Liberation (139 page)

Reagan assassination attempt.
As Reagan was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1981, John Hinckley, Jr., fired six shots from a .22-caliber revolver loaded with exploding bullets. One entered Reagan's left lung, failed to explode, and was removed during surgery. Vice President George Bush flew back from Austin, Texas, and while he was in the air, Secretary of State Alexander Haig—a West Point graduate, heavily decorated veteran of Korea and Vietnam, and four-star general—asserted on national T.V. that he was in charge at the White House, incorrectly citing the Constitution on succession of power and presidential incapacity.

recession.
The 1969–1970 recession was associated with closing the budget deficit created by the Vietnam War. Isherwood refers several times to the much more severe recession which began in 1971 and lasted until 1975, with stagflation (in which the economy did not grow but prices rose rapidly) as well as high unemployment. The dollar weakened, as he seemed to be aware, and the Energy Crisis dramatically worsened the situation from late 1973. See also Energy Crisis.

Rechy, John (b. 1934).
American writer; born in El Paso, educated at the University of Texas and then at the New School for Social Research in New York. He served in the U.S. Army in Germany and for many years taught creative writing at the University of Southern California. His novels about the homosexual communities of New York and Los Angeles generally explore marginal themes of violence, drugs, and crime.
City of Night
(1963), tells about his experiences as a hustler. Later novels are
Numbers
(1967), with thinly disguised portraits of Isherwood, Bachardy, and Gavin Lambert,
This Day's Death
(1970),
The Vampires
(1971),
The Fourth Angel
(1973),
Rushes
(1979),
Bodies and Souls
(1983),
Marilyn's Daughter
(1988), and
The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gómez
(1991). Rechy also wrote
The Sexual Outlaw
(1977), a documentary study of urban homosexual sexual practices. He appears in
D.2
. He teaches writing from his home in Los Angeles.

Redgrave, Corin (1939–2010).
British actor, brother of Vanessa. Educated at Cambridge, where he appeared in amateur theatricals before his professional stage debut in 1963. In 1998 he won an Olivier award for his role in
Not About Nightingales
. His films include
A Man for All Seasons
(1966),
The Charge of the Light Brigade
(1968),
Oh! What a Lovely War
(1969),
David Copperfield
(1969),
Four Weddings and a Funeral
(1993),
Enigma
(2001), and
Enduring Love
(2004). He married twice, the second time to actress Kika Markham. One daughter, Jemma (b. 1965), is also an actress.

Redgrave, Vanessa (b. 1937).
English star of stage and screen; from the celebrated acting family, which includes her father Michael, her mother Rachel Kempson, her brother Corin, and sister Lynn Redgrave. She trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, made her stage debut in 1957, and established her reputation with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early 1960s. Her films include
Morgan
(1966, Academy Award nomination),
Blow-Up
(1966),
A Man for All Seasons
(1966),
The Sailor from Gibraltar
(1967),
Camelot
(1967),
The Charge of the Light Brigade
(1968),
Isadora
(1968; Academy Award nomination),
Oh! What a Lovely War
(1969),
Mary, Queen of Scots
(1971; Academy Award nomina tion),
Murder on the Orient Express
(1974),
Julia
(1977, Academy Award),
The Bostonians
(1984; Academy Award nomination),
Prick Up Your Ears
(1987),
The Ballad of the Sad Café
(1991),
Howards End
(1992),
Mission Impossible
(1996),
Mrs. Dalloway
(1998),
Girl, Interrupted
(1999),
The Cradle Will Rock
(1999),
Running with Scissors
(2006), and
Atonement
(2007). Her stage roles are too numerous to name, and she has often appeared on T.V. Much of her work during the 1960s was for Tony Richardson, whom she married in 1962 and with whom she had two daughters, actresses Natasha Richardson (1963–2009) and Joely Richardson (b. 1965), before divorcing in 1967. In 1969, she had a son with actor Franco Nero, whom she married in 2007. She is well known for her leftist political activism and has unsuccessfully run for Parliament as a member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party. She appears in
D.2.

Regester, James Robert (Bob) (19[32]–1987).
American theatrical producer and advertising executive, from Bloomington, Indiana. He met Tony Richardson in Los Angeles in the 1960s and worked for him in Europe as a member of the production team for
Mademoiselle
(1966) and
The Sailor from Gibraltar
(1967). He became a longtime companion of Neil Hartley, and they shared a house in Maida Avenue. With financial backing from a friend, Louis Miano, he co-produced
Design for Living
with Vanessa Redgrave, Jeremy Brett, and John Stride at the Phoenix Theatre in 1973;
The Seagull
, in 1985, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson; Gerald Moon's
Corpse
, with Keith Baxter and Milo O'Shea in 1984; and
Legends
, starring Mary Martin and Carol Channing, which toured in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. He died of AIDS. He appears in
D.2.

Reinhardt, Gottfried (1911–1994).
Austrian-born film producer. He emigrated to the U.S. with his father, Max Reinhardt, and became assistant to Walter Wanger. Afterwards he worked as a producer for MGM from 1940 to 1954 and later directed his own films in the United States and Europe; his name is attached to many well-known films, including Garbo's
Two-Faced Woman
which he produced in 1941 and
The Red Badge of Courage
which he produced in 1951. He was Salka Viertel's lover for nearly a decade before his marriage to his wife, Silvia, in 1944. Through Salka and Berthold Viertel, Reinhardt gave Isherwood his second Hollywood film job in 1940, and he remained Isherwood's favorite Hollywood boss. During the war, he enlisted and wrote scenarios for films on building latrines, preventing venereal disease, cleaning rifles, etc. Reinhardt and his wife eventually returned to Germany and settled near Salzburg. He appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Reinhardt, Max (1873–1943).
Austrian theatrical producer, born Max Goldman. He became world-famous as the director of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin with his 1905 production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. He is remembered for his extravagant showmanship, though his work included serious classical theater from the Greeks to Shakespeare, Molière, Ibsen, and Shaw. He directed a few films in Germany and one later in Hollywood. Reinhardt's European empire ended when Hitler annexed Austria. He eventually opened an acting and theater school on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood—the Workshop for Stage, Screen, and Radio—with his second wife, German actress Helene Thimig. He appears in
D.1.

Reinhardt, Wolfgang (1908–1979).
Film producer and writer; son of Max Reinhardt, brother of Gottfried Reinhardt. He produced
My Love Come Back
(1940),
The Male Animal
(1942),
Three Strangers
(1946),
Caught
(1948), and
Freud
(1962), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as co-writer. Isherwood probably met Wolfgang Reinhardt through Gottfried soon after arriving in Hollywood, and as he records in
D.1
and in
Lost Years
, he and Wolfgang tried to work together several times during the 1940s when Wolfgang was a producer at Warner Brothers. With Aldous Huxley in 1944, they discussed making
The Miracle
, a film version of the play produced by Max Reinhardt in the 1920s, and in 1945 Wolfgang hired Isherwood to work on Maugham's 1941 novel
Up at the Villa
, but neither film was made by him. Much later, in June 1960, Wolfgang approached Isherwood to write a screenplay based on Felix Dahn's four-volume 1876 novel,
Ein Kampf um Rom
(
A Struggle for Rome
), about the decline and fall of the Ostrogoth empire in Italy in the sixth century, but Isherwood turned the project down. Wolfgang's wife was called Lally. He also appears in
D.2.

Renate.
See Druks, Renate.

Richard.
See Isherwood, Richard Graham Bradshaw.

Richardson, Tony (1928–1991).
British stage and film director; educated at Oxford where he was president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. During the 1950s, he was a T.V. producer for the BBC, wrote about film for
Sight and Sound
, and was a founder of the Free Cinema movement, collaborating with Karel Reisz on a short,
Momma Don't Allow
(1955). He co-founded The English Stage Company with British actor and director George Devine (1910–1966) and under its auspices directed John Osborne's
Look Back in Anger
at the Royal Court in 1956. Then he and Osborne formed a film company, Woodfall, and Richardson went on to make movies, many adapted from his stage productions. In 1960, when Isherwood first mentions him in
D.1
(he also appears in
Lost Years
and
D.2
), Richardson was involved with Wyatt Cooper, then a young actor, and he was directing for screen and stage virtually simultaneously. He was filming
Sanctuary
(1961)—amalgamated from Faulkner's
Sanctuary
(1931) and its sequel,
Requiem for a Nun
(1951), which he had already staged separately at the Royal Court in London in 1957—and he was also directing Shelagh Delaney's
A Taste of Honey
in New York with a mostly English cast brought over from London. As Isherwood tells in
D.2
, he worked for Richardson on film scripts of Evelyn Waugh's 1948 novel
The Loved One
(1965), Carson McCuller's
Reflections in a Golden Eye
(later directed by John Huston with a different script),
The Sailor from Gibraltar
(1967) based on Marguerite Duras' novel, and, with Don Bachardy, adaptations of Robert Graves's
I, Claudius
and
Claudius, the God
, though much of the work was never used. Richardson's other films include
The Entertainer
(1960),
A Taste of Honey
(1961),
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
(1962),
Tom Jones
(1963, Academy Award),
The Charge of the Light Brigade
(1968),
Hamlet
(1969),
Ned Kelly
(1970),
Joseph Andrews
(1977),
The Hotel New Hampshire
(1984), and
Blue Sky
(released posthumously, 1994). He was married to Vanessa Redgrave from 1962 to 1967 and had two daughters with her, and he had a long affair with Grizelda Grimond, producing a third daughter in 1973. In 1974, Isherwood mentions that Richardson resigned as director of
Mahogany
(1975) starring Diana Ross; in fact, Richardson made Berry Gordon fire him over a disagreement about casting a minor character so he could collect his full salary; Gordon, founder of Motown, directed the film himself. Richardson died of AIDS.

Rick.
See Sandford, Rick.

Rigby, Harry (1925–1985).
Broadway producer, sometimes of plays, including
The Ballad of the Sad Café
(1963), but mostly of adapted and revived musicals. In 1968, his
Hallelujah, Baby!
won Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Producer of a Musical. His revival of
Irene
opened in March 1973, directed by Gower Champion (not by John Gielgud as once planned). Other successes, many with Terry Allen Kramer, include
I Love My Wife
(1977) and
Sugar Babies
(1979). His Broadway production of
A Meeting by the River
in 1979 lasted only one night after ten previews.

Ritajananda, Swami.
Indian monk of the Ramakrishna Order; chief assistant to Swami Prabhavananda at the Hollywood Vedanta Society from 1958 to 1961. He then went to France to run the Vedanta Center at Gretz, near Paris, until his death in 1994. As his assistant at Gretz, he later took on Prema, by then called Swami Vidyatmananda. He appears in
D.2.

Roberts, John.
British theater producer; he produced two plays on Broadway in the late 1950s and later worked in South Africa. He was to assist Clifford Williams with the proposed London production of
A Meeting by the River
in 1970.

Roberts, Rachel (1927–1980).
Welsh-born actress, educated at the University of Wales and RADA. She had many stage roles, beginning in 1951. Her films included
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
(1960),
This Sporting Life
(1963, Academy Award nomination),
O Lucky Man!
(1973),
Murder on the Orient Express
(1974), and
When a Stranger Calls
(1979). She also appeared regularly on American T.V. in “The Tony Randall Show” from 1976 to 1978. Her second marriage, in 1962, was to Rex Harrison; they divorced in 1971. She appears in
D.2.

Roerick, Bill (1912–1995).
American actor. Isherwood met him in 1943 when John van Druten brought Roerick to a lecture at the Vedanta Society. He was in England as a G.I. during World War II and became friends there with E.M. Forster, J.R. Ackerley, and others. His companion for many years was Tom Coley. In 1944, Roerick contributed a short piece to
Horizon
defending Isherwood's new way of life in America after Tony Bower had made fun of it in a previous number. He appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.