March 12: “The strike began.” This strike involved some
employees at Warner Brothers, but not all. After conferring with the strikers’ representatives, the members of the Writers’ Guild were told that the union didn’t object to their crossing the picket line; so Christopher and his colleagues continued to go to their offices every day––to their disappointment, for nearly all of them would have 1 Another favorite subject of their conversation was the German language.
Collier, being a Francophile, found the sound of German funny. Christopher humored him in this, and read him German aloud, making it sound as absurd as he could. Collier laughed till the tears poured down his scarlet face when Christopher read lines from Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz, which were meant to be funny, or from Liliencron’s poems, which weren’t. Collier adored Busch’s use of ejaculations and onomatopoeic words––such as
“Schnupdiwup!” “Knacks!” “Plumps!” “Rums!” “Schwapp!” [“Whoops!”
“Crack!” “Splosh!” “Bang!” “Whoosh!”] But he was just as much amused by Liliencron’s perfectly serious line: “Zum schlanken Fant in blauen Puffenwams.” [“To the slender coxcomb in the blue puffed doublet,” in “Una ex hisce morieris” (“One of You Here Will Die”).] “Puffenwams” became his favorite joke word.
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rather worked at home. Matthew Huxley and the reading depart-
ment were among the strikers, however. Matthew was a militant socialist and took an active part in union meetings and picketing.
Months later, after Christopher had left Warner’s for good, the strike situation, which had been dragging quietly on, became violent.1 The pickets tried to stop people entering the studio, and the picket lines were charged. Jack Warner and the other studio heads were turning from reproachful fathers of ungrateful children into frankly ruthless bosses dealing with their wage slaves––communist inspired, of course.
March 22: “Talked to Swami about leaving.” This is one of the most infuriatingly reticent entries in the day-to-day diary. What was it that Christopher said to Swami on this occasion that he hadn’t said several times before? Had some crisis arisen, which made Christopher feel he couldn’t stay at the center any longer? Had there been some gossip about the life he was living? Had some other members of “the Family” objected that he had no business staying on there when he wasn’t planning to become a monastic? I can’t remember anything at all. But it is obvious that Swami answered any scruples that Christopher may have had by urging him to stay a little longer. Swami must have said (as he had said on other occasions), “Why do you want to go away? This is your home. We all love you here. I don’t want to lose you.” And Christopher must have protested, “But you won’t lose me, Swami, I’m your disciple, I know this is my real home, and of course I’ll keep coming here to see you––” All of which was perfectly sincere on both sides. Swami didn’t want Christopher to go away (I believe) because he hoped that Christopher, if he stayed, might gradually begin to feel that he had a monastic vocation, after all.
Perhaps Christopher suspected that this might happen to him––hence his instinctive animal desire to escape. But he can’t have been seriously afraid of getting caught. Otherwise he wouldn’t have lingered on at the center, as he did, for another five months.
1 Aldous Huxley (see Letters of Aldous Huxley) wrote to Anita Loos on October 13, 1945: “Matthew was fortunately absent when the violence broke out on the picket line, but he got arrested and spent some hours in jail on the following day. He is going north to Berkeley in another week or so, to take some courses at the U. of C. . . . The reading job is a dead end . . .” Matthew may not have been involved in the worst violence, but I remember a newspaper photograph of him, dodging a car which was being driven to break through the picket line. Matthew had narrowly escaped being hit and was curving his body over the car’s fender with considerable grace, like a bullfighter. I am also pretty sure that Aldous himself came to the studio one day and walked with the pickets, as a gesture of solidarity.
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Lost Years
(I still think it is possible––just possible––that, if a proper monastery like Trabuco had suddenly come into being at that time, Christopher would have agreed to join it and at least given the monastic life another try. What he wanted, then, was either complete freedom or much closer confinement, far away from Los Angeles, Denny, the Beesleys and the studio. Life at the Hollywood center had nothing whatever to offer him––except Swami’s presence; it was so bohemian and permissive that its few rules and restrictions were merely irritating.)
March 26: “Supper with Wolfgang Reinhardts and Iris Tree. To
Thelma Todd’s with Jay. Stayed night with Denny.”
I forget when it was that Christopher first met Wolfgang
Reinhardt––it may well have been soon after he got to know
Gottfried. But this get-together was probably due to the fact that Christopher was now working at Warner’s, where Wolfgang was a producer. No doubt they were already discussing the film Wolfgang wanted Christopher to work on with him, as soon as The Woman in White was finished––Maugham’s Up at the Villa.
This is the first mention of “Jay,” who called himself Jay de Laval.
(His real name was said to be Earle McGrath.)[*] But Christopher must certainly have met him before this. He was a friend of Denny’s and very much a part of the Santa Monica Canyon circle. I think he may already have opened his restaurant on the corner of Channel Road and Chautauqua, but perhaps not.
Jay had a vague reputation for being crooked. Later on, it was said that he had had to leave California to avoid arrest; this was after he had settled in Mexico. But, when you tried to find out exactly what he had done that was illegal, it seemed that he hadn’t gone much beyond running up big bills and then failing either to pay them or return the merchandise. He was also, obviously, a bit of a con man.
It was easy to imagine him using his considerable charm to get money out of rich old women; his role as the Baron de Laval was probably related to this.
Jay was large and well built, though inclined to plumpness. He was very blond (maybe artificially) and he had big blue eyes. His eyes didn’t sparkle like Collier’s, they stared. Despite their seeming bold-ness, they revealed nothing inward. Jay was all on the surface, all smiles and gossip and camp. It was only when he laughed loudly that you got a hint of madness.
He was not only a very good cook but a marvellous host. He could
[* A mistake; Earl McGrath is the name of a different person, who was living in Santa Monica during the early 1950s. See D 1, p. 454.]
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take you into the kitchen and fix a meal for you both without ever losing the thread of the conversation or making you feel awkward because he was doing all the work. He was also, it seems, a
marvellous seducer. Christopher knew of this only at second hand, of course; he wouldn’t have dreamt of going to bed with Jay and Jay certainly didn’t want it. But the testimony of half a dozen boys who had had sex with Jay and then talked about it to Christopher was quite impressive. Most of them had been literally seduced––they hadn’t wanted to do it but Jay had made them like doing it. “It was crazy,” one of them told Christopher;1 and another2 said, “He made me feel beautiful.” Jay himself, when congratulated by Christopher on his conquests, said modestly, “It’s quite simple––you just have to start doing all kinds of things to them, all at once, before they realize what’s going on.”
Thelma Todd’s was the restaurant up the coast, just north of the Sunset Boulevard turnoff, which had once belonged to Thelma