Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (107 page)

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Authors: John Lahr

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BOOK: Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
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Radio City Music Hall canceled: Elia Kazan, “Pressure Problem,”
New York Times
, Oct. 21, 1951.
230
“When you speak of the primacy of moral values”: Elia Kazan to Martin Quigley, Aug. 16, 1951, WUCA.
230
“You asked
whose
moral values”: Martin Quigley to Elia Kazan, Aug. 20, 1951, WUCA.
231
“should take them at their word”: Elia Kazan to Jack Warner, July 20, 1951, WUCA.
231
“They range from a trivial cut”: Kazan, “Pressure Problem.”
232
“My picture had been cut”:
KAL
, p. 434. The article had been rewritten and tempered by Kazan’s wife, Molly Day Thacher.
232
“The Legion of Decency had acted”: Ibid., p. 437.
232
“Now an air of dissolution”: Ibid., p. 438.
232
“It seems to me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, ca. 1954–1955, as quoted in Elia Kazan,
An American Odyssey
, ed. Michel Ciment (London: Bloomsbury, 1988), p. 190.
233
“a sort of penumbra”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Mar. 5, 1951,
L2
, p. 371.
233
“summer of wanderings”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Aug. 23, 1951, ibid., p. 395.
233
“Yesterday was the first time in our lives”:
N
, July 25, 1951, pp. 521–23.
233
“makes the foulest coffee”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Dec. 22, 1952, LLC.
235
“He is not at all keen”:
N
, July 25, 1951, p. 523.
235
“the summer of the long knives”: Ibid., 1951, p. 532.
235
“I had been quite witless”: Williams to Elia Kazan, 1951, LLC.
235
“About one hundred miles out of Rome”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 22, 1951,
L2
, pp. 390–91.
236
“almost panicky with depression”:
N
, July 22, 1951, p. 521.
236
“be sweet to acquaintances”: Ibid., July 30, 1951, p. 527.
236
“term in Purgatory”: Ibid., July 29, 1951, p. 527.
236
“Southern Drinkers”: The title of the first section of the original story.
236
“great vigor and promise”: Tennessee Williams, “Three against Grenada,” HRC.
236
published fifteen months later: Tennessee Williams, “Three Players of a Summer Game,”
The New Yorker
, Nov. 1, 1952.
236
“No one noticed Mr. Brick Bishop”: Williams, “Three against Grenada,” HRC.
236
“The crustacean world for a while!”:
N
, July 31, 1951, p. 529.
236
“drawing the sails of my heart”: Ibid., July 25, 1951, p. 523.
236
“Just taken: 2 phenobarbs”: Ibid., Aug. 29, 1951, p. 533.
236
“had not yet completely fallen”:
CS
, “Three Players of a Summer Game,” p. 305.
237
“I am telling you mostly what I saw”: Williams, “Three against Grenada,” HRC.
237
“couldn’t get going”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, May 1952,
L2
, p. 425.
237
“working, working, working”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 28, 1951, ibid., p. 403. Brick is symbolically hobbled after he sprains his ankle while drunkenly running the hurdles on the track.
237
“all the warmth and charm”:
N
, Aug. 4, 1951, p. 529.
237
“I think the reason the Horse”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Aug. 3, 1951,
FOA
, p. 44.
237
“
amitié amoureuse”
: Ibid., p. 7.
238
“Thank God for Maria”:
N
, Oct. 1, 1951, p. 539.
238
“good kind of mischief”: Williams to Carson McCullers, June 18, 1949,
L2
, p. 256.
238
Hermione Baddeley: Britneva had introduced Williams to Baddeley as a possible Serafina in the English production of
The Rose Tattoo
; in 1962, she starred as Mrs. Goforth in
The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore
.
238
“attractive in a wild sharp-toothed way”: Entry dated Nov. 25, 1972, in Kenneth Tynan,
The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan
, ed. John Lahr (New York: Bloomsbury, 2001), p. 110.
238
“We entered a small living-room”: Ibid., pp. 111–12.
240
“The queen spat in Maria’s face”: Williams to Frank Merlo, Aug. 29, 1951,
L2
, p. 401.
240
“the cool air of detachment”: LOA1, p. 885.
240
“At times in life”:
N
, Sept. 11, 1951, p. 537.
240
“I like being with Frank”:
N
, Sept. 16, 1951, p. 537.
240
“The Horse is in bed”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Sept. 18, 1951,
FOA
, p. 46.
240
“sexy, original and lively”: Elia Kazan, undated, BRTC.
240
two scenes of which Kazan had workshopped: Kazan directed blocks 6 and 7.
241
“The prospect of another Kazan production”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Oct. 8, 1951, WUCA.
241
“Do you think”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 28, 1951,
L2
, pp. 403–4.
241
“It was a mysterious harmony”:
KAL
, p. 334.
241
“I always had fun working with Kazan”:
M
, p. 166.
241
“Some day you will know how much”: Williams to Elia Kazan, 1959,
KOD
, p. ix.
241
“Life in America”:
KAL
, p. 336.
241
“I come from a family of voyagers”:
KAL
, pp. 190–91.
242
“We both felt vulnerable”: Ibid., p. 495.
242
“disappearer”: Ibid., p. 335.
242
“The one thing any ambitious outsider”: Ibid., p. 71.
242
“The terror in the house lifted”: Ibid., p. 10.
242
“was a man full of violence”: Ibid., p. 357.
242
“good for nothing”: Ibid., p. 25.
242
“hopeless case”: Ibid., p. 317.
242
“We entered a secret life”: Ibid., p. 24.
243
“I learned to mask my desires”: Ibid., p. 29.
243
“would be opposed”: Ibid.
243
“He hit her smack across the face”: Ibid., p. 31.
243
“I knew what I was”: Ibid., p. 41.
243
“I wanted what they had”: Ibid., p. 44.
243
“ ‘Fuck you all, big and small!’ ”: Ibid., p. 138.
243
“Didn’t you look in the mirror?”: Ibid., p. 12.
243
“He didn’t have the kind”: JLI with Elizabeth Ashley, 2003, JLC.
244
“Women have always meant everything”:
KAL
, p. 27.
244
“strong ‘feminine’ characteristics”: Ibid.
244
“Baby, you know as well as I know”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 21, 1952,
L2
, p. 415.
244
“Promiscuity for an artist”:
KAL
, p. 178.
244
“the undisputed darling”: “If a man has been his mother’s undisputed darling,” Freud wrote, “he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling, the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success along with it.” (Sigmund Freud,
The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud,
vol. 17 (1917–1919):
An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works
(London: Vintage, 2001), pp. 145–46.)
244
“I wanted to be the source”:
KAL
, p. 562.
244
“the hushed air of conspiracy”: Arthur Miller,
Timebends: A Life
(London: Methuen, 1999), p. 273.
244
“grinned a lot”: Miller,
Timebends
, p. 132.
244
“He would send one actor”: Ibid., p. 273.
245
“He let the actors talk”: Ibid., p. 132.
245
“You are a man of action”: Williams to Elia Kazan, 1949, WUCA.
245
“I am very excited”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 27, 1951,
L2
, p. 405.
245
“salvation lies only in new work”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 21, 1952, ibid., p. 415.
246
“always to have had a slightly superstitious awe”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Feb. 24, 1954, LLC.
246
“We laugh our heads off”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Feb. 10, 1952,
L2
, p. 419.
246
“F. and Bigelow joined us”:
N
, Feb. 1952, p. 547.
246
“Frank has found a crowd”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Feb. 20, 1952,
L2
, p. 420.
246
“a gorgeous . . . Adonis”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Jan. 18, 1952, ibid., p. 413.
247
“Frankie is having himself a ball”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Apr. 5, 1952, ibid., p. 423.
247
“Coarse fabrics are the ones”: Tennessee Williams, “A Moment in a Room” (unpublished), LLC.
248
“must fold away”:
N
, p. 546.
248
“I decided to look the other way”:
KAL
, p. 454.
248
“We made a clean sweep”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Feb. 14, 1952, WUCA.
248
“with sufficient firmness”:
KAL
, p. 451.
248
“everyone seems pleased”:
N
, Mar. 7, 1952, p. 547.
248
“Warner’s stalled us”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Apr. 5, 1952,
L2
, p. 422.
248
“Almost immediately that put him”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Mar. 29, 1952,
FOA
, p. 54.
249
“Gadg, Marlon and I”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Apr. 5, 1953,
L2
, p. 422.
249
“I was afraid even to remove my flask”: Ibid.
249
“I believed my days in that town”:
KAL
, p. 456.
249
“desperate request”: Ibid., p. 442.
250
“He is going through some curious phase”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Mar. 29, 1951,
FOA
, pp. 54–55.
250
“I say ‘we’ as if I felt”: Ibid., p. 54.
250
“She was madly in love with Tenn”: John Lahr, “The Lady and Tennessee,”
The New Yorker
, Dec. 19, 1994, p. 80.
250
“I do love Tennessee”: Ibid.
251
“To go around saying”: Ibid.
251
“She called me up and said”: Ibid.
251
“There was no way I could go along”:
KAL
, p. 449.
251
“There was a certain gloomy logic”: Miller,
Timebends
, pp. 333–34.
252
“. . . I joined the Communist Party”: Elia Kazan, “A Statement by Elia Kazan,”
New York Times
, Apr. 12, 1952.
252
“A very sad comment on our Times”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Apr. 14, 1952,
L2
, p. 424.
252
“I seemed to have crossed”:
KAL
, p. 468.
253
“He was, on the whole”: Irene Selznick,
A Private View
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p. 339.
253
“on a great social griddle and frying”:
KAL
, p. 472.
253
“a passionate absolutist”: Ibid., p. 194.
253
“Yes! You did a solid and brave thing”: Molly Day Thacher to Elia Kazan, Aug. 18, 1952, WUCA.
253
“I take no attitude”: Williams to Maria Britneva, May 27, 1952,
FOA
, p. 56.
253
“the most loyal and understanding friend”:
KAL
, p. 495.
253
“Did some top-drawer work”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 10, 1952, WUCA.
253
“treacherous”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 22, 1951,
FOA
, p. 51. “I must confess that Gadg and the actors did a bad job on it. It was a good play. But it was over-produced. The scenes were played too hard and heavy, so that the simple truth was lost in a lot of highly virtuoso theatricality.”

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