By Women Possessed

by Arthur Gelb

  moved to write a staunch endorsement of the play in the Catholic publication America. 1/13/34.

  “Also my play treats adultery seriously—as a sin against love—and how could the first-night intelligentsia of New York countenance that!” to SW, 5/1/34, Tao House Collection.

  Days Without End was his “last flirtation” with Catholicism. A/BG interview with CM.

  taking pains to point out that all of his past plays, “even when most materialistic,” were “in their spiritual implications a search and a cry in the Wilderness protesting against the fate of our own faithlessness.” to William E. Brooks, 3/5/34 (private), SL.

  “Again my gratitude to you all.” 1/9/34, NY Public Library, SL.

  “He equated O’Neill’s ‘fall’ with the fall of Lucifer.” A/BG interview with BDC.

  The two men never spoke again. According to A/BG interview with BDC, two weeks before her husband died in 1945, he told her, “I’m sorry I wrote that about O’Neill.”

  “If a poet like Yeats sees what is in it,” said O’Neill, “all my hard work on it is more than justified.” A/BG interview with Munsell. Days Without End was subsequently produced with considerable success not only in Ireland but also in Holland and Sweden.

  “The critics didn’t understand it and it wasn’t any good.” as quoted in Total Recall.

  would take up when he did start writing again. A/BG interview with RC.

  PART IV: “TIME’S WINGED CHARIOT”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Blemie, who all but sang with joy on seeing them. CM diary, 1/14, 1/15, 1/19, 1/23 & 1/30/34.

  and his weight was down to 137 pounds. WD, 2/28 & 3/23/34.

  she brooded about the “torture of being no longer young.” CM diary, 2/11/34.

  by mid-May, he’d gained fourteen pounds. WD, 5/13/34.

  he was happy, now, to “forget about work for a time.” probably May 1934, Yale, SL.

  but found “no impulse” to work. WD, 8/10/34.

  1928, the year the Abbey Theatre rejected his play The Silver Tassie. The Abbey finally produced it in 1935.

  “He and I fell for each other at once—at least I know I fell for him, and I believe he fell for me,” O’Casey later said. O’Casey letter to AG.

  throwing O’Casey and Nathan into gales of laughter. Redbook, Aug. 1935.

  telling him jokes “only two Irishmen can share.” O’Casey letter to AG.

  impressed by the way that O’Neill had finessed his way “back to the Greeks” in Mourning Becomes Electra. Ibid.

  “Gene was so pleased he didn’t know what to do.” CM interview with SP, NYT.

  “English critics didn’t care for his work; but then they are, I fear, nearsighted, looking at the playfulness of the magpies, but with eyes too weak to watch the soar of an eagle in the upper skies.” letters to AG; in 1959, O’Casey responded to BA request for a tribute when a Broadway theater was named in O’Neill’s honor. “I am glad,” wrote O’Casey, “that in his American soul there was, not only the touch of a poet, but also the touch of an Irishman, for the O’Neills had their origin in Ireland. This great Dramatist of America and the world tells me again that our Shamrock twines a leaf or two around every flower symbolizing each State of O’Neill’s great and urgent Country. The Shamrock is an unassuming and humble plant, but it is always there.”

  had been given “everything, more than any other country.” excerpt from EO interview published in PM and other newspapers, 9/3/46.

  “The sentence? ‘For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’” The New Yorker, Hamilton Basso, Profiles, Part III, 3/13/48.

  The Sea-Mother’s Son (that autobiographical saga of the middle-aged man, supine on his deathbed, pondering his origin). O’Neill Collection, Beinecke.

  who made their often illicit billions in banking, railroading, shipping, and politics. Among O’Neill’s research was the recently republished The Robber Barons—The Great American Capitalists 1861–1901 by Matthew Josephson.

  Ethan, a sailor, is Dream of the West’s first mate. Calms of Capricorn.

  the owner fires him—after which he and Nancy commit suicide. Ibid.

  “But until you do this,” warned O’Neill, “don’t expect anything from me except the usual birthday and Christmas presents or you will be disappointed.” 6/12/34, Yale, SL.

  “It is all right for Shane to visit here in the summer, because he is so much more grown than you,” O’Neill had written to his eight-year-old daughter in the summer of 1933, “but I am afraid the sudden change to this climate would not be a good thing for you until you are a little older.” 6/9/33, SL.

  while in New York for rehearsals of Ah, Wilderness! WD, 9/25/33.

  would not see her father again for nearly five more years. Herbert Freeman, whose memory was not always reliable, “remembered” a visit from Oona in Sea Island that did not take place, probably confusing it with a visit to the O’Neills’ later home in California.

  “All I can say is both Mr. and Mrs. O’Neill were good to me, as if they’d been my own parents—even better.” recorded interview with Freeman, Tao House Library.

  sought to convince him that his father was not a rich man. CM diary, 1/2/35.

  “Fine kid!” he commented in his Work Diary. 1/4/35.

  “How (between us) we could have spent $70,000 this past year!” CM diary, 1/6 & 1/7/35.

  “He would work on one until he felt he was stuck, get a thought about another one, and work on that.” Ibid.

  writer Sherwood Anderson and his wife, Eleanor. WD, 4/16/35.

  “You have always been a man I have looked up to as one of the few great figures of the time and I am sorry that I cannot see more of you.” 4/24/35, Letters of Sherwood Anderson, edited by Howard Mumford Jones and Walter B. Rideout, 1953.

  “Certainly she is not one of the women who make a house warm.” Ibid.

  “I felt him clinging to me rather pitifully.” Ibid.

  “I’ve a hunch he is just now a down pin.” Letters of Sherwood Anderson.

  “I love him so deeply I pray I can be of some help & comfort to him.” CM diary, 5/23/35.

  on a huge folded bath towel, perspiring into its four thick layers. CM diary, 7/29/35.

  “Two of the plays take place in New England,” he elaborated, “one almost entirely on a clipper ship, one on the Coast, one around Washington [D.C.] principally, one in New York, one in the Middle West.” letter, 7/3/35, Yale, SL.

  until he had completed three plays and written first drafts of the rest. Ibid.

  “If you keep on going back,” Carlotta chided her husband, “you’ll get to Adam and Eve.” A/BG interview with CM.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  she confided to her diary, “though beginning with simple beer . . . step by step, it will reach Bourbon & then, God help Gene—& me!” CM diary, 7/7/35.

  “I want to believe this.” CM diary, 7/8/35.

  “He sounds either crazy or drunk.” CM diary.

  “What, in the name of God, is the matter with the man?” Ibid.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it!” CM diary, 8/24/35.

  “Did he want what I had NOW?” Ibid.

  martyred Agnes in the days when she nursed the hungover O’Neill after drinking binges. CM diary, 8/25/35.

  “I must have been crazy—but Weinberger keeps hammering at me!” CM diary, 8/30/35.

  pain that had been troubling him for the past two months, and which he thought originated in his liver. WD, 10/3/35.

  prayed his discomfort was not being caused by hard liquor. CM diary.

  a home in Georgia, he had come to hate that as well. 10/29/35.

  point of not speaking to Carlotta during meals. CM diary, 11/1/35.

  “I become so self-conscious when these silent moods are on!” CM d
iary, 11/2/35.

  noted, three days later, that it needed “to be reconceived.” WD.

  could not bring himself to work for such “an uninteresting, stupid” organization. CM diary, 11/11/35.

  “He used to say, ‘Oh, God, if only some Good Fairy would give me some money, so I’d never have to produce a play, and I could just write, write, write and never go near a theater!” A/BG interview with CM.

  “It sounds too good to be true!” CM diary, 11/14/35.

  found her husband sunk in “complete mental lethargy.” WD.

  hosts to the writer Somerset Maugham and his secretary-lover, Gerald Haxton. Ibid.

  “I didn’t see another soul while I was there, but he constantly complained and said he must leave the island because it was so thronged with people.” A/BG interview with SNB.

  found him drinking whiskey out of a bottle. CM diary.

  had known O’Neill was surreptitiously drinking hard liquor. CM diary, 12/24/35.

  and repeated the routine the following day. CM diary, 12/25 & 12/26/35.

  “To Carlotta—on this, her eighth birthday since our elopement—with, again, as ever, my amazed wonder at her forbearance with my blunders and weaknesses, my wondering amazement at her patience with my lost preoccupations and forgetfulness—and last and warmest, my heart’s and soul’s gratitude for her love, which is this Stranger’s only home on this earth!” Inscriptions.

  he had decided to return to a diet of “just wine and beer.” CM diary.

  as keepsakes. O’Neill apparently decided a single braid was souvenir enough. After his death, Carlotta sorted through the contents of a Chinese lacquer box, preparing to send it to the O’Neill Collection at Yale. Among the treasured letters and other memorabilia in the box, she found the single braid. By then she’d forgotten all about her 1936 diary entry describing the impulsive cutting off of the two braids, and felt compelled to invent a story to go with the single braid; it was a tale in which, typically, O’Neill’s ardor for her glamorous self was the focal point. She wrote to the curator of the O’Neill collection to describe how one hot day she and O’Neill were gardening on their patio at Casa Genotta, and, when her long hair kept falling in her face, she “pulled it down & made it into a braid—& the braid kept falling into my face! I was so annoyed I took the garden shears and sawed my braid off close to my head! I was a sight! And Gene was furious! He flew at me and grabbed what was left of the poor braid.” She said he didn’t speak to her for twenty-four hours, and then berated her for cutting her hair, which he “had always loved,” without consulting him.

  “Mother of God—now what?” she exclaimed to herself. CM diary, 1/27/36.

  unable to comb his hair or knot his tie. CM diary.

  “I am frantic with fear & heartache,” scribbled Carlotta. Ibid.

  the next morning she had herself a haircut, wave, and shampoo. CM diary.

  found he was “no longer interested, anyway,” and “that was finally that.” late Dec. 1937, Tao House Library.

  “Getting nowhere,” he recorded on May 31. WD.

  now looked “as if there would have to be still another play—a ninth which will carry me back to 1770.” letter, 6/20/36, Yale, SL.

  accepting the “slavery of agricultural life” in America. Profiles, Part III, 3/13/48.

  “I mean,” he explained, “I’m not giving a damn whether the dramatic event of each play has any significance in the growth of the country or not, as long as it is significant in the spiritual and psychological history of the American family in the plays.” letter, 8/12/36, Yale, SL.

  “A lady bearing quintuplets is having a debonair, carefree time of it by comparison.” Ibid.

  let it “rest as is” for the time being. WD, 8/21/36.

  “If a playwright doesn’t work up entrances fifteen minutes long for them and have all the other characters describe them in advance as something pretty elegant, noble, chivalrous and handsome, the audiences wouldn’t be able to accept them for much more than third assistant barkeeps, if that.” New York Journal-American, 8/26/46.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Winther had published the laudatory work Eugene O’Neill: A Critical Study two years earlier, Random House, New York, 1934.

  asked the Winthers to find them a furnished house. CM diary, 7/15/36, & Sophus Winther Collection, Eugene O’Neill Foundation Research Library at Tao House.

  after which she fell into a fit of weeping. CM diary, 9/9/36.

  he grumbled: “Will be glad leave this place—hope we can sell it soon—climate no good for work half of year—and feel am jinxed here.” 10/4/36.

  advised “absolute change—rest—forget work.” WD, 10/24/36.

  administering a series of injections to bolster her weakened condition. CM diary, 10/11 & 10/13/36.

  O’Neill was already looking and feeling much better. CM diary, 10/31/36.

  describing it as “comfortable” with “beautiful grounds.” WD, 11/3/36.

  staffed with a housekeeper, cook, and maid. A/BG interview with Eline Winther.

  President Roosevelt had easily won a second term. CM diary, 11/3/36.

  didn’t care either way, as the prize was “a jinx for [the] middle-aged.” WD, 10/27/34.

  “It isn’t easy to protect Gene from all these people.” CM diary, 11/12/36.

  “They’ll never want to see another play.” interview, Seattle Daily Times, 11/12/36.

  “I thought that wonderful of him considering all the excitement.” CM diary, 11/12/36.

  “He deserves it.” AG interview with BA.

  “In fact, so far, I’m like an ancient cab horse that has had a blue ribbon pinned on his tail—too physically weary to turn round and find out if it’s good to eat, or what.” “TTWWF.”

  he vilified them as mostly “cheap shit-heels!” 11/25/36, Yale, SL.

  asserting the award was largely due to O’Neill’s “prestige and publicity,” which neither the critics nor the public dared to dispute. Saturday Review of Literature, 11/21/36.

  “Who in hell is De Voto?” 12/3/36.

  “But, we’ll just look everywhere and be very sure.” The Magic Curtain.

  noted that she was “deeply moved” by her return. 12/18/36.

  who had removed her appendix seventeen years earlier. letter, CM to KM, 12/31/36, “TTWWF.”

  “A fine pair we are!” sighed O’Neill. WD.

  once again frantic with worry. letter, CM to KM, 1/20/37, “TTWWF.”

  “This prostate has been kicking up for years.” Ibid.

  O’Neill told Macgowan, “and I want so much to get back on the job.” letter, 3/30/37, “TTWWF.”

  that “an abscess in my inside burst and so poisoned me that they had to inject everything but TNT to keep me from passing out for good.” 9/14/37, Yale, SL.

  calculated they were (as always) taking a substantial loss. CM diary.

  on the final leg of her trip to San Francisco. Wire, 3/1/37, Yale, SL.

  “Have arranged all for honeymoon at Fairmont including double-bed!” warbled a rejuvenated O’Neill. WD, 2/27/37.

  “I am not complete without him!” CM diary (at stop in Utah), 3/1/37.

  checked herself into the same hospital for a week’s “rest cure.” WD, 3/6/37.

  across the small orchard-filled San Ramon Valley. The house and land are now the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

  eventually exceeded something more than $70,000. according to notes appended to CM diary 1937.

  looking after him in a San Francisco hotel near the Fairmont. WD, 3/17/37.

  opium couch. After being sold back to Gump’s by the O’Neills when they evacuated Tao House, it was returned as a gift—at the urging of Katharine Hepburn—when Tao House became the Eugene O�
�Neill National Historic Site.

  “I wanted to build a Chinese house,” Carlotta once explained, “but I didn’t have the money, so I built a sort of pseudo-Chinese house.” CM interview with A/BG.

  pain from his prostate condition was sometimes incapacitating. CM diary, 4/30/37.

  took up his cycle, neglected for the past eight months, as per Dr. Dukes’s orders. WD, 6/20/37.

  “I knew a lot about vaudeville, but he knew more.” A/BG interview with SNB.

  he (at twenty-two) and Jamie, “were drunk all the time because their roles in the production of The Count of Monte Cristo were so ridiculous.” Ibid.

  son Eugene’s achievement as a Greek scholar at Yale. A/BG interviews with SNB, & SNB diary, 6/27/37.

  “He made a great impression on me—I loved him.” Ibid.

  “I’ll get it this time!” WD, 7/3 & 7/12/37.

  “Moreover, the climate is one I know I can work and keep healthy in.” 9/14/37, Yale, SL.

  “I go along, hand in hand with Gene—drunk with happiness!” CM diary, 10/6/37.

  “tao” meaning in Chinese “the right way of life.” CM diary, 10/27/37.

  “The O’Neills had a naive, romantic idea of China—the wisdom, the pageantry and so forth were superficially conceived and romanticized by them.” A/BG interview with Mai-mai Sze.

  for his senior year, in a preparatory school in Colorado that O’Neill deemed pretentious. letter, HW, 9/24/37, Yale, SL.

  should be attending “a good strict college prep school of the more democratic sort where they expect you to study seriously and fire you if you don’t.” Ibid.

  “After that, I am through—and when I say through, I mean through,” O’Neill blustered to his lawyer. Ibid.

  “There is too much greedy parasitic Boulton in their blood—I am afraid—not to add Boulton stupidity in their brains!” Ibid.

  “During all that time I did not receive one damned line from either you or Oona.” (early Oct.?) 1937, Yale, SL.

  he closed with his own and Carlotta’s love. Ibid.

  during his next spring vacation (almost a year distant). c. 10/16/37, Yale, SL.

  “We are so tired at bed time we hardly have the strength to crawl up into our beautiful Chinese beds!” noted Carlotta. CM diary.