Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  On father’s day I gave Swami a bottle of sherry, which had to be hidden from a party of visiting Hindus. Swami gave me a shaving brush he’d just received, but didn’t want because he has an electric razor.

  Five minutes of eight. Just finished the first page of a new draft of my novel, having stayed late at the studio. How wonderful! Now supper with Don at El Coyote, and then a movie. And my conscience shining like a new nickel.

  June 21. It’s after five in the afternoon and I’m lingering on here because I don’t quite know where else to go. Don’s out with his mother. Also, I want to write another page of my novel.

  Knopf is radiant today, because Dr. Sellars examined him thoroughly, and there’s nothing whatever wrong with him. His heart is one and a half centimeters smaller than last year. Eddie now confesses that he was terrified of having a stroke. He’d been brooding over the death of Walter Hampden, who had been just about to start playing Ruggieri in our picture when he died.

  Lunch with Tony Duquette, who has decided to go ahead with his schemes for a theater in his studio, despite being hard up. He’s very hostile to Speed, because of Speed’s indiscretion.

  Don seems happy and lively again. But he’s very anxious to be reassured that Beegle and Tony like him.

  Rehearsals with Lana and Marisa, of the last scene but one. They’ll be good, I think. Lana gives one a terrible impression of nerves and weariness—the faded lachrymose blonde, all too apt to sob into her cocktail.

  June 23. Last night we went to a preview of I Am a Camera—a truly shocking and disgraceful mess. I must admit that John Collier is largely to blame—for a sloppy, confused script. But everything is awful—except for Julie, who was misdirected.

  Today, Roger Moore had a slight accident on the set. Fell off his horse and bruised himself. He was taken to hospital, X rayed and put in ice.

  Don went to see Ted yesterday. He says Ted showed hardly any interest in outside news—only wanted to talk about a television play he’d seen.

  June 25. Depressed. Dull grey weather. Don has to work for the Duquettes. Also, he has started to complain again, because we don’t get invited out enough. He doesn’t mean to be tiresome about this. He blames himself. He is ashamed. But he slips back into it.

  I’m tired to the bone. And bored. I don’t want to go to this party at the Froms’ tonight. I don’t know what I want. I don’t want to write in this journal—that’s for sure.

  June 29. Four days since I wrote that—and such ups and downs. Actually, the Froms’ party was quite a success, because, before going to it, Don and I visited the Luau and had an excellent dinner and lots of rum drinks. And the next day (Sunday) there was fine weather and we went on the beach and were happy, and then saw Land of the Pharaohs and enjoyed that too. But the night before last I got impatient because Don took such ages undressing and I snapped at him and he sulked, and we are only just now getting over it.

  Last night I saw Gerald, and we had a long talk alone. I can see that he really disapproves of—or, at any rate, feels superior to the life I’m living: the studio, prosperity, domesticity. As opposed to his life (as he sees it) of comfortable poverty, shabby, lonely. (But he forgets Margaret [Gage] and Willie [Forthman] and everything they do—with Michael—to surround him with security.) He feels that only those who live such a life as his—far from tycoons and producers (but he forgets he just told me of meetings with the heads of Chrysler and General Electric)—can hope to find out what is really worth knowing. No, no—the truth is that Gerald is a vain old bird. And if he doesn’t want to go to the Bracketts’ lunch or meet the Cottens, it’s only because they refuse to break down and repent and let him lecture them.

  Nevertheless, he is right in some respects. It is easier to follow up the latest information on flying saucers, mescaline, psychical research, etc. if you are a free agent.

  I’m truly fond of Gerald nowadays, and I do value greatly the privilege of being able to talk to him. I think his generalizations are most untrustworthy, but they are extremely stimulating. The “breakthroughs” he says, are becoming more frequent on all levels. Homosexuals are increasing in numbers. More and more people are having mystical experiences and sighting “unidentified aerial objects.” Newer and even stronger drugs are being discovered to shift the focal length of consciousness. A great new age is dawning with the realization that there will be no war, after all. “I knew it, as soon I saw all those red cars rushing about the streets. … A terrible outburst of relief.” But Gerald also thinks it will lead to more nervous breakdowns and even insanity—because people will feel so utterly lost under the changed conditions.

  July 1. This is just another of those entries made so as not to break the record. I feel lazy and sticky after a hot afternoon spent rewriting a scene for Diane. Eddie From to lunch, with his rather annoying air of wisdom and silent judgement. None of these pure souls can ever, ever forgive me for being a “success.” But still, I like seeing him. Like Swami, he disapproves of mescaline—feeling, approximately, that one should do the work oneself.

  Got a traffic ticket—and declined an invitation to go to supper and meet the president of Burma.

  The weekend doesn’t look very promising. Grey mornings till two. And, on Monday, the horror of Trabuco.

  July 3. Yesterday afternoon, Jo and Ben took us round to visit Lola Lane189 and her husband Bob, who live in the old Thelma Todd restaurant building. It’s certainly one of the most glamorous places in town—quite aside from having been a whorehouse and the scene of a murder.190 Real Californian-Twenties style. Lola’s sitting room at the top of the house—which is on a level with the upper garden—used to be the gambling room, so the doors are all of iron, with a speaking window in one of them. Lola has her bed on a curtained platform which used to be the bandstand. There are still banquettes which used to stand around the dance floor, and they still have the round table which reverses so you can play poker or dice on it. The woodwork has simulated chisel marks on it, and it’s painted with a cream varnish. There are panels of rainbow glass in the closet doors. The room looks rather like the cabin of a luxury yacht in a novel by Elinor Glyn.

  The peculiar acrid smell of old houses along this coast. It reminds you of seaweed, wet bathing suits, stinky rubber shoes.

  We spent this morning visiting the Kearsarge—the flattop191 which is visiting here for the Fourth. It’s rather frightening, below decks—such a warren of narrow passages, vertical ladders. When you see someone appear, framed in one of the many doorways, it’s like your own reflection. A horrible chaplain was conducting a Protestant service on the flight deck, in a voice so much amplified by the mike that it could be heard all over the bay.

  July 5. Yesterday I drove to Trabuco for the annual doings.192 It was even worse than usual, because there were so few people I knew. Gave one of my “don’t know what to say but Swami insists” speeches. Boshi Sen193 was there. He patted my cheeks, hugged me and made me promise to visit him in India.

  News heard on the car radio as I drove. The pilot of an American airliner killed a rattlesnake in the baggage compartment just before landing in London. None of the passengers knew. Bulganin and Khrushchev dropped in on a Fourth of July celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

  Gore Vidal tells me he hears that Gerald Hamilton posed for the body of a portrait of Churchill. Gore may take a job at MGM.

  Ted is out on leave from the hospital. He came to lunch here with Don today. He seems absolutely normal. Looks healthy and tanned and a little plump.

  There’s something strange about Speed. We saw him last night at Marguerite’s, and he’s obviously sulking and cross. Maybe he’s having a struggle to keep his influence over Marguerite. Harry comes around quite often, but no scenes.

  July 7. Gore is definitely taking the job. Don had lunch with Speed yesterday but Speed got Don to talk about himself, and revealed nothing. He advised Don not to lose his temper because it becomes a habit, and told Don to cultivate friends of his own age with whom he
can be a star. Also to save money.

  We had supper with Salka alone in her new apartment. She was so charming and amusing, talking about the old times—how she came to be an actress, and how she and Berthold came to Hollywood.

  Jo tells me this morning that her back was so bad last night she’s in utter despair.

  July 8. One of those late evenings at the office—the only time there’s real quiet. And it’s a Friday, with all the promise of liberty and relaxation ahead.

  We’re coming to the end of the picture—finish, more or less, this next week. David Miller told how he wanted to make Lana really weep in the last scene. So he said: “By sending you the ring, the queen acknowledges that you were really Henri’s wife—not a mistress, not a kept woman.” And at this Lana wept and wept. David could only shoot the scene once. And Lana went on weeping for fifteen minutes after it was over.

  Compare this with the story of Kazan directing Jo Van Fleet.194 He told James Dean—in order to get a sudden reaction of fury—to go up to her and whisper: “You fucking cunt!” Dean did, and Jo Van Fleet was furious, but only with Kazan. She told him: “That’s not the way to make me act.”

  Money worries—not serious—chiefly sheer stinginess—like grudging two hundred dollars for Salka’s bookshelves, because I’d expected to pay around eighty. Actually, I’m richer than ever before.

  Arthur Freed195 has had one of his periodic fits of raving about Prater Violet. But he doesn’t buy it.

  Don seems happier, getting along well. The Duquettes may start paying him soon.

  I don’t think I’ll take this job in Italy, doing a screenplay on Mario Soldati’s The Capri Letters. They just don’t interest me much.

  This is such a curious phase in my life: grossly materialistic, very comfortable, and, I guess, happy—in the sense Life magazine means happy. But I could make it so much more than that if I exercised a little recollection. Why not make japam? Why not get on with my novel?

  July 11. I think our neighbor Mr. Light is really nuts, poor creature. Yesterday he painted, carefully and beautifully, on his garage wall in bold black letters: No Parking on Walk. Vehicle Code 586 F.

  Diane ends officially tomorrow.

  I’m full of ideas for my novel, which looks like being a catchall for all kinds of earlier stories and projects.

  July 15. I’m depressed and worried about Don. He had another outburst two nights ago, telling me with tears that he is “so terribly unhappy,” and giving the reason that he has no friends of his own. Well, that’s true of course. But at the same time, as I’ve told him before, it is also a rationalization of neurotic melancholia. I can understand this when I think it over, but when we’re actually in the midst of the scene, I feel awful, and quite helpless. And, of course, it is true that I’m often neglectful and insensitive to his feelings, because I want a quiet home life so I can think about my work undisturbed.

  Now I feel completely insecure. What in the world is the point of all this work at Metro, these efforts to get another house—if Don suddenly leaves me?

  On the 12th we had a party on the set for the end of Diane. I got paralytically drunk and had to be driven to Eddie Knopf’s for dinner. I’m told that I actually licked someone’s face—whose, or why, I don’t know. Next day I felt ashamed—but on the whole I think most people found it rather sympathetic.

  It’s very hot. Thank God for a weekend coming up!

  July 18. The weekend was a success—glorious hot beach weather and Don happy—all except for Friday night, when Harry brought Marguerite to dinner and sulked clear through the evening. Maybe because we’d also invited Salka and Joan Elan and gotten stuck with Brendan Toomey196—such a silly little boy.

  Ivan, just back from Europe, looked into my office today—sleek with pleasure and success. He has a new girl whom he took to Greece, and he threatened to throw a glass of wine in Philip Toynbee’s197 face when Philip got drunk and talked dirty to Iris (told her he’d fuck her stiff) and later apologized. Iris has written two chapters of a novel about her childhood and early life, which has been accepted by a publisher.198 Cyril Connolly’s wife199 has left him, taking their cottage with her. Stephen [Spender] is seen at parties with Princess Margaret and Lucian Freud. Ivan’s overall impression was that the British aristocracy is flourishing, the intelligentsia brilliant and amusing but almost exclusively critical not creative, the middle and working classes very pleased with themselves but inefficient, second rate, full of alibis, the Labor leaders at a loss.

  Lunch with wisecracking Gore and a silent Tony [Duquette]—an uneasy combination—the two of them unhappy in different ways. Tony is depressed because he feels they’ve ruined Kismet. Gore, because he finds himself unable to care for anyone seriously.

  July 22. Ups and downs. Two days ago, one of Don’s biggest explosions, out of a clear sky, after supper at the Red Snapper. Since then, cleared air. What am I to say? Nothing. They distress me, and I even get mad; but I’m not alarmed. I feel we shall get through this phase and learn to understand it.

  It’s very warm. I feel tense and don’t sleep as well as usually.

  Lunch with Harry. He has been making drastic scenes with Marguerite—the divorce is next week—and yet they see each other in between. I taxed Harry with the things he allegedly said about Don and me—that we were against him and pro-Marguerite. But he evaded the issue, assured me he didn’t believe anything like that. I think he’s very near schizophrenia. His blotched unhappy face, with ill-matched eyes. He sees Marguerite all the time—“as friends,” and then gets drunk and tries to kick her door in!

  Talked to Ivan about it last night. He was having supper with us. (So were the Stravinskys.) Ivan says he warned Marguerite that if she was going to marry Harry she must make up her mind never to divorce him. He thinks Harry is potentially very violent.

  Meanwhile Speed and Paul [Millard] have decided to stop sharing their apartment. Speed, I think, pretends to mind this more than he does. But it has one good aspect—Harry is genuinely impressed by Speed’s self-control. He talked a lot about it at lunch today.

  Igor and Vera were so sweet, as always. Igor got quite drunk, which was nice, because he likes to. But it was a pity in another way because I missed one more opportunity—and how many more will there be—of talking to him quietly.

  July 25. A quiet weekend. Grey weather, with a chilly wind that spoilt the chances of swimming. Wrote letters and hunted houses. It’s fun seeing them, but I suspect we’ll end up moving into Mr. Light’s next door because it’s so much less trouble.

  Don’s mood is good again and all is happiness, despite the irritations of having Kabuki200 over the weekend. This is the last time the Duquettes are going to park him on us. Life is pleasant, but I would like to get my novel started. And the answer is: start it.

  This week, Marguerite and Harry go into court and whatever nastiness there is going to be will come to the surface. I’m worried about this, but hope for the best.

  July 26. Aldous’s birthday, and only a month from mine. I must pull myself together. I’d planned to have accomplished something by fifty-one—and I shan’t have.

  Waiting for Knopf to see me, and meanwhile stalled on The Wayfarer—and well I know that when I do see him it’ll only be to receive some snap judgement. So I’m in a bad mood.

  And then I was cross with Don this morning because he dawdled so. And last night he was upset because he feels the Duquette job is getting him nowhere. And also depressed because of a lunch with Marguerite and Speed at which they bitched Tony.

  That’s it—life is a bit smelly right now—like something that has been too long in the closet. I need a change.

  Last night we had supper up at Gerald’s, with Will Forthman. Margaret Gage was away. They have a colored cook who served roast chicken, and Will had the air of doing something sinful—having such a meal. He is quite a bit of an old maid. And his presence inhibits Gerald curiously, so that we talked tea-table talk about religious sects which was superficial
and coy. I saw Don being bored and felt mad at them for not explaining to him what the long words meant that they used.

  Don told me last night that he only collects these movie pictures because they remind him of the time when he felt secure.

  My job is very simple—i.e. provide a background of security for Don and at the same time leave the door open for him to issue forth from it at any time he wants to. Is that impossible? No. Can I do it? I don’t know. Isn’t it the same problem as with Caskey? No—I really don’t think so—because Don isn’t self-destructive. Anyhow, I’ve taken on this project and I obviously have to do my best. And I do want to do my best. I’m not being noble about that. It is a genuine vocation. Don is by far the most interesting person I’ve ever lived with. Why? Because he minds the most about things.

  July 27. This morning I talked to Arthur Freed about the possibility of making a film out of Prater Violet. He has such a strange mixture of pictures in his office—a Gauguin (and a good one), Rouaults, Tamayos—mixed with junk. I like him—there’s something touching and cozy about him—like visiting a badger in his lair.

  Lunch with Speed. He’s full of the return of Paul after their quarrel and of a talk with Bill Caskey, who wants to see me and has apparently instructed Speed to arrange it. But how can I be friends with Caskey (or Jim Charlton either) as long as I feel they are hating and bitching Don and treating me as a corrupt old fool who has sold out to the movies and to whom one therefore doesn’t have to repay one’s debts? There can be no friendship with Caskey until we’ve had it out about the will—and all those pictures of ours he’s selling.201 And as for Jim, I can’t forget what the Hookers told me about his overcharging on the house. I hate being vindictive—but I can’t make myself be generous beyond a certain point. I’m trembling with rage as I write this.

  August 1. Well, now I really have to get to work and do something about the Siddhartha script—because Tony and Beegle are eager to leave in October, and it has to be finished first. I still have an awful lot to do.