Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (121 page)

515

“little faith left in my own judgment”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 1970, LLC.

515

“My agent Audrey Wood”:

, p. 190.

515

“You have written a poem of extreme”: Williams to Lady St. Just, May 31, 1971,

, p. 227.

515

“TENNESSEE WILLIAMS UNFAIR TO HIS BROTHER”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2013, JLC.

515

“I’ll never understand”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 25, 1970, LLC.

515

“in on the conspiracy”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Nov. 9, 1970,

, p. 218.

515

“I have a suspicion”: Williams to Audrey Wood, May 26, 1970, HRC.

515

“Once she got the inkling”: John Lahr, “The Lady and Tennessee,”

, Dec. 19, 1994, p. 85.

515

“Obviously Audrey has a pair of wire clippers”: Lady St. Just to Williams, Aug. 1, 1970,

, p. 206.

515

“

”:

, p. 7.

516

“Remember me as one of your clients”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 7, 1970, LLC.

516

“I knocked Audrey’s little hat”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Aug. 14, 1970,

, p. 206.

516

“

DO NOT BE CONCERNED

”: Williams to Frank Roberts, Aug. 25, 1970, Columbia.

516

“a forsaken creature”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 25, 1970, LLC.

516

“It appears for all practical purposes”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Sept. 29, 1970,

, p. 209.

516

“Naturally, I never took the fifteen percent”:

, p. 211.

516

“one of her Old Testament furies”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Sept. 24, 1970, ibid., p. 208.

517

“Somehow we must circumvent”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Jan. 15, 1971, ibid., p. 222.

517

“by hook or crook”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 7, 1970, HRC.

517

“for the 94th time”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Nov. 11, 1970, HRC.

517

“I would like

to act”: Williams to Alan U. Schwartz, Jan. 27, 1971, LLC.

517

“Audrey informed me on the phone”: Ibid.

517

“He is an ethical idiot”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 2, 1970, LLC.

517

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 2, 1970, HRC.

518

“Tennessee was adamant”: Rader,

, p. 74.

518

“To quote a line now deleted”: Williams to Audrey Wood, undated (ca. July 1971), HRC.

519

“a temporary holding action”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2012, JLC. “I had a rather turbulent break-up with Audrey Wood in Chicago,” Williams wrote to his mother. “This had been developing for a long time, at least ten years, as she has not been helping at all. Now I have a new agent who is much more attentive to my professional matters and also much more agreeable.” (Williams to Edwina Williams, Nov. 5, 1971, LLC.)

519

“Then something happened”:

, p. 202.

519

“There was no way”: JLI with Arthur Kopit, 2012, JLC.

519

“She was way more than an agent”: Ibid.

519

“weird tribe”: David Lobdell to Patricia Lobdell Hepplewhite, Dec. 6, 1970, LLC.

520

“There is much about her”:

, p. 131.

520

obligation to be great: “My need for success is different now. It’s really more a case of acceptance than success. I don’t even think anything I do is a masterpiece anymore. You either get by with it or you don’t.” Craig Zadan, “Tennessee Williams: The Revitalization of a Great Dramatist,”

, May 1972.

520

“She found it quite easy”: Williams to Floria Lasky, Sept. 5, 1971, LLC.

520

“the Dixie Buzz Bomb”: Williams to unknown, Oct. 1972, THNOC.

520

“I feel that since we’ve met”: Williams to Bill Barnes, Apr. 14, 1971, THNOC.

520

“He is a thoroughly dangerous”: Charles Bowden to Lady St. Just, May 21, 1972, HRC.

520

“I need the fact”: Williams to Bill Barnes, Apr. 14, 1971, THNOC.

520

“boiling with something”: Williams to Floria Lasky, Sept. 5, 1971, LLC.

520

“I am making a number of changes”: Ibid.

521

“just this side of final”: Williams to William Hunt, Dec. 24, 1971, LLC.

521

“minor”: Williams to James Laughlin, ca. July 1972, LLC.

521

“I have no intention”: Williams to William Hunt, Dec. 24, 1971, LLC.

521

“The thing you mustn’t lose in life”: Mel Gussow, “Williams Looking to Play’s Opening,”

, Mar. 31, 1972.

521

“it repeats the mood and mode”: Harold Clurman, “Small Craft Warnings,”

, Apr. 24, 1972.

521

“I don’t want to be involved”:

, p. 146.

521

“not a person dedicated”: Ibid., p. 132.

521

“Young people were the world”: John Weisman, “Sweet Bird of Youth at 60,”

, Feb. 20, 1972.

522

“the only thing at this point in my life”: Williams to William Hunt, Dec. 24, 1971, LLC.

522

“I am too ornery”: Williams to Dotson Rader, Aug. 2, 1971, Columbia.

522

“indispensable”: Ibid.

522

“You gave me charm”: Williams to Dotson Rader, Dec. 21, 1972, Columbia.

523

“We both seemed much older”: Rader,

, p. 23.

523

“I want to meet your underground friends”: Williams to Dotson Rader, Aug. 2, 1971, Columbia.

523

“How liberating that was!”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2012, JLC.

523

“In a night, we’d go to dinner”: Ibid.

523

“Being places where respectable people”: Rader,

, p. 9.

523

“For you . . . being part”: Williams to Dotson Rader, undated, Columbia.

524

“was the fact that young people”: Rader,

, p. 85.

524

“My bringing Tennessee”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2012, JLC.

524

“drifting almost willfully”:

, p. 165.

525

“pure revolutionaries”: Williams to Dotson Rader, undated, Columbia.

525

Williams chose Fire Island: Williams to Dotson Rader, Aug. 12, 1972, Columbia.

525

“It is impossible to overstate”: JLI with Dotson Rader, 2012, JLC.

525

“It becomes very easy”: Williams to Dotson Rader, undated, Columbia.

526

“to subvert the media image of protesters”: Dotson Rader to John Lahr, June 29, 1971, JLC.

526

“I must be rehabilitated”: Williams to Dotson Rader, undated, Columbia.

526

“pig-dom”: Tennessee Williams, “We Are Dissenters Now,”

, Jan. 1972.

527

“

IF WE DO NOT ACT

”: Dotson Rader to Williams, undated, Columbia.

527

“I am certainly in favor”: Williams to William Hunt, Nov. 23, 1971, LLC.

527

“I am too old to march anymore”: Dotson Rader,

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p. 97.

527

“Suddenly ‘The Movement’ was unmasked”: “Statement to be Presented to Knopf Publishers” (relating to Rader’s

), Oct. 1, 1972, LLC.

527

“probably the most shocking”: Williams to Dotson Rader, Dec. 21, 1972, Columbia.

528

“I avoided all affiliations”: Ibid. Williams wrote this in response to Rader’s “The Day the Movement Died,”

, Dec. 1972.

528

“to be conducted by my revolutionary comrades”: Williams, “Last Will and Testament,” June 21, 1972, LLC.

528

“this ambience of continual dreadfulness”: Williams to Dotson Rader, July 16, 1972, Columbia.

528

“I was thinking last night”: Ibid.

528

“a quality of sexlessness”: LOA2, p. 727.

528

“the finest writing I’ve done”: William Glover, “Interview with Tennessee Williams: Playwright Subdues His Demons,” Associated Press, June 16, 1972.

528

“QUENTIN: . . . There’s a coarseness”: LOA2, p. 744.

529

“can do no harm”: Williams to Bill Barnes, Jan. 1, 1972, LLC. During rehearsals, Williams ran into Gore Vidal at the bar of the Plaza Hotel. “He assured me that it was no longer possible for me to get good notices on a play because of all ‘the awful personal publicity,’ ” Williams wrote to Oliver Evans, adding, “Gore’s invidious attitude toward other writers has become a real sickness. And I am sick of it.” (Williams to Oliver Evans, Mar. 23, 1972, LLC.)

529

“I certainly had no desire”: Tennessee Williams,

(London: Brilliance Books, 1984), p. 42.

530

“metaphor for posterity”: Williams to Bill Barnes, Jan. 9, 1972, THNOC.

530

“They’ll say the Resurrection”: Mel Gussow, “Williams Looking to Play’s Opening,”

, Mar. 31, 1972.

530

“The critics in New York”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Apr. 14, 1972,

, p. 256.

530

“The Revitalization of a Great Dramatist”: Zadan, “Tennessee Williams.”

530

“may survive better than some”: Clive Barnes, “Williams Accepting Life As Is,”

, Apr. 3, 1972.

530

“a five-finger exercise”: Ted Kalem, “Clinging to a Spar,”

, Apr. 17, 1972.

530

“Surely you meant”: Williams to Ted Kalem, Apr. 27, 1972, HRC.

530

“Goddam it, no”: Williams to Lady St. Just, June 9, 1972,

, p. 263.

530

“A star is born”: Ibid.

530

“He never shut up”: JLI with Peg Murray, 2012, JLC. Murray also starred in

and

531

“Just watch his lips”: Ibid.

531

“he was wonderful in the part”: Ibid.

531

“a pair of jerks imitating”: Williams to Lady St. Just, Sept. 18, 1972,

, p. 272.

531

“A synonym for a manager”: Ibid.

532

“Not as bad as they’ll go”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Sept. 20, 1972, Harvard.

532

“We were all terrified”: JLI with Peg Murray, 2012, JLC.

532

“I was belting out every line”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Sept. 20, 1972, Harvard.

532

“Tennessee, look”: “An Open Letter to Tennessee Williams,” by Mike Silverstein, as quoted in Kaila Jay and Allen Young, eds.,

(New York: New York University Press, 1992), p. 69.

532

“the ‘freed’ generation”: Lee Barton, “Why Do Homosexual Playwrights Hide Their Homosexuality?,”

, Jan. 23, 1972.

533

“I feel sorry for the author”: Arthur Bell, “Tennessee Williams: ‘I’ve Never Faked It,’ ”

, Feb. 24, 1972.

533

review of Williams’s

: Andrew Dvosin, “Outcast as Success,”

, Summer/Fall 1976.

533

“shocking misapprehension of my work”: Tennessee Williams, “A Reply to a Review,”

, Winter 1977.

533

“founding father”: Ibid.

533

“Now, surely, Mr. Dvosin”: Ibid.

534

“There are a great many people in this town”: David Lobdell to Patricia Lobdell Hepplewhite, Dec. 6, 1970, LLC.

534

“Certain people on the streets”: Ibid.

534

“My name is Tennessee Williams!”: Rader,

, p. 194.

534

Williams had stood his ground: On the Key West police blotter for Jan. 28, 1979, Williams is quoted as saying, “They were just punks. It happened quickly. There was no injury sustained. A lens fell out of my glasses.” Asked later, why the attack hadn’t bothered him, he said, “Because, baby, I don’t allow it to.” (See