Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1 Read online

  1940 January, Isherwood begins first writing job at MGM, on Rage in Heaven for Gottfried Reinhardt; March, Finns sue for peace; by April, Isherwood prepares to sign a one year contract with MGM; April 9, Germany occupies Denmark and invades Norway; June 9, King Haakon VII of Norway flees to London with his government and the Nazis establish a puppet regime under Vidkun Quisling; May 7, Churchill forms coalition government; May 10, Nazis strike at Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg; May 14, Dutch army surrenders, Dutch government flees to London; May 28, Leopold III of Belgium surrenders and is taken prisoner; May 26–June 4, Dunkirk evacuations; June 14, fall of Paris; June 16, eighty-year-old Marshal Pétain becomes French premier and requests armistice; France submits to occupation with autonomous regime centered in Vichy; de Gaulle and others flee; June 30, Germany occupies Channel Islands; July 3, British navy sinks French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, near Oran, Algeria; July 9, Uncle Henry Bradshaw-Isherwood-Bagshawe dies, Isherwood inherits his estate and gives it to his brother Richard; July 10, the Battle of Britain begins; July 11, Isherwood becomes involved on script of Forever and a Day, a film for the British War Relief Fund; August 23, all-night bombing raid on London begins the “Blitz,” which expands to other cities during the autumn; during August, Isherwood and Vernon Old move into a rented house, 8826 Harratt Street; September 16, first-ever peacetime compulsory military service established in U.S.; November 8, Swami Prabhavananda initiates Isherwood.

  1941 By January 11, Isherwood finishes working on Rage in Heaven; he continues at MGM, mainly “polishing” The Stars Look Down and Free and Easy; February 17, he breaks with Vernon Old and moves to Hotel Stanley; mid-March, moves into 2401 Green Valley Road, next door to Gerald Heard; March 19, German air raids resume over London; April 25, Rommel’s drive across Libya reaches Egypt; early May, Isherwood finishes his first year’s contract at MGM and leaves the studio; May 10, chamber of the House of Commons destroyed in heavy bombing on London; by mid-June, Denny Fouts moves in with Isherwood at Green Valley Road; June 22, Germany attacks Russia along the whole of its western frontier; July 7–August 7, Isherwood and Fouts join La Verne Seminar; July 15, Kathleen Isherwood returns to live at Wyberslegh with Richard; August 22, Isherwood flies East to visit Auden, meets Caroline Norment at the Cooperative College Workshop, a refugee hostel in Haverford, Pennsylvania; late September, he returns to Los Angeles; October 11, he moves to Haverford to work in the hostel and lodges at 605 Railroad Avenue; November 18, British forces strike back across Libya; November 27, Soviets begin first successful counterattacks against German occupying forces; December 7, Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; December 8, U.S. and U.K. declare war on Japan; December 19, U.S. Congress extends the draft to include twenty- to forty-year-olds; also in 1941, Gerald Heard begins to build his monastic community, Trabuco.

  1942 Japan concludes treaty with Thailand, invades Burma, Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, takes Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dutch East Indies by the end of February, and then Burma; May, General Wainwright surrenders Philippines; May 7, U.S. intercepts Japanese fleet in Coral Sea; June, the Battle of Midway, Japan falls back; Isherwood writes “Take It or Leave It”; June 30, has medical exam at draft board; July 6, Haverford refugee hostel closes, Isherwood returns to California and moves in at Peggy Rodakiewicz’s house, 9121 Alto Cedro Drive, Beverly Hills, living alternately there and at Chris Wood’s house, 1 Rockledge Road, Laguna Beach, for the rest of the year; July 13, receives his draft classification, 4-E, and applies for Los Prietos Camp; August 7, U.S. troops hold Guadalcanal against Japanese counterattacks and begin to turn tide against the Japanese; September 23, Isherwood, applies for 4-D classification; September, Nazis reach Stalingrad; by October 12, Isherwood begins translating the Bhagavad Gita with Swami Prabhavananda; October, “Take It or Leave It” published in The New Yorker; October 23–November 4, second battle of El Alamein, Rommel retreats westward from Egypt; November 7–8, Eisenhower lands in North Africa and negotiates with Vichy-French Vice-Premier, Admiral Darlan; November 11, Hitler orders occupation of Vichy France; November 30, Isherwood starts work at Paramount on Somerset Maugham’s The Hour Before Dawn; December, British forces reoccupy Benghazi in Libya; December 31, Isherwood writes “The Wishing Tree” for the Vedanta Society magazine.

  1943 January 2, Nazis begin retreat from Caucasus and surrender at Stalingrad on January 31; January 18, bombing resumes over London; January 23, British take Tripoli; January 29, Isherwood finishes at Paramount; February 6, he moves into Vedanta Center, Ivar Avenue, in preparation for becoming a monk; February 25, round-the-clock bombing of German targets begins; March 20–28, British forces advance across Tunisia; May, Isherwood begins writing Prater Violet; April 19–16, Warsaw ghetto uprising; May 13, German army in Tunisia surrenders; July 1, U.S. begins retaking selected islands in Pacific; July 10–17, Allies invade Sicily; July 19, Allies begin bombing Rome; July 25, Mussolini dismissed as prime minister; August, Denny Fouts introduces Isherwood to “X.” (Bill Harris); August 17–24, Isherwood takes a vacation from the monastery at a rented room opposite the Viertels’ in Maybery Road; September 3, Italy surrenders; September 10, Nazis occupy Rome; October 13, Italian government in Brindisi declares war on Germany; November, Isherwood begins revised approach to translating the Bhagavad Gita.

  1944 February, Isherwood stays with Aldous and Maria Huxley in Llano; March 11, Isherwood visits Huxley again and they work out a film story, Jacob’s Hands; mid-March, Isherwood feels he is falling in love with Bill Harris; late March, spends ten days at John van Druten’s AJC Ranch; April 17, Isherwood decides he cannot become a monk; June 4, Allies take Rome; June 6, Allied D-Day landings in France; during June, Isherwood spends a few days with Bill Harris at Denny Fouts’s apartment in Santa Monica; July 4, the Soviet army advances across the 1939 border between Poland and the USSR; Isherwood and Huxley complete draft of Jacob’s Hands; July 20, assassination attempt against Hitler; July 27, rough draft of Prater Violet completed; Isherwood begins writing introduction to Vedanta for the Western World; August 12, Vernon Old returns to Los Angeles; August 15, Allies invade southern France; August 24, French underground rises in Paris, and on August 25 de Gaulle arrives to take charge of the provisional French government transferred from Algiers; August 26, Isherwood turns forty; also in August, Isherwood and Prabhavananda’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita is published; September 10, Vernon Old moves to Ananda Bhavan, the new Santa Barbara Vedanta Center in Montecito; September 25, Isherwood moves to Ananda Bhavan; October 15, Isherwood completes revised draft of Prater Violet; October 17–25, U.S. destroys Japanese ships at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines and retakes the island of Leyte by the end of December; USSR takes Poland and advances toward Berlin; November 17, Isherwood leaves Ananda Bhavan and moves to Laguna; late November, Isherwood returns to the Hollywood Vedanta Center on Ivar Avenue; December, Nazis launch counter-offensive in the Ardennes and nearly break Allied lines at the Battle of the Bulge.

  1945 January–February, U.S. continues to retake islands in the Philippines; February 5, Isherwood’s affair with Bill Harris ends; February 21, Isherwood starts three months’ work on Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White for Warner Brothers; March 7, first U.S. troops cross the Rhine; April 28, Mussolini and his mistress are shot; April 30, Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide; May 2, Berlin surrenders to the Soviets; May 7, Germany surrenders to the Allies; June 2, Isherwood attends Bill Caskey’s twenty-fourth birthday party; June 4, returns to Warner Brothers to work on Maugham’s Up at the Villa for Wolfgang Reinhardt; during the summer, U.S. begins aerial bombardment of Japan; July 6, MacArthur announces liberation of the Philippines; Prater Violet appears in Harper’s Bazaar and New Directions publishes The Berlin Stories, containing The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin; August 6, U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima; August 9, U.S. drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki; August 14, Japan surrenders; August 23, Isherwood moves out of the Vedanta Center into the Beesleys’ chauffeur’s apartment at 19130 Pacific Coast Highway, between Santa Monica and Malibu
; he begins translating Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination with Swami Prabhavananda; September 25, Isherwood and Bill Caskey move into Denny Fouts’s empty apartment, 137 Entrada Drive, Santa Monica; during the autumn, they take a three week motor trip; November, Prater Violet published in U.S. by Random House; towards the end of the year, Vedanta for the Western World, edited and introduced by Isherwood, is published by Marcel Rodd.

  1946 January 12, Isherwood undergoes surgery to remove a median bar inside the bladder, at the top of the urethra; April, Caskey quarrels with Denny Fouts and Isherwood and Caskey move into Salka Viertel’s garage apartment, 165 Mabery Road, Santa Monica; May, Prater Violet published in the U.K. by Methuen; during the summer, Isherwood revises his wartime diaries, 1939–1944; November 8, he becomes U.S. citizen; towards the end of the year, Isherwood works with Lesser Samuels on a film treatment, Judgement Day in Pittsburgh; December, he travels to Mexico with Caskey.

  1947 January 19, Isherwood sets out (via New York) on his first post-war trip to England; March 28, he signs deed of gift of Marple estate, including Wyberslegh, to his brother Richard; April 16, returns to New York; during the summer, he lives with Caskey at James and Tania Stern’s apartment at 207 East 52nd Street, Manhattan, and visits friends up and down the East Coast; during August, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, translated with Swami Prabhavananda, is published; September 19, Isherwood sails with Caskey for South America, to write a travel book, The Condor and the Cows; September 28, they arrive in Cartagena, Colombia; October 28, Isherwood and Caskey travel south via Bogotá; November, they continue through Ecuador and reach Lima, Peru, by year end; also in 1947, the first U.S. edition of Lions and Shadows is published by New Directions.

  1948 January, Isherwood and Caskey travel in Peru and Bolivia; February, they leave La Paz, Bolivia, for Argentina and depart from Buenos Aires by ship in late March; April 1, they stop in Rio, then continue direct from Brazil to North Africa and France, arriving in Paris on April 22; April 30, they proceed to London; late May, Isherwood visits his family at Wyberslegh; June 9, Isherwood and Caskey sail for New York; June 15, Isherwood returns alone to California; he stays at El Kanan Hotel, Santa Monica; July 19, starts work on The Great Sinner at MGM; mid-August, he meets Jim Charlton; they take several motor trips and spend time together in August and September; Isherwood begins translating Patanjali’s yoga aphorisms; September 20, Caskey returns to California; September 28, Isherwood moves with Caskey into 333 Rustic Road; October 9, Isherwood finishes work at MGM; November 5, Vernon Old marries Patty O’Neill; November 12, Isherwood’s nanny, Annie Avis, dies; December 16, Denny Fouts dies in Rome.

  1949 January 6–13, Isherwood works for Gottfried Reinhardt at MGM; April 12, he completes The Condor and the Cows; he begins to work intermittently on his proposed novel The School of Tragedy; by May, he begins working with Lesser Samuels on The Easiest Thing in the World; August 6–7, Isherwood meets Evelyn Caldwell (later Hooker); August, he finishes draft of The Easiest Thing in the World with Lesser Samuels; August 10, meets Igor and Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft; also in August, he works on Below the Equator with Aldous Huxley and Lesser Samuels; September 7, Trabuco is dedicated as a Ramakrishna monastery; November 11, Caskey leaves to visit his sister in Florida; November, Methuen publishes The Condor and the Cows; December 1, Isherwood writes memorial article on Klaus Mann; during 1949, Isherwood elected to U.S. Academy of Arts and Sciences.

  1950 Isherwood works on a film script, The Vacant Room, with Lesser Samuels; April 10, meets Dylan Thomas; late April, after his father’s death, Caskey returns via Kentucky to Rustic Road; June 25, Korean War begins; June 29, Bill Kennedy proposes that Isherwood begin reviewing regularly for Tomorrow; late June, last caretakers move out of Marple Hall where part of roof collapses; August 11, Isherwood and Peggy Kiskadden leave for Arizona and New Mexico by car; during the trip, Isherwood works on a review of Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End; December 10, moves with Caskey to 31152 Monterey Street, Coast Royal, South Laguna.

  1951 May, Isherwood reviews a book about Katherine Mansfield and also reviews Stephen Spender’s World Within World; May 21, he leaves Caskey and moves to the Huntington Hartford Foundation, 2000 Rustic Canyon Road, Pacific Palisades; works on The School of Tragedy, jettisoning material about refugees; during the summer, I Am a Camera, John van Druten’s play based on Goodbye to Berlin, is cast; by August 22, Isherwood is back in South Laguna with Caskey; mid-September, he decides to break finally with Caskey and returns to Huntington Hartford Foundation; October, Isherwood goes to the East Coast for rehearsals of I Am a Camera, directed by John van Druten; November 8, I Am a Camera opens in Hartford, Connecticut; November 28, I Am a Camera transfers successfully to the Empire Theater, Broadway; December, Isherwood sails for England where he spends Christmas with his mother and brother in a London hotel; Caskey joins the merchant marines.

  1952 February 10, Isherwood returns to Berlin after eighteen years and sees Heinz Neddermayer for the first time since Heinz’s arrest by the Gestapo in 1937; February 27, Isherwood sails from England for New York; March 19, leaves New York for Bermuda holiday with Sam Costidy; by April 8, he returns to California with Costidy, via Reno; May 4, settles at Trabuco where he completes Patanjali translation and part one of his novel, still called The School of Tragedy; May 21, he moves alone to the Mermira apartments on 2nd Street, behind the Miramar Hotel, in Santa Monica; also during May, Isherwood resigns from the board of the Huntington Hartford Foundation and the first chapter of his unfinished novel is published in New Writing; June 30, Costidy leaves for Louisiana with Tom Wright; Isherwood begins fixing up Evelyn Hooker’s garden house at 400 South Saltair Avenue and moves there in late summer; November, car trip with Caskey to Mexico; during 1952, Vedanta for Modern Man, edited by Isherwood, is published in U.S. and U.K.; Isherwood completes “California Story” (later reprinted as “The Shore” in Exhumations) to accompany Sanford Roth’s photographs in Harper’s Bazaar.

  1953 January 6, Caskey leaves for San Francisco and ships out again; January 9, Isherwood goes to Trabuco for the rest of the month; January 27, he finishes rough draft of The World in the Evening; February 14, he begins relationship with Don Bachardy; February 20–26, Bachardy’s brother Ted has nervous breakdown and is committed; early March, Isherwood and Bachardy visit Palm Springs together; April 25, Bachardy moves out of his mother’s apartment at 5416 3/4 Harold Way, Hollywood, into his own furnished room at 942 Spaulding Avenue, Hollywood; May 16, Bachardy moves into Marguerite Lamkin and Harry Brown’s apartment in West Hollywood; August 5, Isherwood completes The World in the Evening; August 25–September 4, he travels to San Francisco with Don Bachardy; on their return Isherwood moves out of Evelyn Hooker’s garden house, at her request, and into the Browns’ apartment with Bachardy; September 19, Isherwood and Bachardy move together into an apartment at 1326 Olive Drive, though Isherwood still keeps his books at Saltair Avenue and uses the garden house as a study; during October, Isherwood’s article on Ernst Toller appears in Encounter; during the autumn, he makes final revisions to The World in the Evening; December 17, he leaves to spend Christmas in Manhattan with Bachardy; also in 1953, How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali is translated with Swami Prabhavananda.

  1954 January 4, Isherwood returns to Los Angeles; begins editing an anthology, Great English Short Stories, plans a biography of Ramakrishna and various new pieces of autobiographical fiction; January 25, begins work for Eddie Knopf at MGM on Diane; February, moves with Bachardy to 364 Mesa Road, Santa Monica; March 10, Auden visits him while lecturing at Occidental College and UCLA; mid-March, Isherwood gets measles; June, The World in the Evening published in U.S. and U.K.; August 25, Isherwood completes script for Diane; August 26, Isherwood turns fifty; during spring and summer, John Collier writes screenplay based on John van Druten’s play, I Am a Camera, and Julie Harris accepts the lead; October 5, Bachardy’s draft board physical; October 16–21, trip with Bachardy to San Francisco, they see Auden an
d James Wong Howe; November, Isherwood and Bachardy visit Tennessee Williams in Key West to watch filming of The Rose Tattoo, in which Bachardy plays a bit part; late November, Auden again visits Los Angeles; December 7, Bachardy’s second draft board physical; December 8, they travel to Mexico with Jo and Ben Masselink; December 16, Isherwood has first glimmer, in Mexico, of an idea for a new novel which will eventually be called Down There on a Visit.

  1955 January, Isherwood and Bachardy return to Mesa Road; January 17, Isherwood clears his papers out of the Hookers’ garden house at Saltair Avenue; January 25, they begin a five-day trip to New York to see Truman Capote’s Broadway musical, House of Flowers; Isherwood gets more work at MGM on Diane and writing The Wayfarer, a script about Buddha; February 10, Bachardy starts his junior year at UCLA; February 12, Maria Huxley dies; February 16, Bachardy changes his major from Languages to Theater Arts; March 6–9, Isherwood and Bachardy travel to Philadelphia via Washington for the opening of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; March 18, Ted Bachardy has another breakdown and is hospitalized again; May 2, Diane starts filming; May 18, Bachardy’s twenty-first birthday party; May 27, Isherwood finishes a rough draft of The Wayfarer; May 28, he begins writing the new novel whose title and conception will change often before it becomes Down There on a Visit; June 8, meets Thom Gunn; June 22, sees preview of film, I Am a Camera; July 12, Diane finishes filming; September 2, Isherwood moves with Bachardy to Trancas, 29938 Pacific Coast Highway, near Malibu; September 23, Isherwood is still at work with Eddie Knopf on revisions to The Wayfarer; October 12, he leaves with Bachardy for New York City; October 20, they sail from New York for Tangier via Gibraltar; October 28, they experiment with kif and majoon at Paul Bowles’s apartment; October 30, they sail for Italy, arriving in Rome (via Ischia) on November 8; November 23–28, Thanksgiving in Venice; they return to Rome, visit Florence and other northern Italian towns, and watch the filming of War and Peace on December 9–10 before continuing on to Somerset Maugham’s house in France by mid-December; by Christmas, they are in Munich; December 28, they arrive in Paris.