Liberation (133 page)

Markovich, John (Mark) (193[2]–2008).
American painter and monk of the Ramakrishna Order, born in Detroit. He was known as Mark, and later as Brahamachari Nirmal and then Swami Tadatmananda. He became the official abbot of Trabuco. He appears in
D.2.

Marple Hall.
The Bradshaw Isherwood family seat; see entries for Frank Bradshaw Isherwood and Richard Bradshaw Isherwood.

Marre, Albert (b. 1925).
American theater director, writer and producer; born in New York. He acted on Broadway, moved to directing classical theater, including Van Brugh and Shaw, and had a hit in 1953 with the musical
Kismet
. He cast singer and actress Joan Diener (1930–2006) in one of the leads and she became his wife in 1956. He was nominated for a Tony Award for
The Chalk Garden
in 1956 and had another major hit with
The Man of La Mancha
in 1965 for which he won a Tony and which he frequently revived. Joan Diener again played the lead, Aldonza / Dulcinea, her most successful role.

Mason, James (1909–1984).
British actor, educated at Marlborough and Cambridge. He was a conscientious objector during World War II. He joined the Old Vic Theatre Company in the 1930s, soon began making films, and became a star in
The Seventh Veil
(1945), before moving on to Hollywood where he often played villains. Later films include
Julius Caesar
(1953),
The Desert Rats
(1953),
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
(1954),
North by Northwest
(1959),
Lolita
(1962),
Lord Jim
(1965),
Georgy Girl
(1966), and
The Verdict
(1982). On T.V. he played Franz Gruber in Isherwood and Danny Mann's “The Legend of Silent Night” and Polidori in “Frankenstein: The True Story.” He was married to actress Pamela Kellino from 1941 to 1965 and, from 1971, to Clarissa Kaye. He appears in
D.2
.

Masselink, Ben (1919–2000).
American writer. Probably Isherwood and Bill Caskey met Ben Masselink with his longtime companion Jo Lathwood in the Friendship Bar in Santa Monica around 1949; they appear often in
D.1
and
Lost Years
. During the war, Masselink was in the marines; one night on leave, he got drunk in the Friendship and Jo Lathwood took him home and looked after him. When the war was over he returned and stayed for twenty years. Isherwood alludes to this meeting in his description of The Starboard Side in
A Single Man
. Masselink had studied architecture, and Isherwood helped him with his writing career during the 1950s. His first book of stories,
Partly Submerged
, was published in 1957. He then published several novels: two about his war experience—
The Crackerjack Marines
(1959) and
The Deadliest Weapon
(1965), the second of which Isherwood greatly admired—and
The Danger Islands
(1964), for teenage boys. He also wrote for television throughout the 1950s and in 1960 worked at Warner Brothers on the script for a film of
The Crackerjack Marines
. As Isherwood tells in
D.2
, Masselink left Jo in 1967 for a younger woman, Dee Hawes, the wife of their friend, Bill Hawes. Dee had an adopted daughter, Heather, from her first marriage.

Masselink, Jo (
circa
1900–1988).
Women's sportswear and bathing suit designer, from Northville, South Dakota; among her clientele were movie stars such as Janet Gaynor and Anne Baxter. In youth, she worked as a dancer and was briefly married to a man called Jack Lathwood whose name she kept professionally. Also, she had a daughter, Betty (see Arizu), and a son with a North Dakotan, Ferdinand Hinchberger. From 1938 onwards, Jo lived in an apartment on West Channel Road, a few doors from the Friendship, and by the late 1940s she knew many of Isherwood's friends who frequented the bar—including Bill Caskey, Jay de Laval, and Jim Charlton. She never married Ben Masselink, though she used his surname while they lived together. She and Masselink figure through much of
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
as Isherwood's closest heterosexual friends.

Maugham, William Somerset (Willie) (1874–1965).
British playwright and novelist. He had a daughter, Liza Wellcome (1915–1998) with Syrie Wellcome, whom he married in 1917 but never lived with. In the 1960s, he tried to disinherit Liza, saying she was the daughter of Henry Wellcome, Syrie's husband at the time of Liza's birth, but the court decided Maugham was the biological father. During Maugham's marriage, his companion was Gerald Haxton, eighteen years younger; he met Haxton in 1914 when they both worked in an ambulance unit in Flanders. They travelled and entertained on Cap Ferrat at the Villa Mauresque which Maugham bought in 1926. Haxton died in 1944, and Maugham's subsequent companion and chosen heir was Alan Searle. Isherwood met Maugham in London in the late 1930s and saw him whenever Maugham visited Hollywood, where many of Maugham's works were filmed; with Bachardy, Isherwood later made several visits to the Villa Mauresque. In 1945, Isherwood worked for Wolfgang Reinhardt on a screenplay for Maugham's 1941 novel
Up at the Villa
(never made), and he enlisted Swami Prabhavananda to advise Maugham on the screenplay for
The Razor's Edge
(1944). Although Maugham did not follow their advice, Isherwood and Swami again helped him in 1956 with an essay, “The Saint,” about Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950), the Indian holy man Maugham had met in 1936 and on whom he had modelled Shri Ganesha, the fictional holy man in
The Razor's Edge
. Maugham appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Maupin, Armistead (b. 1944).
American writer; born in Washington, D.C., raised in North Carolina, and educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served in the navy and worked as a newspaper journalist in Charleston and in San Francisco, where he settled in 1971. His best-selling
Tales of the City
(1978), set in San Francisco, and the many sequels, were begun as a newspaper serial and led to a T.V. miniseries based on the first three of the novels. Other books are
Maybe the Moon
(1992) and
The Night Listener
(2001), which was also made into a film.

maya.
In Vedanta, maya is the cosmic illusion, the manifold universe which the individual perceives instead of perceiving the one reality of Brahman; in this sense, maya veils Brahman. But maya is inseparable from Brahman and can also be understood as the manifestation of Brahman's power, god with attributes. Maya has a double aspect encompassing opposite tendencies, toward ignorance (avidya) and toward knowledge (vidya). Avidya-maya involves the individual in worldly passion; vidya-maya leads to spiritual illumination.

McCallum, David (b. 1933).
Scottish actor. He co-starred in
The Great Escape
(1963) and became known for his role as Illya Kuryakin in the T.V. series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (1964–1968) before appearing as Clerval in “Frankenstein: The True Story.”

McCallum, Rick (b. 1952).
T.V. and movie producer; son of Pat York; educated at Columbia University. He was a crew member on two Merchant-Ivory productions and assisted John Frankenheimer on three films in the 1970s. Later, he worked with British T.V. and film writer Dennis Potter on “Pennies from Heaven” and “The Singing Detective” among others, and at the BBC. In the 1990s, he became widely known for producing the T.V. series “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” and for the
Star Wars
prequels, all for George Lucas.

McCarthy, Frank (1912–1986).
American film producer. He rose to brigadier general in the army during W.W.II and worked as a reporter before producing
Decision Before Dawn
(1951),
Patton
(1970; three Academy Awards), and
MacArthur
(1977). He also headed public relations for Twentieth-Century Fox.

McCarty-Cooper, Billy (193[7]–1991).
American interior designer, raised in Florida; originally called Billy McCarty. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, worked for David Hicks in London and then opened his own firm. In 1972, he was adopted by Douglas Cooper, and changed his name accordingly. When Cooper died in 1984, McCarty-Cooper inherited his fortune and Château de Castille with its Picassos and other art works, many of which he sold. With the proceeds, he became a collector in his own right and entertained lavishly. He died of AIDS.

McCoy, Ann (b. 1946).
American painter, born in Boulder, Colorado, educated there and at UCLA. When Isherwood first mentions her in 1976, she was teaching aesthetics at Claremont Graduate School. She later taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Barnard, and elsewhere. She has written numerous articles and contributions to catalogues, exhibited widely, and won many awards. Her work is in the Los Angeles County Art Museum; the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney in New York; the Hirshhorn; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Dallas Art Museum; and other major collections.

McDermott, Mo (d. 1988).
British fabric designer and artist, educated at Salford College of Art. He began modelling for David Hockney during Hockney's last year at the Royal College of Art and became a close friend. He went on to work as Hockney's studio assistant and continued to pose frequently for him. Later, he married and moved to California, where he settled in Echo Park.

McDowall, Roddy (1928–1998).
British actor and photographer; he made his first film aged eight. During the Blitz, he was evacuated to the U.S. and became a teenage Hollywood star as the crippled boy in
How Green Was My Valley
(1941) and with Elizabeth Taylor in
Lassie Come Home
(1943). In the 1950s, he took stage and television roles in New York and won a Tony Award for his supporting role in
The Fighting Cock
(1960), then returned to Hollywood in the 1960s and starred in
Planet of the Apes
(1968), most of the sequels, and the T.V. series. His other films include
My Friend Flicka
(1943), Orson Welles's
Macbeth
(1948),
The Subterraneans
(1960),
The Longest Day
(1962),
Cleopatra
(1963),
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
(1971),
The Poseidon Adventure
(1972),
Funny Lady
(1975), and
Fright Night
(1985). He published several books of his photographs, mostly of celebrities. He appears in
Lost Years.

McGuire, Dorothy (1916–2001).
American stage and movie actress, born in Nebraska. She appeared on Broadway from 1938 and was brought to Hollywood by Selznick to reprise a stage role in
Claudia
(1943). Other films include
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
(1945),
The Spiral Staircase
(1946),
Gentleman's Agreement
(1947),
Old Yeller
(1957), and
Swiss Family Robinson
(1960). In 1976, she returned to Broadway in
The Night of the Iguana
, and she often appeared on T.V. She married photographer John Swope (1908–1973) in 1943. Swope came to Hollywood in 1936 as a production assistant and publicity photographer for Leland Hayward then worked as a U.S. Navy photographer during World War II, and afterwards for
Life
magazine. He published his first book of photographs,
Camera over Hollywood
, in 1939.

McWhinnie, Donald (1920–1987).
British T.V. producer and director, from Yorkshire. He was a BBC script editor, then a producer, and continued to work in T.V. throughout his career. During the 1960s, he directed several plays on Broadway. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his 1962 production of Harold Pinter's
The Caretaker
, and he directed Gladys Cooper in
A Passage to India
the same year.

Medley, Robert (1905–1994).
English painter. He attended Gresham's School, Holt, with Auden, and they remained close friends after Medley left for art school at the Slade. In London, he became the longtime companion of the dancer Rupert Doone and was involved with him in 1932 in founding The Group Theatre, which produced
The Dog Beneath the Skin
,
The Ascent of F6
, and
On the Frontier
. He also worked as a theater designer and teacher and founded the Theatre Design section at the Slade in the 1950s before becoming Head of Painting and Sculpture at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in 1958. He appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Mendelson, Edward (b. 1946).
American scholar and writer, educated at the University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins; he has been a professor of English literature at Yale, Harvard, and Columbia Universities. Auden appointed him literary executor in 1972. When Mendelson visited Isherwood in 1974, he was preparing
The English Auden
, first of many posthumous editions by Auden, and he was looking for poems which Auden enclosed in his letters to Isherwood; no volume of Auden's letters has been published, although a few letters have appeared in scholarly publications. Also in about 1974, Mendelson and Stephen Spender proposed a jointly written biography to Random House, and Spender asked Isherwood for his help, as Isherwood records early in 1975. But they abandoned the idea after a year because they were concerned about the privacy of those still living and they each had too many other projects. Mendelson eventually wrote two literary-critical biographies,
Early Auden
(1981) and
Later Auden
(1999).