Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (115 page)

, Mar. 9, 1962.

402

“only violent melodramas”: Ibid.

402

“After my analysis”: David Levin, “Desperation,”

, Aug. 20, 1960.

402

“what have been called my ‘black’ plays”: “Playwrights: Unbeastly Williams.”

402

“more belief in the truth”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, WUCA.

403

“We all have to be smart and lucky”: LOA2, p. 321. “

is so far below Mr. Williams’s standard that it proves nothing one way or another,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in the

(Nov. 26, 1961). “His heart is not in this mediocre jest.”

403

“one of those rare people”: LOA2, p. 240.

403

“a girl with no looks”: Ibid., p. 312.

403

“unintentionally unfair”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Mar. 1963, WUCA.

403

“very often . . . misjudge Frank”: Audrey Wood to Williams, June 11, 1963, HRC.

403

“It becomes difficult to distinguish”: Charlotte Chandler,

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 233.

403

“he was an angel all during rehearsals”: Williams to Elia Kazan, June 1959, WUCA.

403

“Frank made it clear”: Ibid.

403

“I think Frank would be reluctantly willing”: Williams to Christopher Isherwood, Dec. 27, 1959, Huntington.

404

“in voices turned softer”:

, “A Separate Poem,” pp. 80–81.

404

“When we speak to each other”: Ibid.

404

“The Horse is on pills”: Williams to Lady St. Just, August 10, 1960,

, p. 165.

405

“of passing out stoned”: Williams to Robert MacGregor, 1963, LLC.

405

“To beg a question”: Frank Merlo, unpublished poem, 1960, THNOC.

405

“looking rather shaky”: Arthur Gelb, “Williams and Kazan and the Big Walk-Out,”

, May 1, 1960.

405

most important theatrical collaboration: Only Lloyd Richards’s collaboration with August Wilson approaches the depth and import of Williams and Kazan’s.

406

“sight unseen and unread”: Audrey Wood to Tennessee Williams, Oct. 16, 1959, HRC.

406

“I tried my best”: Arthur Gelb, “Williams and Kazan and the Big Walk-Out,”

, May 1, 1960. “I offered to do the play when I was through with my movie, but Tennessee was not willing to wait till then,” Kazan told the

.

406

“signal that I preferred working with Inge”:

, p. 595. “In my heart it is hard for me to like any playwright who is still writing plays. Miller, yes! Inge, sometimes . . . an ugly effect of the competitive system. They have to stun me with splendor that drives vanity out!” (Williams to Audrey Wood, Aug. 1955,

, p. 592.)

406

“Tennessee had shown me”:

, p. 222.

406

“I did promise to do your play”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Apr. 22, 1960,

, pp. 134–35.

406

“I’m furious at the way”: Ibid., p. 134.

408

“You haven’t a right in the world”: Ibid., pp. 134–35.

408

“a very charged man”: Whitney Bolton, “Williams Talks on Violence,”

, Feb. 1, 1959.

408

“Frankly, it appears to me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Apr. 22, 1960,

, pp. 135–36.

408

“The first and in part third are authentic Williams”: Claudia Cassidy, “Some Heady Virtuosity Even Tho Williams’ ‘Bird’ Flies Half Mast,”

, Apr. 26, 1959.

409

“prostitution”:

, p. 72.

409

“Kazan’s ending”: See

, p. 544. Also, see “Note of Explanation,” “Act Three (Broadway Version),” in Tennessee Williams,

(London: Penguin Classics, 1976), p. 107.

409

“I was surprised to find”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, Columbia.

409

“The charge that Kazan has forced me”: Gelb, “Williams and Kazan.”

409

“I thought”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Apr. 22, 1960,

, p. 137.

410

“I wanted to be the unchallenged source”:

, p. 660.

410

“I no longer gave a damn”: Ibid., p. 596.

410

“Something has happened to me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, WUCA.

410

“vowed not to look back”:

, p. 596.

410

“just as brilliant as Kazan”: Gelb, “Williams and Kazan.”

410

“I want you back”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, WUCA.

410

“Please stay with me in spirit”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, WUCA.

410

“I think our friendship will survive”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, Columbia.

411

“I don’t know”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, Harvard.

412

“We young directors”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, 1961, LLC.

412

“You monster”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, Harvard. In 1962, when Kazan became co-artistic director of the newly formed Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, intended, in the early fizzy months of the Kennedy presidency, to be a national theater, Williams was one of two living American playwrights Kazan asked to inaugurate the enterprise. “We really need your relationship, BADLY,” Kazan wrote to him. “It won’t be much of a repertory-theatre-aspiring-to-be–a-National Theatre if we don’t do your plays. And we just must do one the very first season, straight off number one or number two. . . . We want to make Lincoln Center, among other things, a place where a Williams play can be seen every year, the ‘successes’ and the most far-out things you can write, a place where these pieces live by being constantly played. . . . It would be a stunning blow to us, to me, if we don’t get some of your new plays and all of your old ones. . . . We’ll do right by them.” (Elia Kazan to Williams, Apr. 25, 1962, Columbia.) Williams declined. “What I’m doing now is a reflection of how I am now, which is so far from well,” he wrote back. (Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, Harvard.) Arthur Miller accepted; his play

opened the theater.

412

“on more than the pumpkins”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Dec. 25, 1960,

, p. 169.

412

“I crept around like that man”: Ibid.

412

“a turbid stew of immiscible ingredients”: John McCarten, “Tennessee Tries a Tender Pitch,”

, Nov. 19, 1960.

412

a movie sale: Released by MGM in 1962, directed by George Roy Hill, and starring Jane Fonda and Tony Franciosa.

412

“I figure that I have had my day”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Dec. 25, 1960,

, p. 169.

412

“would have saved”: Williams to Audrey Wood, undated, HRC.

412

no longer sufficient: JLI with Frank Corsaro, 2011, JLC.

413

“ ‘Your friend—’ ”:

, “The Night of the Iguana,” p. 243.

413

“the strangling rope of her loneliness”: Ibid., p. 229.

413

“a bit of a louse”: JLI with Frank Corsaro, 2011, JLC.

413

“As we’re talking”: Ibid.

413

“an expression of my present”: Williams to Frank Corsaro, May 13, 1960, Morgan.

413

“more of a dramatic poem”:

, p. 86.

414

“a football squad of old maids”: LOA2, p. 331.

414

“the underworlds of all places”: Ibid., p. 397.

414

“man of God, on vacation”: Ibid., p. 378.

414

“how to live beyond despair”:

, p. 104.

414

“Ethereal, almost ghostly”: LOA2, p. 338.

414

“a dainty teapot”:

, “Night of the Iguana,” p. 230.

414

“the oldest living”: LOA2, p. 377.

414

“a sense of really having a home”: Williams to Katharine Hepburn, Feb. 16, 1961, Delaware.

414

“When he died”: Ibid.

414

“When the old keep serenity”: Williams to Frank Corsaro, undated fragment, LLC.

415

“dedicated to the memory”: Tennessee Williams, “Three Acts of Grace,” HRC.

415

carnal: The young writer ejaculates on Edith. “She felt a wing-like throbbing against her belly, and then a scalding wetness. Then he let go of her altogether.” Later, she lies on her bed reflecting on the incident. “Just before falling asleep she remembered and felt again the spot of dampness, now turning cool but still adhering to the flesh of her belly as a light but persistent kiss. Her fingers approached it timidly. They expected to draw back with revulsion but were not so affected. They touched it curiously and even pityingly and did not draw back for a while.

she thought to herself and was about to smile at the originality of this thought when darkness lapped over the outward gaze of her mind.” (

, “Night of the Iguana,” pp. 244–45.)

415

“See? The iguana?”: LOA2, p. 421.

415

“It’s horrible”: Ibid., p. 387.

415

“My life has cracked up on me”: Ibid., p. 343.

415

“I am a little bit in the condition”: Williams to Frank Corsaro, Mar. 13, 1960, Morgan.

415

“We—live on two levels”: LOA2, p. 380.

415

“Don’t ask me why”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 30, 1959, HRC.

416

“Hannah is not a loser”: Williams to Frank Corsaro, Aug. 17, 1960, Morgan.

416

“She is profoundly understanding”: Ibid.

416

“Passion Play performance”: LOA2, p. 403.

416

“understanding and kindness”: Williams to Lilla Van Saher, Oct. 20, 1959, HRC.

416

“As we were working”: JLI with Frank Corsaro, 2011, JLC.

416

“I’m tired, the energy’s low”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, Sept. 2, 1959, BRTC.

417

“I think the play for Spoleto”: Williams to Audrey Wood, May 7, 1959, HRC.

417

“Tenn dear, you’re right”: Anna Magnani to Williams, Nov. 23, 1961, Columbia.

417

Brooks Atkinson, who retired: “I’m almost inclined to follow you into retirement,” Williams wrote to Atkinson (June 3, 1960, BRTC).

417

“In all the letters and phone-calls and talks”: Williams to Audrey Wood, undated, HRC.

417

“Dear Horse: or Saint Francis”: Williams to Frank Merlo, Jan. 2, 1961, Columbia.

418

“I set myself down at our patio table”:

, pp. 184–85.

418

“When people I care for turn violent”: Gore Vidal,

(New York: Random House, 1995), p. 405.

418

“There was no use in saying”: Ibid.

418

“declined to eat”:

, pp. 185–86.

419

“Are you going to leave me”: Ibid., p. 186.

419

“I’m not any longer”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 13, 1961, HRC.

420

“I have never stopped loving”: Ibid.

420

Marion Vaccaro: Williams first met and became friends with Marion Vaccaro in 1941 when her mother allowed him to stay in slave quarters at the back of “Tradewinds,” her 125-year-old mansion in Key West. Vaccaro, who had been expensively educated at the Hewlett School and Rosemary Hall, and who had attended both the University of Michigan and Smith College, was lively and charming, with an interest in the arts. For a time, before marrying Regis Vaccaro, the heir to the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company—thus her nickname “The Banana Queen”—she worked for the impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and his wife, the actress Billie Burke, as a tutor to their daughter. Williams kept a photo of Vaccaro from these early days by his Key West bedside. Hard drinking and high loving, she was the model of Cora in his short-story “Two on a Party.” She remained a close and big-hearted friend to Williams up to her death in 1970. (See Philip C. Kolin, “Tenn and the Banana Queen: The Correspondence of Tennessee Williams and Marion Black Vaccaro,”

, no. 8 (2006), available at www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/archives/2006/07kolin

.htm.)