Liberation (173 page)

 

¹¹¹
Brown, who once studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood, was running for president. See Glossary.

 

¹¹²
Astrologer and therapist (1946–1986), born in Cleveland, settled in San Francisco; a student of Jung's work and Executive Director of the National Council for Geocosmic Research. He died of AIDS.

 

¹¹³
POPism, the Warhol 60s
(1980), by Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett.

 

¹¹⁴
Responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter asserted in his State of the Union Speech on January 23, 1980, that the U.S. would protect its “vital interest” in the Persian Gulf region with force if necessary; see Glossary under Carter.

 

¹¹⁵
American musician; he often sat for Bachardy, and they sometimes had sex. He died of AIDS in his early thirties. Coleman was an assumed name.

 

¹¹⁶
The 1980 film about a serial killer targeting gay men starred Al Pacino, not Travolta.

 

¹¹⁷
Re-edited U.S. version of
Gone to Earth
(1950); both films starred Jennifer Jones.

 

¹¹⁸
Oil prices doubled in 1979, and inflation rose to nearly fifteen percent by March 1980; Iran still held the U.S. hostages; the war in Afghanistan continued; and the U.S. and eleven other countries planned to boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.

 

¹¹⁹
I.e., College of Marin, a two-year college in Marin County, north of San Francisco.

 

¹²⁰
See the entry for September 17, 1979 above.

 

¹
W.H. Auden: A Biography
was published in 1981; Isherwood read a type-script.

 

²
Los Angeles gallery run in a basement by Tom Jancar and Richard Kuhlenschmidt.

 

³
Peter Schjeldahl, American poet and journalist (b. 1942), wrote about art for
The New York Times
,
The Village Voice
, and other publications; later, in 1998, he became chief art critic for
The New Yorker
. His wife, Brooke Alderson, had a small role in
Urban Cowboy.

 

⁴
Film director (1902–1981), born in Alsace, working in Hollywood from the early 1920s; he won Academy Awards for
Mrs. Miniver
(1942),
The Best Years of Our Lives
(1946), and
Ben-Hur
(1959). His many other films include
Wuthering Heights
(1939),
Carrie
(1952),
Roman Holiday
(1953), and
Funny Girl
(1968).

 

⁵
Johnson (d. 1985), a Norwegian-American painter, worked in a gay bookstore on Santa Monica Boulevard, where he met the American writer White (b. 1940), visiting from New York. Johnson died in his early thirties, of AIDS.

 

⁶
Isherwood quotes a different line from this passage, above, February 23, 1974.

 

⁷
MacLaine, the movie actress and Broadway musical star (b. 1934), whose films include
Sweet Charity
(1969),
Terms of Endearment
(1983, Academy Award),
Madame Sousatzka
(1988),
Steel Magnolias
(1989), and
Postcards from the Edge
(1990), believes in reincarnation and has written about it in several autobiographical books.

 

⁸
American poet and scholar (1922–2006), educated at Harvard. He was Auden's secretary, 1946–1948, and lived in Athens from the early 1960s.

 

⁹
Fouts and George, pacifists during W.W.II, met at Civilian Public Service Camp in 1942 and shared an apartment; as Isherwood tells in
D.1
, George was a professor of French before the war. He was a very light-skinned black, could easily “pass,” and introduced Fouts to his black friends.

 

¹⁰
Not identified.

 

¹¹
Ordained in 1978 as a minister of the Universal Christ Church, later called the Universal Church of God, an interfaith community based in Burbank. He was a member of the Vedanta Society from 1957, when he was initiated by Prabhavananda.

 

¹²
Rappaport; see Glossary.

 

¹³
Cullen (1913–2001) published books about the murderers Jack the Ripper and Dr. Hawley Crippen and about the conman Maundy Gregory but nothing about Gerald Hamilton.

 

¹⁴
The Life of Misia Sert
(1980), about the Polish-French pianist and saloneuse (1872–1950), by Arthur Gold (1917–1990) and Robert Fizdale (1920–1995), piano duo and longtime companions.

 

¹⁵
Her; she served in Athens from 1979 to 1981.

 

¹⁶
In “The Decoys,” beginning, “There are some birds in these valleys,”
The Orators
, Book II.

 

¹⁷
Matthew Curtis Klebaum; he worked at Nicholas Wilder's gallery for a while and sat for Bachardy several times.

 

¹⁸
Colacello (b. 1947) was editor, 1971–1983, of
Interview
and contributed a regular column, “Out,” accompanied by his party snapshots. He also helped Warhol run his studio, The Factory. Later, he wrote for
Vanity Fair
and published a biography of Warhol,
Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up
(1992), before undertaking a two-volume work on the Reagans.

 

¹⁹
Cheim designed and edited catalogues for the gallery; in 1996, he opened a new gallery, Cheim and Read, with Howard Read, also a Robert Miller co-director and the photography curator.

 

²⁰
Born 1949 in Beirut; educated at Louisiana State University and Yale.

 

²¹
McShine was a longtime curator at the Museum of Modern Art where the Picasso Retrospective filled the whole museum, May 16–September 30. It was curated by William Rubin.

 

²²
Reading the Letter
(1921), the men are not necessarily actual brothers.

 

²³
The Mariposa Portraits, of twelve gay and lesbian leaders; see Glossary under Voeller.

 

²⁴
Oh my heart!

 

²⁵
Generally called hydrochloric acid.

 

²⁶
The former Prohibition-era drinking club and ranch retreat in Rustic Canyon.

 

^*
Joe Hacker—they are actually man and wife; Joan Quinn told me. [ Joseph Hacker acted on T.V. and in commercials; later, he became a lecturer at USC School of Theater. He did not marry until 1986.]

 

²⁷
Black actress; she was in
Hair
in London, had a daughter by Mick Jagger, and appeared in Lindsay Anderson's
Britannia Hospital
(1982). Her real name was Marsha Hunt, but she changed the spelling to join the Screen Actors Guild because a white actress with the same name (b. 1917) already belonged. She and her daughter both sat for Bachardy.

 

^*
Fred Flintstone.

 

²⁸
Bernolak, a friend of Bridges and Larson, worked as a carpenter building film sets; he was murdered for dealing drugs in someone else's territory. Bridges wrote
Mike's Murder
(1984) about him.

 

²⁹
American Broadway star (1895–1980) who played Hollywood gangsters during the 1930s and 1940s. Mae West made her film debut opposite him in
Night After Night
(1932); they were reportedly lovers, and they both appeared in her last film,
Sextette
(1978). He died on November 24, and she died on November 26.

 

³⁰
A Los Angeles revival.

 

³¹
In 1965; afterwards, Siporin (1942–2001) became a lawyer for the American Indian movement. He appears in
D.2.

 

³²
Hindu monk (1908–1982), a disciple of Bhagawan Nityananda; he brought Siddha Yoga to the West in the 1970s, giving
shaktipat
initiation to thousands and setting up hundreds of meditation centers and many ashrams.

 

³³
The number was 757 Kingman Avenue; see Glossary under Kiser.

 

³⁴
In a 1959 interview on BBC T.V., John Freeman, host of “Face to Face” asked Jung, “Do you now believe in God,” and Jung replied: “Now? . . . Difficult to answer. I know. I needn't—I don't need to believe. I know.”

 

^*
Famous first words! It cost
plenty
!

 

^*
It was Jim Charlton's friend, Ben Weininger, the psychologist.

 

³⁵
On Ruegen Island, north of Berlin in the Baltic Sea, where they holidayed in 1931 and 1932; the third section of
Goodbye to Berlin
, “On Ruegen Island,” is based on Isherwood's first summer there.

 

³⁶
The novel has not been published.

 

³⁷
Woodland Hills, California.

 

³⁸
A frequent subject for Bachardy during this period, with whom Bachardy freely experimented because Stille never objected to any of the resulting portraits.

 

³⁹
John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan on March 30; see Glossary under Reagan.

 

^*
When it
did
arrive, in July, it was only $5,686.75!

 

⁴⁰
In his review of
Christopher and His Kind
in
The New York Review of Books
, December 4, 1976, vol. XXIII, no. 20, p. 10.

 

⁴¹
I.e., advance part payments of estimated income tax for the coming year.

 

⁴²
The dealer bought all thirty.

 

⁴³
The Writers Guild struck April 11–July 16 against major movie and T.V. producers for a greater share of pay T.V., videos, and disks.

 

⁴⁴
Now the Orange County Museum of Art.

 

⁴⁵
Vedanta: Voice of Freedom
; see Glossary under Chetanananda.

 

⁴⁶
Shimabukuro, a photographer. He photographed one of Bachardy's last sittings with Isherwood.

 

⁴⁷
Castellani, his lover at the time, from Argentina.

 

⁴⁸
The Japanese papier-mâché horse which Bachardy gave Isherwood for his birthday in 1962; mentioned above, February 9, 1972.

 

⁴⁹
About seven inches long, made from fabric like a child's stuffed toy and covered with long, white fake fur; it had pale blue glass eyes and a crisscross nose and mouth sewn with pink thread. It was already dirty and bedraggled when Bachardy found it and gave it to Isherwood.

 

⁵⁰
Bengston had rented a house in Honolulu for an extended period.

 

⁵¹
Hamilton showed the letter to Tom Driberg, then writing William Hickey's gossip column in the
Daily Express
; see the entry for August 20, 1961 in
D.2.
and Glossary.

 

⁵²
Douglas Corrigan, American aviator (1907–1995), took off from New York headed for California but landed in Ireland claiming he had misread his compass. He had been refused permission for the transatlantic flight because his plane seemed inadequate. He and Isherwood look remarkably alike in photographs.

 

⁵³
The Falkland Islands, a British Crown Colony 250 miles southeast of Argentina, were occupied on April 2. Prince Andrew (b. 1960), second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, was serving in the Royal Navy aboard HMS
Invincible.

 

⁵⁴
Argentina's second largest warship and only cruiser, the
General Belgrano
, was torpedoed by a British submarine on May 2, southeast of the Falklands; 800 of the 1,042 crew survived.

 

⁵⁵
Previously titled
California.

 

⁵⁶
It later proved that Turner had AIDS; he was the first sufferer Isherwood and Bachardy knew and died after ten years of illness.

 

⁵⁷
Zoologist, with a special interest in ornithology. Spender met him in 1976 in Gainesville, Florida, and encouraged him to give up teaching school there to pursue a graduate degree at UCLA, where he became a professor in 1987. He died of AIDS in 1991.

 

⁵⁸
From King George VI, November 23, 1937; it was the medal for 1936.

 

⁵⁹
Macbeth
, III.i.