Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (101 page)

“Be comfortable is my motto”: Ibid., p. 482.

119

“slowly and emphatically”: Ibid., p. 506.

119

“Nobody sees anybody

”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 19, 1947,

, p. 95.

119

“Damsel in Distress”: Kazan notebook, WUCA.

120

“I kept puzzling over the play”:

, p. 349.

120

“threatened to leave”: Williams to Donald Windham, Mar. 26, 1947,

, p. 197.

120

“Somehow in my life”:

, Mar. 30, 1947, p. 461.

121

“a desperate driven creature”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 19, 1947,

, p. 95.

121

“To breathe quietly”:

, Mar. 29, 1947, p. 459.

121

“a cleft in the rock”: LOA1, p. 546.

121

“It was because”: Ibid., p. 528.

121

“the searchlight”: Ibid., p. 538.

122

“Sometimes—there’s God”: Ibid., p. 529.

122

“mortuary equipment and appliances”: Tennessee Williams, “The Primary Colors” (unpublished early version), HRC.

122

“The first time I laid eyes on him”: Ibid.

122

“He’s

!”: LOA1, p. 510.

122

“This Stanley never forgets”: Production script of

, WUCA. Elsewhere in his notes, Kazan writes of Stanley, “The one thing that Stanley can’t bear is someone who thinks that he or she is better than him. His only way of explaining himself—he thinks he stinks—is that everyone else stinks. This is symbolic. True of our National State of Cynicism. No values. There is nothing to command his loyalty. Stanley rapes Blanche because has tried and tried to keep her down to his level.”

122

“red-stained”: LOA1, p. 470.

122

“We’ve had this date”: Ibid., p. 565.

122

“I’ll put it to you plainly”: Jeff Young,

(New York: Newmarket Press, 1999), p. 83.

122

“She simply seemed to exist”:

, p. 109.

122

“He is a man of thirty-two”: Williams, “Primary Colors,” HRC.

123

“Sometimes my violence”: LLI with Pancho Rodriguez, 1983, LLC.

123

“I felt that he was exploiting me”: Ibid.

123

“I had a great fondness”:

, p. 133.

123

handsome, well-built young man: Frank Merlo, who would later become Williams’s companion for fifteen years.

124

“I have never regarded sand”:

, p. 133.

124

“Pancho gave her a clout in the eye”: Ms. “Memoirs,” p. 56.

124

“With that protective instinct of mine”: Ibid., p. 58.

124

“Pancho drove the car into the field”: Ibid.

124

“It looks like P and I”:

, Mar. 16, 1947, p. 457.

124

“A relative success”: Ibid.

124

“It makes me shiver and shake”:

, p. 132.

124

“She said something like this”: Ibid.

125

“Tennessee’s script was as close”:

, p. 152.

125

“Don’t think about this”: Audrey Wood to Williams, Mar. 22, 1947, HRC.

125

smacked of a Western action novel:

, p. 151.

125

“Do you think anything will be done”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 1947,

, p. 89.

125

“safe”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 9, 1947, ibid., p. 92.

125

“

MY TRAIN LEAVES

5:30”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Apr. 8, 1947, ibid., p. 91.

125

“Audrey repeated twice on the phone”: Williams to Donald Windham, Apr. 10, 1947,

, p. 198.

125

“the Princess”: Ibid.

126

highest-paid man in the United States: From 1937 to 1946, Mayer earned one million dollars a year, the equivalent in today’s money of over twenty million a year.

126

“I did not know that Mrs. Selznick”: Williams to Donald Windham, Apr. 10, 1947,

, p. 198.

126

“I have always proceeded on the theory”:

, p. 141.

126

“Lawrence Stanislavsky Langner”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 20, 1945,

, p. 565.

126

“wanted any part of Singer”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Mar. 1947,

, p. 88.

126

“deeply indignant”: Ibid. “It is really a travesty of the play, mainly because of the glaring, stupefying incompetence of one member of the cast, Eddie Andrews [the Gentleman Caller]. I think if they had really respected the play, even just as a commodity, they would not have allowed it to drag about the country in this disgraceful condition when all they had to do was fire or buy out one intolerable actor to make a creditable company of it. Of course I realize that Singer probably does not know a bad actor from a good actor but Dowling certainly does and he should have paid some attention.”

126

: Arthur Laurents’s second play was later reworked into his hit,

.

126

“My heart was with the playwright”: Irene Selznick,

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p. 291.

126

“I wanted to find someone with money”:

, p. 152.

126

“Third and last call, my girl”: Selznick,

, p. 294.

127

“Why me?”: Ibid., p. 295.

127

“Find me someone else”: Ibid.

127

“The play was bigger than I wanted”: Ibid.

127

“I have a distinct feeling”: Audrey Wood to Irene Selznick, June 1, 1947, ISC.

127

“Feeling like a marriage broker”:

, p. 153.

127

“I walked looking straight ahead”: Selznick,

, pp. 296–97.

127

“The only time he seemed impressed”: Ibid., p. 297.

127

“Enough”: Ibid.

128

“Let’s get this over with”: Ibid.

128

contract: Williams received a $2,000 advance; he agreed to extend the production date from November 15, 1947, to January 15, 1948, if the production team could show that they had “signed a director meeting with the approval of the author; and signed a leading player for the part of ‘Blanche’ or ‘Stella’ meeting with the approval of the author.” (Apr. 19, 1947, ISC.) The author also had approval of scenic designer and incidental music. He was guaranteed four and a half weeks on the road prior to opening, and four house seats in the first six rows.

128

“a Female Moneybags from Hollywood”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 9, 1947,

, p. 92.

128

“I was prepared for anything but this”: Selznick,

, p. 297.

128

“

BLANCHE HAS COME TO LIVE

”: Ibid.

128

“shocked”:

, p. 327.

128

“seething”: Cheryl Crawford,

(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977), pp. 184–85.

128

“There was a hysteria of snobbery”:

, p. 327.

128

“none of his clients”: Ibid., p. 328.

128

“Irene is nice”: Williams to Pancho Rodriguez, Apr. 15, 1947,

, p. 94.

129

“strong but fastidious director”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 9, 1947, ibid., p. 93.

129

“peculiar vitality”: Williams to Audrey Wood, undated, LLC.

129

“The cloudy dreamy type”:

, p. 328.

129

“Gadg likes a thesis”: Ibid., p. 327.

129

“reservations”: Ibid.

129

“I wasn’t sure Williams and I were the same”: Ibid., p. 328.

130

“What our stage does”: Elia Kazan,

, ed. William Baer (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), p. 67.

130

rabble-rousing theatrical mantra of the decade:

, p. 116. “It was the most overwhelming reception I’ve ever heard in the theatre. The audience of

may have been more deeply stirred; I believe they were. And

may have stayed in the audience’s memories more enduringly—it did. But

‘killed’ them.” (Ibid., p. 115.)

130

“Proletarian Thunderbolt”: Ibid., p. 116.

130

“I was intense”: Ibid.

130

“The best actors’ director”: Marlon Brando with Robert Lindsey,

(New York: Random House, 1994), p. 170.

130

“emotionalism”: Kazan,

, p. 16.

130

“All his characters are felt for”: Ibid.

130

“His modestly took me by surprise”:

, p. 328.

130

“We were both freaks”: Ibid., p. 335.

130

“My curiosity was satisfied”: Ibid., p. 336.

130

“a perfect team”: Williams to Bill Barnes, Dec. 28, 1973, private collection.

130

“Our union, immediate”:

, pp. 334–35.

131

“I read the play again last night”: Ibid., p. 329.

131

“I believed that those same powers”: Ibid., p. 338.

131

“pretty stiff”: Williams to Irene Selznick, May 1947,

, p. 102.

131

“Considering that I felt our producer”:

, p. 331.

131

“an alternative”: Williams to Irene Selznick, May 1947,

, p. 102.

131

“In writing a play”: Ibid.

132

“I was not going to knuckle under”: Selznick,

, p. 300.

132

“In time she would”:

, p. 338.

132

“I was rude”: Ibid., p. 339.

133

“Tennessee went off his noodle”: Irene Selznick to Irving Schneider, July 2, 1947, ISC. “Jo’s designs for

are almost the best I’ve ever seen,” Williams wrote to Margo Jones. “The back wall of the interior is translucent with a stylized panorama showing through it of the railroad yards and the city (when lighted behind). It will add immensely to the poetic quality.” (Williams to Margo Jones, July 1947,

, p. 109.)

133

“We all went to the show”:

, p. 340.

133

“It has been a pretty fabulous time”: Williams to Donald Windham, July 29, 1947,

, p. 202.

133

drawn up on July 19, 1947: Contract on file in ISC.

133

“about the biggest headache”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Aug. 25, 1947,

, p. 115.

133

“much pressure from Greek headquarters”: Irene Selznick memo to Irving Schneider, July 28, 1947, ISC.

133

“Kazan tried to persuade me”: Irene Selznick to Irving Schneider, July 2, 1947, ISC.

134

“I therefore had a final luncheon”: Ibid.

134

“I entered the agreement with Selznick”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Aug. 25, 1947,

, p. 115.

134

“To lose him now”: Irving Schneider telegram to Irene Selznick, Sept. 15, 1947, ISC.

135

“low as a snake”: Irene Selznick to Irving Schneider, Aug. 18, 1947, ISC.

135

“

I HAVE GARFIELD-ITIS

”: Irene Selznick telegram to Irving Schneider, Aug. 19, 1947, ISC.

135

“a minute on the stage”: Margorie Loggia and Glenn Young, eds.,

(New York: Applause Books, 1994), p. 977.