Liberation (142 page)

Smith, David.
A young admirer of Isherwood's work; he occasionally paid court at the house in Adelaide Drive and once sat for Bachardy.

Smith, Dodie.
See Beesley, Alec and Dodie Smith Beesley.

Smith, Emily Machell (Granny Emmy) (1840–1924).
Isherwood's grandmother on his mother's side. Emily's husband, Isherwood's grandfather Frederick Machell Smith, was a wine merchant in Bury St. Edmunds; they married in 1864 and in 1885 moved to London with Kathleen, their only child, due to Emily's unpredictable health (Isherwood describes Emily in
Kathleen and Frank
as “a great psychosomatic virtuoso”). She was beautiful, passionate about the theater, and liked to travel with Kathleen, who helped her to prepare a book of guided walks,
Our Rambles in Old London
(1895). Emily's maiden name was Greene; her brother Walter Greene was a prosperous brewer in Bury St. Edmunds, went into politics, and became a baronet. Walter Greene entertained lavishly at his country house, Nether Hall, and Kathleen enthusiastically attended house parties and dances there as a young woman. Through Emily's family, Isherwood was related to the novelist Graham Greene.

Smith, Katharine (Kate) (1933–2000).
English second wife of Ivan Moffat, from 1961 until 1972. She was a daughter of the 3rd Viscount Hambleden whose family fortune derived from the book and stationery chain W.H. Smith and Lady Patricia Herbert, daughter of the 15th Earl of Pembroke, elder sister of Isherwood's Tangier friend, David Herbert, and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Kate Smith was a bridesmaid to Princess Alexandra and a close friend of Princess Margaret. She had two sons with Moffat, Jonathan (b. 1963) and Patrick (b. 1968), a godson of Princess Margaret. In 1973, she married thriller-writer Peter Townend, author of
Out of Focus
(1971),
Zoom!
(1972), and
Fisheye
(1974). She appears in
D.2.

Smith, Maggie (b. 1934).
British stage and screen star raised in Oxford; she trained at the Oxford Playhouse School and began her stage career at the Oxford Playhouse. She has won many awards for stage and film appearances since then, including a Tony Award for
Lettice and Lovage
in 1990. Her movies include
Othello
(1965) opposite Olivier, adapted from their stage production at the Royal National Theatre,
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
(1969, Academy Award),
California Suite
(1978, Academy Award),
A Room with a View
(1985),
Tea with Mussolini
(1999),
Gosford Park
(2001),
Ladies in Lavender
(2004), and the
Harry Potter
movies. She was married to British actor Robert Stephens from 1967 to 1975 and had two sons with him, both actors. In 1975, she married British playwright, screenwriter, and children's author Beverley Cross (1931–1998). His plays include
Strip the Willow
(1960), in which he cast Smith when she was still unknown,
One More River
(1959),
Half a Sixpence
(1963), and the English translation of Mark Camoletti's farce
Boeing-Boeing
(1962). For the movies, he wrote
Jason and the Argonauts
(1963) and
Clash of the Titans
(1981), in which Smith also appeared.

Sorel, Paul (1918–
circa
2008).
American painter, of Midwestern background; born Karl Dibble. He was a close friend of Chris Wood and lived with him in Laguna in the early 1940s, but moved out in 1943 after disagreements over money, living intermittently in New York. Wood continued to support him, though they never lived together again. Sorel painted portraits of Isherwood and Bill Caskey in 1950, and he appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Spender, Elizabeth (Lizzie) (b. 1950).
British actress and writer; educated at North London Collegiate School; daughter of Stephen and Natasha Spender. She had small parts in Isherwood and Bachardy's “Frankenstein” and in Terry Gilliam's
Brazil
(1985), and she worked in publishing. In 1990, she married Australian actor and satirist Barry Humphries—best known for his character “Dame Edna Everage.” She appears in
D.2.

Spender, Natasha Litvin (1919–2010).
British concert pianist; her mother was a Russian émigré. She married Stephen Spender in 1941 and had two children with him, Matthew and Lizzie. She appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Spender, Stephen (1909–1995).
English poet, critic, autobiographer, editor. Auden introduced him to Isherwood in 1928; Spender was then an under graduate at University College, Oxford, and Isherwood became a mentor. Afterwards Spender lived in Hamburg and near Isherwood in Berlin, and the two briefly shared a house in Sintra, Portugal, with Heinz Neddermeyer and Tony Hyndman. Spender was the youngest of the writers who came to prominence with Auden and Isherwood in the 1930s; after Auden and Isherwood emigrated, he cultivated the public roles they abjured in England. He worked as a propagandist for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War and was a member of the National Fire Service during the Blitz. He moved away from his early enthusiasm for communism but remained liberal in politics. His 1936 marriage to Inez Pearn was over by 1939; in 1941, he married Natasha Litvin, and they had two children, Matthew and Lizzie. He appears as “Stephen Savage” in
Lions and Shadows
and is further described in
Christopher and His Kind
,
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
. He published an autobiography,
World Within World
, in 1951, and his
Journals 1939–1983
appeared in 1985. Spender was co-editor with Cyril Connolly of
Horizon
and later of
Encounter
, and in 1968, he helped to found
Index on Censorship
to report on the circumstances of persecuted writers and artists around the world.

Spigelgass, Leonard (Lenny) (1908–1985).
American screenwriter and Broadway playwright, born in Brooklyn. The many films he worked on—some based on his stage plays—include
I Was a Male War Bride
(1949),
Silk Stockings
(1957), and
Gypsy
(1962), and he adapted his Broadway hit
A Majority of One
(1959) for film. He was also a producer and later wrote for T.V., turning out scripts for eleven annual Academy Awards ceremonies. Isherwood met him at MGM when they both worked there during the 1950s, and he appears in
D.1.

Stangos, Nicolas (Nikos) (1936–2004).
Greek poet and translator, educated at Harvard. He was an editor at Penguin and, from 1974, of art history books at Thames and Hudson. He was the long-time companion of David Plante.

Steen, Mike (1928–1983).
American stuntman, actor, author, from Louisiana, where he was friendly with Speed Lamkin, Tom Wright, and Henry Guerriero. Lamkin introduced him to Isherwood in the early 1950s. Gavin Lambert became romantically involved with Steen during 1958, and Steen also had relationships, perhaps sexual, with Nicholas Ray, William Inge, and Tennessee Williams. He worked as a stuntman in Ray's
Party Girl
and did stunts or played bit parts in other movies in the late 1950s and 1960s, including a tiny part in the 1962 film of Williams's
Sweet Bird of Youth
. He published two books:
A Look at Tennessee Williams
(1969) and
Hollywood Speaks: An Oral History
(1974). He appears in
D.1
and
D.2
.

Stephen.
See Spender, Stephen.

Stern, Alan (1947–1986).
Film producer. He was Michelle Rappaport's associate producer on
Old Boyfriends
(1979) and began developing with her, Isherwood, and Bachardy plans for a film of “Paul” from
Down There on a Visit
.

Stevens, Marti (b. 1931).
American singer and actress; she appeared in a few films, including
All Night Long
(1961), several times on Broadway, and often on T.V. Isherwood also writes about her in
D.2.

Strasser, Robin (b. 1945).
American actress, trained at the Yale School of Drama. She was a daytime soap regular on “Another World” (1967–1972) and went on to an award-winning role in “One Life to Live” from 1979 onward. She also worked on Broadway and in repertory. She was the first wife of Larry Luckinbill, with whom she had two sons.

Stravinsky, Igor (1882–1971).
Russian-born composer; he went to Paris with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1910 and brought about a rhythmic revolution in Western music with
The Rite of Spring
(1911–1913), the most sensational of his many works commissioned for the company. He composed in a wide range of musical forms and styles; many of his early works evoke Russian folk music, and he was influenced by jazz. Around 1923, he began a long neo-classical period responding to the compositions of his great European predecessors. During the 1950s, with the encouragement of Robert Craft, he took up the twelve-note serial methods invented by Schoenberg and extended by Webern—he was already past seventy. After the Russian revolution, Stravinsky remained in Europe, making his home first in Switzerland and then in Paris, and he turned to performing and conducting to support his family. In 1926, he rejoined the Russian Orthodox Church, and religious music became an increasing preoccupation during the later part of his career. At the outbreak of World War II, he emigrated to America, settled in Los Angeles, and eventually became a citizen in 1945. Although he was asked to, he never composed for films. His first and most important work for English words was his opera,
The Rake's Progress
(1951), for which Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto. Isherwood first met Stravinsky in August 1949 at lunch in the Farmer's Market in Hollywood with Aldous and Maria Huxley. He was soon invited to the Stravinskys' house for supper where he fell asleep listening to a Stravinsky recording; Stravinsky later told Robert Craft that this was the start of his great affection for Isherwood. He appears throughout
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Stravinsky, Vera (1888–1982).
Russian-born actress and painter; second wife of Igor Stravinsky; she was previously married three times, the third time to the painter and Ballets Russes stage designer Sergei Sudeikin. In 1917, she fled St. Petersburg and the bohemian artistic milieu in which she was both patroness and muse, travelling in the south of Russia with Sudeikin before going on to Paris where she met Stravinsky in the early 1920s; they fell in love but did not marry until 1940 after the death of Stravinsky's first wife. Isherwood met her with Stravinsky in August 1949. She painted in an abstract-primitive style influenced by Paul Klee, childlike and decorative. She appears throughout
D.1
,
D.2
, and in
Lost Years
.

Stromberg, Hunt, Jr. (1923–1985).
American T.V. executive; son of Hunt Stromberg (1894–1968), who was one of MGM's most profitable and powerful film producers from the mid-1920s until he retired in 1951. Stromberg Jr. began his career as a theater producer and moved to T.V. early in the 1950s. He worked with James Aubrey at CBS on the original idea for the series “Have Gun, Will Travel” (1956) and during the 1960s, he supervised “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Green Acres,” and “Lost in Space.” He was fired from CBS at the time of Aubrey's downfall in 1965 and for a time ran a production partnership with Aubrey until Aubrey took over MGM Studios in 1969. Later, Stromberg worked at Universal Studios. He produced “Frankenstein: The True Story” (1973), written by Isherwood and Bachardy and “The Curse of King Tut's Tomb” (1980) adapted by Herb Meadow from Barry Wynne's book. He appears in
D.2.

Sudhira.
A nurse of Irish descent, born Helen Kennedy; she was a probationer nun at the Hollywood Vedanta Society when Isherwood arrived to live there in 1943. In youth, she had been widowed on the third day of her marriage. Afterwards, she worked in hospitals and for Dr. Kolisch and first came to the Vedanta Society professionally to nurse a devotee. She enlisted in the navy in January 1945 and later married for a second time and returned to nursing. She appears in
D.1
and
Lost Years
, and she is mentioned in
D.2.

Summers, Claude.
American academic with a doctorate from the University of Chicago. As Isherwood records, he lectured on
A Single Man
in 1976; he went on to write a book-length critical study,
Christopher Isherwood
(1980). He also published books and articles on seventeenth- and twentieth-century literature and textual studies and also on gay and lesbian themes, including a critique of E.M. Forster,
Gay Fictions: Wilde to Stonewall
(1990), and gay and lesbian encyclopedias, surveys, and collections. He is William E. Stirton Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. His companion and frequent co-author is Ted-Larry Pebworth, also a Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Pebworth got his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University, is a scholar of English Renaissance literature, on which he has published widely, and is an editor and a member of the advisory board for
The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne
.

Swahananda, Swami.
Monk of the Ramakrishna Order, from India; born near Habiganj, now in Bangladesh, and educated at Murari Chand College, Sylhet, and at the University of Calcutta where he got an M.A. in English. He was initiated in 1937 by Swami Vijnananda, a direct disciple of Ramakrishna, joined the order in 1947 and took his final vows in 1956. He was head of the Delhi Ramakrishna Mission, and then in 1968 was sent to the San Francisco center as assistant to Swami Ashokananda. Later, he became head of the Berkeley center, and in 1976, he was moved to Hollywood to replace the late Swami Prabhavananda. As a young monk, he edited
Vedanta Kesari
, a scholarly publication of the Ramakrishna Order, and he went on to publish numerous articles and books of his own. He appears in
D.2.