Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (105 page)

189

“pretending to be deaf”: Williams to Donald Windham, Jan. 26, 1949,

, p. 230.

189

“Tom is so good to me”: Rev. Walter Dakin to Audrey Wood, Jan. 30, 1949, LLC.

189

“A girl makes her best contacts”: Williams to Paul Bigelow, Dec. 4, 1949,

, p. 275.

189

“I feel somewhat rejuvenated”: Williams to Margo Jones, Jan. 2, 1950, ibid., p. 280.

190

“five drinks a day”: Williams to Carson McCullers, Dec. 6, 1949, ibid., p. 278.

190

“He will bring you good-luck”: Ibid., p. 277.

190

“the nicest piece of jewelry”: Williams to Jane Lawrence and Tony Smith, Jan. 5, 1950, ibid., p. 282.

190

“Frankie had lost weight at home”: Williams to Jane Lawrence and Tony Smith, Jan. 5, 1950,

, p. 282.

190

“We shall all be together again soon”: Frank Merlo to Rev. Walter Dakin, July 6, 1950, LLC.

190

“kitchen sink version”: In the note to this first draft, Williams writes, “I call this ‘the kitchen sink draft’ because I have thrown into it every dramatic implement I could think of. Perhaps all of them will work. Perhaps none of them will work. Probably a few of them will work.” (See Williams to Paul Bigelow, Dec. 4, 1949,

, p. 275.) For Williams, the completion of a play was always a moving goal. As late as February 2, 1950, he was writing to Windham about

: “I am pleased with the way I think it is going to be.” (

, p. 254.)

190

“dark, blood-red translucent stone”: Williams to Elia Kazan, June 16, 1950,

, p. 324.

190

“During the past two years”: Ibid., pp. 324–25.

190

“Well, this is your little friend”: Tennessee Williams, “The Rose Tattoo” (unpublished kitchen-sink version), HRC.

190

“one of those Mediterranean types”: Ibid.

190

“Humble Star”: Williams to Paul Bowles, Feb. 23, 1950, HRC. This early draft was later published in a much-revised version as “Death Is High” without the dedication to Merlo.

192

“I want him to feel some independence”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 27, 1950,

, p. 300.

192

“in return for Sicily”: LOA1, p. 246.

192

“I remember Frankie telling us”:

, pp. 18–19.

192

“My approach to my work”: Williams to Elia Kazan, June 16, 1950,

, p. 325.

192

“Have I ever told you”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Mar. 5, 1949,

, p. 16.

193

“the Dionysian element”:

, p. 63.

193

“somewhere along the Gulf Coast”: LOA1, p. 654.

193

“giant step forward”: Audrey Wood to Williams, Mar. 5, 1950, HRC.

193

“the baffled look”: Williams to Elia Kazan, June 16, 1950,

, p. 324.

193

“tentative and mixed”: Ibid.

193

“very optimistic”: Williams to Audrey Wood, undated, LLC.

193

“that the script might be something”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Feb. 24, 1950,

, p. 289.

193

“I said I was still too nervous”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Jan. 23, 1950, HRC.

193

“The play is probably too subjective”: Williams to Paul Bigelow, Feb. 23, 1950, HRC.

193

“Audrey is sitting on the new script”: Williams to Gore Vidal, Mar. 1, 1950,

, p. 293.

194

“It is a kind of comic-grotesque Mass”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, HRC.

194

Williams himself later adopted it:

, p. 63.

194

“Your letter about the play”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Feb. 27, 1950,

, p. 289.

194

“Kazan, Kazan”:

, p. 223.

194

Gadg: “I despised my nickname,” he wrote later. “It suggested an agreeable, ever-compliant little cuss, a ‘good Joe’ who worked hard and always followed orders.” (

, p. 5.)

194

“I do not think the material”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, HRC.

194

“Sometimes I can make a virtue”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Feb. 24, 1950,

, pp. 289–90.

195

“like a radio”: As quoted in Williams to Elia Kazan and Molly Day Thacher, Mar. 23, 1950, WUCA.

195

“I think if you start much later”: Kazan to Williams, undated, WUCA, permission granted.

195

“I’d cut out Rosario”: In the final version, Rosario is an idea who never materializes; earlier drafts had him out of sight, unseen behind rose-colored curtains, but not internalized in this way.

195

“Consider Gadg’s approach with great care”: Audrey Wood to Williams, Mar. 5, 1950, HRC.

196

“I have just now completed”: Williams to Elia Kazan and Molly Day Thacher, Mar. 23, 1950, WUCA.

196

“The most violent see-saw of my life!”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Apr. 3, 1950, HRC.

196

“Dame Selznick”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Apr. 7, 1950,

, p. 304.

196

“When I think about Irene”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Apr. 11, 1950, ibid., p. 306.

196

“Woman of the Year”: Audrey Wood to Irene Selznick, May 3, 1948, ISC. By 1950, Wood was singing a different tune. She wrote to Williams, “I am terribly and deeply concerned about Irene’s approach on a second venture, not again as a measure of her functioning as a producer but greatly so as her functioning as a human being. I don’t function well if compelled to work in what I would call a vacuum of acquiescence.” (Audrey Wood to Williams, Apr. 10, 1950, HRC.)

196

“I place it, like Pilate”: Williams to Irene Selznick, Feb. 1949,

, p. 311.

196

lackluster but successful British-debut production: The production ran for 326 performances. Olivier rarely directed a contemporary play. Kenneth Tynan said that Olivier’s production showed the way “in which a good play can be scarred by unsympathetic and clumsy direction.”

196

“I simply had to have a play”: Irene Selznick,

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p. 329.

197

“be as devastatingly candid”: Williams to Irene Selznick, Apr. 10, 1950,

, p. 305.

197

“Just hope with me that I am dead wrong”: Irene Selznick to Williams, Apr. 16, 1950, HRC.

197

“To me, this is not a play”: Irene Selznick to Williams, Apr. 16, 1950, ISC.

197

“Your letter knocked the goddam bottom”: Williams to Irene Selznick, Apr. 1950,

, p. 311.

197

“eventually happens to most lyric talents”: Ibid.

197

“For the first time since this draft”: Williams to Irene Selznick, Apr. 1950,

, p. 311.

197

“Were I to see rather than read”: Irene Selznick to Williams, Apr. 16, 1950, HRC.

197

“fully documented and justified”: Williams to Irene Selznick, Apr. 1950,

, p. 313.

198

“The great advance I have made”: Ibid.

198

Cheryl Crawford: A co-founder of the Actors Studio, Crawford, who produced her first play in 1931, was also a founding member of the Group Theatre, for which she had produced plays by Clifford Odets, Maxwell Anderson, and John Howard Lawson; she had also produced

,

, and

, among many Broadway musicals.

198

“I don’t know if you realize”: Cheryl Crawford to Elia Kazan, Apr. 13, 1950, WUCA.

198

Thacher told Williams what she thought: Molly Day Thacher to Williams, May 9, 1950, WUCA.

199

“All-At-Sea, May, 1950”: Williams to Elia Kazan, May 1950, WUCA.

199

“a grim, nihilistic mood”: Williams to Elia Kazan, June 16, 1950,

, p. 323.

199

“. . . I have never been anything with you”: Williams to Elia Kazan, May 30, 1950, WUCA.

200

“clutching . . . for all it is worth”: Williams to Elia Kazan, June 16, 1950,

, pp. 323–24.

200

“Not very manly of me”: Ibid., p. 322.

200

“My main concern, now”: Ibid, p. 324.

201

“mixed feelings”: Irwin Shaw to Elia Kazan, June 19, 1950, WUCA.

201

“Please keep after Gadg”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, June 26, 1950,

, p. 329.

201

“Kazan is still not entirely sold on the play”: Williams to Oliver Evans, June 20, 1950, ibid., p. 327.

201

“infinitely

”:

, July 23, 1950, p. 515.

201

“like the battle front in Korea”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Aug. 8, 1950,

, p. 34.

201

“Key West seems like heaven”:

, July 23, 1950, p. 515.

201

“I have felt like a tired horse”: Williams to Audrey Wood and Cheryl Crawford, Aug. 15, 1950,

, p. 343.

202

“The play is hung like a tent”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Aug. 11, 1950, ibid., p. 342.

202

“If we don’t get Magnani”: Audrey Wood to Williams, Mar. 5, 1950, HRC.

202

“Magnani told a friend of mine”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 1950,

, p. 331.

202

“She has the warmth and vigor”: Williams to Paul Bigelow, Aug. 3, 1950, ibid., p. 339.

202

“She was looking quite marvelous”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Aug. 11, 1950, ibid., p. 342.

202

“For an actor”: Quoted in Giancarlo Governi,

(Rome: Minimum, Fax, 2008).

203

“almost complete control over everything”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Aug. 11, 1950,

, p. 342.

203

“it would be very easy”: Ibid. In 1954, Magnani starred opposite Burt Lancaster in the Hal Wallis production of

.

203

“the long dalliance with Gadg”: Williams to Robert Lewis, Oct. 10, 1950,

, p. 352.

203

“Tell Tennessee how badly I feel”: Elia Kazan to Audrey Wood, Aug. 12, 1950, HRC.

203

“If Gadg were available”: Williams to Audrey Wood and Cheryl Crawford, Aug. 15, 1950,

, p. 344.

203

“On the sea, returning”:

, Sept. 1, 1950, p. 517.

203

“I still believe that the flat stretches”: Williams to Audrey Wood and Cheryl Crawford, Aug. 15, 1950,

, p. 344.

203

“very impressed with it”: James Laughlin to Tennessee Williams, Nov. 3, 1950, Harvard.

204

“The heart should have a permanent harbor”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Nov. 18, 1950, WUCA.

204

“You wild, wild crazy thing”: LOA1, p. 687.

204

royal road to knowledge

sexuality: “I doubt that anything did me more good as a writer than the many years of loneliness, of cruising around, making sudden and deep acquaintances, one after another, each leaving a new and fresh imprint on me,” Williams said. (As quoted in

, p. 496.)

205

“To me the big bed”: LOA1, p. 696.

205

“a female ostrich”: Ibid., p. 680.

205

“slovenly deshabille”: Ibid., p. 685.

205

“Are you in there, Mama?”: Ibid., p. 684.

205

“spectral rose”: Williams, “Rose Tattoo,” HRC.

205

instead of this external imposition of the ghostly: Also cut was the Parrott who mimics Rosario’s voice.

205

“Each time is the first time”: LOA1, p. 661.

205

“a pain like a needle”: Ibid., p. 659.

205

“Serafina stares at the truck driver”: Ibid., p. 702.

206

“I always cry”: Ibid., p. 703.

207

“the grandson of the village idiot”: Ibid., p. 712.

207

“Love and affection”: Ibid., p. 711.

207

“You are simpatico, molto”: Williams, “Stornello,” HRC.

207