Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  Griggs, Philip. See Buddha Chaitanya.

  Guerriero, Henry. American artist. Guerriero was a draughtsman and sculptor. He was from Louisiana and was friendly with Tom Wright and Speed Lamkin. Michael Leopold was his lover for many years. Isherwood evidently met him at the start of the 1950s.

  guna. Any one of three energies—called sattva, rajas, tamas—which together comprise pakriti, or maya, the illusionary universe of mind and matter. When the gunas are perfectly balanced, there is no creation or manifestation; when they are disturbed, creation occurs. Sattva is the essence of form to be realized; tamas, the obstacle to its realization; rajas, the power by which the obstacle may be removed. In nature, sattva is purity, beauty; rajas is activity, reaction; and tamas is solidity, resistance, obscurity. Similarly in man, sattva is calmness and purity; rajas, passion, restlessness; tamas, laziness, inertia, stupidity. Mood and character change according to the balance among the gunas; the spiritual aspirant must transcend each guna, even sattva, in order to realize oneness with God.

  Gunn, Thom (b. 1929). English poet. Thomson Gunn served in the army for two years and then went to Trinity College, Cambridge. He first met Isherwood in 1955 when, on his way from a fellowship at Stanford to a brief teaching stint in Texas, he contacted Isherwood and was invited to lunch at MGM; they immediately became friends. Gunn later returned to San Francisco and taught at Berkeley off and on from 1958 onward. His collections of poetry include Fighting Terms (1954), My Sad Captains (1961), Moly (1971), Jack Straw’s Castle (1976), and The Man with Night Sweats (1992). Mike Kitay, an American whom Gunn met in England, was a student at Stanford in the 1950s; he was Gunn’s companion for many years and afterwards continued to live in the same house in San Francisco with him and with several other friends.

  Gurian, Manning. Stage manager and, later, producer. Second husband of Julie Harris, who starred for him in The Warm Peninsula.

  Guttchen, Otto. A German refugee who did not succeed in Hollywood. Guttchen’s kidneys had been ruined while he was in a Nazi concentration camp, and he was also tortured. He had left his wife and child behind in Switzerland. In Hollywood he often had insufficient money to eat. He became suicidal in late 1939–1940 and was apparently permanently embittered; Isherwood found it difficult to help him in any adequate way and felt persistently guilty about this. Many years later they met again and Guttchen appeared to have regained his hold on life.

  Hackett, Albert and Frances Goodrich. American screenwriters. They were married for many years and collaborated on plays and filmscripts, including The Thin Man (1934), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Father of the Bride (1950), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1955) and, perhaps their best known, The Diary of Anne Frank (1960) for which they wrote both the stage and film versions. She was nearly twenty years older than Isherwood, he about ten years older, and Isherwood and Bachardy normally met them only at professionally oriented parties, such as those given by Charlie Brackett.

  Hall, Michael. American actor; he appeared as the son of the Fredric March character in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Later he became a successful antiques dealer and collector in New York. Isherwood met him at a party in the winter of 1945–1946, and they had sex as friends occasionally for about twenty years.

  Hamilton, Gerald (1890–1970). Isherwood’s Berlin friend who was the original for Mr. Norris in Mr. Norris Changes Trains. Hamilton’s mother died almost immediately after his birth in Shanghai, and he was raised by relatives in England and educated at Rugby (though he did not finish). His father sent him back to China to work in business, and while there Hamilton took to wearing Chinese dress and converted to Roman Catholicism, for which his father, an Irish Protestant, never forgave him. He was cut off with a small allowance and eventually, because of his unsettled life, with nothing at all. So began the persistent need for money that apparently motivated some of his subsequent dubious behavior. Hamilton was obsessed to the point of high camp with his family’s aristocratic connections and with social etiquette, and lovingly recorded in his memoirs all his meetings with royalty, as well as those with crooks and with theatrical and literary celebrities. He was imprisoned from 1915 to 1918 for sympathizing with Germany and associating with the enemy during World War I, and he was imprisoned in France and Italy for a jewelry swindle in the 1920s. Afterwards he took a job selling the London Times in Germany and became interested there in penal reform. Throughout his life he travelled on diverse private and public errands in China, Russia, Europe, and North Africa. He returned to London during World War II, where he was again imprisoned, this time for attempting to promote peace on terms favorable to the enemy; he was released after six months. After the war he posed for the body of Churchill’s Guildhall Statue and later became a regular contributor to The Spectator.

  Hamilton, Paul. A monk at Vedanta Place, first mentioned by Isherwood in 1957. He took brahmacharya vows and sannyas, eventually becoming Swami Amohananda, but later he gave up his status as a swami.

  Hardt, Etta. A German refugee who had been an executive secretary in a Berlin publishing house and fled with her Jewish employer, Annie von Bucovitch, despite being offered the management of the firm by the Nazis. She became Garbo’s assistant and maid as well as Salka Viertel’s housekeeper and secretary.

  Hardwicke, Cedric (1893–1964). British actor. Hardwicke was successful on the London stage and made films in England before going to Hollywood in the mid-1930s. Thereafter he made films on both sides of the Atlantic, including the movie versions of many British plays and novels. He was cast as Ruggieri, the astrologer, in Isherwood’s Diane.

  Harrington, Curtis (b. 1928). American director who made underground films and then moved on to features. Isherwood met him in 1949, and they were friendly until 1954 when, at a party given by Iris Tree in early July, Isherwood punched Harrington in the face after a friend of Harrington also at the party made advances to Bachardy. Harrington sued Isherwood and they eventually settled out of court for $350. After this Isherwood avoided Harrington, although he was forced to work with him on the Jean-Christophe script because Harrington was then Jerry Wald’s personal assistant.

  Harris, Bill. American younger son of an engineer, brought up partly in the USSR and Australia. Harris painted in the 1940s, and later made art-objects and retouched photographs. Isherwood met him through Denny Fouts on August 21, 1943, while still living as a celibate at the Hollywood Vedanta Center; he began to fall in love with Harris in mid-March 1944, and this greatly weakened his already waning determination to become a monk. Harris had been discharged after only a few weeks in the army and was attending college. He was a beautiful blond with a magnificent physique and Isherwood found him erotically irresistible, though the relationship was not long lasting except as a casual friendship, and Harris later moved to New York. Isherwood refers to Harris as “X.” in his 1939–1944 diaries, and he calls him “Alfred” in My Guru and His Disciple. Isherwood’s outline of events for 1945–1949 includes a reference to a kite accident which occurred on January 19, 1945. He and Harris were on the beach flying a kite that Denny Fouts had made from his Christmas decorations. The kite dove into power lines along the highway causing a small explosion. Traffic was held up, and power to the whole area was cut. They feared arrest, but in fact were in greater danger of electrocution. Isherwood used the incident in The World in the Evening, part 2, chapter 6.

  Harris, Julie (b. 1925). American stage and film actress. Harris’s career began on Broadway when she was twenty; her rise to stardom was confirmed when she originated the role of Sally Bowles on stage in I Am a Camera (1951). She filmed this and another early stage role, The Member of the Wedding, and made a number of further Hollywood movies, including East of Eden (1955), The Haunting (1963), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). She also worked in television and continued her stage career, receiving a Tony Award for Forty Carats (1969) and for The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1972), and touring with a one-woman show on Emily Dickinson, The Belle of Amherst (1976). Isherwood first m
et Harris in 1951 after she was cast as Sally Bowles, and they became intimate longterm friends. Harris was married to Jay Julien, a theatrical producer, and then to Manning Gurian, a stage manager and, later, producer. She starred in Gurian’s unsuccessful production of Joe Masteroff’s The Warm Peninsula in 1958, and with him she had one child, Peter Gurian. They were divorced at the start of the 1960s.

  Harrity, Rory. American actor. Second husband of Marguerite Lamkin, from March 1959 until 1963. Harrity began on the stage and had a film role in Where the Boys Are. He also had writing ambitions, but died young of alcoholism.

  Harvey, Laurence (Larry) (1928–1973). Lithuanian-born actor, educated in South Africa. Harvey worked on the London stage and made movies in England before going to Hollywood where his films included The Alamo (1960) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He played the Christopher Isherwood character in the film version of I Am a Camera. Isherwood first met him in London in 1956.

  Hatcher, Tom. Longtime younger associate of playwright, screenwriter and director Arthur Laurents. Isherwood and Bachardy met the two around the same time and possibly introduced them to each other. Hatcher devoted all of his time to Laurents.

  hatha yoga. The widely familiar system of physical exercises whose object is physical health (in contrast to other yogas which aim at spiritual perfection). From his training in 1941, Isherwood mentions several pranayamas (bastrika, hollow tank, air swallowing, alternate breathing); these are exercises for the extension and control of breath.

  Hawes, Bill. Hatmaker. Hawes was a friend of Jo and Ben Masselink, probably through Jo’s work in clothing design. When Ben Masselink eventually left Jo, it was for Hawes’s wife, Dee, who acted in small theater productions in Los Angeles.

  Hayden. See Lewis, Hayden.

  Hayward, John (1905–1965). British editor and scholar. Hayward was crippled by muscular dystrophy and was confined to a wheelchair. He shared a flat in Chelsea with T. S. Eliot from 1946 until 1957, when Eliot remarried.

  Heard, Henry FitzGerald (Gerald) (188[5]-1971). Irish writer, broadcaster, philosopher, religious teacher. W. H. Auden took Isherwood to meet Heard in London in 1932 when Heard was already well-known as a science commentator for the BBC and author of several books on the evolution of human consciousness and on religion. A charismatic talker, Heard associated with some of the most celebrated intellectuals of the time. One of his closest friends was Aldous Huxley whom he met in 1929 and with whom he joined the Reverend H. R. L. (Dick) Sheppard’s Peace Pledge Union in 1935 and then emigrated to Los Angeles in 1937 accompanied by Heard’s friend Chris Wood and Huxley’s wife and son. Both Heard and Huxley became disciples of Swami Prabhavananda, drawing on Hindu teachings to ballast their pacifism and to try to achieve contact with spiritual reality. Isherwood followed Heard to Los Angeles and through him met Prabhavananda. Then Heard became an ascetic and broke with the Swami early in 1941, straining his friendship with Isherwood. Heard set up his own monastic community, Trabuco College, the same year. The guru-disciple relationship was to be replaced there by a free collegial association of mystics, each practicing an individual approach to religion. Heard had been secretary to the Irish statesman and agrarian reformer, Horace Plunkett, from 1920 to 1927 and was reportedly the main beneficiary of Plunkett’s will; he was also a Trustee of the Horace Plunkett Foundation until 1948. Possibly this brought him some of the money to fund Trabuco.

  By 1949 Trabuco had failed, and Heard gave it to the Vedanta Society of Southern California to use as a monastery. In the early 1950s, his asceticism relaxed and Heard warmed again to his old friendship with Isherwood and eventually to Don Bachardy. During this period, he shared Huxley’s experiments with mescaline and LSD. Heard contributed to Vedanta for the Western World (1945) edited by Isherwood, and throughout most of his life he turned out prolix and eccentric books at an impressive pace; these included The Ascent of Humanity (1929), The Social Substance of Religion (1932), The Third Morality (1937), Pain, Sex, and Time (1939), Man the Master (1942), A Taste for Honey (1942) adapted as a play by John van Druten, The Gospel According to Gamaliel (1944), Is God Evident? (1948), and Is Another World Watching? (1950, published in England as The Riddle of the Flying Saucers). For a number of years Heard was obsessively interested in flying saucers (see also UFOs). There were many more books. Heard is the original of “Augustus Parr” in Down There on a Visit and of “Propter” in Huxley’s After Many a Summer (1939). His crucial role in Isherwood’s approach to Vedanta is described in My Guru and His Disciple.

  Hecht-Lancaster and Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. A Hollywood production company formed by the former literary agent and dance director Harold Hecht in partnership with Burt Lancaster. Later James Hill, the American producer and Rita Hayworth’s last husband, joined them.

  Heinz. See Neddermeyer, Heinz.

  Henderson, Ray. Musician; longtime friend and lover of Elsa Lanchester. He composed the music for some operettas she recorded privately, and accompanied her on piano when she sang at a local theater, The Turnabout, and on her television show. He was much younger than Lanchester and left her to marry another actress, then returned after a few years. Henderson also scored a musical version of The Dog Beneath the Skin, but it was never produced. He died young, of a heart attack.

  Herbold, Mrs. A member of Allan Hunter’s Congregational church. Isherwood met her in the early 1940s. She was a typist and a notary public, whose services Isherwood evidently used over a number of years. On his recommendation she typed Time Must Have a Stop for Huxley in 1944, and she may have typed Isherwood’s work as well.

  Hewit, Jacky (b. 1917). English dancer and, later, civil servant. Isherwood was introduced to Jacky Hewit by Guy Burgess and they conducted a love affair towards the end of 1938. They went to Brussels with W. H. Auden for Christmas, and Hewit is one of the subjects of Auden’s mostly unpublished poem “Ode to the New Year (1939)” of which Auden originally gave him one of the typescripts. When Hewit saw off Isherwood on his departure for America in January 1939, he presented Isherwood with a champagne cork from the New Year’s Eve party given by Auden in Brussels and at which Auden read the poem aloud. Hewit was lover also to Anthony Blunt, and to the diplomat Guy Burgess with whom he lived at different periods, including the three years leading up to Burgess’s defection to the Soviet Union in May 1951. (This connection bedeviled him in later life, though he finally joined the Civil Service as a clerk in 1956 and left as a Higher Executive Officer in 1977.) Before emigrating, Isherwood promised to send for Hewit once he was settled in America, but never did.

  Hirschfeld, Magnus. German sex researcher; founder of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, where he studied sexual deviancy. Hirschfeld was the author of books on sexual-psychological themes and he and his staff dispensed both psychological counselling and medical treatment (primarily for sexually transmitted diseases). Hirschfeld was homosexual and campaigned for reform of the German criminal code in order to legalize homosexuality between men. His work was jeopardized by the Nazis and he was beaten up several times; he left Germany soon afterwards, in 1930, and died in France in 1933, around the same time that the Nazis raided his institute and publicly burned a bust of him along with his published works. Isherwood took a room next door to the Institute in 1930 and first met Hirschfeld then, through Francis Turville-Petre.

  Holy Mother. See Sarada Devi.

  Homolka, Oscar (1901–1978) and Florence. He was a Viennese-born actor who moved from stage to screen in Germany at the end of the 1920s and went on to Hollywood during the 1930s. Isherwood met him in 1941 during the filming of Rage in Heaven. Homolka was in countless other movies as well, including The Seven Year Itch (1955), War and Peace (1956) as General Kutusov, A Farewell to Arms (1957), and Funeral in Berlin (1966). Isherwood remained friendly with Homolka’s wife, Florence, though the marriage eventually ended. Florence Homolka was wealthy in her own right. She was a good photographer, and photographed Isherwood and Bachardy in 1962.

  Hooker, Edward. Professor of Eng
lish at UCLA; a Dryden scholar. In the early 1950s, he married Evelyn Caldwell, who took his surname to become Evelyn Hooker. He died suddenly of a heart attack in January 1957.

  Hooker, Evelyn Caldwell (1907–1996). American psychologist and psychotherapist, trained at the University of Colorado and Johns Hopkins; a professor of psychology at UCLA where for a time she shared an office with the Rorschach expert, Bruno Klopfer, who was impressed by her work and assisted and encouraged her. Hooker was among the first to view homosexuality as a normal psychological condition. She worked with and studied homosexuals in the Los Angeles area for many years, venturing into rough bars and orgiastic parties in order to discuss the nature of homosexual love and to examine the social structure of the homosexual subculture. At Klopfer’s urging, she first presented her research publicly at a 1956 conference in Chicago, arguing that as high a percentage of homosexuals were psychologically as well-adjusted as heterosexuals; the paper, entitled “The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual,” was later published in a Burbank periodical, Projective Techniques (this was the journal of the Society for Projective Techniques and the Rorschach Institute; it later changed its title to Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment). Born Evelyn Gentry, she took the name Caldwell from a brief first marriage, then changed to Hooker when she married again at the start of the 1950s. Isherwood met her in about 1949, possibly at the all-night party given by Sam From in August that year. In 1952 Isherwood rented the Hookers’ garden house on Saltair Avenue, refurbished it, and lived there until a misunderstanding arose over the arrival of Don Bachardy. After an uneasy period, they continued as intimate friends.