by Arthur Gelb
“It was not a place you’d choose to give a party,” said Crockett, somewhat defensively, “but for a nursing home, it was pleasant.”
Both Crockett and Gallup, who visit her there, feel that Carlotta is reasonably contented.
Crockett, who sees her in October 1970, says she is alert and appears to relate to the staff and other patients. Gallup visits her at the beginning of November and both men speak with her attending physician, Dr. H. Richard Hoff, who assures them that for a woman of her age—she is now nearly eighty-two—she is in good health and might live to be one hundred.
Carlotta’s death a month later, on November 18, 1970, takes both men by surprise. Evidently it is sudden, for neither man has had any word from the nursing home that she is failing.
“Arteriosclerotic coronary thrombosis” is given as the cause of death. More simply, her heart has worn out.
• • •
CARLOTTA HAS INSTRUCTED in her will that her remains be cremated, and her ashes interred in the plot she bought for O’Neill and herself. She has left no other instructions in her will regarding the disposition of her remains, but Crockett recalls she wrote him a memorandum asking that there be no religious rites at her burial.
Crockett sends a paid announcement of Carlotta’s death to The New York Times, and it appears in the agate-type alphabetical listing on the obituary page. He reasons that someone on The Times will recognize Carlotta’s name, read that his law firm represents her, and call him for details.
That is what happens. The obituary editor spots the paid obit and orders a full-length obituary, which appears in The Times on November 21. The date of the burial is not given.
On November 28, within four days of the date that O’Neill, seventeen years earlier, was secretly buried in Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery, Carlotta’s ashes are interred beside her husband’s grave. The interment, like O’Neill’s, is accompanied by no ceremony.
Dr. Kozol is present, as is O’Neill’s nurse, Jean Welton. Also present are Crockett, Gallup, and Robert Meserve.
There is no one to grieve for Carlotta as she has grieved for O’Neill, no one to offer the loving symbol of valor that she laid at her husband’s grave—no one to plant laurel for Carlotta.
First among the women who possessed him: Ella Quinlan O’Neill, the mother who wished Eugene unborn
Kathleen Jenkins, the naive twenty-year-old who bore O’Neill an unwanted son
Louise Bryant, the free spirit who abandoned O’Neill to join John Reed in Russia while he gathered material for Ten Days that Shook the World
Agnes Boulton, the Bohemian lover O’Neill married on the rebound
Scene from Strange Interlude, starring Lynn Fontanne and Glen Anders
O’Neill and Carlotta posed for a portrait before leaving for France. As agreed, the photographer, Ben Pinchot, did not release it to the public until O’Neill informed him the couple were now legally wed.
Carlotta-nee-Hazel, age twenty-one, in London
Hazel with her first husband, the wealthy, aristocratic Scotsman John Moffat
The former Hazel, soon after she launched her stage career as Carlotta Monterey
Carlotta with her third husband, Ralph Barton, in the spring of 1925, inscribed “Ralph, me, the Captain of the ‘Paris’”
Carlotta and O’Neill in Cap d’Ail while awaiting Agnes’s divorce
Le Plessis, the castle rented by O’Neill and Carlotta in Tours, France, where O’Neill—reveling in his new love—labored over his most ambitious play to date, Mourning Becomes Electra
The abandoned family together for the last time: O’Neill, Agnes, Oona, and Shane in Bermuda
The Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village
John Reed, the celebrity journalist who was O’Neill’s friend and rival for the duplicitous Louise Bryant
O’Neill in a rare moment of playfulness with Shane—
—and with Oona
Carlotta in Maine during the fateful summer of 1926
Bermuda house O’Neill and Agnes bought in 1926, intending to remodel it as their permanent home
O’Neill practicing his favorite sport in Bermuda
Always at home on the water, O’Neill was never truly at peace away from the ocean
A production at Provincetown’s Wharf Theater of O’Neill’s 1916 one-acter, Thirst, performed by Louise Bryant, Jig Cook, and O’Neill
A scene from O’Neill’s first Broadway production, Beyond the Horizon, which won the recently established Pulitzer Prize—his first of four
A scene from Desire Under the Elms, produced in 1924—a major play written during O’Neill’s marriage to Agnes
Charles Gilpin as The Emperor Jones, 1920
Pauline Lord and George Marion in Anna Christie, 1921
Eugene, age four, with his first pet
The O’Neills’ summer home in New London known as Monte Cristo Cottage, after James O’Neill’s most famous role; it became the setting for Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Eugene, sketching ships and gulls on the grounds of Monte Cristo Cottage, overlooking New London’s Thames River, and described by O’Neill as “probably taken in 1893 or ’94”
The clipper ship Charles Racine, the setting for O’Neill’s early sea plays
O’Neill as a proud, salt-of-the-earth sailor
Snapshot taken by a Harvard friend, c. 1914.
James O’Neill as a successful young actor and newly married man
Ella Quinlan O’Neill—who shunned photographers—posed for this rare photo as a new wife
An iconic snapshot (from left to right) of Eugene, Jamie, and James on the front porch of the Monte Cristo Cottage
O’Neill on the terrace of Tao House with his beloved Blemie
O’Neill owned numerous other pets over the years:
A. with Ben Lomond at Le Plessis;
B. with Shane and nameless dog in Bermuda;
C. with Carlotta and cat at Le Plessis;
D. with pet Brahma chicken at Le Plessis
“I love you, my dear lost angel.” Ralph Barton’s suicide note to his divorced wife, Carlotta
Nazimova and Alice Brady as mother and daughter rivals-to-the-death in Mourning Becomes Electra
Scene from Ah, Wilderness, O’Neill’s only comedy (George M. Cohan in bathrobe)
Exterior view of O’Neill’s study at Casa Genotta. The windows faced out to sea, Carlotta said, “suggesting the prow of one of O’Neill’s beloved galleons.”
Carlotta relaxing in the garden at Casa Genotta
Tao House, where the O’Neills planned to live out their final years—until World War II disrupted their lives
O’Neill’s study in Tao House (and doorway to adjoining bedroom). It was here that he wrote The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey into Night.
O’Neill and members of the Theater Guild on first day of rehearsals for The Iceman Cometh. Seated on the stage of the Martin Beck Theater, from left: Shirlee Lantz, Lawrence Langner, Theresa Helburn, Armina Marshal, O’Neill, Eddie Dowling, and Joe Heidt (standing).
Carlotta and O’Neill at a rehearsal of Iceman
Scene from the production of Iceman
View of the Atlantic from porch of the O’Neills’ Marblehead cottage
O’Neill’s deteriorating handwriting in a 1948 letter to an old friend
Eugene O’Neill Jr., age twenty-one
Self-analytical diagram by O’Neill made during psychoanalysis, summing up his family’s dysfunctional history
O’Neill’s grave
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Foremost, we thank Yale University, which houses the world’s premier O’Neill archive. Without Yale’s generous permission to draw on this vast treasury, we could not have gleaned the intimate detail we sought for By Women Possessed—let alone for our two earlier
biographies, O’Neill and Life with Monte Cristo. Our heartfelt thanks, as well, to Yale’s librarian Susan Gibbons, and to Nancy Kuhl, the curator for American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and also to Frederick Iseman and Ellen Iseman, Yale alumnae and board members.
Of parallel importance is the generosity of Gerald Stram, who granted us permission to quote from the revelatory and often stunning diaries of his grandmother Carlotta Monterey O’Neill. And to the children of Shane O’Neill and Oona O’Neill Chaplin we offer thanks for their permission to quote from the plays of the grandfather they never knew with particular thanks for her help to Shane’s daughter, Sheila O’Neill.
We are grateful, as well, for permission to draw on the archives of numerous institutions that hold letters and other material related to O’Neill’s life and plays:
Boston Public Library, Boston University, Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University, Connecticut College, Cornell, Dartmouth, The Eugene O’Neill Review, The Eugene O’Neill Society, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation (and Robert Marx), New York University’s Fales Collection, Harvard University, Huntington Library, The Library of Congress, Museum of the City of New York, New London Public Library, New York Public Library and its Library of the Performing Arts (and Jackie Davis), Princeton University, Southern Connecticut State University, Syracuse University, Tao House Library, University of Notre Dame, University of Oregon, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, University of Virginia, University of Washington Library.
The hundreds of individuals who generously shared with us their recollections of O’Neill’s life and times—and who otherwise supported us during the writing of our two previous biographies—march across eighteen pages of O’Neill and seven pages of Life with Monte Cristo; we trust our readers have long since committed all their names to memory (and therefore we will not retabulate them here).
As for those individuals whose assessments of O’Neill’s tangled life apply specifically to By Women Possessed—they all appear by name in our text, since they are, of course, part of our story. We are deeply indebted to them all.
We do wish, here and now, to thank an awesome coterie whose members contributed to By Women Possessed, all of whom, one way or another, tirelessly assisted, guided, and/or lavished moral support during our years of research and writing:
Marian Wood is the most punctilious, imaginative, demanding editor we have ever been lucky enough to work with. A merciless perfectionist who, fortunately, is also an empathetic mentor, she vastly improved our text, draft by draft. Our private pet name for Marian is “Madame Le Mot Juste”; there is scarcely a paragraph in By Women Possessed that didn’t profit from one of her felicitous tweaks, however subtle.
Anne Ryan, an old and dear friend, impulsively volunteered to take on the intricate, time-consuming task of categorizing the hundreds of sources on which we drew for By Women Possessed. A retired assistant U.S. attorney, Anne was laughably overqualified for the task. But out of pity for our plight, along with selfless, loyal friendship, she brought to it all her fastidious intellectual expertise—a gift for which we can never thank her enough.
Dr. Harley J. Hammerman, a prominent diagnostic radiologist in St. Louis, Missouri, is a lifelong collector of O’Neilliana, and owns the comprehensive website An Electronic Eugene O’Neill Archive. Ever eager to share with O’Neill scholars and fans the information he amasses month by month, he has been an invaluable source of arcane data and family lore for our current biography.
Jeffery Kennedy happened to be researching his book about the history of the Provincetown Theater during the same time we were working on By Women Possessed. The millieux of our two books often overlapped, and since Jeff also happened to be the incumbent president of the Eugene O’Neill Society, our paths often crossed. With his impressive professional theater background, and as the current head of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University, Jeff is an evolving Renaissance man, and it was always rewarding to exchange insights with him.
The Eugene O’Neill Society also brought us into serendipitous contact with Sheila Hickey Garvey. A past president of the O’Neill Society (and still active on its board), she is a professor of theater at Southern Connecticut State University, and a one-woman cultural whirlwind who finds time to write, direct, and act in regional theater. Although steeped in the intricacies of academia, she is also joyously at home in the real world. She never failed us when we sought a way to cut through red tape, pin down an elusive contact—or guide us to the perfect place for a relaxed dinner during an out-of-town O’Neill conference.
Jo Morello—yet another member of the Eugene O’Neill Society—has a successful day job as a public relations counselor, and is also a freelance writer and playwright. She somehow makes time to turn out the society’s edifying, and meticulously written bimonthly newsletter. In all her capacities, Jo, since the beginning, has been one of our sturdiest friends and supporters. She has our enduring appreciation and gratitude.
Our special thanks to Howard Fishman, who (as he is accurately described on his website) “has quietly carved a niche as one of the most diverse and multi-faceted composer/performers working today.” We first encountered Howard as a very young man when we attended the off-Broadway opening of his revival of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene. Howard had cast himself as a charming entr’acte; seemingly oblivious of the wandering audience, he sat on the stage apron before the closed curtain, strumming his guitar and casually singing ballads appropriate to the play’s 1920s setting. He turned out to be a knowledgeable O’Neill fan, and, living in New Haven in the shadow of Yale University’s fabled O’Neill collection, he soon appointed himself as our occasional informal researcher—an honorary undertaking that he graciously has found time to perform throughout his own ever more demanding career.
We were lucky as well to meet another young man, Stephen Kennedy Murphy, who has devoted his life to O’Neill. He is the founder of two academically supported theatrical enterprises (at Yale and Columbia) and, as artistic director of the Playwrights’ Theatre of New York, has undertaken to produce O’Neill’s entire canon chronologically—sometimes with student casts, sometimes with seasoned actors like Zoe Caldwell and Marian Seldes—in various venues. (He has announced a “completion date” of December 10, 2036, the one hundredth anniversary of O’Neill’s winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.) Like Howard Fishman, Stephen volunteered as a researcher and, over these many years, has allowed us to take advantage of his connections within the world of O’Neill.
We particularly wish to acknowledge the colleagues without whose professional competence and support this book could not have been published: Rose Schwartz, Neil Rosini, Jeff Roth, and Greg Collins. And also our good friend and oracle of the stage, Paul Libin, who has lived and breathed the theater for almost as long as we have.
Our very special thanks to our dear friend and former New York Times colleague Frank Rich (now a brilliantly successful HBO mogul). As we groped for a title, it was he who came up with what we have hopefully embraced as a label that has legs.
And, for adding luster to our title, we are grateful not only to the preeminent artist Alex Katz for his unexceptionable gift of a jacket portrait, but also to our mutual friend, Dodie Kazanjian, the arts and specialist writer, who smoothed the way between his studio and our publisher.
It would be remiss not to acknowledge here our highest praise and heartfelt appreciation to the actors who—in the decades following O’Neill’s death and up to the present day—have brilliantly reinterpreted O’Neill’s characters in revivals of his plays. Even though the demanding dramatist, during his lifetime, rarely approved of an actor’s interpretation of a role in any of his plays (and sometimes put his characters into masks in anticipation of their shortcomings), he would have been hard-pressed not to appreciate the performances of the clan of unmatchable actors who, since his death, hav
e kept his plays alive and flourishing.
To name only the most prominent among them: Gabriel Byrne, Zoe Caldwell, Brian Dennehy, Colleen Dewhurst, Cherry Jones, Nathan Lane, Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Al Pacino, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Jason Robards, George C. Scott, Kevin Spacey, and John Douglas Thompson.
We will never forget their stunning performances in notable revivals of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for the Misbegotten, A Touch of the Poet, Desire Under the Elms, Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones, and Hughie. We especially thank those of them who shared with us their insights into O’Neill’s wrenching global vision.