Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  A long talk on the phone, yesterday morning, with a woman who works for David Susskind and who had called wanting me to take part in a program of “people with strong views,” including Steve Allen and Shelley Winters. I said no, and explained that I don’t like Susskind’s attitude. He is such a little bitch and his idea of “discussion” is to keep baiting his guest with insults. Also, he’s ignorant and proud of it. Of course, I said all this politely. But she got the point.

  August 11. Finished page 114. This was another record spell of work—under the influence of Dexamyl I’m becoming absolutely frantic. I still am not at all sure I can finish before the 26th, however, because there really does seem to be more and more to say. Still, I’m very grateful for this impetus.

  This morning I passed my test for renewal of my driver’s license—only one mistake: I said 65 miles per hour was not the maximum speed limit in California. This was a relief because I’ve been afraid that I might somehow flunk it.

  Walter Starcke came by, en route for Japan and round the world. He has become a little white on the temples, which suits him. Otherwise, he seemed exactly the same. But he feels he’s changed. 1959 brought an end to a period of his life. “Now I belong to myself.” He says he used to have dreams in which Johnnie rejected him. But the other day he dreamed that Johnnie was playing the piano and he turned and smiled and said, “Come!” and they sat down together and played a duet. “Now I live by grace,” says Starcke. “I live every hour of every day to the fullest.” Actually he is in Key West, dealing in real estate and having parties with Herlihy221 and his friend which sometimes go on till morning. Lots of sex. He took a violent fancy to the kaleidoscope on our table, so I gave it him. Otherwise he seemed very little interested in my doings, or Don’s—and hardly at all in this house, although he says he finds he has a great talent for interior decoration. He hurried off to have supper with some millionaire.

  The other day I saw a cream car on which its owner had painted the name “Slow White.”

  Two boys pushing their car, which had evidently run out of gas, along Entrada Drive to the point where it would coast downhill. “Oh, Jesus!” one of the boys kept crying out, very loudly, in mock agony, “Oh dear Jesus, help me! Help me in my hour of need!” The other boy was rather embarrassed.

  August 13. Yesterday, Don painted the kitchen and porch floors (black) and this morning they were still sticky so I had to breakfast off fruit and drink some disgusting instant coffee made with the bathroom hot water. Lacking coffee, I couldn’t do much on “Paul.” A terrific lot still remains—or so it seems.

  The “monks’ picnic” at Laguna yesterday was a frost—partly because the dreary but unanswerably efficient Prema had decreed it shouldn’t be on the beach but up in the patio, where it was much less messy but utterly unromantic, uncozy and unjoyful. A devotee who is a patient of Dr. Bieler told me how Dr. Bieler had kept him for the past year eating practically nothing but fruit and a few vegetables—and now his shit didn’t stink. Tito seemed far less worried and crazy. An Irish folksinger led us in spirituals—that was the only lively part of the evening. Drove down with the desperate devotee named Ernie, who lives opposite the temple, and talks of his automobile accidents as a torero talks of his gorings. Drove back with Prema and a new recruit—for whose benefit Prema conducted an edifying conversation with me, about the emptiness of life without God. I said nothing I didn’t mean, and tried hard to forget that the new recruit was present—but still I felt rather cheap, like a “cooperative” witness testifying before the Un-American Activities Committee.

  I’m fond of Prema, though. He’s a dour, crazy, bitter old thing—but a kind of frosty gleam shines through.

  August 15. A miserable hangover, today, after an evening with Lesley Blanch and then a visit to Tony Richardson. Mary Ure and John Osborne were there unexpectedly and on very bad terms. I hugged Joan Plowright222 drunkenly, which was a mistake. I feel ashamed of myself but have nevertheless written to page 129 of “Paul” and see the end in sight.

  All this time, I have been idiotically thinking I’ll call the novel The Enemy, forgetting Wirt Williams’s novel, which I have right before me on the shelf! Now I’m thinking of The Presence of the Enemy. Not bad.

  August 17. In the Presence of the Enemy—better!

  Today I reached 140 of “Paul.” This was quite an achievement because there are a whole lot of new things in it. But the hashish episode will still be very long.

  A rather wonderful evening with Jim Charlton last night. We got nearer to our old relation than in a long while—largely because he didn’t whine and complain so much of Hilde. But he is still in a kind of permanent misery. (He says that, when he first met me—when I assumed I was cutting rather a glamorous figure—I was forever complaining about my age and failing powers. Now he finds me much more active and less sorry for myself, and even better looking!) But his great solution is still to get away. He wants to go to Hawaii and eventually Japan.

  The kitchen floor paint is nearly dry at last.

  I’m in a kind of stupid state, unfit for anything but sleep. I didn’t get home from Jim’s till 2:00 a.m.

  August 20. Yesterday morning, I finished the rough draft of “Paul.” It’s much longer than I anticipated—164 pages—and I still have very little idea what it’s about. Just the same, this is a most satisfactory achievement. I promised myself I’d get there before my birthday, and I have. I shall lay off reading it for at least a couple of weeks and I hope this will recharge my interest. Not that I’m not interested now—I am; I truly believe I have something very exciting here—maybe my best book. At least, I’m not worried that it is just dryly competent like The World in the Evening. It does touch some sort of nerve, at moments anyhow. It is first and foremost about living people, and only secondarily a story. And that’s what I value most, at present. If I could make a contraption which came to life—well, that would be best of all.

  Talking like this reminds me of talking to Bill Jones last evening about his short story. Oh dear—the difficulties! The imagery problem: these beginners are just rotten with similes and metaphors—every goddamn thing reminds them of some goddamn other thing. Bill listened devoutly to what I had to say, and took notes—but I doubt if he really understood. I doubt if he really has talent. But how could I tell him this? It isn’t a question of compassion. I have no right to tell him, and no authority. He has to find it out for himself.

  Bill and “Kap” Kidd [had a big argument]. It was up to Bill to say he was sorry, and he found this very hard. [This is the sort of selfishness which] is the same as stupidity. But there’s something rather sweet about them both. I arranged for Bill to meet Ben Masselink—they had lunch together at the studio;223 and this was a great success.

  Laughton was operated on, last Thursday. He’s said to be doing well, but the operation was more serious than they expected—an extra stone was found which hadn’t shown up in the X ray. Terry is still around. (He’s coming to us tonight—as Charles wanted us to see him while Charles is in hospital.) Elsa is doing a TV show. Hal Greene and Dick Lee are still in the house next door—although it no longer belongs to them—“caretaking” until their new house up at Malibu has come out of escrow. Hal’s old mother died at last—horribly, in great pain.

  Yesterday evening I drove clear out to Milan Road in South Pasadena, where Jill Macklem and her husband Les have their new home. It is a very old wooden house, maybe from the 1890s, with leaded glass in the doorways and a stone fireplace with the rocks cut and arranged in an exactly symmetrical pattern—big ones and small ones. Les says that you can’t get this kind of work done any more. The old Italian stonemasons who did it are dying off. It is quite a beautiful leafy street of old houses, with some of the feeling of old America that’s in Longfellow, etc. But sad, sad.

  How to describe the sad boredom I feel on such occasions? Great efforts at hospitality had been made by both of them. Jill had cooked a nice dinner, only it was four times what we needed. She�
��d put lilies of the valley (artificial) in her hair—which suggested perhaps some kind of an understanding between us. But Les stayed around all the time, for which I was grateful. They seem on the best of terms. There was the eager meal, the eager showing of Les’s paintings (which have something and yet nothing), the eagerness for talk—about politics, Florida, life in Japan—oh, anything. And I eagerly responded, to make it all right—but why did we have to do it? It was sheer naked ritual. No getting together in any significant way. And the notes of my lectures which Jill typed up with such loving care and in so short a time—they’re useless to me. They show no grasp of anything at all.

  Now, I have to turn to other tasks. I must prepare another chapter of the Ramakrishna book. And I must do something about my lectures. This includes typing up a lot of extracts from books. I have now heard definitely that I shall “open” on September 22, but that only means holding my first seminar. The first public lecture won’t be till the following Thursday, September 29.

  Have just read a novel sent me by Hugh French—who keeps trying to steal me away from Geller—A Summer World by Richard Dougherty. A new young producer at Fox wants to do it. It’s quite nicely written, a well-behaved “sincere” little tale of an eighteen-year-old boy having “awakenings” with girls and “finding himself” I imagine it charmed this little Jew producer because it is so non-Jew, Republican, noblesse oblige rich, civilized, indeed almost would-be country house British in feeling. (Which is maybe why a young upper-class Britisher from the embassy is the only person who is savagely attacked by the author.) Not for old Dobbin.

  August 21. Idling has started. I didn’t get started with Ramakrishna yesterday and I doubt if I shall today because I want to go swimming at Hugh French’s. And tomorrow afternoon I’m to visit Laughton in hospital. Terry Jenkins was here to supper last night. Don liked him, and agreed that he is somehow a unique, or at least very unusual person. And one feels his feeling for Charles. It is expressed in the simplest kind of loyal matter-of-factness: he spent the whole of Thursday at the hospital—when Charles was having the operation and was so doped up he couldn’t even recognize him.

  Talked to Ivan Moffat on the phone. They had [Carl] Sandburg to dinner on Friday and had asked us to come, but I couldn’t because of the Macklems and Don didn’t want to, alone. When Sandburg met Iris, he said, “God must have thought twice before he made you,” and later he assured her he’d never said this to anyone else. Ivan also told me that the young Dutchman who is their technical adviser on The Greatest Story [Ever Told] had insisted that the Last Supper was eaten with the hands, on the floor, in a room without windows. George Stevens, exasperated, remarked, “This story’s hard enough with windows!”

  August 22. A wasted day. Now I’m off to see Laughton in hospital, and then to Fox for a preview of Let’s Make Love.224 But all morning we’ve drowsed with hangovers and Don has thrown up several times. We both got very drunk last night after a rehearsal of A Taste of Honey225 which we watched. And Don had one of his most violent and apparently unmotivated “Black Tom” attacks. He got quite frantic, tried to wreck (or rather, ferociously played at wrecking) the car. Then abandoned it and ran off down the street, then came home and smashed our dear old Mexican money pig that Julie [Harris] gave us. It was very ugly, and I feel concerned, lest these attacks may become really insane like Ted’s. Of course this morning he was all contrition and very sweet.

  Although, in the attack, he was full of hate against me, I really do not feel that he hates me in any significant way. Elsa says she feels that Charles hates her. Maybe she hates him.

  John Osborne told us they have been staying in San Francisco at a hotel run by a man who used to be an officer in the Gurkhas. He uses military expressions still. When they arrived, John Merivale was put up on the eleventh floor, while Vivien Leigh was put on the fifth. So she protested, because it made screwing so awkward. So the manager apologized to Merivale saying, “Awfully sorry, old man—ought to have known you’d want to be near headquarters.”

  I asked John Osborne about Luther. He said he’d gotten interested in him when he made a “study of religion.” They are looking for an actor to play the part. Thinking of Jason Robards (?).226

  Meanwhile Signoret had been visiting Mary Ure, and moaning because Yves227 is having this affair with Monroe. Arthur Miller doesn’t care, it seems. Both Simone and Mary shed tears and got drunk. Mary had been rather loving this. She luxuriates in scenes.

  August 23. Am just through being interviewed by a young professor from Fresno named Stanley Poss. And tonight I have to be on a panel discussion at UCLA, after seeing these four plays—Act Without Words, The Chairs, The Sandbox, This Property Is Condemned.228 I’m not in a particularly bright mood; maybe I just won’t say anything.

  Talked to Don yesterday about his outburst on Sunday night. Don denies that it was unmotivated—I forget how difficult it is to live with me—I’m so dominating, etc. But he added that he has wanted everything to happen that has happened since we met. So that’s all right.

  Of course I do realize about the domination. But what I have to keep remembering is Don’s insecurity. I do believe he still imagines I might willingly leave him—which is ridiculous and unthinkable. I have never never felt so involved with anybody. And gladly involved. (I’m aware that I am writing this so Don may one day read it when I’m dead. Well, Don, I mean this!)

  August 25. I feel rather bad because I have just been mean to a very rich and rather [zany] woman named Geraldine Brent. She is a friend of Jerry Lawrence, and she absolutely dragged us by main force to see a 16mm film she had made of herself playing the ex-movie star in Sweet Bird of Youth and also Mildred Luce in Dogskin.229 She was terrible in both of them, but when she called me this morning I told her she ought to give up acting altogether, which I should never have done if she hadn’t been rich, and a nuisance, and a woman.

  Last night I stayed home—Don was in town—and read all of Jerry Lawrence’s new play The Diamond Orchid and then The Gang’s All Here, which Jerry gave me for a birthday present. I really like The Gang’s All Here better—maybe just because it has a real setting; this imaginary Latin American stuff never quite convinces you.

  Am now trying to get ahead with Ramakrishna—to produce at least one more chapter before school starts. Tomorrow, I may reread the whole manuscript of In the Face of the Enemy.230

  We have decided not to go to San Francisco for the weekend, but to paint the outside of the house. Mr. Gardner will do it fairly cheaply. Furthermore, the front bathroom is to be retiled. I would feel more relaxed about all of this if we could only screw that money out of Laughton’s corporation.

  The panel discussion at UCLA was a farce. No one really had time to get going—and Ray Bradbury and William Fadiman231 and John Houseman (who spoke from the audience)232 and Julius Epstein233 were all so rude. I guess I was all right—no more than that. Don was very pleased because, when my name was announced, there was a murmur of excitement, quite loud, right around the hall.

  Don has drawn Terry and taken him to the gym, and they’re doing it again before Terry leaves.

  George Koniaris called up today after all these months to say goodbye, as he is leaving California with a scholarship to Cornell University.

  Later: Don called around midday and went into a rage because I said I had agreed to have supper with Jo and Ben on Saturday and go to a party at Jerry Lawrence’s on Sunday. Of course it is all jealousy, because he feels that Jo isn’t really interested in him, except as my friend—and as for Jerry Lawrence, well, of course he thinks of Jerry’s house as a place where I make friends and am influenced by people—and how right he is! But this upset me terribly, nevertheless, and so I couldn’t get myself to do any work, and went on the beach, instead. And I’m still depressed. And of course resentful against Don for spoiling my birthday mood. Which is babyish, I know, at fifty-six. But alas, I’m like that—I must either mind—or I must throw all the switches, shut off the juice, and tell him
to go fuck himself. If I did that there would be a scene lasting maybe a week. And maybe it would startle the bitch-faggot part of him, “Black Tomasina,” and make it behave. But why should I upset myself for Black Tomasina? Isn’t it better to have peace at any price?

  August 26. Well, of course, everything is all right today—it really is, I believe. When we woke, Don said, “I heard a rustling in the night—on your side of the bed.” I was slow getting the point; then reached down and found a box of new Brooks Brothers shirts and a pair of bellows for the barbecue. And there was the sweetest old-fashioned birthday card of a kitty on a typewriter. I cried.

  Today we’ve been on the beach and in the water. Quite warm.

  I’m not going into the psychology, symbology, etc. of being fifty-six. There’s nothing I can do about that, except work harder and faster. Today I did a page of the Ramakrishna book and started drafting a “frame” for the novel—something to surround my four scenes from the Past with Now. This, I know, is absolutely essential. I feel very excited about the novel, altogether. Think I shall go right ahead with the revision.

  In addition to the Ramakrishna and novel work, I’ve written letters, made japam with beads for the first time in God knows how long—and exercised!

  I intend that this shall be my last diary written by hand. The poor old thumb gives me so much trouble. In future, I want to type.

  Must fly off, now, to take part in a nice birthday evening at Hope Lange’s.

  So long!

  1 The Fourth French Republic collapsed in May 1958 over the Algerian war; de Gaulle returned from retirement and took over on June 1.

  2 Then a film producer, now a director.

  3 Fashion model, and briefly an actress.