Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (104 page)

, p. 159.

170

“the most charming ship”: Ibid.

170

“Finit”:

, Dec. 4, 1948, p. 487.

170

“She meant as an artist”: Ibid., p. 489.

171

“The simple truth”: Williams to Elia Kazan and Molly Day Thacher, July 12, 1949,

, p. 261.

171

“GLADYS: Your son misses you”: Tennessee Williams, “The Big Time Operators” (unpublished), HRC.

172

“It doesn’t seem very like me”:

, Dec. 5, 1948, p. 493.

172

“You are really washed up”: Williams, “Big Time Operators,” HRC.

172

“The trouble is that I am being bullied”:

, Dec. 5, 1948, p. 493.

172

“the baleful sun of success”: Ibid., July 22, 1950, p. 515.

172

“Talent died in me”: Ibid., Dec. 5, 1948, p. 493.

172

“The trouble is that you can’t make”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, June 1949,

, pp. 258–59.

173

“gauze hung over gauze”:

, “The Soft City,” p. 10. Williams sent off the poem in May. “And if there is something which is not soft in the city,” he wrote “such as a cry too hard for the mouth to hold, God puts a soft stop to it. / Bending invisibly down, He breathes a narcosis / Over the panicky face upturned to entreat Him.”

173

“slowly with great pomp”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Feb. 15, 1949,

, p. 234.

173

“one long blue and gold ribbon”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 10, 1949, ibid., p. 249.

173

“The fear that I am repeating myself”: Williams to James Laughlin, Jan. 30, 1950, ibid., p. 297.

173

“There is no point in hiding”:

, May 27, 1949, p. 501.

173

“I received today five complete sets”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Feb. 15, 1949,

, p. 234.

173

“the cornball department”: “A disgrace to any name that is signed to it,” Williams said of the screenplay, on whose front page he wrote, “A horrible thing! Certified as such by Tennessee Williams.” (Williams to Audrey Wood, May 13, 1949, ibid., p. 245.) As early June 1949, he told his publisher Jay Laughlin, “It’s a real abomination.” (Williams to James Laughlin, June 3, 1949, ibid., p. 252.)

174

“ridiculous state of gloom”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, June 1949, ibid., p. 258.

174

“my little secretary”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Feb. 15, 1949, ibid., p. 233.

174

“I do hope that I can manage”: Ibid., p. 235.

174

“a sorry companion”: Williams to Donald Windham, Mar. 23, 1949,

, p. 236.

174

“I am not alone”: Williams to Carson McCullers, Mar. 23, 1949,

, p. 240.

174

“latched onto us like barnacles”: Truman Capote to Andrew Lyndon, Mar. 28, 1949, in Capote,

, p. 72. The noticeable strain Capote was referring to was the altercation that took place after he repeated Margo Jones’s canard to the cast of

: “This is the play of a dying man.”

174

“He hates the dependence”: Williams to Donald Windham, Mar. 23, 1949,

, p. 234.

174

“Frankie’s passion is clothes”: Williams to Donald Windham, Apr. 8, 1949, ibid., p. 238.

175

“Picked up Frank”:

, May 23, 1949, p. 499.

175

“Violent (verbally) scene on the streets”: Ibid., June 3, 1949, p. 505.

175

“Faint as leaf shadow does he fade”:

, “Faint as Leaf Shadow,” pp. 8–9.

176

“When I see him enjoy so much”: Williams to Donald Windham, Mar. 23, 1949,

, p. 236.

176

“Frank is possessive and destructive”:

, July 11, 1949, p. 25.

176

“There is a curious listlessness”: Ibid., June 10, 1949, p. 19.

176

titled “Stornello”: Tennessee Williams, “Stornello: Brief Outline of Play in Progress,” HRC.

176

“This may turn out to be foolish”: Williams to James Laughlin, June 3, 1949,

, p. 251.

176

“the drift”:

, p. 21.

176

“Eyre de Lanux is a woman”: Williams to James Laughlin, June 3, 1949,

, p. 252. De Lanux died in 1996 at the age of 102.

177

“stopped”:

, p. 37.

177

“Mrs. Stone

it”: Ibid., p. 85.

177

“you can’t retire from an art”: Ibid., p. 16.

178

“wounded gladiator”:

, Dec. 5, 1948, p. 493.

178

“King On The Mountain”: Williams to Donald Windham, Apr. 4, 1960,

, p. 298: “I gathered out of my father’s fierce blood, the power to rise somehow. And how could that rise be gentle.”

178

“Scrambling, pushing, kicking”:

, pp. 82–83.

178

“Security is a kind of death”:

, p. 36.

178

“Being purposeless was like being drunk”:

, p. 34.

178

“She had been continually occupied”: Ibid., pp. 86–87.

179

“could not bear to look at him”: Ibid., p. 55.

179

“Their marriage, in its beginning”: Ibid., pp. 67–68.

179

“they exchanged their eagerly denying smiles”: Ibid., p. 71.

179

“Her effort to express a tenderness”: Tentative play outline for

(unpublished), HRC.

179

“What she felt, now, was desire”:

, p. 52.

179

“emotional anarchy”: Ibid., p. 76.

179

“Mrs. Stone knew, as well as Paolo”: Ibid., p. 29.

180

“I will call you in the morning”: Ibid., p. 34.

180

“incontinent longings”: Ibid., p. 51.

180

“When we’re alone together”: Ibid., p. 95.

180

“Frankie and I have been happy”:

, May 30, 1949, p. 503.

180

“I love F.—deeply”: Ibid., May 29, 1949, p. 501.

181

“somewhat taller than Paolo”:

, p. 36.

181

“to be waiting to receive a signal”: Ibid., p. 10.

181

“Nothing could not be allowed”: Ibid., p. 116.

181

“It was nothing that she had planned”: Ibid.

181

“the occult reasons”: Ibid., p. 64.

181

“does not need to be conscious knowing”: Ibid., p. 40.

181

“It looked up at her”: Ibid., p. 116.

181

“Yes, in a few minutes now”: Ibid., pp. 116–17.

182

“I don’t ask for your pity”: LOA2, p. 236.

182

“wandered”: Williams to Elia Kazan and Molly Day Thacher, July 12, 1949,

, p. 261.

182

“idolizes”: Tennessee Williams, “Stornello” (unpublished), HRC.

182

“To say she is fallen in love”: Ibid.

182

kill herself with a butcher’s knife: Rose Williams, in her dementia, according to

(p. 119), once “put a kitchen knife in her purse and started to leave for the psychiatrist’s with apparent intent to murder.” Edwina Williams, in her memoir,

(p. 85), writes, “One of the psychiatrists told Cornelius something I do not think he should have. He said to my husband, ‘Rose is liable to go down and get a butcher knife one night and cut your throat.’ ”

182

“a young bull of a man”: Williams, “Stornello,” HRC.

183

“tremendously understanding”: Ibid.

183

“crawls sobbing to the Madonna”: Ibid.

183

“My efforts to make it sound”: Williams to Elia Kazan and Molly Day Thacher, July 12, 1949,

, p. 262.

183

“Honesty about failure”: Williams to James Laughlin, Aug. 17, 1949, ibid., p. 266.

183

“Approaching a crisis”:

, July 12, 1949, p. 507.

183

“illogical phantoms”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Feb. 24, 1950, WUCA.

184

“Left F. at theatre”:

, July 12 or 13, 1949, p. 509.

184

“Saw Frank only in morning”: Ibid., July 16, 1949, p. 509.

184

“the nightingales sang”: Ibid., Aug. 10, 1949, p. 511.

184

“They say they don’t want a fairy-tale”: Williams to James Laughlin, Aug. 17, 1949,

, p. 266.

184

half a million dollars, plus a percentage:

, p. 157.

185

“I always feel Tennessee is bound”: Audrey Wood to George Cukor, Sept. 7, 1949, HRC.

185

“like a wet dream of Louella Parsons’s”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated,

, p. 269.

185

“who was arranging place cards”:

, p. 156.

185

“The deeper you go”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, WUCA.

185

“They are all very nice”: Ibid.

186

“The vulgarities have been eliminated”: Williams to Walter Dakin, Edwina Williams, and Dakin Williams, Sept. 1949,

, p. 268.

186

Gertrude Lawrence: Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, Miriam Hopkins, Mildred Dunnock, Judith Anderson, and Ethel Barrymore had been considered for the role.

186

“dismal error”:

, p. 269. See note.

186

“amazingly good”: Williams to Walter Dakin, Edwina Williams, and Dakin Williams, Sept. 1949,

, p. 269.

186

“I brought her a corsage”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Oct. 9, 1949,

, p. 26.

186

“in my heart the ending as it exists”: Williams to Irving Rapper, Aug. 5, 1949,

, p. 264.

186

“I think it is all right to suggest”: Ibid.

186

“If we don’t show that Laura changes”: R. Barton Palmer and Williams Robert Bray,

(Austin: University of Texas, 2009), p. 52.

187

“We have tagged on the ending”: Ibid.

187

“quality of poetic mystery and beauty”: Williams to Jack Warner, Jerry Wald, and Charles Feldman, May 6, 1950,

, p. 316.

187

“Life isn’t a bust”:

, Sept. 19, 1950.

187

“ ‘The Glass Menagerie’ Reaches the Screen”: Bosley Crowther,

, Sept. 29, 1959.

187

“travesty”: Ibid.

187

“Am surprised at Tennessee”: Jack Warner to Mort Blumenstock, Apr. 29, 1950, in Palmer and Bray,

, p. 58.

187

“I can’t impress upon you”: Palmer and Bray,

, p. 58.

188

“In the picture there is less darkness”: Ibid., p. 59.

188

Key West in November 1949: They arrived around November 12. See

, p. 271.

188

“a sort of Tom Thumb mansion”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Nov. 1949,

, p. 30.

188

“improvised poultry yard”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Nov. 1949,

, p. 272.

188

“magnificent black goat”: Ibid.

188

“Life here is as dull as paradise”: Williams to James Laughlin, Dec. 9, 1949, James Laughlin Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

188

improved on his paradise:

, p. 167.

188

“the water, the eternal turquoise”: Williams to Carson McCullers, Apr. 1950,

, p. 310.

188

“Frank is now happy here”: Williams to Paul Bigelow, Dec. 4, 1949, ibid., p. 275.

188

“Grandfather is having the time”: Williams to Margo Jones, Jan. 2, 1950, ibid., p. 280.