giant cheesecake and danced to a reggae band. ‘He was in a happy mood and laughing.’ says Martin. ‘People would jostle him and he would spill wine on himself.’

  Afterwards Bukowski’s closest friends went back to San Pedro for more drinking. When he waved the last of his guests good-bye, he looked more like the Bukowski of old: shirt out,
a wine stain down the front and his trousers hanging round his backside.

  Sean Penn was a rising Hollywood star having recently appeared in the thriller, The Falcon and the Snowman, although he was more famous for being the husband of Madonna. When he saw the Barfly screenplay, he was so enthused about the film that he offered to play Henry Chinaski for the nominal fee of one dollar. He loved Bukowski’s writing, and began composing poems of his own. His only stipulation was that Barbet Schroeder relinquish the director’s chair to Easy Rider star Dennis Hopper, a good friend of his. This caused a problem and Bukowski invited Penn, Hopper and Schroeder over to San Pedro to talk it through.

  Schroeder was offered a lucrative deal by Penn and Hopper to stay with the project as a producer, but he was less than pleased at being sidelined and reminded them that Barfly was his project, his first Hollywood film and he was determined to direct it. Bukowski was loyal to his friend. He didn’t like Dennis Hopper anyway, distrusting his newfound sobriety, the look of his clothes, and jewelry and what he thought was the hollow sound of his laugh. ‘One time something was said, and it wasn’t quite funny, and he just threw his head back and laughed,’ said Bukowski. ‘The laughter was pretty false, I thought. The chains kept bouncing up and down, and he kept laughing.’

  ‘You hear that fucking laugh, did you see those chains?’ asked Schroeder when Hopper and Penn had left.

  The meeting made Schroeder so anxious he telephoned his lawyer and dictated an addendum to his will that, whatever happened to him, Dennis Hopper would never be allowed to direct Barfly.

  By saying no to Dennis Hopper, they also lost the services of Sean Penn which was a shame because he probably would have been good in the part, with his chippy manner and his love of Bukowski’s work. It was not the last they saw of him, however.

  The actor started visiting Bukowski socially and, despite a forty-year age difference, they became good friends. Penn admired Bukowski’s uncompromising attitude to his writing. He saw him as a true artist who lived on his own terms. They also both liked to drink. ‘I loved the guy,’ he says, simply.

  ‘Sean wasn’t such a huge star when we met him, although he was beginning to get there,’ says Linda Lee. ‘He was just sort of a kid. He used to call us his surrogate parents. He would just come over here and tell us his problems, sit and get drunk and chat and be away from that insane Hollywood. Sean liked Hank, and Hank liked Sean because Sean was willing to be with him in a natural way.’

  Sean Penn began bringing his actor buddies over to meet Bukowski, people like Harry Dean Stanton who had recently starred in Paris, Texas. ‘Harry Dean’s a very strange fellow,’ Bukowski said. ‘He doesn’t put on much of a hot-shot front. He just sits around depressed. I say, “Harry, for Chrissakes, it’s not so bad.” When you’re feeling bad and someone says that, you only feel worse.’

  M*A*S*H star Elliott Gould turned up one night in Sean Penn’s pick-up truck. Penn presented Bukowski with Madonna’s new album and they talked about poetry. Gould says Bukowski reacted to meeting celebrities ‘like a regular guy, totally normal’.

  Bukowski was not overawed by film actors because he had little regard for their work. He could count on the fingers of one hand the films he liked. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and All Quiet on the Western Front would be among them. Being more culturally sophisticated than is generally supposed, he also liked Akira Kurosawa’s work and his all-time favorite movie was Eraserhead. Bukowski demonstrated his dislike for mainstream movies, and their stars, when he met Arnold Schwarzenegger in September, 1985, at a birthday party for Michael Montfort’s wife. For no particular reason, other than he felt like picking a fight, Bukowski told Schwarzenegger he was a piece of shit. ‘Hank was certainly not overly impressed with any of it,’ says Harry Dean Stanton. ‘He didn’t care much for many movies, as I don’t. Anybody who is perceptive is not going to talk about the thousands of great movies. It is relative to any art form. Excellence in any field is always a rarity.’

  Sean Penn also brought Madonna over to San Pedro. She was at the height of her fame and her visit amazed neighbors who had thought of Bukowski as little more than the neighborhood drunk.

  ‘Hank, is it really true Madonna came to see you?’ asked a little girl who lived in the street. She was impressed, but a little suspicious it might be a put-on.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But why would Madonna come to see you, Hank?’

  Although he had affection for Sean Penn, Bukowski didn’t like Madonna at all. Linda Lee says the singer reminded him of some of the crazy women he had known, but he held back from saying so in case he hurt his friend’s feelings. ‘Hank couldn’t stand her,’ says Linda Lee. ‘He did not like her because he didn’t believe in her. He was sort of looking and going, “Oh fuck, you have got a good one here, man.”’ Still they went out together to eat and Bukowski and Linda Lee were invited to a party at their home.

  ‘Everybody was excited at the notion that Charles Bukowski was coming to the party that they were coming to,’ says Penn, recalling the evening when the poet lumbered into his lounge. ‘He comes and spends about two minutes on his drink before he decides he is just going to prowl around [the] room and steal everybody else’s drinks … This was always the mode whenever you did go out with him somewhere, some circumstance when he wasn’t just at home. The wine was no more to drink. Now it was mix everything and die.’

  Penn’s mother, actress Eileen Ryan, decided she wanted to dance with Bukowski and endeared herself to him by saying he was a big phony. ‘The pants are coming off,’ says Penn. ‘He is trying to take my mother’s clothes off. My mother, at this point, is in her late sixties, and everybody is sitting back and saying, “This is what he is supposed to do.” It was the first time they had seen a legend actually behave like a legend.’

  Sean Penn and Harry Dean Stanton were eating dinner at San Pedro one day when Bukowski forgot his self-imposed rule and came out with a crack about Madonna. It was so insulting that Sean Penn started getting up as if to fight him. ‘Hey, Sean, sit down,’ said Bukowski in his best tough-guy voice. ‘You know I can take you.’

  After years of hard work and disappointment, Barbet Schroeder finally found a company willing to back Barfly. Cannon Pictures was owned and run by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, Israeli-born cousins with a reputation in Hollywood for being mavericks. They were also financing another literary project – Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance, which the Pulitzer Prize-winner was directing from an adaptation of his own novel. Bukowski got invited to meet Mailer at the Château Marmont hotel on Sunset Strip.

  Standing on the penthouse terrace, Bukowski saw an entirely new view of the city he had known since childhood – the view the rich enjoyed. He could see the sweep of the shimmering city from Los Angeles airport to where the San Diego freeway emptied a stream of tiny lights into the San Fernando Valley. Helicopters fluttered back and forth, and way out there somewhere was the ocean. It was pretty impressive, certainly a better view than he used to have from his window at De Longpre Avenue.

  They swapped stories – Mailer told him a good one about meeting Charlie Chaplin – and then they took the elevator down to the garage to get Bukowski’s car. They were going to a birthday party for one of the executives at Cannon and Bukowski was driving. He was amused when Mailer told him he also drove a black BMW. ‘Tough guys drive black BMWs, Norman,’ he said.

  As Bukowski described in his novel, Hollywood, he made a faux pas at the party, confusing one Cannon executive with another and Victor Norman (Mailer) made him painfully aware of his mistake.

  I noticed Victor Norman staring at me. I figured he would let up in a while. When I looked again, Victor was still staring. He was looking at me as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘All right, Victor,’ I said loudly, ‘so I shit my pants! Want to make a World War out of it?’

  The story was true, as Mailer remembers.

  ‘You know, Norman, you and me may have to go outside to fight
,’ said Bukowski.

  Mailer says he felt a rush of adrenaline as he contemplated flying at Bukowski with murderous intent. ‘It so happened that at the time I was in good shape and was still boxing, and Bukowski, by then, was in awful shape – huge belly, bad liver, all of it,’ Mailer recalls. ‘I remember that I felt such a clear, cold rage at the thought of what I’d be able to do to him – there are preliminaries to fights, mental preliminaries, where sometimes you think you’re going to win and sometimes you think you’re in trouble, and once in a while you think you have no chance. But this was one occasion when I felt a kind of murderous glee because I knew he had no chance. I was ready to go.’

  He leaned forward and said: ‘Hank, don’t even think about it.’

  Now that Cannon were behind the project, it was easier getting name actors interested in Barfly and it was soon decided that 9 1/2 Weeks star Mickey Rourke would play Henry Chinaski, although he was initially reluctant to take the part because of the subject matter. ‘All the men in my family for a lot of generations were alcoholics,’ he explains. ‘It was sort of a disgusting character for me to play because a lot of the men in my family have never hit fifty, so I don’t really have a lot of respect for boozers.’

  Mickey Rourke had never read Bukowski’s work and was not particularly impressed with the screenplay when he saw it, or the low budget. ‘It was nothing at first that turned me on as an actor, but once I saw the package being put together, and I saw the meticulous dedication that was surrounding this project, that stimulated me more.’

  Mickey Rourke suggested Faye Dunaway for the part of Chinaski’s girlfriend, Wanda Wilcox, the character based on Jane Cooney Baker. Several years had passed since Faye Dunaway’s great success in Bonnie and Clyde and her career had declined to the point where she was being offered television work and second-rate films. She felt that, because of her age, she was ‘becoming invisible’ as she wrote in her autobiography, Looking for Gatsby, and that Barfly was the chance of a comeback.