Read The Bradbury Chronicles Online
Authors: Sam Weller
The Bradbury Chronicles (54 page)
Page 142: “It will become sort of a
Christmas Carol
⦔: RB to Addams, Feb. 11, 1948, from RB's private collection.
Page 142: “Those ideas revolved ⦔: Congdon/RB interviews.
Page 144: “But with âThe Man Upstairs' ⦔: Western Union telegram from
Harper's
editor Katherine Gauss to RB, dated Dec. 24, 1946, from RB's private collection.
Page 144: “On April 29, 1947 ⦔: RB to Derleth, Apr. 29, 1947, from RB's private collection.
Page 144: “He also received word ⦔: RB to Derleth, Apr. 23, 1947, from RB's private collection.
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CHAPTER 14
Page 146: “I just felt ⦔: Author interview with Norman Corwin.
Page 146: “â¦
New Yorker
editor Katharine S. White ⦔: K. S. White to RB, July 26, 1947, from RB's private collection.
Page 147: “I don't have to tell you ⦔: Don Congdon to RB, May 6, 1946, from RB's private collection.
Page 147: “Schwartz had been moving out ⦔: Author interview with Julius Schwartz.
Page 147: “⦠his final Bradbury sale ⦔: Schwartz's story sales for RB, from RB's private collection.
Page 147: “The minister asked ⦔: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 148: “In the afternoon ⦔: Author interview with Ray Harryhausen.
Page 148: “We were just dressed ⦔: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 149: “⦠a loud avalanche of big red trolley car ⦔: RB,
Death Is a Lonely Business
.
Page 149: “Other nights we'd walk down to Ocean Park ⦔: Graham,
H20: The Magazine of Waterfront Culture
.
Page 150: “I called out for Ray ⦔: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 151: “His short story âPowerhouse' ⦔: Rejection letters from
Harper's
editor Katherine Gauss to RB, dated Oct. 17, 1946, and from
Collier's
associate fiction editor MacLennan Farrell, dated Aug. 5, 1946, from RB's private collection.
Page 152: “In early 1949, Don Congdon ⦔: Author interview with Don Congdon.
Page 152: “They sent it back ⦔: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
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CHAPTER 15
Page 153: “He also had a new short-story collection in mind ⦔: RB to Derleth, Oct. 15, 1948, from RB's private collection.
Page 153: “Ray came close to working with
New Yorker
cartoonist ⦔: RB to Addams, Feb. 11, 1948, from RB's private collection.
Page 154: “⦠Don Congdon had managed to drum up some interest from Doubleday ⦔: Author interview with Don Congdon.
Page 155: “It was a typical hot June night in New York ⦔: RB, “The Long Road to Mars,” an introduction to the fortieth-anniversary edition of
The Martian Chronicles,
Doubleday, 1990.
Page 155: “⦠How I Wrote My Book”: Unpublished RB essay, from RB's private collection.
Page 157: “$750 for
The Creatures That Time Forgot
⦔: Eller and Touponce,
Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction
.
Page 157: “Ray bought a ticket for a seat on the Union Pacific train ⦔: Union Pacific Railroad receipt, dated June 23, 1949, from RB's private collection.
Page 159: “[Bradbury] created moods with few words ⦔: Asimov,
Asimov on Science Fiction
.
Page 160: “At 9:38 a.m....”: Author interview with Susan Bradbury.
Page 160: “I am pleased to announce that we have a baby girl!”: RB to Derleth, Nov. 22, 1949, from RB's private collection.
Page 160: “The eleven-page manuscript ⦔: Original manuscript from RB's private collection.
Page 161: “In early 1950 ⦔: Ray recalled attending Norman Corwin's United Nations broadcast
before
his trip to New York in June 1949. He was adamant about this. However, in the 1961 Cunningham UCLA Oral History Program transcript, he recalled the broadcast as early 1950. Since this was Ray's first, albeit at a distance, encounter with John Huston, he also remembered that Huston was with his new wife, Ricki, who was pregnant at the time. Ricki gave birth to their first child on April 16, 1950. She was not even pregnant when Ray ventured off to New York, so it is likely that this pivotal encounter transpired in early 1950. Ray insisted otherwise.
Page 162: “Well, it's one of those times in your life ⦔: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
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CHAPTER 16
Page 163: “Ray had begun to lecture sporadically at colleges and universities ⦔:
Daily Trojan,
Friday, April 30, 1948.
Page 163: “If the story is good ⦔: Ibid.
Page 165: “My nephewâyou awe me ⦔: Letter from Neva Bradbury to RB, dated Aug. 21, 1950, from RB's private collection.
Page 166: “Early on in the assembly ⦔: Preliminary table of contents dated “May 20, 1950” from RB's private collection. The tentative title for the collection at this point was “Frost and Fire.”
Page 167: “I think it's better ⦔: Walter Bradbury to RB, July 13, 1950, from RB's private collection.
Page 167: “The dinosaur, hearing the foghorn blowing ⦔: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
Page 169: “Another possibility was taken ⦔: Walter Bradbury to RB, Aug. 3, 1950, from RB's private collection.
Page 169: “They moved in on August 3, 1950 ⦔: Moving receipt from Bay Cities Van & Storage Co., from RB's private collection, dated Aug. 3, 1950. The total cost of the move, which included two men and a moving truck, from the apartment at 33 South Venice Boulevard to the new house at 10750 Clarkson Road was the princely fee of just $18.42.
Page 169: “Poe's name comes up ⦔: Isherwood,
Tomorrow
.
Page 170: “His brilliant ⦔: Ibid.
Page 171: “May I ask now, very humbly ⦔: RB to Walter I. Bradbury, Sept. 29, 1950, from RB's private collection.
Page 172: “The Art Department tells me ⦔: Walter I. Bradbury to RB, Oct. 10, 1950, from RB's private collection.
Page 173: “⦠Heard had the ability ⦔: Cunningham, 1961 UCLA Oral History Program transcript.
Page 173: “I was really frightened ⦔: Ibid.
Page 173: “He put me at ease immediately ⦔: Ibid.
Page 174: “Gerald Heard was a charming man ⦔: Author interview with Sid Stebel.
Page 174: “There was quite a to-do ⦔: Ibid.
Page 175: “It was the first time ⦔: Ibid.
Page 175: “⦠but in the early to mid-1950s ⦔: Dunaway,
Huxley in Hollywood
.
Page 176: “offered an advance of $500 ⦔: Don Congdon to RB, Mar. 2, 1951, and Mar. 26, 1951, from RB's private collection.
Page 178: “Dore Schary, then vice president ⦔: Grobel,
The Hustons
.
Page 178: “By the end of the screening, Huston knew his film was doomed ⦔: Huston,
An Open Book
.
Page 178: “Impressed is hardly the word ⦔: Undated, handwritten letter from John Huston to Ray Bradbury written on Claridge's stationery, Brook Street, London W1. Given Ray Bradbury's recollection of the timing and the reference of the recent meeting between the two men in the letter, it can be presumed that this correspondence was written in Feb. 1951.
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CHAPTER 17
Page 180: “My first ⦔: King,
Danse Macabre
.
Page 180: “This would have been broadcast in 1951 ⦔: According to the
Dimension X
radio logs, the episode of “Mars is Heaven” that Stephen King referred to aired on Jan. 7, 1951, which was a rebroadcast of the original airing on July 7, 1950. Logs at http://www.oldtime.com/otrlgs/dx_.log.
Page 181: “Ray wrote Hart-Davis in wholehearted agreement ⦔: Letter from RB to Rupert Hart-Davis, Nov. 16, 1950, from RB's private collection.
Page 184: “In April 1952 ⦔: The details of Ray and Maggie's visit to the gallery and Ray's introduction to the work of Joe Mugnaini have varied slightly depending on the source. Ray steadfastly insisted that the gallery was in Beverly Hills, in the space that would later be occupied by Sloan's Gallery. Joe Mugnaini remembered the exhibit occurring in Hollywood. In the 2002 book,
Bradbury: An Illustrated Life,
by Jerry Weist (William Morrow), the author cited the location as Venice, California. In the end, Ray Bradbury was positive the gallery where he met his lifelong artist collaborator was in Beverly Hills. Further clouding the details of the evening, Joe Mugnaini remembered the lithograph that Ray bought that night was of
The Caravan
. Again, Ray was positive that the lithograph he saw in the window that night was
Modern Gothic
. “There was no lithograph of
The Caravan
until twenty years later,” Ray insisted. “But the painting of
The Caravan
was inside the gallery that night.”
Page 185: “⦠sort of place a beast like myself might want to live in ⦔: Tibbetts, “The Third Elephant,”
Outré
.
Page 186: “Joe Mugnaini was an Italian-born ⦔: Ibid.
Page 186: “California artist Mary Anderson ⦔: Author interview with Mary Anderson.
Page 186: “I had heard of [Ray Bradbury] ⦔: Tibbetts, “The Third Elephant,”
Outré
.
Page 188: “Ray has always been a very open ⦔: Ibid.
Page 189: “As the artist recalled ⦔: Ibid.
Page 190: “His jaw dropped, his eyes bugged ⦔: Kunert,
Take One,
MayâJune 1972, interview by Arnold Kunert.
Page 190: “On July 3, 1952, Hal Chester's company ⦔: Motion Picture Rights Agreement between RB and Mutual Pictures of California, Inc., dated July 3, 1952, from RB's private collection.
Page 193: “First established in 1938 ⦔: Cunningham,
The McCarthy Hearings
.
Page 193: “In my estimation ⦔: Huston,
An Open Book
.
Page 193: “Yet even as Hollywood's elite ⦔: Cunningham,
The McCarthy Hearings
.
Page 194: “Along with Chairman J. Parnell Thomas ⦔: Ibid.
Page 195: “Letter to the Republican Party ⦔:
Daily Variety,
Nov. 10, 1952, from RB's private collection.
Page 197: “I was proud ⦔: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
Page 197: “I was all ⦔: Author interview with Don Congdon.
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CHAPTER 18
Page 199: “When Hitler burned a book ⦔: RB, from “Burning Bright,” a foreword by RB for the fortieth-anniversary edition of
Fahrenheit 451
.
Page 203: “Being hit and run over ⦔: From the introduction to
Fahrenheit 451
, 1966 edition.
Page 203: “Certainly the paperbacks ⦔: Author interview with Professor Jonathan R. Eller.
Page 204: “He writes in a style ⦔:
New York Times
review by Charles Poore, Mar. 19, 1953.
Page 205: “I feared for refiring the book ⦔: from “Burning Bright,” a foreword by RB for the fortieth-anniversary edition of
Fahrenheit 451
.
Page 207: “⦠looking at far placesâRome and Paris and London and Egypt ⦔: RB, Confederation, Guest of Honor Speech, from
Science Fiction Chronicle,
Dec. 1986.
Page 207: “We did that ⦔: Author interview with Stanley Kauffmann.
Page 207: “None of us at Ballantine”: Ibid.
Page 208: “Ray's attention span ⦔: Author interview with Maggie Bradbury.
