Liberation: Diaries:1970-1983

by Christopher Isherwood

  158 Probably Zardoz; see Glossary.

  159 Since then, winner of four Emmy Awards for production designs, and production designer for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

  160 American character actor (1921–2000), mostly on T.V.

  161 T.V. star (1948–2003), later, in the 1980s series “Three’s Company”; he had numerous subsequent stage and film roles before his early death.

  162 Actor and, later, T.V. director.

  163 Which he had revised and retitled as Out Cry; see Glossary.

  164 Hughes, a writer and film director who had served in the military, was speaking at the Rotary Club; Isherwood recorded this in D.1.

  165 George McGovern (b. 1922), Senator for South Dakota, then campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.

  166 Los Angeles dance critic who regularly reviewed ballet, musicals, and films.

  167 Isherwood typed 1957.

  168 Foster (1934–1990), founded the lesbian and gay political group called the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club and was being paid to organize what was eventually called the Whitman-Radclyffe Foundation.

  169 Goodstein hired Foster to run the foundation; see Glossary under Goodstein.

  170 Fourth part of Down There on a Visit.

  171 Lost Horizon (1973). Michael York was also in it.

  172 He submitted a doctoral thesis, “The Politics of the Margin: Aldous Huxley’s Quest for Peace,” to the University of Wisconsin English department in 1973.

  173 Child actor (b. 1942), he debuted at nine on Broadway in The Member of the Wedding and starred in the 1952 film; later movies include Shane (1953) and Hud (1963). He also appeared in Speed Lamkin’s short-running play Comes a Day.

  174 Lennie Newman, a boyfriend of Jay de Laval and assistant chef in his restaurant during the 1940s; he appears in Lost Years.

  175 Her husband, Chester Carlson (1906–1968), once president of the New York Vedanta Society, invented xerography; the Carlsons appear in D.2.

  176 At the Democratic National Convention; but Eagleton (1929–2007), Senator for Missouri, gave up the vice-presidential nomination on August 1, when the press disclosed that he had undergone electro-shock therapy in the early 1960s.

  177 Edward Kennedy (1932–2009), Senator for Massachusetts since 1962, ran for president in 1980.

  178 During the last week of June; Balanchine and his New York City Ballet staged thirty-one ballets to Stravinsky’s music.

  179 Faure (b. 1928), an American model, photographer, and later, art dealer and gallery owner, ran Nicholas Wilder’s gallery, 1972–1979; her second marriage, to Jacques Faure, with whom she lived in Paris from 1959 to 1970, was ending.

  180 Bachardy had previously bought a large drawing from Anderson’s UCLA graduate show.

  181 Paxton recommended the book around the time the photo was taken, as Isherwood tells in D.2. He was diabetic and died suddenly in May 1963 when a Christian Scientist persuaded him to stop taking insulin.

  182 The article never appeared; see Glossary under Cooper.

  183 Occidental offered financial incentives for a neighborhood promise not to oppose drilling off the coast at Pacific Palisades; community objections eventually prevented the oil rigs.

  184 Sri Sri Ramakrishna Lilaprasanga; Prabhavananda did not get far with it. Swami Jagadananda translated it as Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master, and later Chetanananda made another translation. Saradananda was a direct disciple of Ramakrishna.

  185 The Eternal Companion: Brahmananda, His Life and Teachings (1948) by Swami Prabhavananda.

  186 The revision to the Delaware criminal code (enacted July 6, 1971) redefined sodomy to exclude consensual acts and made sixteen the age of consent. Loitering was still criminal and included soliciting for sex of any kind.

  187 Viennese-born costume and fashion designer (1922–1985), in California from 1938; known for his topless bathing suit modelled by Peggy Moffit Claxton in 1964, the thong, and futuristic designs in plastic and vinyl. He was a founder of the Mattachine Society.

  188 Professor of French at UCLA (d. 1999), raised in Cleveland, educated at Harvard; Gernreich’s longtime companion.

  189 Art director for French Vogue and other Condé Nast publications; he settled in Santa Monica in 1970.

  190 Isherwood’s employer for a month in 1919, when he tutored her son Wallace at the hotel she ran in Bettyhill, northern Scotland.

  191 Sarah (b. 1959), later a fashion journalist as Sarah Standing.

  192 The border between the U.S. and Mexico.

  193 An early version of Down There on a Visit.

  194 American radio, stage and screen star (1898–1962); she won an Academy Award for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) and became familiar as “Hazel” on T.V. during the 1960s.

  195 In the end, Gielgud did not direct it; see Glossary under Rigby.

  196 Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964), American novelist, poet, critic, photographer, New York bohemian, and promoter of the Harlem Renaissance; he appears in D.1.

  197 The ghost story Isherwood wrote with screenwriter Lesser Samuels in 1950.

  198 Isherwood tells more about Swami’s three visions in his entry for June 6, 1963 in D.2. The earliest was in the temple of Jagannath, in Puri, Orissa, eastern India, the next in his bedroom in Sister Lalita’s house before the Hollywood temple was built.

  199 Founded in 1967 by American director and activist Steven Kent.

  200 British comedy revue star (1905–1985), in Hollywood from the early 1940s; his films include And Then There Were None (1945), Forever Amber (1947), Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), and Young Frankenstein (1974). He also directed.

  201 Isherwood discovered Willingham in 1948, as he tells in Lost Years, and praised his novels on the radio, in personal interviews, and in print, pronouncing Geraldine Bradshaw (1950) a “comic masterpiece.”

  202 The narrator was played by an Italian actor, Giulio Bosetti, rather than an art expert as Clark was; the series was directed by Renato Castellani who worked mostly in Italian T.V.

  203 The Story of Civilization, vol. 5, The Renaissance: A History of Civilization in Italy 1304–1576 A.D. (1953), p. 200.

  204 He was a student at Cal. State in the late 1950s when it was called L.A. State; he appears in D.1.

  205 Henry Kissinger, then national security advisor, was conducting secret talks with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris; on August 15, one representative returned to Hanoi and Kissinger visited the president of South Vietnam, suggesting the talks had reached a breakthrough phase.

  206 The booklet was probably Vivekananda’s In Search of God and Other Poems (1947).

  207 Wolders (b. 1936) is Dutch; he appeared in Interval (1973) with Oberon and in the T.V. series “Laredo.” They married in 1975. After her death, he was Audrey Hepburn’s companion.

  208 Cp. Matthew 6.2 and 6.5, the Sermon on the Mount.

  209 Isherwood typed “brutally.”

  210 Spiro Agnew (1918–1976) was still Nixon’s vice president. He resigned October 10, 1973; see below.

  1 I.e., to feel the presence of the Lord, as against more formal meditation or making japam. Prabhavananda and Brahmananda both emphasized this kind of remembering.

  2 In “Metamorphosis” Kafka’s hero wakes to find he is a giant beetle; Roth’s hero is a giant female breast.

  3 Craft cut the bankers in his revised edition.

  4 A friend introduced by Jack Larson and Jim Bridges. She had had polio and lived with her parents in Torrance, an hour’s drive away. She died a few years later, in her early forties.

  5 A translation from the French of Laclos’ 1782 novel; another English title is Dangerous Liaisons.

  6 Goff (b. 1923), a novelist, ran the Booker Prize for thirty-six years and was a director of Henry Sotheran’s, the book dealer.

  7 Spitz (b. 1950), the American swimmer, won seven gold medals at the Munich Olymp
ics before Palestinian terrorists broke into the Israeli compound on September 6, killed two athletes, and took nine hostages who died the next day in a gun battle at the airport. For “A plague o’ both your houses!” see Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 3.i.

  8 Cocaine.

  9 Chatwin (1940–1989) worked at Sotheby’s and studied archaeology at Edinburgh University; later he became known for his travel writing and novels, including In Patagonia (1977), On the Black Hill (1982), and Utz (1988).

  10 Welträtsel (1899), by German zoologist and evolutionist E.H. Haeckel (1834–1919), translated into English as The Riddle of the Universe. Haeckel’s racial account of human evolution became part of the “scientific” basis of Nazism.

  11 Known as “the two Garys,” they founded Filmex in 1971 and ran it together until the early 1980s.

  12 Steroid cream, to reduce inflammation.

  13 American writer, screenwriter, producer, teacher (b. 1910), best known for his radio dramas during the 1930s and 1940s.

  14 Vincent Bugliosi (b. 1934), public prosecutor in the Charles Manson case, ran against his boss, District Attorney Joseph Busch; the race was close, but Bugliosi lost.

  15 Bryden (1927–2004) left his job as theater critic for The Observer to become play advisor to the RSC in 1972. Later, he became a drama professor in Toronto.

  16 British stage and film director (b. 1934), later world-famous for Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985) among many others. He was artistic director of the RSC from 1968 to 1986.

  17 British stage, T.V., and film director (1934–2008), then RSC artistic controller; in 1973 he took over RSC Aldwych where he became known for his productions of Pinter and Gorky.

  18 McCowen (b. 1925), celebrated for roles in Shakespeare and Chekhov, played in Tony Harrison’s adaptation of The Misanthrope for the National Theatre in 1973. In 1990, he was George in the Greenwich Theatre production of A Single Man.

  19 Screenwriter, director, and, mostly, producer (b. 1939) of Charles Bronson films and Madeline (1998).

  20 The reporter who interviews Oliver about his vows.

  21 By Donald Wandrei (1908–1987).

  22 Cinematographer for Klute (1971), The Godfather series (1972, 1974, 1990), and a number of Woody Allen films, including Annie Hall (1977), Interiors (1978), Manhattan (1979), and Zelig (1983).

  23 Bachardy thinks it was not William Paley, whom they knew slightly, but another millionaire whom they had heard of but never met.

  24 Samuel William Yorty (1909–1998), mayor of Los Angeles 1961–1973, a conservative Democrat—anticommunist, anti-Equal Rights Amendment, antibusing; he ran for president in 1972 and, when McGovern was nominated, became a Republican.

  25 American novelist (1902–1984), fiction editor at Harper’s Bazaar.

  26 He had two small parts on Broadway in the early 1970s, followed by others on T.V. and in films, including Nine to Five (1980) and Lost in America (1985).

  27 I.e., Santa Ana.

  28 Psychiatrist, teacher, and founder of the Southern California Counseling Center; he published several practical books, including a guide to aging.

  29 Son (b. 1946) of pianist Artur Rubinstein; he originated the title role in Pippin, had later Broadway successes, appeared on T.V. and in films, composed film scores, and directed.

  30 Drutman was a friend of Capote; he advised Cocteau on his film Beauty and the Beast (1946), wrote songs, and later edited a book of Janet Flanner’s Paris essays. De Lisio was his longtime companion.

  31 Isherwood typed “172 and ¾.”

  32 Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968), A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971), Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972).

  33 Soldiers, An Obituary for Geneva: A Tragedy, translated by Robert David MacDonald from the 1967 German play.

  34 Spring Snow, translated from Japanese by Michael Gallagher, was the first volume of Mishima’s tetralogy The Sea of Fertility (1965–1970).

  35 Gemini Graphic Editions Limited, an artists’ workshop and lithography publisher in West Hollywood.

  36 An optical phenomenon caused by the refraction of light through the atmosphere as the sun drops below the horizon; most easily seen in clear air across an unobstructed view like the ocean. Isherwood also mentions it in D.2.

  37 I.e., Heathrow.

  38 Isherwood typed Sider, as he would have heard it pronounced—with an English accent.

  39 Isherwood is forgetting an evening at the ballet; see April 11, 1970, above.

  40 Hal Buckley was an American actor (1937–1986), mostly on T.V.; he had small movie roles in Kelly’s Heroes (1970) and Shampoo (1975). Peter Buckley also had show business aspirations. Kevin McCormick produced Saturday Night Fever (1977) and became a studio executive.

  41 In the published play, Vietnam is mentioned, but the conflict in Northern Ireland figures more. The Yeats passage is from “Easter 1916”; the play also has lines from the related poem, “The Rose Tree.”

  42 By Frank Harvey, adapted from Hardy’s short story “On the Western Circuit.”

  43 Auden was given the use of a cottage in Christ Church, moved there in mid-November 1972, and joined the Senior Common Room.

  44 I.e., “The Platonic Blow,” mentioned above.

  45 Romana von Hofmannsthal McEwen (b. circa 1935), daughter of Alice Astor and her second husband, Austrian writer Raimund von Hofmannsthal. She was educated at Brearly School in New York and married Scottish folksinger and botanical painter Roderick (Rory) McEwen (1932–1982). Alice Astor’s fourth husband was architect David Pleydell-Bouverie (1911–1994).

  46 Recorded in Isherwood’s diary entry for February 10, 1956 and used about Isherwood’s own writing on November 26 the same year; see D.1.

  47 See April 6.

  48 Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), directed by Ennio de Concini.

  49 Dalton (b. 1921), an Australian, was a prominent literary and theatrical agent, an author and, later, a film producer, notably of Oscar and Lucinda (1997).

  50 By Royce Ryton (1924–2009).

  51 Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947), the prime minister who gave Edward the choice of renouncing the divorcée, Mrs. Simpson, or renouncing the crown.

  52 Carr Brow runs from the Buxton Road to the turning with Wyberslegh Road, where it becomes Jackson’s Edge Road.

  53 French literary and film agent (1923–2009), he worked in Hollywood after W.W.II and eventually became a producer.

  54 I.e., large, overpowering, totally female females. And see Glossary under Bergman.

  55 Bodie Nielsen, American writer of Danish background, raised in Connecticut and educated at private boarding school and Vassar; she was managing editor of Interiors in New York until she met Shaw and moved with him to Europe.

  56 Adam Shaw was then in his early twenties; see Glossary.

  57 Comte Frédéric Chandon de Briailles (b. 192[7]), vice-president of Moët et Chandon Champagne and later chairman of Moët Hennessy Group, and his first wife, Francesca Sanjust di Teulada (b. 1929), a painter. The restaurant was probably Landhaus Laret.