The Bradbury Chronicles (28 page)

Even decades later, Maggie rarely ever discussed John Huston, and when she did, it was not with fondness. With Maggie and the girls gone, Ray was more vulnerable than ever to Huston's antics as he grappled with the rest of the
Moby Dick
screenplay. When the director found out that Ray was on his own, Huston actually worried for Ray; he knew that the sensitive writer would be lonely. Huston himself suffered from loneliness and constantly surrounded himself with people, so he recommended that Ray move out to the house at Kilcock. “Fortunately for me,” said Ray, “I turned down John's offer.”

In late January 1954, Ray assumed he was nearing the end of the script. But there was still much work to be done. “Huston very wisely, very prudently, very intelligently, hadn't told me the extent of the revisions that would be necessary,” said Ray. “I give him credit for having good intuition on this sort of thing.” Trying to bolster his spirits, Ray telephoned his family nearly every day, but he was exhausted and lonely. By March, Huston was ready to cast
Moby Dick,
and suggested to Ray that they relocate to London to finish the screenplay. However, Huston could not resist another perverse stab. He gave Ray two options: He could fly to England with him or stay in Dublin on his own. Again, Huston was preying on Ray's fear of flying. In response, Ray agreed to go to London, but not by air; instead, he would take the ferry across the Irish Sea, traveling at night and meeting Huston in the morning, prepared to work.

John Huston would have none of it and told Ray that if he did not get on an airplane, he could just stay in Ireland. Ray's nerves were fraying quickly. Peter Viertel advised Ray to let it slide and not fret. It was just another of Huston's vicious jokes. “John had a rough way of kidding,” said Viertel. “[Ray] was much more naïve than the rest of us. Because he'd never been out of the States. But he was always very sweet, a little bewildered by working with John. John was difficult to work with for a writer. And they had their ups and downs.

“Huston was really a somewhat frustrated writer. He had always had his input to whatever script was being prepared, but writing didn't come easily to him. Doesn't come easy to me, or anybody, I guess, except for a few lucky guys. I think that his personality was so different than Ray's, and I think when you work closely with someone, there are always little tensions that come up,” Viertel said, explaining the relationship between writer and director. “But John was very satisfied with Ray's adaptation for most of the time that they were together. I think, maybe, they were just together too much.”

Taking Viertel's advice, Ray bought a ferry ticket, intending to head to London. On the day of his departure, Huston showed up at the Royal Hibernian Hotel and joined Ray with his friends Len and Beth Probst. “The subject of horses came up,” said Ray, “and John asked Len Probst what he knew about them. When Len replied, ‘I don't know anything about horses,' John said, ‘How can you be head of United Press here in Ireland and not know anything about horseflesh?' And Len had no answer.”

To Huston, Ireland was horse country. He made Len Probst appear obtuse. “It was such a typical thing for John to insult Len in front of me. John was angry at me for not flying, so he made fun of Len,” Ray mused.

The relationship between Ray and Huston was splintering by the day. When Ray arrived in London, Huston barely spoke to him. To John Huston, Ray Bradbury was blemished; he was not living according to the Hemingway code.

“This man,” wrote Huston in his autobiography, “who sent people on exploratory flights to the distant stars, was terrified of airplanes. You could hardly coax him into a car.”

After Ray was in London for a few days, John Huston turned more genial; they were just a few weeks away from a completed script. Huston also cast several parts for the film—Leo Genn as Starbuck, Robert Morley as Bildad, and surprisingly, Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. Huston had originally hoped to cast his father, actor Walter Huston, as Ahab, but his father died in 1950. Later, Fredric March and Orson Welles were mentioned, and Ray suggested Laurence Olivier. Ultimately, Huston tapped Gregory Peck to play the one-legged sea captain. Huston and Warner Brothers liked Peck, but even the actor himself was bewildered by the casting. Author Gary Fishgall, in his biography of Peck, commented that “[w]hen Huston said he wanted him for Ahab, Peck was stunned; he really couldn't see himself in the role.” Huston, however, had a proven track record with actors; if anyone could help Peck channel Ahab, it was John Huston.

In just a few more weeks, Ray would be done and could join his wife and girls in sunny Italy. One evening, Ray dined with Huston, Peter Viertel, Huston's assistant, Jack Clayton, and others, when Huston once again assailed Ray and his choice of friends. Huston brought up the subject of horses and insulted Ray's United Press friends. This time, Ray Bradbury did not humor Huston or remain silent.

“John,” Ray said as Huston turned to face him. “Fuck you.”

“What?” Huston asked.

“John, fuck you,” Ray said once again. “You have very peculiar friends, but I wouldn't dream of discussing your friends with anyone, and here you are in front of ten people here, insulting my friends at dinner. Fuck you.”

No one spoke for a few moments. Ray rarely swore; in fact, he loathed the word “fuck.” A part of him was actually pleased he had said it, but another was anxious of the repercussions. “Everyone froze,” Ray said. “Here was this upstart cricket criticizing the lion in front of everyone.”

Dinner was abruptly adjourned, and everyone stood up to leave. Outside the restaurant, after some scuffling and jostling, Huston grabbed Ray by the lapels, hoisting him in the air, and cocked his fist. Turning to Peter Viertel, Huston asked if he should let Ray have it.

“Yes, John,” Ray said, hanging in the air. “Let me have it. But fire me first.” Ray knew Huston would not fire him; John Huston needed him to finish the script. Huston lowered Ray to the pavement.

Distressed, Ray walked away toward his hotel. Viertel followed, attempting to calm him. They walked quite a distance that night, while Viertel once again assured Ray that Huston was merely joking. “Joking?” Ray said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Look where we are now! Some joke!” The screenplay needed to be finished, and Ray was in no state to contemplate the remaining days working with Huston after the night's humiliating scene. Viertel assured Ray that he would talk with Huston and wangle an apology; he said that if Huston did not call the next morning, Ray should leave and head to Sicily to join Maggie and the kids.

The next morning, Huston's secretary phoned and apologized on behalf of her boss; she also invited Ray to Huston's hotel. Ray thought it over and went. When he met Huston, the director proffered his hand and asked if they could just forget the entire sordid affair and move on with their business; Huston also assured Ray it would never happen again.

 

T
HOUGH
R
AY
was enduring some difficult days in Europe, back home, Ray's literary agent, Don Congdon, had heartening news. After months of hawking
Fahrenheit 451
serial rights to the magazine market, Congdon had succeeded. Although Ian Ballantine had published the book without trepidation, as Congdon said, “because he was politically very liberal. He was a real Democrat,” few magazines wanted to touch the scathing cultural commentary; the country was still gripped by McCarthy-era paranoia. Luckily, Don Congdon heard of a new magazine, run by a daring young editor from Chicago who was committed to pushing boundaries. The editor's name? Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Marston Hefner had much in common with Ray Bradbury. Both were Depression-era boys; both grew up in Illinois (Hefner was a born-and-bred Chicagoan). As children, both read comic books voraciously, watched movies incessantly, and read, with vigor, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe. As adults, the two gravitated toward F. Scott Fitzgerald. And at one point in their young lives, each had also published his own fanzine.

When
Fahrenheit 451
was published in October 1953, Ray was in Ireland. Hefner read it and thought it a seamless fit for his new publication,
Playboy
magazine. “I felt that fiction had become increasingly character-driven rather than plot-driven,” said Hefner, “so I was looking for plot-driven stories.”

The first issue of
Playboy
was published in December 1953; forty-eight pages long, it featured a nude center-spread photograph of Marilyn Monroe. As Ray had done with
Fahrenheit 451,
Hefner had published his magazine in a censorship-driven culture. Readying the second issue of
Playboy
from his Chicago apartment, Hefner bought the fifty-thousand-word
Fahrenheit 451
for five hundred dollars. He planned on serializing it in
Playboy
issues 2, 3, and 4.

“The story seemed, of course, perfect for me,” said Hefner, “coming as it did in fifty-three in a time of McCarthyism. That's what it was all about for me.
Fahrenheit 451
. The temperature at which book paper burns. What a perfect story for my fledgling magazine.”

The second issue of
Playboy
appeared on newsstands in March 1954 as Ray was having a devil of a time with the devil himself, John Huston. “Finally,” said Ray, “after seven months of hard work, a day of great passionate relaxation came to me. I got out of bed one morning in London, and I looked in the mirror and I said, ‘I am Herman Melville!'” On April 14, 1954, Ray sat down at his typewriter and in eight hours wrote the final forty pages of the screenplay. After reading the pages, Huston told Ray that the script was completed. Ray's last blaze of inspiration had produced his best work yet on the screenplay. Production on
Moby Dick
would begin that summer.

Practical jokes, bouts of tears, and street scuffles aside, Ray Bradbury and John Huston parted on good terms. The two men hugged and Ray thanked him for the singular experience. As Ray remembered it, “The last thing I said to John was, ‘John, I'm so indebted to you for this opportunity to work on a screenplay that has changed my life, if you want, we'll put your name on the screenplay too.' John said, ‘No, Ray, it's your screenplay.' I offered that to John because I was so filled with gratitude. He changed my life forever, and only for the better. Ever since, I never had to pick up the phone, looking for work.”

Ray left London on April 16, 1954. He traveled by boat to Paris, then by train to Italy. While Ray's experience working on the script had proved thorny, complex, and vexing, he was done, and proud of his accomplishment. But Huston's problems were only just beginning. The director would later call the film “the most difficult picture I ever made.” Frightful weather plagued the production; the crew wrestled endlessly and sometimes fruitlessly with the ninety-foot, thirty-ton mechanical whale; and Huston, it turned out, was a disappointment to some of the actors. Gregory Peck acknowledged that he would have liked more artistic guidance. “Huston was not that good with actors,” Peck said. “When people were perfectly cast … he was great with them. But he was not very good at helping actors to find a performance.”

Huston finished
Moby Dick
over budget; he was given three million dollars, but overshot it by one and a half million. Released on June 27, 1956,
Moby Dick
performed respectably at the box office, making more than five million dollars and placing ninth among the ten top-grossing films of 1956.

Before the movie's release, Ray had a final fracas with John Huston. The first ads appearing for the film listed Ray Bradbury as the sole screenwriter, but then Ray noticed that John Huston's name was appearing next to his on mimeographed copies of the script, which were made by Huston's secretaries. After that, Huston's name appeared as co-writer on promotional materials. “He should have just accepted my offer for credit when I gave it to him,” said Ray. Huston had certainly assisted Ray with decisions on the script, and Ray often consulted with him. But according to Ray, he wrote none of it. Ray fumed and complained to the Screenwriters Guild; he protested the billing and handed over the entirety of his work—all pages, notes, and outlines—1,200 pages in all. Initially, the guild ruled in his favor. He had shown ample evidence that the script was his and his alone, but John Huston had Hollywood clout. At some point, Ray said, Huston returned to Hollywood with a copy of the
Moby Dick
screenplay. The copy included Huston's notes, which the director used to argue his contribution. The guild reversed its ruling, and co-screenwriting credit was returned to John Huston. “The people at the Writers Guild told me,” said Ray, “you deserve complete credit.” He demanded to see the letters by the ruling judges at the guild. “In every single letter, it said, ‘If it weren't for the fact that Huston is a well-known personality and influence in our time, we would probably, just on the facts, on the evidence, give it to Bradbury.”

The judges at the guild had surrendered to Huston's stature in Hollywood and assumed that, given the director's experience, he probably taught Ray Bradbury a great deal. Even if Ray had written the actual script, Huston's supervision and guidance was most certainly an influence. Ray agreed that Huston unquestionably offered much advice, but, he argued, that made him a good producer and director—not a screenwriter. However, John Huston prevailed and his name remained as co-author of the
Moby Dick
screenplay.