Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (111 page)

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Authors: John Lahr

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BOOK: Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
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N
, Mar. 2, 1955, p. 667.)
314
praise the quality of the dialogue and the atmosphere: Dan Isaac, ed., “Introduction,” in Tennessee Williams,
Spring Storm
(New York: New Directions, 1999), p. xv.
314
“The reaper is not only grim”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Aug. 1955,
L2
, p. 591.
314
“the drugged state of semi-oblivion”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 21, 1956, ibid., p. 620.
315
“an examination of what is really corrupt”: Spoto,
Kindness
, p. 206.
315
“I believe very strongly in the existence”:
New York Herald Tribune
, 1957.
315
“Oh, Lady, wrap me”: First draft of “The Enemy: Time,” HRC.
315
“It is hard for me to like any playwright”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 1955,
L2
, p. 592.
315
“It’s much easier to give money than love”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Apr. 27, 1955,
FOA
, p. 113.
315
“Magnani is outspokenly puzzled”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 11, 1955,
L2
, p. 574.
315
“I am determined to express just me”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Nov. 18, 1955, ibid., p. 594.
317
“Have to finish the film-script”: Williams to Maria Britneva, June 20, 1955,
FOA
, p. 117.
317
“Insert Somewhere”:
KAL
, p. 562.
317
Williams took full screen credit: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 1955,
L2
, p. 574. Williams had suggested co-billing: “Screenplay by me. Adaptation by Elia Kazan.”
317
“Those people chased me”: Spoto,
Kindness
, p. 204.
317
“God damn it”: Ibid.
317
“under the supervision of Tennessee Williams”: Sandy Campbell,
B: Twenty-Nine Letters from Coconut Grove
(Campagnola di Zevio, Italy: Stamperia Valdonega, 1974), p. 47.
317
“Now I was without an author”:
KAL
, p. 562.
318
“There is one small element here”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 18, 1955, WUCA.
319
“both tragic and funny”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 18, 1955, WUCA.
319
“I simply can’t believe”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 1956,
L2
, p. 597.
319
“Not false to the country”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 1959, ibid., p. 597.
320
“No one showboats anymore”: R. Barton Palmer and Williams Robert Bray,
Hollywood’s Tennessee: The Williams Films and Postwar America
(Austin: University of Texas, 2009), p. 130.
320
“a very cute movie”: Richard Schickel,
Elia Kazan: A Biography
(New York: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 332.
320
“took to the pulpit of St. Patrick’s Cathedral”: This was only the third time that Spellman had taken to the pulpit; the other two were to attack Communism and the imprisonment of Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty by the Hungarian Communists.
320
“I exhort Catholic people to refrain”: Schickel,
Elia Kazan
, p. 333.
320
pay the Church twenty-five dollars:
Knoxville Sentinel
, Mar. 31, 1956.
320
“ ‘BABY DOLL’ IN NEW ROW”:
New York Post
, Dec. 17, 1956.
320
“a harrowing experience”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Jan. 3, 1957,
FOA
, p. 141.
320
“I cannot believe that an ancient and august branch”:
New York Post
, Dec. 17, 1956.
320
“I am outraged by the charge”: Ibid.
320
“This is the greatest idea”: Palmer and Bray,
Hollywood’s Tennessee
, p. 130.
321
made news and money:
Variety
, May 29, 1957: “According to Kazan, ‘Baby Doll,’ which cost $1,200,000, will have a worldwide gross of $5,000,000, of which $3,000,000 is already in the till. Kazan’s own company, Newtown Productions, will make more than $1,000,000 on the picture, he stated.”
321
“The Crass Menagerie”: Palmer and Bray,
Hollywood’s Tennessee
, p. 147.
321
“Just possibly the dirtiest”: Ibid., p. 148.
321
“the high priest of
merde
”: Robert E. Fitch, “The Mystique of Merde,”
New Republic
, Sept. 3, 1956, pp. 17–18.
321
another half-million dollars for his new play: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 21, 1956,
L2
, p. 620.
322
“She is the bitch of all time”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Jan. 1, 1956, HRC.
322
“From the moment Miss Bankhead saw Maria”: Campbell,
B
, p. 10.
322
“Tenn is licking his lips”: Ibid.
322
“Tallulah this is the way”: Ibid., p. 32.
322
“in a voice all nearby”: Ibid., p. 35.
323
“Batten the hatches!”: Williams to Paul Bigelow, undated postcard, 1956, LLC.
323
“probably the most heroic accomplishment”:
New York Times
, Mar. 4, 1956.
324
“Mr. Williams’ talents as a playwright”: Campbell,
B
, p. 58.
324
“Tenn, you and I”: Paul Taylor, “Tennessee Williams: A Tormented Playwright Who Unzipped His Heart,”
Independent
, Dec. 13, 2013.
324
“Let’s face it”: Campbell,
B
, p. 40.
324
“a regular stop”: Williams to Edwina Williams, Mar. 18, 1956,
L2
, p. 608.
324
“the worst I can remember”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Jan. 3, 1957,
FOA
, pp. 139–41.
324
“lost decency”:
N
, Aug. 6, 1956, p. 691.
324
“Living on Miltowns”: Williams to Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, May 12, 1956,
L2
, p. 613.
324
“an almost unbroken decline”:
N
, July 28, 1956, p. 689.
324
“I didn’t feel the presence of God”: Ibid., Sept. 27, 1956, p. 693.
325
“perhaps the most charming man”: Françoise Sagan,
With Fondest Regards
(New York: Dutton, 1985), pp. 46, 49.
325
“She did not even laugh”: Ibid., pp. 52–53.
325
“The Horse gave me a very bad time”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Sept. 4, 1955,
FOA
, p. 126.
325
“I don’t think my company”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 28, 1955,
L2
, p. 586.
326
“He would be a trial”:
RMTT
, p. 152.
326
“To know me is not to love me”:
M
, p. 131.
326
“He is haunted continually”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 28, 1955,
L2
, p. 586.
326
“We don’t have to worry”: Williams to Frank Merlo, July 22, 1955, ibid., pp. 581–82.
326
“This is the first time in years”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 16, 1956, ibid., p. 605.
327
“ ‘Attention must be paid to this man’ ”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 28, 1955, ibid., p. 587.
327
“They were having troubles”: Spoto,
Kindness
, p. 205.
327
“For the first time since I’ve known him”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Apr. 20, 1956,
FOA
, p. 133.
328
“How Can I Tell You?”:
N
, p. 690.
328
“He has changed a great deal”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Aug. 27, 1957,
FOA
, p. 149.
328
“another big row with F.”:
N
, Aug. 6, 1956, p. 691.
328
“bad, nearly disastrous, quarrel”: Ibid., Feb. 19, 1957, p. 701.
329
“streak of savagery”: Brooks Atkinson, “Early Williams,”
New York Times
, Nov. 22, 1956.
329
“If something is wrong at the top”: “Stairs to the Roof” story, HRC.
329
“that to desire a thing”:
NSE
, p. 94.
329
“a boy who hungered for something”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Dec. 1939,
L1
, p. 220.
329
“fighting his own descent”:
Miami Herald
, Jan. 22, 1956.
329
“trapeze of the flesh”: Hart Crane, “The Bridge” (1930).
329
“we persist, like the cactus”:
N
, Sept. 27, 1956, p. 693.
330
“Unfortunately in 1940”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 14, 1953,
L2
, p. 502. William Liebling was equally unimpressed with
Orpheus Descending
; as late as 1956, he insulted Williams by suggesting that he liquidate the play as a financial asset by selling it to the movies. “I worked, God, what a long, long time on that script as a play. As a
PLAY!
It stung me terribly to have it proposed that I send it to the glue-factory,” Williams wrote him. (Williams to William Liebling, July 21, 1956, HRC.)
330
“For the first time I think I may stay away”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Jan. 3, 1957,
FOA
, p. 141.
330
“recapture some of my earlier warmth”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 3, 1957,
L2
, p. 646.
330
“He is still trapped in his corruption”:
CWTW
, p. 209.
330
“I felt like my whole life”:
The Fugitive Kind
(1959), screenplay by Tennessee Williams and Meade Roberts, directed by Sidney Lumet. Essentially a monologue, played directly to the camera, the opening scene, with Marlon Brando as Val, makes it clear that he has survived by selling sex, not songs. These first five minutes represent one of Brando’s finest, and least-known, screen moments.
331
“streaked with moisture and cobwebbed”: LOA2, p. 9.
331
“shadowy and poetic”: Ibid.
331
“she’s not a Dago for nothin’!”: LOA1, p. 701.
331
“coarsened, even brutalized”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 14, 1953,
L2
, p. 501.
331
“Corruption—rots men’s hearts”: LOA2, p. 58.
331
“from seats down front”: Ibid., p. 59.
331
“Heavy drinking and smoking the weed”: Ibid., p. 24.
331
“I’m not young any more “: Ibid.
331
“a Wop bootlegger”: Ibid., p. 34.
332
“He bought her”: Ibid., p. 11.
332
“He is death’s self”: Ibid., p. 95.
332
“How come the shoe department’s”: Ibid., p. 25.
332
“Tomorrow I’ll get me some niggers”: Ibid., p. 26.
332
“You do whatever you want to”: Ibid.
332
“I wanted death after that”: Ibid., p. 54.
332
“What else can you do?”: Ibid., p. 34.
332
“in sudden friendly laughter”: Ibid., p. 37.
332
“I’m through with the life”: Ibid., p. 34.
333
“My feet took a walk in heavenly grass”:
CP
, “Heavenly Grass,” p. 63.
333
“disgusted”: LOA2, p. 38.
333
“off-stage guitar music fades in”: Tennessee Williams,
Orpheus Descending
(New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1959), p. 29.
333
“VAL: You know they’s a kind of bird”: LOA2, p. 39.
334
“Ask me how it felt to be coupled”: Ibid., p. 91.
334
“Everything Death’s scraped”: Ibid.
334
“Electric moon”: Ibid., p. 83.
334
“To—be
not defeated
!”: Ibid., p. 87.
335
“Didn’t I marry a live one”: Ibid., p. 74.
335
“Lady, you been a lunatic”: Ibid., p. 90.
335
“I was made to commit a
murder
”: Ibid., p. 87.
335
“You can’t open a night-place”: Ibid.
335
“LADY: You bet your sweet life I’m

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