Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  My car injuries are clearing up. My knee’s still stiff but today I borrowed Bill Hawes’s car, which he so kindly loaned, and was able to drive it.

  Don and I have a curiously snug relationship right now, thanks to the play. We’re like winter animals, snugly storing nuts.

  December 6. John Gielgud is really a very lovable person. We saw him last night and the night before, and on Tuesday. He’s here giving readings from Shakespeare. What is interesting is his obsession with the poetry itself; you really do feel that he has a need to proclaim it. When he recites, he actually cries. Dame Edith Evans said to him: “If you would cry less, John, the audience would cry more.”

  He is also obsessed by the fear of another scandal,67 and here also he is sympathetic, because he has the keenest concern for everyone else who gets into trouble with the police. What I find less admirable is his acquiescence, to some extent, in the theory that the royal family has been “hurt” by his behavior. But I suppose, if you didn’t feel like that, you couldn’t go on living in England.

  The awful youthful squareness of Jack Larson, who told John his performance was “deeply beautiful.”

  December 11. Such a beautiful blue morning. Yesterday was so hot that you could easily have gone in the ocean.

  Don and I finished the rewrite of act one three days ago. Now it looks as if we might get act two by Christmas and maybe act three by New Year’s. But act three is tricky. Too much exposition, at present.

  Yesterday evening, driving up to Vedanta Place for supper, I suddenly felt so exhausted that I had to lie down in Prema’s room. Prema talked about his loneliness. He longs for a friend—he longs for affection—he even wishes he could go up to San Francisco and cut loose for a week; but he won’t, I don’t think. He says all the boys really hate each other. There’s no love in the place. [There is a] new monk, [who] is apparently about to have a breakdown, because [one of the old monks] is so horrid to him.

  All this, and then I went in to see Swami, who told me he’d had “a terrible time” that morning “in the shrine—I mean a good terrible time.” He had been overpowered by the knowledge that, “There is abundant Grace.” He had cried so much that he had to leave the shrine room. He said what was the use of reasoning and philosophy—when all that mattered was knowledge of God? I told him he was an existentialist.

  I asked him when he had started to feel that God really existed. He said, “As soon as I met Maharaj. Then I knew at once. He made it seem so easy.”

  Jack Lewis thinks I’m healing up all right. But my nose is broken and I have a tear in the pleura, which hurts when I cough.

  December 13. We’re approaching the end of act two, scene one. I still don’t in the least know just what we have or haven’t caught in our net.

  Don sulked last night because the bathroom light dropped on his head and he thought my attitude was callous. As a matter of fact, I often am less demonstrative when something bad like that happens, because I begin thinking in terms of what’s to be done.

  Since I so often praise Don in this journal, let’s have a few words about his shortcomings.

  He is still terribly silly about his appearance—wastes so much time curling or combing his eyebrows and fooling with his hair.

  He is obstinately stupid at not seeing the connections of things, in our work on the play. Often I feel he simply isn’t trying—just idling and thinking about Lana Turner and waiting for me to get on with the work.

  Then he is a sulker. And blindly obstinate about trifles, out of mere weakness.

  Well, all right. At least he knows all this. And at least he is trying. I know similar things about myself, and I hardly try at all.

  December 15. Ivan Moffat, back from Zurich, Selznick and Tender Is the Night for a few days, gave a party the night before last. Gia Scala,68 very drunk, philosophic about life and death, and about to drive to Topanga, seemed in danger of remaking The Green Hat69 in a wonderful red cloak. Ivan had ordered four trays of hors d’oeuvres from Romanoff’s for the party. For this, he had received a bill for $360! I must say, he showed an altogether classic self-control about this. He never even mentioned it till we were talking on the telephone next morning.

  Yesterday we finished act two, scene one—half the play. Great reconstructions are now necessary, however, because the first draft has far too much exposition in the last act.

  A huge fire somewhere near San Juan Capistrano. Smoke all over the sea, greenish grey, blowing up from the south. The sun turned bright pink.

  Don now tells me he went to a fortune-teller around August, who said 1959 was to be a marvellous year for him. Also that I had been through a bad period which was just about to end. He told Don we would do no more travelling this year, although Don assured him that we would—because, at that time, of course, our New York trip still seemed definite. The fortune-teller said Don would make money with his commercial drawing, but didn’t see a future for him in portrait painting.

  December 19. A ghastly party at Doris Dowling’s last night. She told us she has a Christ complex. The house is full of pictures of Christ, including a reproduction of Dali’s.

  And today comes a letter from Mina Curtiss, saying that it would be very difficult to give me a Chapelbrook grant because I live in Hollywood which “is synonymous with money,” because I haven’t saved enough money to take a couple of years off which is highly suspicious, because I am “able to earn money outside my art” and because I am not “in quite desperate need.”

  Well, I’m writing to tell her I withdraw my application.

  December 24. Don has gone to Christmas Eve dinner with his mother. Tonight we go to a party at Stanley Kubrick’s.

  What is to be said about this Christmas? Our first at home since I’ve known Don—1953 New York, 1954 Mexico City, 1955 Munich, 1956 New York, 1957 London. All rather miserable: 1953—a party of rather unpleasant people at Wystan’s. 1954—me sick. 1955—Don sick. 1956—we ate Christmas dinner all alone (but that was the best year). 1957—a miserable scramble through London to find any place open to eat at.

  This year at home we at least have the comforts of our own house; and two nice “Englishmen” (one Canadian) whom Phil Burns introduced me to—John Durst and Jonathan Preston—are coming to us for Christmas dinner.

  This year is also our first with a Christmas tree. Don was eager for it but now rather hates it—has most carefully put on and taken off again the Spanish-moss-like tinsel. Some of the lights on it have gone out and won’t be repaired.

  We are hoping to have the second draft of our play by New Year’s or soon after.

  I now await the Hines and the Stickels for Christmas drinks. Also Bill Hawes, who lent me the Ford. The Simca returned yesterday—but its brakes are not guaranteed!

  Hal Greene (who came in for drinks yesterday) is “working” with a teacher called Lillian de Waters.70

  Don is mad because Ray Henderson—Elsa Lanchester’s accompanist—sends me a Christmas card inscribed, “To the most charming man in the Western Hemisphere”!

  December 27. The Hine-Stickel visit was quite a success, due to Bill Hawes’s presence. He played it real butch, talked to them about Tahiti, and War and Wife. How very surprised they’d have been to hear he makes hats! After Bill had left, there was an amusing revelation about Mr. Hine’s (alleged by Hal Greene) FBI activities. I remarked, as we parted, that I would have to be careful because of the police roadblocks against drunk drivers, and Mr. Stickel put in, innocently, to Mr. Hine: “You should know all about that, Frank.” Mr. Hine did not react.

  That evening we had supper with Stanley Kubrick and Christiane Harlan. Her daughter had been given a copy of Shock-headed Peter in German for Christmas.71 Kubrick seems to be going astray on all kinds of screwy projects—Lolita, a film about the end of the war in Berlin, a love story called Sick, Sick, Sick. A young writer with inflamed eyes named Dick Adams is working for him.

  Christmas day was beautiful, and altogether pleasant. We had John Durst and Jonath
an Preston as our guests. They went in swimming before lunch and brought with them a magnum of Mumm. John is not very thrilling but I like him. Jonathan is cute and lively. He described how Bullock’s Department stores take down all their decorations on Christmas Eve. Right after Christmas come the sales. We went to Pacific Ocean Park later. Don and Jonathan rode in the revolving tub which holds you to its sides by centrifugal power after its bottom sinks.

  Yesterday we had Russian vodka with Bill Hoover,72 who told us that the Russians (in Moscow) are squatty, homely, rather dull and lifeless.

  Then we went on to a very dull though not lifeless party at Paul Millard’s—a collection of (perhaps) the most boring people I’ve ever known: the Bracketts, the Jimmy Pendletons, the Larmores, Joan Elan, Gene Nash,73 Paul himself, etc. etc.

  On the way home, Don and I had a terrific quarrel—I forget what about. He slapped my face, for the first time. We haven’t gone into the whole thing yet—and now we have guests coming here, including Joan Elan and Paul Millard—so must stop.

  December 28. Don has a very badly inflamed throat. His bad mood has turned septic but not altogether left him; he still gives me glances of deep hostility. It’s beautiful but sharply windy weather. We worked on the play again today. We work, some, every day. But it definitely will not be finished before the New Year. Am quite cold on it at present. It seems entirely uninteresting. There is only one thing to do: finish it as quickly as possible.

  Doris Dowling is a lysergic acid bore. She has been through the mystic experience, she says. I have a wild notion that she may be planning to marry Gavin.

  Our party was a disaster. Dowling shocked Harvey and June Easton—and Paul Millard and Joan Elan were as boring as ever. Salka, who could have partially saved the evening, didn’t come and didn’t call us.

  December 31. A tremendous fire is sending up an orange cloud from behind Topanga. On the beach it was very hot. Don and I got on with the play, right into the final scene between Elizabeth and Stephen, but it will take at least a week more to finish.

  And now we have to go off to this party tonight in our ridiculous rented tuxedos. The idea bores me to death, but never mind—no sulks!

  1959

  January 1. No sulks—and the party really wasn’t bad at all. Lots to drink, truly delicious sandwiches, and a parade of elderly stars—ranging from Marion Davies to Laurence Olivier. Bing Crosby, poker-faced with the middle-aged misery of being up too late, dancing with his flirty-eyed young wife; he wore a cardboard crown. So did Edward G. Robinson. Lance Reventlow74 was among the very few attractive young males; but he is so humorlessly blond and bull-faced as to seem quite sinister. At midnight I lost Don in the crowd. I hope this wasn’t a bad omen for the year.

  At the end of the street—up in the hills of Benedict Canyon—you could see the shockingly naked flames licking up the brush. They looked very near, and there were rumors that many houses had been burned. This made the party a bit like the voyage of the Titanic. People who lived in the area were exchanging tips for “getting through.” “Drive to the police block on Beverly Glen and ask for a cop named Fritz.”

  Despite hangover, Don and I went ahead with our work on the play today.

  Saw Kent Chapman and a girlfriend of his in the afternoon. He is less skinny since being drafted into the army. Is leaving soon for Korea or Germany. He always annoys me by his helplessness when he calls; and then I always warm to him when we talk—he is very endearing. We all three went out on the boardwalk and watched the sun set.

  This evening Don and I burned all the branches of the Christmas tree, leaving only the trunk to be cut up and burned tomorrow, when Gerald comes to supper.

  Pessimistic New Year’s thoughts about money. It suddenly seems so hard to get.

  January 6. The first rain of the season is pouring down tonight. We’ll see if the new roof leaks. Don is in town for the night. I’ve just returned from an Oscar Levant show, or rather, the process of taping it. I rather stank—loused up nearly all of my quotations. But I guess they liked it.

  The night before last, Don and Hope Murray came to dinner, just back from making a baby and a film (Shake Hands with the Devil) in Ireland. Don enthusiastically praised Don’s painting of me and his drawings, remarking rather sweetly how nice it is to be able to praise a friend’s work sincerely.

  At supper we got talking of George Stevens’s Christ picture,75 and I said that Pat Boone would never be able to play Judas, because he refuses to kiss anyone on the screen. Don Murray roared at this, but then most unkindly exposed Hope, who’d also laughed, for not knowing what I was talking about. She was raised a Christian Scientist.

  At the Serbia restaurant on Montana, Don overheard the lady of the house say to the headwaiter: “I dreamed about you last night. You brought in the menu, and it was covered in blood.”

  On the 3rd, we finished act two of the play. Now we’re well into act three. What we’re doing is certainly a vast improvement over the first draft. But oh what a long way to go yet!

  January 8. Last night I had supper at Vedanta Place and Swami urged me to come and live in one of the apartments of the new apartment house they are going to build. Of course this is quite out of the question at present because of Don, and anyhow I do not want to become part of the “congregation.” That’s unthinkable, anyway. And I shan’t even mention this offer to Don because I know it would upset him and make him feel insecure. (Just when he’s feeling reassured, because his teacher and fellow students praised his work very highly at school.)

  I only regret Swami’s offer because I fear it means the start of another come-back-to-Vedanta offensive, such as Swami waged while I was with Caskey.

  The Levant show was a great hit, it seems. And I must say I was agreeably surprised how relaxed I looked on the show and how my voice has lost its tightness.

  Two disasters: a drunk ran into the Sunbeam, and my workroom roof suddenly gushed water yesterday during a rainstorm and wetted a lot of my books. They are all out on the living room floor to dry.

  Ill-wind department—as a result of the rain, the phone shorted, and so it was finally possible to get it moved across the room to a point by the door, from which it’ll reach right down the passage into the bedroom.

  January 10. Aldous invited me and Don to lunch today, and to our surprise we found ourselves alone with him. I then suspected that maybe he was going to propose some literary collaboration project—but no. I guess he was just lonely. Laura was away for the weekend.

  He looked tired and older—he was sick after his return. He talked about the trip—Lima, Machu Pichu, Brasília and Rio. Everywhere the growing overpopulation, the inflation, the mad building of government offices on money produced by the printing press. In London, Tom Eliot has become a bore, Morgan looks just the same, John Lehmann seems to be “made of wood” and Rosamond [Lehmann] has taken up spiritualism since her daughter’s death and believes they are in communication. Why is it always so shocking to hear this? I suppose because people always seem to be convinced at the wrong time and for the wrong reason—when and because they desperately desire to be convinced.

  Evelyn Hooker, with clean new front teeth—Don says she used to foam at the side of the mouth—came to supper last night and bored us. Don doesn’t think she really likes me or vice versa. Maybe not. She says she thinks Kinsey was queer. She told us about the Heavenly Twins, fifty-eight and thirty-two, who dress identically down to their underclothes. And about clubs young married couples belong to for the exchange of bed partners. I seem to see a most curious streak of puritanism in her—for example when she said that sadism was bad even when both parties enjoyed it.

  Every day, Don and I keep on at the play, and soon we should have the second draft complete. We are in the middle of the third act. But what it adds up to—still no idea.

  January 14. Right now, Don is doing over the final scene between Elizabeth and Stephen in our play. (When we rewrite, we shall change the names; probably as follows—Catherine Derwe
nt, Michael Grant, Joan Watson, Nancy Lord.) We have already done this scene twice and reached the end, but it’s still a muddle—like landing by plane in a thick fog—you know you’re nearly there, but not one glimpse of the airport.

  We saw Julie’s play The Warm Peninsula76 last night. On the stage it seemed fully as bad as it did when we read it. Julie has an insignificant, rather unsympathetic part which she keeps alive by technical tricks, not by genuine feeling. And Manning [Gurian]’s attitude to the whole enterprise seemed just about as wrong as possible. He gloats over the pictures of himself in the brochure, bills himself and Julie as a “theatrical team,” and is frankly out for the buck and nothing else. If he can make it by cheap movies without quality, well, he’ll make it. We feel he is playing on Julie’s timidity and insecurity. This play must be a flop when it hits Broadway. Yet Manning remarked, in the most relaxed manner, “Of course, Julie has nothing to do in the second act,” as if this were a slight defect which could quite easily be fixed.

  January 17. Today we finished the second draft of the play.

  Marguerite called from New York to say she is getting married to Rory Harrity, a young actor who was in Gore’s Visit to a Small Planet.

  Ivan is back from Switzerland. Mary Magdalene is again shelved. Gavin has a job, starting Monday, on Sons and Lovers, for Jerry Wald.

  Marguerite will marry in Monroe, on March 15. She wants us to come. We can combine that with the opening of Tennessee’s play.77 Marguerite had taken the mescaline tablet I gave her. She got the horrors and thought the ceiling was coming down.

  Ivan’s hors d’oeuvres from Romanoff’s were reduced from $360 to $200, with profuse apologies.

  A drunken evening with Jim Charlton yesterday. He seems happy with Hilda, says the sex is a success still, and anyhow he can’t be bothered to have outside affairs.

  We had supper at the Red Snapper with a friend of Jim’s named Bill Claxton,78 with whom he hopes to make documentary films—because a fortune-teller whom he brought to their Thanksgiving (or Halloween) party told him he would succeed in a job not his own.