Thornton Wilder (115 page)

59.
Ibid.

60.
Alexander Woollcott to Lynn Fontanne, February 21, 1941, in Kaufman and Hennessey,
The Letters of Alexander Woollcott,
271.

61.
“Protracted conversations”: TNW to “Agatha” [Elizabeth Artzybasheff], January 26, [1941?], YCAL; “Brotherhood of Man”: TNW to Isabella Niven Wilder, January 21, [1941?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

62.
TNW to Sibyl Colefax, February 20, 1941, New York University.

63.
TNW to “Agatha” [Elizabeth Artzybasheff], January 26, [1941?], YCAL.

64.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, November 8, 1940, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781B), HLH.

65.
TNW to Charlotte Wilder, calling card, [February 1941?], Private Collection.

66.
TNW to Charlotte Wilder, [February 27, 1941?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

67.
TNW to Robert Hutchins, February [no day] 1941, University of Chicago Library.

 

29: “THE ETERNAL FAMILY” (1940S)

1.
The
Santa Lucia
was one of the Grace Line ships regularly making the voyage from New York to South America. In 1942 the U.S. Navy took over the ship and renamed it the USS
Leedstown
. The ship was sunk in the North African invasion.

2.
Isabella Niven Wilder to ANW, March 1, 1941, ANW, Wilder Family Record, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged papers.

3.
Ibid. “Frightened and exhausted”: ANW handwritten notes on Charlotte's illness, n.d., Private Collection. The details of Charlotte's breakdown are drawn from letters, documents, and medical records of the period. Many years after the 1941 event Isabel Wilder gave interviews about it, but her later accounts diverge in some matters from the accounts she, her mother, and others gave in 1941.

4.
The Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic of New York–Presbyterian Hospital and the Cornell University Medical College (now known as Weill Cornell Medical College) were founded in 1932.

5.
During his tenure at the New York Hospital and Departments of Medicine, Cornell University Medical College, New York, Dr. Lincoln Rahman (1904–56) was already publishing his research. He moved from New York to Los Angeles, where he worked until his death in 1956 in an automobile accident. He was associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California Medical School, director of the Clinic of the Los Angeles Institute for Psychoanalysis, and an officer of the Southern California Psychiatric Society.

6.
Isabella Niven Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 3, 1941, Private Collection.

7.
Ibid.

8.
Dwight Dana to Isabella Niven Wilder, March 5, 1941, carbon copy, Private Collection.

9.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 31, 1941, Private Collection.

10.
TNW to Toby Dakin, March 21, 1941, TNW Collection, YCAL.

11.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 5, 1941, Private Collection.

12.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 8, 1941, Private Collection.

13.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 13, 1941, Private Collection.

14.
TNW,
The Skin of Our Teeth
, 45.

15.
Ibid., 45–46.

16.
Ibid., 25.

17.
Charlotte Wilder to Isabella Niven Wilder, n.d. [from 102 Greenwich Avenue, New York], TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

18.
Charlotte Wilder to ANW, October 11, 1939, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

19.
Charlotte Wilder to Rollo Brown, October 15, [1939?], TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

20.
Charlotte Wilder to ANW, [1938 or 1939?], ANW, Wilder Family Record, Private Collection.

21.
ANW,
The Spiritual Aspects of the New Poetry
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940), 90–94.

22.
Charlotte Wilder, “(For the Two),”
Phases of the Moon,
90.

23.
Charlotte Wilder, “Monologue of Repression, ii. The Virginal Inference, iv,”
Phases of the Moon
, 88.

24.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 5, 1941, Private Collection.

25.
Isabella Niven Wilder to ANW, March 23, 1941, discussed by ANW, Wilder Family Record, n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged papers.

26.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, March 13, 1941, Private Collection.

27.
Dwight Dana to Isabel Wilder, March 14, 1941, Private Collection.

28.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, April 10, 1941, Private Collection.

29.
Ibid.

30.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, April 1, 1941, YCAL.

31.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, May 8, 1941, YCAL.

32.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, April 3, 1941, Private Collection.

33.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, [April 6?] 1941,
SL
, 385–86.

34.
TNW to Ruth Gordon, May 26, 1941, Private Collection.

35.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, April 1, 1941, YCAL.

36.
Ibid.

37.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, May 8, 1941, YCAL. The novel by Fernando González Ochoa was
El maestro de escuela.
Erico Verissimo's book was
Préto em Campo de Neve
, about the United States, and included a chapter headed “Os Wilders de New Haven.”

38.
TNW to Sibyl Colefax, February 20, 1941, New York University.

39.
TNW to Ruth Gordon, May 26, 1941,
SL
, 387. A copy of TNW's unofficial report on his South American trip may be found among his YCAL papers, a holograph “Memorandum” regarding “Some suggestions derived from a trip to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. . . ,” May 1941.

40.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, July 28, 1941, YCAL.

41.
See, for instance, TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 2, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

42.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, May 23, 1941, TNW Collection, YCAL.

43.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, November 27, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

44.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, December 17, 1942, TNW Collection, YCAL.

45.
Isabella Niven Wilder to ANW, in a footnote to a copy of a letter to Isabel Wilder from the Medical Director of the New York Hospital, Westchester Division, June 28, 1941, discussed by ANW, Wilder Family Record, n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged papers.

46.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, June 26, 1941, Private Collection.

47.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, July 3, 1951, Private Collection.

48.
Isabel Wilder, “About Charlotte Wilder,” TS, October 15, 1961, Private Collection.

49.
Charlotte Wilder to Isabella Niven Wilder, [June or July 1941?], discussed by ANW, Wilder Family Record, n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged papers.

50.
Isabella Niven Wilder to ANW, in a footnote to a copy of a letter to Isabel Wilder from the Medical Director of the New York Hospital, Westchester Division, June 28, 1941, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged papers.

51.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, July 28, 1941, YCAL.

52.
Ibid.

53.
Ibid.

54.
TNW to Robert Hutchins, February [no day], 1941, University of Chicago Library.

55.
Ibid.

56.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, November 12, 1941, YCAL.

57.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, January 28, 1940,
SL
, 373.

58.
TNW to Isabella Niven Wilder and Isabel Wilder, July 14, 1941, YCAL.

59.
Hermon Ould, ed.,
Writers in Freedom: A Symposium Based on the XVII International Congress of P.E.N. Club Held in London, September 1941
(London: Hutchinson, 1942), 6.

60.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, [September 7, 1941], YCAL.

61.
TNW to Robert and Maude Hutchins, October 28, 1941, University of Chicago Library.

62.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, October 13, 1941, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781D), HLH. The Baths of Caracalla were grand thermal baths built in Rome by the emperor Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) in A.D. 217.

63.
TNW to Isabella Niven Wilder, August 26, [1941?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

64.
TNW, “The Strength of a Democracy Under Siege,” transcription of “Speaking of Liberty,” NBC Radio broadcast, October 30, 1941; reprinted in Bryer,
Conversations with Thornton Wilder,
34–40.

65.
TNW, “After a Visit to England,”
Yale Review
, December 1941.

66.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, March 25, 1942, YCAL.

67.
Dr. — Cheney to the Wilder Family, January 13, 1942, ANW, Wilder Family Record, Private Collection.

 

30: “THE CLOSING OF THE DOOR” (1940S)

1.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, January 9, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781E), HLH.

2.
TNW to Sibyl Colefax, October 9, 1942,
SL
, 405–7.

3.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, March 25, 1942, YCAL.

4.
Ibid.

5.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, February 18, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781E), HLH.

6.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, March 25, 1942, YCAL.

7.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, February 2, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781E), HLH.

8.
TNW to Harold Freedman, February 20, 1942,
SL
, 392–95.

9.
TNW to Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, February 5, 1942,
SL
, 391–93.

10.
Ibid.

11.
TNW to Dwight Dana, January 29, 1942,
SL
, 389–90.

12.
Ibid.

13.
TNW to Harold Freedman, February 20, 1942,
SL
, 391–95.

14.
Ibid.

15.
Ibid.

16.
TNW to Ruth Gordon, June 11, [1942?],
SL
, 398–99.

17.
Tallulah Bankhead,
Tallulah: My Autobiography
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952), 251.

18.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, August 12, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781I), HLH.

19.
TNW to Michael Kahn, November 8, 1973,
SL
, 691–92.

20.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, May 6, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781G), HLH. TNW wrote to Isabel as he was preparing the text of
The Skin of Our Teeth
for publication that the published text would not “vary from the acted text as much as ‘Our Town's' does; but I shall go on making ‘a' version without regard to what's being acted. And I want to write in more stage directions to aid the reader's imagination.” He hoped the published text would be ready for the Christmas trade. TNW to Isabel Wilder, October 26, 1942, TNW Collection, YCAL.

21.
TNW to Harold Freedman, February 20, 1942,
SL
, 393–94.

22.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, May 12, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781G), HLH.

23.
“Hitchcock Technique Prevails Even in the Birth of a Script,”
New York Herald Tribune,
December 13, 1942.

24.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, May 12, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781G), HLH.

25.
Ibid.

26.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, May 17, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781G), HLH.

27.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, May 23, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781G), HLH.

28.
Skirball was an ordained rabbi who had become a movie producer in 1938, and worked as an independent producer as well as a studio producer, an officer at Grand National Pictures, and later a president of Arcadia Pictures. Skirball was interested in Broadway as well, and produced S. N. Behrman's
Jacobowsky and the Colonel
on Broadway with Jed Harris in 1944.

29.
TNW to Isabella Niven Wilder and Isabel Wilder, [May 1942?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

30.
TNW to Isabella Niven Wilder and Isabel Wilder, [May 1942?], TNW Collection, YCAL; George Cukor dinner details: TNW to Ruth Gordon, June 11, [1942?],
SL
, 398–99.

31.
TNW to Isabel Wilder, May 26, [1942?],
SL
, 395–97.

32.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, May 23, 1942, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781G), HLH.