Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  April 25. Got back from a weekend at the AJC Ranch last night. Johnnie, Starcke, Carter and Dick [Foote] were all there. Johnnie had just finished a play, which I don’t care for much:162 it demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of ideas in the sort of theater he’s trying to write, and he really knows nothing about young people. And his girl is horribly sentimentalized—nearly as bad as Sally in Voice of the Turtle.

  Starcke was being very possessive about the play—affecting utter exhaustion because “we” had just finished it. Carter and Dick think that Starcke has ruined it by insisting on all sorts of changes. Certainly Starcke’s air of a ringmaster, cracking the whip to make Johnnie do tricks, is repulsive and grotesque. But Johnnie wants it that way. Even harder to take is Starcke’s “spirituality.” He and Johnnie are careful to announce each time they are going to withdraw for a meditation—although these meditations only last ten minutes, as far as Johnnie is concerned.

  Meanwhile, Johnnie affects great concern for Dick Foote—“Poor Dick—it’s so tragic—what’s to become of him?” etc. This seems to me utterly insincere, and indeed the whole atmosphere of the place, when all four of them are around, reeks with falseness and under-the-surface feuds. It makes me almost hate them—although taken separately, I feel considerable warmth toward all of them—even Dick, even Starcke. I suppose it is something deeply false in their relationship which creates this evil stink.

  And yet—what a beautiful place—and what a beautifully simple-luxurious life might be lived in it! The big pool with the cotton trees, and the flatness of the fields of corn, and the blue silhouette of the mountains through late afternoon dust-light and blinding sun-haze. The shed where they pack the two-months-old tomato plants in peat moss and ship them off to the north of the state and into Oregon in refrigerator trucks. The Mexicans working at the conveyor belt which carries the peat moss, and Carter counting the plants all day long—the total runs into millions.

  Although Diane is theoretically only a week from shooting, we still haven’t gotten down to cutting the picture or doing any of the other final things that have to be done to the script.

  April 28. “The absolute determination of people to be inferior—and all the rest is flying saucers.” These words I wrote down in a notebook, last evening, after two vodka and tonics. Don said them and they seemed marvellous, and I went into the bathroom so he shouldn’t see me noting them. Now I’m not sure exactly what he meant. But most probably he was referring to his parents’ attitude toward everybody and everything not usual. People like that want to be underdogs, are glad they’re inferior, and they hate the guts of what they don’t understand, in fact they affect almost to disbelieve in its existence.

  Don, after nearly turning into an angel and flying away during the weekend, was in a hair-trigger mood of resentful presulks. I think part of him is terribly afraid he’ll get involved in working for Tony Duquette. They spent yesterday together doing chores in connection with Tony’s work on Kismet,163 and they’re working together again this afternoon. Personally, I like Tony and I quite understand and sympathize with his motives for helping Don—he wants to get to know me better because he sees me as representing the opposite of the chichi life he has to lead as a decorator. This isn’t true, but that makes no difference.

  Well, then comes the question—should Don go into this kind of work? I think Speed, as so often, was very wise about this. He points out that my danger for younger people is, I’m apt to make them despise all kinds of occupations, without giving them any positive interest. So that Caskey, for example, finding he couldn’t be a serious creative artist, first became a seaman (one of the uncondemned, “epic” professions) and then took up bead millinery, which was just about at the top of my black list.

  May 2. This morning they started shooting Diane. Work has been slow all day, and Lana is getting her soft pink piggy pout, and Torin Thatcher is annoying everybody with his big-star grandeur. His attitude toward the script is that of disgusted condescension.

  We had quite a rugged weekend.

  Friday night I went to the Knopfs’, and Mildred said: “Tonight we all intend to get drunk.” The reasons for this were (a) The King’s Thief preview was a disaster, with seven wrong laughs. (b) The “treasure” of a secretary-handyman-chauffeur, who was discovered by the Knopfs and passed on by them to Jessie Marmorston, has absconded, having robbed Jessie of over $6,000—part of which was research fund money—by means of forged checks, etc. Jessie refuses to prosecute and is paying the money back into the fund herself. And Mildred went around and helped the man’s deserted and pregnant wife straighten up her apartment.

  Jessie was with the Knopfs for dinner—just us four—and we did get very drunk and I felt I liked them all much better. Liked them, in fact. Drove Jessie home, and she started giving me such a buildup that I had to tell her a bit about myself. She claimed she’d known from the beginning. Nevertheless, it’ll probably damp her down.

  Saturday night we had a birthday party for Harry Brown. Michael Barrie helped us get ready for it. We decorated the living room with paper balls and fans and Japanese paper flowers. The best were the white balls that looked like chrysanthemums. Don hung them from the ceiling, using scotch tape to hold the strings. When it got warm, the balls fell to the ground, and then they were just like fallen blossoms. Michael was a tower of strength. He cooked meat loaf and served everything. The Larmores and Speed and Marguerite held arms and kicked. As always, with Speed, it was loud and niggery and somehow aggressive. James Larmore was very sympathetic. He used to be a chorus boy, and it showed: he was much more professional. I gave Harry the manuscript of Auden’s “Spain,” in one of those cellophane-page albums with embossed leather covers which are designed to hold the pictures of Beverly Hills moppets. Harry cried.

  It wasn’t really a very enjoyable party. There was an air of strain about it. And afterwards Don (drunk) said, “I wish I was dead,” and, “I hate them all,” and, “I want them to like me for what I really am, but I don’t know what I am.”

  Sunday lunch we went to the Bracketts’—why, God knows. Ilka Chase164 was there, and Bette Davis, who is quite an arrogant and not overly talented parrot-faced bitch. Muff [Brackett] is sweet, though—making us all put a white flower in our left shoe, to be beautiful throughout the year. A lily of the valley.

  Later we lay on the beach. Wonderful swan-white clouds against the retreating black masses of Saturday’s rain storm. Then Tom Hatcher and Riley his employer came, and Bill Roerick and Tom Coley for supper.

  I do not like parties, especially when I have to give them. And I hate drinking so much.

  May 6. Nevertheless we had another party last night and we have another one tonight! Last night were Salka, Peter Viertel, the Parrishes165 and Lauren Bacall, who later took us to her house where we watched To Have and Have Not. Judy Garland came in, very fat, with her husband.166 I liked Betty Bogart,167 who’s a very lively do-it-yourself kind of girl. Don just loved every minute.

  Today Jo has been in to see me after seeing the studio doctor about her back. She is very unhappy. She fears it’s incurable and may get worse, till she loses the use of her legs. Betsy Cox is away, which is heaven. I’ve done little chores and idled all day. Watched a rehearsal of a scene from Forbidden Planet and saw the gigantic pig they’re using for a wild boar in Diane. He’s so tough, the first thing he did was to chew up his property tusks.

  I also talked to Tony Duquette at lunch. I think he’s prepared to take Don on at once full-time, if he leaves school right now. This might be a good thing.

  May 8. A beautiful day with hot sun, wind, blowing clouds. Have been lying in the garden, reading a play called Chindee about an Indian reservation, by a man named Guy Barrows, who works in the reading department at MGM.

  And now—a couple of hours later—I’ve read the other one he gave me, called Bivouac at Lucca. What’s wrong with both of them is that old theatrical fault of overly pat philosophical explanations—everything solved so neatly, and so
meone seeing the light at the end.

  The party on Friday was quite a fair success,168 because Gerald talked so well and held all the boys fascinated. Dick Keate169 was specially impressed and wanted to read his books.

  Yesterday I drove with John Yale to Trabuco—we stayed there about three hours and returned after supper. John thinks there is a very good atmosphere there now, and I agree. What I particularly like about it is the absence of religiosity. The boys are more like soldiers, in the G.I. work clothes, with their touching air of masculine fatigue, simple and humble and dirty, a bit hollow eyed from lack of sleep. (They are cleaning the sand out of the well in the pasture, and this means watching the compressor day and night, in shifts—sheltering in the car or under a tarpaulin.) They sing beautifully—led by Jimmy [Barnes], the saxophone player whose wife is up at Santa Barbara. Graham [Johnson], the Negro dancer, sings baritone with Frank, Webster Milam’s cousin. Then there’s David [Allais], the engineer. And, of course, the old gang. Of these, Phil [Griggs] is the most lovable, bustling around the kitchen.

  Talked over the usual problems with John Yale, during our drive. His pale ravaged face. He had recently told Swami how desperately bored he was; and so Swami told him to drop all work here and go up to Santa Barbara to supervise the building of the temple and make japam. John says he never ceases to be tormented by thoughts of lust. And he is distressed because so many of the swamis over here turn out failures. It seems that Asheshananda is beginning already to make a mess of things at the Portland Center.

  That’s why Trabuco is so important. Because there it may be possible to make the transfer just in time, and start a line of native U.S. swamis before the movement loses Prabhavananda’s guidance. Otherwise, the whole thing will come to an end—temporarily at any rate.

  May 9. Last night we went down to Jim’s for a drink. Afterward, Don made one of his scenes. He has no real friends—all of mine disregard or despise him, etc. etc. He declared he didn’t want to see Jo and Ben tonight. But this morning he has changed his mind. Also, he is in a terribly disturbed state about his birthday party. He wants it to be full of stars, and yet he doesn’t want them. All this is terribly tiresome, exhausting and exasperating, and sometimes I could shake him. But I can’t say it really alarms me. It’s just that Don feels perfectly free to make an exhibition of himself in front of me and that’s to the good. He still behaves far better than I did at his age. I wish he’d grow up, but maybe I shan’t like it when he does.

  Absent mindedly, I went to the toilet yesterday afternoon, and thus invalidated my urine test. Jessie Marmorston tells me that every such test involves the life of 150 mice. And so, as there have to be two for each person, I shall kill 300 mice, just in order to know if I have enough hormones.

  May 10. Oh, the wonder of deep deep sleep! The blessing of it. It is a very great blessing, especially at my age. Last night I slept from about 10:30 to 8:00 this morning, and woke so calm. It’s only now wearing off at 10:15 in the office at MGM, with all the petty annoyances buzzing around my head.

  Don is still in his resentment phase. He has quite forgiven Jo and Ben—they couldn’t come last night, anyway, because Jo’s back hurts so much. But now he feels that Marguerite doesn’t really want to give this party, and he’s going to ask her to let us do it. He may well be right.

  The good thing is that Don has started work for the Duquettes. Yesterday, significantly enough, he cut his wrist while working—only just a nick—but he had to be taken to emergency hospital.

  Speed, Paul [Millard] and Peter Kortner to lunch. Also Jack Kelly and his father and mother. I can’t ever quite figure why Speed does these things. I was supposed to be selling him to Kortner, who works for NBC, but in fact we just chattered away and got no place in particular.

  Today I had the feeling that maybe if I were to sit down and simply start, I might get some valuable material for my new novel. Perhaps I’ll try.

  May 14. If I knew how much longer I have to live, perhaps I would be able to realize properly the criminal insanity of my behavior this morning. I’ve wasted nearly four hours fiddling and idling, when there’s so endlessly much to do.

  Don has gone to work with Beagle (how does she spell it, and how did she get the name?)170 on a mural. He gladly works Saturdays and Sundays, because, as he says, “It’s so wonderful to feel you’re useful and needed.” This is fine, as long as Tony and Beagle [sic] are so busy, but I don’t want them exploiting his enthusiasm, or the honeymoon will come to an abrupt end.

  Great excitement about the birthday party and endless telephonings with Marguerite. If all the invitees were to come, we’d have Lana Turner, Crawford, Judy Garland, Dorothy McGuire, Lauren Bacall, Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, etc. etc.

  Later: Marguerite just called (around 3:00 p.m.) to say that Harry is off on one of his binges and she’s scared—he always threatens to shoot himself and her. Gore Vidal is coming to them for drinks and she doesn’t want to be present, because it’s worse if she’s there and Harry starts bawling her out in front of Gore. “If it wasn’t for the party on Wednesday,” she said, “I’d leave him today—right now this minute.” And then she laughed, as she always does—a kind of silly little hopeless laugh which is very endearing.

  May 15. Last night, while Jo and Ben were here for dinner, Marguerite arrived with Joan Elan. Later she and Joan went to a motel, where she registered as Mrs. Don Bachardy. This morning she went back home, found Harry drunk and so left again. But she plans to return tonight.

  It’s a glorious day. I went in swimming early. Don has gone to the Duquettes’. I lay in the sun up here in the garden for a while. I’ve been tape-recording the plays I wrote for Chris [Wood]’s recorder in Laguna Beach in 1942171—as a gala performance for Don’s birthday.

  May 17. Waiting to go out on lot two with Eddie Knopf to watch them shoot the going-away-to-war scene. Hoping Brando will consent to come to the party. I’ll certainly sigh with relief when it’s over. Joan Crawford can’t come. Lana’ll probably say she’s too tired. Garland will probably be too drunk. Also, I have to go downtown this afternoon with Tony Duquette to get an emerald for Don. And who knows if Harry won’t blow up before the party?

  But let’s not get gloomy. At least the international situation looks almost cheerful. And at least Don is working on this mural with Beegle Duquette, which he really seems to enjoy. And at least we have enough money. That’s saying a huge mouthful.

  May 18. This morning, I gave Don the two emeralds to choose from for his birthday-present ring. Also, during breakfast, played him the tape-recorded plays. He was delighted, and delighted also by the weather, which is the best in two weeks.

  But the prospects for his party aren’t bright. Apparently, Marguerite has already told Harry that she’s going to leave him, in a couple of days—which won’t exactly promote stimmung.172 Then Crawford, Judy Garland and Brando, the Bogarts and Shelley Winters definitely aren’t coming. This will be an awful disappointment for Don, and I hate them for it, even though some of them have alibis.

  Knopf has just reproved me (not offensively) for telling David Miller that I disliked both Turner and Armendariz in the packing-up scene. I’m afraid Armendariz just isn’t much good. No fun.

  Today they’re shooting out on the back lot in sweltering heat, and I fear Turner will say she’s too tired to come.

  May 20. That’s exactly what Turner did say. And as for Burt Lancaster, he just didn’t show. I was so angry that I actually shed tears of rage, but that was when we got home after the party and I was good and drunk. What really upset me was that Don’s mother had to be sent away—Don went out and met her and told her not to come—because there wasn’t a single star present, and because everybody had sat down, so Mrs. Bachardy wouldn’t have been able to mingle inconspicuously with the crowd.

  However, the party certainly wasn’t dull, or unmemorable. Everybody who did come was lively. We danced and kicked. And Don really enjoyed himself. Also there was a big dramatic cli
max: Marguerite left Harry—walked out of the house with Joan Elan, after Harry had [been extremely unpleasant to her].

  Then, yesterday, when Marguerite went back to the house to pack her clothes, Harry pulled a gun on her, said he was going to kill her and himself, and [seemed to mean it]. Marguerite called me and told me this later—she was in hysterics. She thinks Harry would have killed her, and maybe also the colored maid, if Speed hadn’t arrived. Then they all settled down to get ready for dinner, and Marguerite said she must go out and buy some chops, and so she escaped.

  Harry (whom we visited later, yesterday evening) takes the attitude that this escape was an immoral trick. He had really trusted Marguerite to return with the chops. This, after he’d been waving a gun at her for an hour and a half!

  In fact, it’s one of those situations which—though it might quite possibly have ended in three or four deaths—simply can’t be taken seriously. Harry is perfectly confident that he’ll get Marguerite back. And Marguerite won’t do the one really decisive thing—go off to Louisiana and make a public break. They are both becoming deadly nuisances, and I certainly don’t want a repetition of last night—the yakking at the Masselinks’, and the late dinner at Marino’s, and then having to go into town, dog tired, to see baby Harry, sitting up sulking like a spoiled kid but loving the attention, just the same. This business gives me some idea how tiresome my fights with Caskey must have been to the onlookers.

  Charlie Lederer,173 the day before yesterday, was telling Knopf and me about his trip into the desert with Richard Haydn.174 They had read a book about a gold mine that was protected by a yellow cloud that hurt your eyes, blinded you—and also burnt your hands—so that you couldn’t stay on the spot. So they went, with a jeep, and they found the spot—a volcanic chimney—and there was a cloud of alkali dust, which burned them. But they found no gold. Apparently it had just occurred in relatively small quantities among the other volcanic debris. The original prospectors must have picked up most of it—and the rest must have gotten covered over with sand.