Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (124 page)

572

“There’s an explosive center”: Frank Rich, “Play: Adapted Memoirs of Tennessee Williams,”

, Sept. 11, 1981.

572

“spook sonata”: Tennessee Williams,

(New York: New Directions, 2008), p. 100.

572

“Never, never, never stop laughing!”: Williams to Truman Capote, July 2, 1978, LLC.

573

“I don’t compete with Joe Orton”:

, p. 341.

573

“panicky disarray”: Tennessee Williams,

(New York: New Directions, 2008), p. 3.

573

“to produce a shock of disbelief”: Ibid.

573

“a large mantel clock”: Ibid.

573

“ticks rather loudly”: Ibid.

573

“a metaphor for the state of society”: Ibid.

573

“Things fall apart”: William Butler Yeats,

, vol. 1:

, rev. 2nd ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), p. 187.

573

“sinister times”: Williams,

, p. 48.

575

“I don’t respect tears”: Ibid., p. 35.

575

“Miss Nancy”:

, p. 93.

575

“I remember when”: Williams,

, p. 22.

575

“CORNELIUS: You encouraged it”: Ibid., p. 7.

575

“No one whom I have discussed”: Williams to Edwina Williams, Mar. 3, 1972, LLC.

576

“Dancie money”: Williams,

, p. 18.

576

“lunacy runs rampant”: Ibid., p. 17.

576

“alarming incidences”:

, p. 116.

577

“CHARLIE: Mom?”: Williams,

, p. 21.

577

“Bella should be presented”: Thomas Keith, “Introduction: A Mississippi Fun House,” in ibid., p. xxi.

577

“My eyes keep clouding over”: Williams,

, p. 35.

577

“CORNELIUS: [

]”: Ibid., p. 6.

577

“Little Joanie”: Ibid., p. 72.

577

“All I had was a little nervous break down”: Ibid., p. 71.

578

“Blow out your candles, Laura”: LOA1, p. 465.

578

“Ghostly outcries of children”: Williams,

, p. 82.

578

“enchanting lost lyricism of childhood”: Ibid., p. 85.

578

“VOICE OF YOUNG CHIPS:—

!”: Ibid.

578

“Chips—will you say”: Ibid., p. 86.

578

“We can’t say grace”: LOA1

p. 401.

578

“Ceremonially the ghost children rise”: Williams,

, p. 86.

578

“to glance back at their mother”: Ibid.

579

“When I hear [the critics] say”:

, Nov. 24, 1981, p. 764.

579

“the best thing Williams has written”: Gerald Clarke, “Show Business: Sweating It out in Miami,”

, June 28, 1982.

579

“My God, that’s Mother Teresa”: Primus V, “Blessed Unexpectedly,”

, Jan.–Feb. 2013.

580

“It was an Underwood typewriter”: Spoto,

, p. 363.

580

“He looked old”: LLI with John Uecker, 1985, LLC.

580

“That’s the end of the performance”: Ibid.

580

“I don’t understand my life”: Williams to Kate Moldawer, May 31, 1982, LLC.

580

spent several days recovering: Peter Hoffman, “The Last Days of Tennessee Williams,”

, July 25, 1983.

580

“He just wouldn’t have it”: LLI with John Uecker, 1983, LLC.

580

toyed with the idea of renting: “Ask him if he knows how I can dispose of this old shambles of a house. For this summer at least. If I do return to it (improbably) it will be with a little, warm-hearted Sicilian,” he wrote to Moldawer. (Williams to Kate Moldawer, May 31, 1982, LLC.)

580

“I won’t ever be coming home again”: Rader,

, p. 339.

580

“Before Mr. Tom went away”: Ibid.

582

“It was James Laughlin in the beginning”: Williams on James Laughlin, Jan. 1983, LLC.

582

“I know that it is the poetry”: Ibid.

582

“I’ve gone from good reviews”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2011, JLC.

582

“To us”:

, p. 325.

582

“

—a burden to be surrendered”:

, p. 729.

583

“The Sudden Subway”: Unless otherwise noted, material in this chapter is drawn from John Lahr, “The Lady and Tennessee,”

, Dec. 19, 1994.

583

“Tennessee called death the sudden subway”: James Laughlin, “Tennessee,” in James Laughlin, Peter Glassgold, and Elizabeth Harper,

(New York: New Directions, 1983), p. 180.

583

“He wrote his own life”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

583

when the police arrived at Williams’s room: Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Report of Death, Case M83-1568.

583

“I run, cried the fox, in circles”:

, “Cried the Fox,” pp. 6–7.

584

“I knew he was dealing”: LLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

584

“deathly afraid of institutions”: Tennessee Williams,

, Jan. 1983, LLC.

584

“retreated to her room”: Ibid.

584

“She dreads any encounter”: Ibid.

584

“She used to have periods of depression”: Ibid.

584

“I—can’t talk much”: Ibid.

584

“I wonder if it wouldn’t be better”: Ibid.

584

“nods with a senseless look”: Ibid.

584

“Kyra takes a few hesitant steps”: Ibid.

585

“Tennessee begged me”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

585

“I most certainly will not”: LLI with John Uecker, 1985, LLC.

585

“Every time I’d go in the room”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

585

“right-hand bower”: LOA1, p. 419.

585

“I can’t write”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

585

“I have faced the fact”: Ibid.

585

“I said, ‘What if he should take the whole bottle?’ ”: LLI with John Uecker, 1983, LLC.

586

“He just seemed to be in dreamland”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

586

“It was bad”: JLI with John Uecker, 2011, JLC.

586

“My next thought”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

586

“Water witches crowned with reeds”: Thomas Chatterton, “Minstrel Song” from

: The final verse reads, “Water-witches, crowned with reytes, / Bear me to your lethal tide. / I die! I come! My true-love waits . . . / Thus the damsel spake, and died.”

587

“There were so many people”: JLI with John Uecker, 2011, JLC.

587

“I’ve got to see him!”: JLI with John Uecker, 2010, JLC.

587

“The cause of death”: Suzanne Daley, “Williams Choked on a Bottle Cap: No Evidence of Foul Play Seen by the Medical Examiner,”

, Feb. 27, 1983.

587

“was not wide enough”: Michael M. Baden with Judith Adler Hennessee,

(New York: Ballantine, 2005), p. 73.

588

official public story about his death: Daley, “Williams Choked on a Bottle Cap.”

588

“an autopsy was performed”: Ibid.

588

“Gross told me”: Philip Shenon, “Broad Deterioration in Coroner’s Office Charged,”

, Jan. 30, 1985.

588

“apparently the overcap”: LLI with John Uecker, 1984, LLC.

588

toxicology report: The report from the toxicology laboratory shows the breakdown of secobarbital in Williams’s body. Blood: 1.8 mg%; Brain: 2.6 mg%; Stomach content: 96 mg/85 ml; Liver: 5.5 mg%; Kidney: 3.7%; Urine: 0.4%. Certified by Dr. Milton Lessa Bastos, April 6, 1983. (Copy of report, LLC.)

588

“sad group noises”: Letter from Elia Kazan, Mar. 25, 1983, LLC.

588

“The man lived a very good life”: Ibid.

589

“In order to negotiate life”: Michiko Kakutani, “The Legacy of Tennessee Williams,”

, Mar. 6, 1983.

589

“For a while the theater loved him”: “Williams Dies Alone in Midtown Hotel: Literary, Theater Greats Mourn a Towering Talent,”

, Feb. 26, 1983.

589

“the Orthodox Jewish coffin”: Peter Hoffman, “The Last Days of Tennessee Williams,”

, July 25, 1983, p. 41.

589

“It is a time of reconciliation”: Sara Rimer, “Fans Give Williams Last Review,”

, Mar. 3, 1983.

589

“I’m to be borne out to sea”:

, DVD, directed by Harry Rasky (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1972).

590

“If he had to die”: David Richards, “The Long Shadow of Tennessee,”

, Mar. 15, 1983.

590

“Suddenly out of obscurity”: Ibid.

590

“Parisian outfit”: Hoffman, “Last Days of Tennessee Williams,” p. 42.

590

“The milk train doesn’t stop”: Margaria Fichtner, “Another Williams: Dakin for President,”

, June 9, 1983.

590

“I’m sure he’d disapprove”:

, Mar. 6, 1983.

590

“Dakin planned a concession stand”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2011, JLC.

591

Dakin could make him pay in death: Robert Bray, the Williams scholar who knew Dakin and interviewed him, recalled other schemes to exploit the Williams franchise: “Dakin’s idea of digging up the coffin in St. Louis and repatriating TW back to New Orleans, in order to establish a TW theme park. He’d say, ‘You know, we could have Brick hobbling around on a crutch, Amanda strolling about with her jonquils, Shannon looking for a drink.’ ” (JLI with Robert Bray, 2012, JLC.)

591

the city he called “St. Pollution”:

, p. 180.

591

“Tennessee’s two great loves”: Lahr, “Lady and Tennessee,” p. 88.

591

her own obituaries: Maria St. Just died February 15, 1994.

591

“THE ARISTOCRATIC HELLCAT”: Lahr, “Lady and Tennessee,” p. 88.

591

“She was Williams’s closest woman friend”: Ibid.

592

“an occasional actress”:

, p. 149.

592

“I will write more about Maria later”: Ibid.

592

“The lady is afflicted”: Ibid., p. 215.

592

“In the American edition of my memoirs”: Lahr, “Lady and Tennessee,” p. 86.

592

“The answer is no”: Ibid.

592

“I suppose in a way he had”: Ibid.

592

“My last request is a last command”: Ibid., p. 96.

593

throws himself in the Thames: Ibid.

593

“He knew that she had exaggerated”: Ibid.

593

“weaning himself away from her”: Ibid.

593

“Maria was very much a presence”: Ibid.

593

“he was a procrastinator”: Ibid., p. 92.

593

“She was always whining”: Ibid., p. 88.

594

“Ultimately, money”: Ibid.

594

percentage of the royalties: Edwina got 50 percent of the royalties from

, which was returned to Williams on her death. Merlo also got a percentage of

; however, much to Williams’s annoyance, Merlo’s royalties were not assigned back to him by the family after Merlo’s death.