The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  LIKE A SUSPECT WHO LOVES ONLY TO PLEASE

  Epigraph: “You don’t want a child bride . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 217 (Judy Garland, Coronet, February 1955).

  Epigraph: “Thou knowest how like to flame our nature is . . .”—Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, trans. J. H. Mozley (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press / Loeb Classical Library, 1936 rev. repr. of 1943 ed.; orig. Latin ms. ca. 70–90 A.D.), p. 85 (II.156).

  “No star has been the subject of so many rumors . . .”—Schmidt, p. 166 (Jack Holland, Silver Screen, 1948).

  This page: Footnote: “In this relation we deal with one whom we respect . . .”—Henry David Thoreau, Collected Essays and Poems (New York: Library of America, 2001), p. 330 (“Chastity and Sensuality,” wr. 1852; posthumous pub. 1865).

  COMING DOWN

  Epigraph: “The point is that it is impossible to retain equanimity . . .”—Plutarch [of Chaeronea], Essays, trans. Robin Waterfield, intro. and annot. Ian Kidd (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 330 (“On Socrates’ Personal Deity”).

  Epigraph: “United soules are not satisfied with embraces . . .”—Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall, ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Ramie Targoff (New York: New York Review Books, 2012; orig. texts respectively ca. 1643 and 1658), p. 74 (Religio Medici).

  This page: Besides, what was she supposed to look for but troubles and crosses?—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Leo Sherley-Price (New York: Penguin, 1987 repr. of 1952 ed.; orig. Latin version wr. ca. 1413), p. 86: “You are greatly mistaken if you look for anything save to endure trials, for all this mortal life is full of troubles, and everywhere marked with crosses.”

  “If you bring forth what is within you . . .”—Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, ed., The Gnostic Bible (Boston: Shambhala, 2003), p. 62 (“The Gospel of Thomas,” verse 70). Cf. C. G. Jung, The Red Book (Liber Novus): A Reader’s Edition, trans. Mark Kyburz, John Peck and Sonu Shamdasi, ed. Sonu Shamdasani (New York: Norton, Philemon ser., in arr. w/ the Foundation of the Works of C. G. Jung, 2009), p. 188: “If you do not acknowledge your yearning, then you do not follow yourself, but go on foreign ways that others have indicated to you . . . To live oneself means: to be one’s own task. Never say that it is a joy to live oneself. It will be no joy but a long suffering, since you must become your own creator.”

  This page: Procedure for nude shots of Natalie Wood—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), pp. 298–99.

  WITHOUT SHAME OR LIMIT

  Epigraph: “All my life I have tried to do whatever was expected of me . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 180 (Michael Drury, Cosmopolitan, January 1951).

  Epigraph: “Not many of us have the names and identities . . .”—Schmidt, p. 192 (Michael Drury, Cosmopolitan, January 1951).

  This page: Paraphrase of Augustine in John Burnaby, Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of Saint Augustine (The Hulsean Lectures for 1938) (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, n.d. [probably 2007]; orig. ed. 1938), p. 30.

  THE PARATROOPER

  Epigraph: “By oneself evil is done . . .”—Paul Carus, comp. [and trans.?], The Gospel of Buddha (Guernsey, U.K.: Studio Press Ltd. / The Guernsey Press Co. Ltd., 1995; orig. ed. 1915; n.d. given for original texts), p. 131.

  AUDITIONS

  Epigraph: “You see, I’m so tired of reading articles . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 174 (Michael Drury, Cosmopolitan, 1951).

  Epigraph: “First of all, I had grown up . . .”—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), p. 223 (journal-memoir dated 1966).

  This page: Marlene Dietrich’s vomiting on the way to Paramount—Karin Wieland, Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives, trans. Shelley Frisch (New York: Liveright, 2011; orig. German ed. 2011), p. 199.

  Applause: “the most beautiful music in the whole world!” (italics in original)—Schmidt, p. 86 (Gladys Hall, Screenland, December 1940).

  This page: Judy Garland’s tears over Pigskin Parade—Schmidt, p. 117 (Gladys Hall, Silver Screen, November 1942).

  This page: When Natalie Wood lost the Oscars competition to Sophia Loren in 1962—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), p. 10.

  “competing never gets in the way of our friendship.”—Keith Davidson, Nancy Kerrigan (New York: Scholastic Inc. / Sports Shots: Collector’s Book 26, 1994), p. 20.

  “to be honest, I do wonder whether some readers will simply tire of, for example, all the climaxing . . .”—Paul Slovak to WTV, March 1, 2019, p. 1.

  REHEARSALS AND PERFORMANCES

  This page: Epigraphs: “I must add that I washed my neck and the top of my bosom . . . ,” and other three on same page—The Abbé de Choisy: A free translation of the Memoires of the Abbé de Choisy Dressed as a Woman (Vern Bullough and Barbara Burnett, privately printed, n.d.), unnumbered typescript. Pages 3, 7, 9 by my count.

  SORRY I’M BLEEDING

  Epigraph: “The love of pleasure begets grief . . .”—Paul Carus, comp. [and trans.?], The Gospel of Buddha (Guernsey, U.K.: Studio Press Ltd. / The Guernsey Press Co. Ltd., 1995; orig. ed. 1915; n.d. given for original texts), p. 134.

  “She told me that she sleeps in a silk nightgown . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 55 (James Carson, Modern Screen, January 1940).

  “the garment around us”—closely after The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani, [trans.,] intro. and commentary by E. A. Wallis Budge (New York: Gramercy Books, 1999; orig. pub. 1895), p. 411 (“garment which envelopeth the helpless one, which weepeth for and loveth that which it covereth”).

  This page: The tale of Judy Garland and the MGM doctor—Information from David Shipman, Judy Garland: The Secret Life of An American Legend (New York: Hyperion, 1992), p. 129. She was nineteen.

  THE OLD FAKE

  Epigraph: “The Goddess who knew though I knew not hath caused darkness.”—R. de Rohan Barondes, M.D., Garden of the Gods: Mesopotamia, 5,000 B.C. (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1957), p. 350 (Accadian Penitential Tablet, bef. 17th cent. B.C.).

  Epigraph: “I believe you should be critical of yourself . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 159 (Screenland, October 1946).

  “No one can defy the laws of our civilization . . .”—J. Edgar Hoover, Persons in Hiding (Boston: Little, Brown, 1938), p. 294.

  “my daughter was always terribly unhappy . . . pseudoadjustment to life.”—Here Mrs. Strand is parroting Frank S. Caprio, M.D., Female Homosexuality: A Psychodynamic Study of Lesbianism (New York: The Citadel Press, 1954), p. 180: “Lesbians are basically unhappy people. Many admit their unhappiness but others are deceived by their pseudoadjustment to life.”

  This page: Mrs. Strand’s descriptions of Natalie Wood—After photos and captions in Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), pp. 34–37, 40.

  This page: Details on the mother who pillow-suffocated her four-year-old—Conflated from John Glatt, My Sweet Angel: The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), pp. 283, 230. [My favorite post from this book’s heroine (p. 233): “My Sweet Angel Is in the Hospital for the 23rd Time.”]


  This page: Playing “Sardines”—David Shipman, Judy Garland: The Secret Life of An American Legend (New York: Hyperion, 1992), p. 137.

  This page: light-giver for life—Closely after The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani, [trans.,] intro. and commentary by E. A. Wallis Budge (New York: Gramercy Books, 1999; orig. pub. 1895), p. 417.

  “For the second time this year, the same transgender woman . . .”—Much abridged and somewhat altered [for privacy] from https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/11/18/san-francisco-transgender-woman-attack-2nd-time-hate-crime/, November 18, 2015, at 9:43 p.m. Downloaded for WTV by Jordan Rothacker on February 20, 2018.

  This page: renamed so by her producer + “You try to find in yourself the essence . . .”—Bowman, pp. 214, 206.

  SOME WARMTH THAT WASN’T THERE

  Epigraph: “Most of them have never heard of the word Lesbian . . .”—John O’Hara, Stories, ed. Charles McGrath (New York: Library of America, 2016), p. 656 (“Natica Jackson,” orig. pub. 1966).

  Epigraph: “Alas, he knew not how dire a monster was she for whose marriage couch he yearned . . .”—Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, trans. J. H. Mozley (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press / Loeb Classical Library, 1936 rev. repr. of 1943 ed.; orig. Latin ms. ca. 70–90 A.D.), p. 303 (VI.45–46).

  Epigraph: “It works for a while . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 422 (Clive Hirschhorn, Sunday Express [London], January 16, 1969).

  Judy Garland: “no more pills ever”—Schmidt, p. xvi.

  This page: Benzedrine and barbiturates for Judy Garland—Schmidt, p. 117. Shipman relates (Judy Garland: The Secret Life of An American Legend [New York: Hyperion, 1992, p. 77–78]) that when the MGM doctors put Judy Garland on Benzedrine to lose weight, Seconal to sleep and then more Benzedrine to wake up, the patient was fifteen years old.

  This page: The incident with Norma Shearer and Clark Gable—Schmidt, p. 10.

  SHANTELLE’S MEDICINE

  Epigraph: “The feminine faculty of anticipating . . .”—Colette, The Pure and the Impure, trans. Herma Briffault (New York: New York Review Books, 2000 rev. repr. of 1996 ed.; orig. French ed. 1941), pp. 173–74.

  Epigraph: “Perhaps in most people’s careers . . .”—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), p. 258 (journal, 1966).

  NEVA’S SURPRISE

  Epigraph: “I hope . . . that other girls who read Joan’s bitter story will learn the folly of entering into a Lesbian relationship.”—Frank S. Caprio, M.D., Female Homosexuality: A Psychodynamic Study of Lesbianism (New York: The Citadel Press, 1954), 269, quoting Life Romances (August 1953 issue), “Poignant Confession of a Lesbian.”

  “We demand the penalty of murder . . .”—Robert Zorn, Cemetery John: The Undiscovered Mastermind of the Lindbergh Kidnapping (New York: Overlook, 2012), p. 185.

  This page: The longhaired girl and her defense lawyer—The New York Times, Saturday, June 17, 2017, p. A11 (Katharine Q. Seelye and Jess Bidgood, “Young Woman Who Urged Friend to Commit Suicide Is Found Guilty”).

  This page: Inhaling the entreaties which were made to her—Closely after The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani, [trans.,] intro. and commentary by E. A. Wallis Budge (New York: Gramercy Books, 1999; orig. pub. 1895), p. 410 (“The Pylons and their Doorkeepers”), with verb tense altered.

  This page: The tale of the Jewish wife’s magic dress—Somewhat after Howard Schwartz, comp. and retold, Leaves from the Garden of Eden: One Hundred Classic Jewish Tales (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 254–57 (“The Charm in the Dress”).

  This page: Marlene Dietrich boasted of being able to fake orgasms [to Carl Zuckmayer]—Information from Karin Wieland, Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives, trans. Shelley Frisch (New York: Liveright, 2011; orig. German ed. 2011), p. 354. On p. 356 we read that Erich Maria Remarque, author of the famous All Quiet on the Western Front, called Dietrich “someone who lies in bed like a fish afterwards.” But she must have put on a good performance meanwhile, as evidenced (p. 238) by Elisabeth Bergner’s telegram to her: “I EAT YOU I SMELL YOU I GREASE YOU . . .”

  “the model, by remaining tacit . . .”—Antonio T. De Nicolas, Powers of Imagining: Ignatius de Loyola: A Philosophical Hermeneutic of Imagining Through the Collected Works of Ignatius de Loyola with a Translation of These Works (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), p. 72. I have slightly distorted the beginning of this proposition, which reads: “In the case of the model governing the Spirit . . .”

  THE BLOODSUCKER

  Epigraph: “I could beleeve that Spirits use with man . . .”—Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall, ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Ramie Targoff (New York: New York Review Books, 2012; orig. texts respectively ca. 1643 and 1658), p. 35 (Religio Medici).

  Epigraph: “The vampire is prone to be fascinated . . .”—J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla (London: Hesperus Press Limited, 2013; orig. pub. 1872), p. 100.

  HOW FRANCINE AND I COPED

  Epigraph: “Nothing had ever happened to me that a good piece of apple pie couldn’t cure!”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 121 (lifted from a longer sentence).

  HOW SANDRA COPED

  Epigraph: “You won’t be a really happy person . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 163 (Judy Garland, Screenland, October 1946).

  Epigraph: “At times I have been pretty much of a walking advertisement . . .”—Schmidt, p. 193. Citation continues: “. . . But some people have exaggerated the habit . . . and it is that sort of thing that gets a gal down . . .”

  NARROWER THAN IT USED TO BE

  Epigraph: “My body is the beloved . . .”—Bullhe Shah, Sufi Lyrics, ed. and trans. Christopher Shackle (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press / Murty Classical Library of Hindi, 2015; orig. lyrics bef. 1759), after p. 83 (no. 47).

  Epigraph: “I am in the darke to all the world . . .”—Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall, ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Ramie Targoff (New York: New York Review Books, 2012; orig. texts respectively ca. 1643 and 1658), p. 72 (Religio Medici).

  This page: Marlene Dietrich’s attire in Dishonored—Karin Wieland, Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives, trans. Shelley Frisch (New York: Liveright, 2011; orig. German ed. 2011), p. 189.

  hell “is the suffering of being unable to love.”—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: Modern Library, n.d. [bef. 1980]; orig. serial pub. 1879–80), p. 338.

  5This page: Natalie Wood modeling Movie Star Bread—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), p. 83.

  This page: Judy Garland’s three sets of false eyelashes—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 252 (information from James Goode, Show Business Illustrated, October 31, 1961).

  THAT CERTAIN TONE

  Epigraph: “But they that sometimes liked my company . . .”—Emrys Jones, comp. and ed., The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 87 (“Lucks, my fair falcon,” wr. prob. 1540–41, pub. 1557).

  Epigraph: “Lycóris, no woman used to be more darling . . .”—Dudley Fitts, Sixty Poems of [Marcus Valerius] Martial[is] in Translation (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967 repr. of 1956 ed.; orig. wr. 1st cent. A.D
.), p. 16 (VI: 40), facing text on 17 (“Vicissitude”), “retranslated” by WTV. [Fitts’s translation: “Lycóris, no woman was dearer to me in those days than you. Now Glýcera takes my whole heart.” Original: Femina praeferri potuit tibi nulla, Lycori: / praeferri Glycerae femina nulla potest.]

  Epigraph: “You must learn to let go . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 165 (Judy Garland, Screenland, October 1946).

  “a rare nude portrait of Natalie . . .”—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), p. 267. I have added “Wood.”

  This page: What befell in the temple of Ceres—Valerius Maximus, Memorable Sayings and Doings, Books I–V, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press / Loeb Classical Library no. 292, 2000), p. 37 (I.1). My summary is somewhat after the Neopotianus version. In the Paris version, Ceres herself meets them “with a flame” and blinds them.

  “His emotions become extraordinarily intensified . . .”—Robert Maynard Hutchins, ed.-in-chief, Great Books of the Western World, no. 54: The Major Works of Sigmund Freud (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. / William Benton / University of Chicago, 1975 repr. of 1952 ed.), p. 672 (“Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (1921), trans. James Strachey).

  THE ABSOLUTE LATEST

  Epigraph: “‘Honestly, I’m in no hurry to grow up,’” Judy continued . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 32 (Robert McIlwaine, Modern Screen, August 1939).