Liberation (145 page)

Wallwork, Leslie.
Wealthy American queen; he lived alone, hired hustlers for sex, and liked to give dinner parties, especially for John Ashbery when Ashbery was in Los Angeles. He died in middle age, evidently of cancer. He was gossipy, funny, and ambitious of social power.

Wan, Barney.
Chinese graphic designer and illustrator, born in Hong Kong; he studied in San Francisco during the 1950s. In 1959, he went to Paris and freelanced for
Elle
, French
Vogue
, and
Marie-Claire
. He joined British
Vogue
in 1967 and was Art Director there until 1979, living between London and Paris for many years. From 1970, he also began to design books, for Cecil Beaton, Lord Snowden, and later for various other photographers from London and from Kenya; among his titles is the prizewinning
African Ceremonies
(1990). He also designed film titles for
If
. . . (1968),
Isadora
(1968), and
Sebastiane
(1976).

Ward, Simon (b. 1941).
British actor, educated at Alleyn's School, Dulwich, where he joined the National Youth Theatre before training at RADA. He became known on the London stage for his role in Joe Orton's
Loot
in 1967. His films include
Young Winston
(1972),
The Three Musketeers
(1973),
Hitler: The Last Ten Days
(1973),
All Creatures Great and Small
(1974), and
The Four Feathers
(1977).

Warshaw, Howard (1920–1977).
American artist, born in New York City, educated at Pratt Institute, the National Academy of Design Art School, and the Art Students League. He moved to California in 1942 and worked in the animation studios of Walt Disney and later Warner Brothers, then taught briefly at the Jepson Art Institute where he was influenced by a colleague, Rico Lebrun. In 1951, he began teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he remained for over twenty years. He painted murals in the Dining Commons at UCSB and at the Santa Barbara Public Library. At UCLA he painted the neurological mural, and he also did murals for U.C. San Diego and U.C. Riverside. He was blind in one eye. His wife Frances had money of her own. She had been married previously to Mel Ferrer with whom she had a daughter called Pepa and a son. Isherwood and Warshaw became friendly when Isherwood began teaching at UCSB, and Isherwood usually slept at their house when he stayed overnight in Santa Barbara. In 1954, Isherwood encouraged Bachardy to attend drawing classes with Warshaw in Los Angeles, but Bachardy found the class too theoretical and left. Years later, as Isherwood records, Warshaw sat for Bachardy. He appears in
D.2.

Wasserman, Lew (1913–2002).
Cleveland-born studio executive; he joined MCA as an agent in 1936, was president by 1946, merged it with Universal in 1962, and, as chairman and CEO, built the company into a global entertainment giant.

Watergate.
In his entry for May 10, 1973, Isherwood mentions the indictments of John Mitchell and Maurice Stans, both close to President Nixon. Mitchell (1906–1988) was Attorney General until 1972 when he resigned to run the Committee to Re-elect the President; Stans (1908–1998) was Secretary of Commerce during Nixon's first administration and then became Finance Chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President. They were indicted with financier Robert Vesco for concealing a $200,000 cash contribution received from Vesco in April 1972 in exchange for influencing a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against him. Vesco was accused of looting over $200 million from foreign mutual funds. After Mitchell helped obtain Vesco's release from a Swiss jail, Vesco fled to the Bahamas and then disappeared. Mitchell and Stans were acquitted in 1974, but Mitchell was convicted in 1975 on other charges and served eighteen months in prison before being paroled. On May 24, Isherwood also mentions James McCord (b. 1924), the former CIA and FBI officer who was security advisor for the Committee to Re-elect the President and who led the Watergate burglary. McCord had already been convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping, on January 20; on March 19, he wrote to Judge John Sirica saying that he and his cohorts had pleaded guilty under pressure and that lies had been told. This led to further investigations.

Waterston, Sam (b. 1940).
American actor, educated at Groton and Yale; his many films include
The Great Gatsby
(1974),
Heaven's Gate
(1980), and
The Killing Fields
(1984, Academy Award nomination). He won a Drama Desk Award as Benedick in Joseph Papp's 1973 production, which Isherwood mentions, of
Much Ado About Nothing
. He is a longtime regular on the T.V. series “Law & Order.”

Weidenfeld, George (b. 1919).
Viennese-born British publisher; trained as a lawyer and diplomat. He emigrated in 1938 and worked for the BBC during World War II, mostly commentating on European Affairs; he also wrote a foreign affairs column for
The News Chronicle
. After the war, he began publishing a magazine,
Contact
, and then founded Weidenfeld & Nicolson with Nigel Nicolson. Their first books appeared in 1949, focusing initially on history and biography. In the 1950s, they turned to fiction as well; Nabokov's
Lolita
(1959) was their first best-seller. Weidenfeld & Nicolson also became known for its books by world political leaders and for diaries, letters, and memoirs of public figures. In 1949, Weidenfeld spent a year in Israel as a political adviser and Chief of Cabinet to President Chaim Weizmann, and afterwards he maintained close ties there. He wrote
The Goebbels Experiment
(1943) and an autobiography; for a time he had a column in
Die Welt
. He married four times and had one daughter with his first wife; his second wife, Barbara Skelton, had previously been married to Cyril Connolly. He appears in
D.2.

Weissberger, L. Arnold (1907–1981).
Top show-business and arts lawyer, for instance to Stravinsky, to ballerinas Alexandra Danilova and Alicia Markova, to Orson Welles, and many others. He was also a devoted amateur photographer and published
Famous Faces: A Photographic Album of Personal Reminiscences
(1973) containing nearly 1,500 pictures of his celebrity friends and acquaintances. He lived in New York with theatrical agent Milton Goldman.

Wescott, Glenway (1901–1987).
American writer, born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Chicago, lived in France in the 1920s, partly in Paris, and travelled in Europe and England. Afterwards he lived in New York. Early in his career he wrote poetry and reviews, later turning to fiction. His best-known works are
The Pilgrim Hawk
(1940) and
Apartment in Athens
(1945). Wescott was president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters from 1957 to 1961. His long-term companion was Monroe Wheeler, although each had other lovers. In 1949, Wescott went to Los Angeles expressly to read Isherwood's 1939–1945 diaries. While he was there, Isherwood introduced Wescott to Jim Charlton with whom Wescott had an affair. Wescott appears in
D.1
,
D.2
, and
Lost Years
.

Wheeler, Hugh (1912–1987).
English writer. He published mystery thrillers under the name Patrick Quentin. Later he wrote plays—
Big Fish, Little Fish
(1961);
Look, We've Come Through
(1961)— the books for the Sondheim musicals
A Little Night Music
(1973) and
Sweeney Todd
(1979), and screenplays (
Something for Everyone
, 1970). According to rumor, he wrote much of the screenplay for
Cabaret
though he was credited only as a technical advisor because of Writers Guild rules. He lived on a farm in Massachusetts with his black lover, John Grubbs. Wheeler was a good friend of Chris Wood, and possibly it was Wood who introduced Wheeler and Isherwood, probably in the 1940s. He appears in
D.1
.

Wheeler, Paul.
British musician. When Isherwood met him in 1970, Wheeler was an undergraduate reading English at Cambridge. He played in London clubs and in a Cambridge band called Wild Oats. Later, he lived with his wife on the estate of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, worked as a civil servant and as a management trainer, and continued to sing and write songs on the side. He also performed with another band, Ghosts.

Whitcomb, Ian (b. 1941).
British pianist, singer, ukulele player, record producer; educated at Bryanston and at Trinity College, Dublin. He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 when his song “You Turn Me On” reached number eight in the American Top Ten, and he performed there with the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, and The Kinks, among others. Later, he hosted a Los Angeles radio show and published books about the history of popular music, including
After the Ball: Pop Music from Rag to Rock
(1972),
Tin Pan Alley: A Pictorial History (1919–1939)
, and
Rock Odyssey: A Chronicle of the Sixties
(1983). He appears in
D.2.

White, Dan (1954–1985).
Vietnam veteran, police officer, fireman, and San Francisco City Supervisor. In 1978, he resigned as City Supervisor over low pay and clashes with liberal colleagues, but, encouraged by supporters, especially among the police force, asked Mayor Moscone for his job back. Moscone refused, whereupon White shot Moscone and Harvey Milk. White's defense argued that he was depressed, as evidenced by his uncharacteristic consumption of junk food—the “Twinkie defence.” On May 21, 1989, White was convicted of manslaughter, not murder, on grounds of reduced capacity, and sentenced to only five years in prison. Angry gays marched on City Hall, smashing windows and torching police cars, and the police unleashed a counter riot in the Castro District where the march had begun. The White Night Riot, as it came to be known, was followed by peaceful celebrations of Harvey Milk's birthday, May 22. White committed suicide by gassing himself in his car. Milk became the subject of the eponymous 2008 film for which Sean Penn won an Academy Award.

White, James P. (b. 1940).
American writer, educated at the University of Texas, Vanderbilt and Brown. He taught writing at the University of Texas, UCLA, USC and the University of South Alabama. When his first novel,
Birdsong
(1977), was published, he sent Isherwood a copy and met him soon afterwards during a visit to Los Angeles. White has also published poems, short stories, essays and reviews. In March 1979, his wife, Janice, gave birth to a boy, whom they named Christopher Jules White and called Jules. With Don Bachardy, White edited
Where Joy Resides: A Christopher Isherwood Reader
(1989) and co-founded The Christopher Isherwood Foundation, of which he was Executive Director until 2011.

Whiting, Leonard (b. 1950).
British actor and singer. He was the Artful Dodger in
Oliver!
in London's West End and became famous as Romeo in Franco Zeffirelli's
Romeo and Juliet
(1968) before appearing in “Frankenstein: The True Story.”

Wilcox, Collin (1935–2009).
American actress, also known as Collin Horne and sometimes credited as Wilcox-Horne or Wilcox-Paxton. She was educated at the University of Tennessee, the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago and Actors Studio. She attracted praise on Broadway in
The Day the Money Stopped
(1958) and appeared in a few films, including
To Kill a Mockingbird
(1962),
Catch-22
(1970), and
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
(1997). She also worked in T.V. She was married for a time to actor Geoffrey Horne. Later, she taught acting on the East Coast. She appears in
D.2.

Wilder, Nicholas (1937–1989).
American art dealer, son of the scientist who invented Kodachrome. He was educated at Amherst and Stanford, where he studied law before turning to art history. As a graduate student, he worked in a San Francisco gallery then abandoned his studies and became a dealer by the time he was twenty-four. He opened his first gallery in Los Angeles on La Cienaga Boulevard in the 1960s, moved to Santa Monica Boulevard in 1970, and quickly became the most influential contemporary art dealer in Los Angeles. He was a close friend of Don Bachardy, whom he persuaded to leave Irving Blum's gallery and join his own. He also discovered West Coast artists Bruce Nauman, Ron Davis, Robert Graham, and Tom Holland, among others, and he showed David Hockney, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman, and Cy Twombly. He travelled constantly to see the work of new artists and to advance the reputations of the artists he represented, but his finances were often in disarray. In 1979, he closed his gallery; James Corcoran opened in the space and took on some of Wilder's best artists. Wilder left for New York, where he began to paint abstract oils inspired by the work of James McLaughlin, an artist he had brought to prominence. His longtime companion and business associate was Craig Cook. Wilder died of AIDS, as did Cook a few years later.

Williams, Brook (1938–2005).
British character actor; younger son of Emlyn Williams. He worked on the London stage and had small parts in over a hundred films. He was Richard Burton's close friend, assistant, and sometimes collaborator.

Williams, Clifford (1926–2005).
British actor and director, educated at Highbury County Grammar School, in London. He worked in mining, served in the army, and acted and directed in South Africa during the 1950s. In 1961, he became a staff producer at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and from 1963 until 1991, a prolific associate director. His many independent productions, some of which went on to successful Broadway runs, include an all-male
As You Like It
, Anthony Shaffer's
Sleuth
, both in 1967, and Kenneth Tynan's
Oh! Calcutta!
in 1970. He was married twice and had two daughters with his second wife. He appears in
D.2.