By Women Possessed

by Arthur Gelb

  his real family, tracing, as she recalled, “their true relationships one to the other,” scrutinizing “their idiosyncrasies & disloyalties!” CM diary, 8/25/40.

  what it had cost him “in strength & emotion to write it!” WD, 9/20/40 & CM diary, 9/20/40.

  had definitely decided to expand to eleven plays. WD, 10/18/40 to 10/31/40.

  “I rate myself the most fortunate of men.” letter, 10/29/40, Yale, SL.

  “is a type of Broadway sport I and my brother used to know by the dozen in far-off days.” letter, EO to GJN, 6/19/42, As Ever, Gene.

  “She would tell Gene stories and gossip, and Gene would encourage her to talk.” A/BG interviews with CM.

  performed the play (in his words) “on and off everywhere for thirty-two years.” A/BG interview with Robards.

  “Poor Darling—no proper upbringing, no love, no tenderness, no discipline, no real care of any kind—oh, I can understand so many things now!” CM diary, 10/24 & 11/18/40, & interview with A/BG.

  “I have never been so disturbed by any piece of writing before! . . .” CM diary, 11/20 & 11/21/40.

  “Long Day’s Journey Into Night absorbing all of my thought—& what an insight into the very soul of Gene!” CM diary, 11/23 & 11/24/40.

  “I take blankets & lie on the floor with him—Give him aspirin—.” CM diary, 11/19/40.

  “He sleeps—which allows me to.” CM diary.

  “I have tried all my known remedies.” Ibid.

  I think it is thro’ terror that ‘Mama’ isn’t there to give him care & protection!” CM diary, 12/7/40.

  she added, “it more than ‘upsets’ me!” 12/16/40.

  found him, in the early morning, sunk into a coma. CM diary, 12/17/40.

  “—loved him for 11 years—a finer friend than most friends!” WD, 12/17/40.

  Carlotta and O’Neill planned a headstone. CM diary, 12/18/40.

  “It was Blemie we loved, not the dog!” Carlotta once pronounced. 3/2/41, Theater Scrapbooks of Carlotta Monterey.

  “Never have written about Italian-Americans although in past have known many of them as close friends.” WD, 1/26 & 2/11/41.

  two earlier concepts, “Time Grandfather Was Dead,” WD, 1/20, 2/15, & 2/16/41.

  along with “The Thirteenth Apostle.” WD, 2/5 & 2/7/41.

  “Like this play better than any I have written—does most with the least—a quiet play—and a great one, I believe,” 3/30/41.

  “‘I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time.’” SW letter to Travis Bogard, 3/14/80, Tao House Library.

  “He tells me why he hated his brother in his later years!” CM diary, 5/18/41.

  “the ‘inscription’ showed what his mood was when writing it—and what hell he went through!” 11/6/55, Yale.

  “This is the real story,” A/BG interview with ESS.

  ongoing warm friendship (recorded in letters and diaries) with the young actress Elizabeth Robins. Robins’s diary & letters, Fales.

  “I was glad when he died.” 1939 draft, Beinecke.

  changing into “an alien demon.” EO’s notes, Beinecke.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “My heart aches so I can hardly breathe!” 5/2/41.

  recalling Shane’s visit in 1940. 1/23/45, Yale, SL.

  couldn’t even support himself, let alone a wife. CM diary, 5/20/40.

  “You have got to go it alone, without help, or it won’t mean anything to you.” 10/25/40, Virginia, SL.

  done so little to make himself independent. 4/18/41, Yale, SL.

  seek out and marry rich and/or famous older men. A/BG interviews with Gloria Vanderbilt & Carol Marcus.

  blamed her “damned N.Y. school—or maybe she’s just at silly age.” WD, 7/18/41.

  clipping sent him by Harry Weinberger. CM diary, 5/9/42.

  no wish to see or hear from her “until she has proved she has come out of this silly, brainless stage.” letter, EO to HW, 5/12/42, Yale, SL.

  too weak “to face the world and the war—or, for that matter, to face oneself in any world of decent values—in short, pure Boultonism.” letter, 9/28/42, Yale, SL.

  “considering sickness & war strain,” WD, 11/13/42.

  despite his disapproval of its contents. Thirst was published by Gorham Press, Boston, Aug. 1914.

  It could, wrote O’Neill, “be strange combination comic-tragic—am enthused about it.” WD, 10/28 & 10/29/41.

  “He can never be replaced!” CM diary, 11/1/41.

  “I never in my long and varied experience, have come across such tactless, thick skinned people.” 4/24/30, “TTWWF.”

  insisting she was “a woman of no morals.” A/BG interview with RR.

  used the word Eskimo as code for Jew. A/BG interview with Carmen Capalbo, who directed the premier on Broadway of A Moon for the Misbegotten, in 1957; also SC & KM.

  “This may sound mean, Mr. Francis,” wrote O’Neill, “but I have had too many dealings with Jews, and millionaire Jews, too, in the theatrical business not to trust one of them any farther than I could throw your store with my little finger.” 3/8/19, Conn. College.

  “All he sent was a lousy $200—which is no way to treat me even if he is a Jew.” 2/6/25.

  “Kahn, I think, is a two-faced tin-horn Kike whom you can trust not to double cross you about as far as a worm can walk on its hands.” letter to KM, 4/28/26, “TTWWF.”

  an agent “has a rich Jew in tow who seems to mean business.” 9/8/37, Harvard, SL.

  “the damned Jew changed his mind.” 9/13/27, Harvard, “Wind.”

  “When you live through the play you write, you have to have a lot of reserve life on tap.” 4/28/41, Yale, SL.

  the addition of “A” and “for” rendered the title “much more to [the] point.” WD, 11/3 & 11/12/41.

  “It was terrible to see him come out of his study, shaken and miserable,” Carlotta later recalled. A/BG interviews with CM.

  convinced it was “unnecessary to rub it in.” Ibid.

  “We talked and talked for the rest of the night.” Ibid.

  “I couldn’t stand to see my child so miserable.” interview with CM at NYT with SP, BA, & AG.

  “Maybe not physically—but all the best of me that loves you—and that you love.” CM diary, 12/20/41.

  “Parkinson’s very bad,” he wrote in his Work Diary. “Can’t control pencil this a.m.—also [tremor] in upper arm & shoulder—not so good, this progress!” 12/30/41.

  made it “impossible for him to write 85% of the time.” CM diary, 12/31/41.

  “This man beside me, my husband & my child!” Ibid.

  “But I better stop or I’ll be writing you a brand new farce.” 8/24/41, SL.

  that they would have to leave Tao House. CM diary, 3/11/42.

  “We are now alone!” CM diary.

  declared himself ready to “hop right out of my skin.” WD, 12/28 & 12/30/42.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  after he was drafted into the army in 1942. A/BG interview with Elizabeth Murray.

  was put off with an excuse by Carlotta. A/BG interviews with Carol Marcus.

  answered his daughter with a letter designed “to knock her ears down.” 12/3/42, Yale, SL.

  “If I am right, you will sometime see the point in this letter and be grateful—in which case, au revoir.” 11/19/42, Conn. College.

  was to be no au revoir. A/BG interview with Carol Marcus.

  “If she has any latent guts or pride, it may have a good effect in the long run when she eventually realizes what a nitwit public nuisance she has been.” letter, 12/3/42, Yale, SL.

  Carol feared she couldn’t meet his literary standards. Ibid.

  “But I knew that Bill hated liars more than anything else,” recalled Carol, “so I didn’t tell him.” Ibid.


  Chaplin understood. A/BG interview with JL.

  agreed with Carlotta, who remarked, “They must be up to no good!” CM diary, 1/25/43.

  friend “told us stuff he knew from a friend who had an apartment right under the one A. had rented in her name where Chaplin hid out—drunken parties, etc. . . . a nice thoroughly Hollywood affair!” 6/30/43, “Love and Admiration and Respect.”

  such a fool as “to give up her father’s love and friendship—for the cheapness & vulgarity she looks upon as glamour & worldliness!” CM diary, 6/10/43.

  “God—what a life!” CM diary.

  You could have cut the gloom with a knife,” he recalled. “The End of a Long Journey,” unpublished ms. by Thalia Brewer.

  were “filled with usual filth & nonsense.” CM diary, 6/17/43.

  “Enough is enough!” 6/19/43, Yale, SL.

  “Nor do I—of course.” CM diary, 6/27/43.

  “We hold tight and weep—like two sick and frightened children!” CM diary, 6/28/43.

  predicted an “Oona Chaplin divorce.” 1/23/45, Yale, SL.

  she “does the cooking, and I wipe the dishes.” WD, 4/21 & 4/25/43. A copy of “Mrs. O’Neill’s Book” was presented to the grateful authors by Diane Schinnerer, who played a major role in the creation of the Tao House Library.

  “We are both terrified of the future!” CM diary.

  “Dear God, if I am ever able to get all the responsibilities & hard labor of this place off my shoulders—I’ll be a new human being.” CM diary, 1/10/43.

  one page during three hours of writing before “fading out.” WD, 1/31/43.

  it was “no go . . . would ask any Jap to kill me, and many thanks for the favor.” WD.

  “Eager but little done because nerves jumping out of hands, arms, can’t control.” Ibid.

  “Five rooms—none for servants—just Freeman—no ground other than a pool for Gene, easy to keep up—small expense—!” CM diary, 3/30/43.

  “He should have warmth, ocean and sand (!), doctors and good nourishment.” Theresa Helburn quoting (to A/BG) from CM letter.

  “Even he can’t re-read it!” Carlotta exclaimed. CM diary, 5/25/43.

  found her husband “in his study doubled up in his work chair—his tremor ghastly & he is weeping!” CM diary, 8/8/43.

  broke down again, weeping and shaking. 8/24/43.

  herself close to collapse.CM diary, 8/25/43.

  to a sleeping medicine called hyoscine. CM diary, 10/7/43.

  “You can have no idea what a loathsome beverage this is . . . you may get a grin from the picture of me absorbing salt water highballs.” letter, 9/25/43, As Ever, Gene.

  “I tell him we both love each other—so we must work together to protect that love and keep it.” CM diary, 10/6/43.

  “So that I could feel he was there, behind me—as I have always been with him.” CM diary, 10/17/43.

  “she could always jolly him in various ways.” A/BG interviews with JC.

  “We must get back . . . into a living life . . . here, with no help—so many worries—ill health—everything wrong—it is like waiting for death!” CM diary, 10/24/43.

  revisions to Cynthia, who obediently typed them. CM diary, 11/30/43.

  “We had luck—found a buyer quickly—got out at a good price—what we put into it,” O’Neill reported to Nathan. letter, 3/6/44, As Ever, Gene. The price of $80,000 is confirmed by a note appended to CM diary 1944.

  more than seven thousand books. CM diary, 2/10/44.

  “because our Chinese beds are gone!” CM diary, 2/16/44.

  “Every time I void I pass blood—the pain is horrible.” 2/19/44.

  in such pain she could eat no dinner. CM diary.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  has to be nursed by the faithful Kaye Albertoni. CM diary, 2/26, 3/3, & 3/4/44.

  “I only hope he knew the depth of my affection for him—and I feel sure he did.” letter, 3/6/44 (begun 3/5/44), As Ever, Gene.

  notes that he is “in a shocking state.” CM diary, 3/5/44.

  feel “all over your body until even your brain seems to do the shimmy.” 5/13/44, Yale, SL.

  “It really was quite a moment of strange drama.” Ibid.

  no other process by which he can write. A/BG interview with CM.

  failed to regain her strength by the end of March. CM diary, 3/25/44.

  “Keeping up the ridiculous fantasy that this is a home!” CM diary, 4/1, 4/18, 4/29, & 5/10/44.

  three months before the Allied invasion of Normandy. letter, 3/6/44, As Ever, Gene.

  she does not have “a good feeling, watching them.” A/BG interview with KA.

  exaggerates his illness to keep people away from him. Ibid., & interview with JC for Ric Burns documentary, O’Neill, cowritten by Burns and A/BG.

  might have been “a forerunner of what was going to come.” interview with JC for O’Neill.

  “You are a good child—and I love you!” copy of snapshot given to A/BG by JC.

  sung “with upturned eyes by a well-stewed waiter endowed with the proper adenoids, it positively wrung you to pieces!” 5/20/45, SL.

  “And I laugh and laugh—I bend over with laughter.” interview with JC for O’Neill.

  “If my mother senses it, Carlotta should; but she doesn’t.” A/BG interviews with JC, & Ibid.

  “large bedroom” that she never enters “unless asked.” CM diary, 5/20/44.

  work “is his love, his passion, his integrity, his joy, his achievement!” CM diary, 5/21/44.

  “God, I wish I could drink a bottle of ‘Old Taylor.’” CM diary, 8/6/44.

  accuses her of “not being interested in his work.” CM diary, 8/29/44.

  “his hands are so unsteady that he writes the inscriptions with one hand helping the other to hold the pen.” A/BG interview with KM.

  Gotham Hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for November 14. CM, 7/31 & 9/16/44.

  “Has even mentioned South Africa—& Mexico!” CM diary.

  We can’t go East until spring,” a resigned Carlotta tells her diary, “winter too dangerous for us.” 10/8/44.

  next pet bird would be a buzzard. letter, 10/19/44, Yale, SL.

  “Nor would any woman be—” CM diary, 10/24 & 10/25/44.

  accompany them to Georgia after his discharge from the Marines. CM diary, 11/17 & 11/28/44.

  “Only fools with more money than brains ever live in resorts.” 9/8/36, Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House Library.

  “It’s an exhausted, horrible apathy.” 12/4/44, Yale, SL.

  emphatically plump pussycat at the bottom of her diary entry. Inscriptions, & CM diary, 12/28/44.

  regarding both Janie and Myrtle. In 1951, two years before O’Neill’s death, Carlotta had sent all her unedited diaries to Donald C. Gallup, curator of The Yale Collection of American Literature, who read and catalogued them; Carlotta asked for them back in 1954, telling Gallup she wished to copy them in “eternal” black ink on rag paper. Reading the rewritten diaries after Carlotta returned them five years later to Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Gallup found that the only “substantial changes” she’d made were in the omissions of “an occasional comment on their love-making sessions.” (Pigeons on the Granite.)

  Her diary for 1944 turned up among the papers that Gallup bequeathed to the Beinecke on his death in 2000 (and made available by Yale to the authors in 2012).

  There’s a mystery about the years beyond 1944. According to Yale, there are no Carlotta Monterey diaries at the Beinecke for the six turmoil-rocked years of 1945 through 1950 (except for a fragmentary diary Carlotta kept in 1948); there are, however, diaries for 1951 (the most horrendous year of the O’Neill marriage) and 1953 (the year of O’Neill’s death)—but no diary for 1952.

  Perhaps only Gallup knew the answer to
the mystery of the absent diaries; his ambiguous relationship with Carlotta, evolving over the years, was cemented when she became O’Neill’s facilitator in all transactions between himself and Yale. Gallup assumed the role of Carlotta’s liaison, guardian, adviser, and protector in her dealings with the Beinecke; he so ingratiated himself with her that she ultimately permitted him to participate in the “completion” of two of O’Neill’s cycle plays, and he made use of her intimate revelations over the years in several books he wrote after her death.

  For reasons known only to Carlotta herself (and possibly to Gallup), she gave in to his personal care—rather than to the Beinecke—her diaries for 1944, 1951, and 1953, and the partial diary for 1948. “I am glad you mentioned the diaries which you entrusted to me personally,” Gallup wrote to Carlotta on Dec. 22, 1960, making no reference to why she had done so. “I think it will be best if I send you a note of their dates and then you write me saying that they are to be in my custody; then there’ll be no problem so far as the Library is concerned.” He added that he had the diaries “locked up in a steel filing cabinet” in his apartment. (Donald C. Gallup Archive, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, 1988.)

  Following Gallup’s instructions, Carlotta signed the note he’d written for her, in which she declared she was entrusting the diaries to “the personal custody of Donald C. Gallup” and stating he was aware of her “wishes concerning them and is solely responsible for their eventual disposition.” (Pigeons on the Granite, etc.) The note is typewritten, but there can be no doubt about the unmistakable flourishes of Carlotta’s trademark signature; it is, however, significant to note that during that same year she was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown. Gallup attached the note to the diaries, which ultimately found their way into the Beinecke’s archives.

  A cursory examination of the hodgepodge of often illegible notes and letters in Gallup’s archives concerning Carlotta provides no clue to the absence of diaries for the years 1945, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950, or 1952; and according to Yale University’s librarian, Susan Gibbons, there’s no recorded explanation in any of their archives for the missing diaries.