Styron, William
(b. 1925) American writer. Among several novels Styron has written is his controversial Pulitzer Prize—winning
The Confessions of Nat Turner
, which some critics argued was exploitive and which perpetuated white stereotypes of African Americans. His 1979 novel,
Sophie’s Choice,
was adapted for film with Meryl Streep playing the title role. In 1990 he published an account of his battle with depression,
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness.
Styron has served as an advisory editor of
Paris Review
since 1952.
Tanguay, Eva
(1878–1947) Vaudeville performer. Billed as “Girl who made Vaudeville famous,” Tanguay was known for her revealing costumes and her risqué songs. The songs “I Don’t Care” and “It’s Been Done Before but Not the Way I Do It” are especially associated with Tanguay.
Tchelitchew, Pavel
(1898–1957) Russian-born American painter.
Hide and Seek
(1940–1942) is considered by many to be Tchelitchew’s masterpiece. It is housed in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Thomas, Dylan
(1914–1953) Welsh poet. Although Thomas wrote and published short stories, essays, and a radio play entitled
Under Milk Wood,
he is best known for his poetry. His collection
Eighteen Poems
was published in 1934. Thomas also had a reputation for hard drinking and for always being broke. Between 1950 and 1953, he made four reading tours in the United States, which helped establish his popularity. Unfortunately, his personal problems with drink and finances continued until he died of alcohol poisoning in New York.
Thomson, Virgil
(1896–1989) Film composer and music critic for
Vanity Fair
and the
New York Herald Tribune.
Some of the films for which Thomson composed scores are
The Plow That Broke the Plains
(1936),
Louisiana Story
(1948), and
The Goddess
(1958).
Todd, Ruthven
(b. 1914) Scottish writer. Todd has published many novels under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell. Under his own name he has published several collections of poetry, with
Mantelpiece of Shells
(1954) his first to be published in America. He has written several children’s stories. From 1950 to 1954, Todd taught creative writing at Iowa State.
Toklas, Alice B.
(1877–1967) American companion, secretary, and publisher of Gertrude Stein. Toklas was with Stein for almost forty years, until Stein’s death. Although overshadowed by her lover, Toklas was integral in organizing the salon the two women ran and was also important to Stein’s literary career. Indeed, when Stein could find no publisher for her work, Toklas began a press called Plain Edition, which published only Stein’s work and for which Toklas served as publisher, director, and managing editor.
Train, John
(b. 1928) American writer. An investment counselor by profession, Train has also authored several books in what is called the Remarkable series—for example,
Remarkable Names of Real People
(1977),
True Remarkable Occurrences
(1978),
Remarkable Relatives
(1981). He was a cofounder of the
Paris Review
and served as its managing editor from 1952 to 1954. He has been a trustee of the
Harvard Lampoon
since 1974.
Tree, Iris
(dates unknown) British actress. Tree had an uncredited role as Poetess in Fellini’s
La Dolce Vita
(1960).
Valéry, Paul
(1871–1945) French poet associated with the symbolist group. Among his collections of verse is
La Jeune Parque
(
The Young Fate),
published in 1917.
Vidal, Gore
(b. 1925) American writer. Known for his (sometimes biting) wit, Vidal has been called “the Gentleman Bitch of American Letters.” He has written novels, plays, screenplays, essays, and reviews. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, an Oklahoma senator, influenced his passionate interest in politics. Among Gore’s titles is the play
The Best Man: A Play of Politics,
first performed on Broadway in 1960, as well as the novels
Washington, D.C.
(1967) and
Empire
(1987).
Vidor, King
(1894–1982) American director. Vidor directed over fifty films, including
Hallelujah
(1929), the first film with an all-black cast, and
War and Peace
(1956).
Villa, José Garcia
(1914–1997) Filipino poet. Villa came to the United States in 1930, and his first book of poetry to be published here was
Have Come, Am Here
(1942). He was an editor for New Directions from 1949 to 1951.
Warhol, Andy
(1928?—1987) American artist and cultural figure. He was born Andrew Warhola, the youngest son to Czechoslovakian immigrants in Pittsburgh. In 1949, after graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University), he headed to New York, where he worked in advertising as a freelance designer. In the illustration credit for one of his first assignments for
Glamour
magazine, his last name was accidentally shortened to Warhol, and he kept the shortened version ever after. He dropped “Andrew” for “Andy” early in 1950. No confirmation has been found that Warhol took painting classes at the Museum of Modern Art.
Warren, Robert Penn
(1905–1989) Southern poet and novelist.
Night Rider
(1939), the novel Eugene mentions, was Warren’s first. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for his novel
All the King’s Men,
which was adapted into the 1949 Academy Award-winning movie. From 1935 to 1942 he edited the literary journal
Southern Review.
In 1986–1987, Warren became the first official Poet Laureate of the United States.
Weaver, William Fense
(b. 1923) American writer and award-winning translator. Weaver has translated many novels from Italian into English, including Giorgio Bassani’s
The Garden of the Finzi-Condnis
(1977) and Umberto Eco’s
The Name of the Rose
(1984). Weaver has contributed articles and reviews to many periodicals, including the
Saturday Review, Harper Bazaar, Opera News, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Architectural Digest,
and the
New York Times.
Wertmüller, Lina
(b. 1928) Italian director. Her two best-known films in the United States are
Swept Away…by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August
and
Seven Beauties.
West, Anthony
(1914–1987) English writer. West was the illegitimate son of the authors H. G. Wells and Rebecca West. Although he published several novels and nonfiction works, his works that either alluded to or directly treated his unconventional family and background have received the most attention. His autobiographical novel,
Heritage
(1955), is likely his best known. In 1984 he published
H.
G. Wells: Aspects of a Life
, which chronicled his unhappy childhood, his relationship with his mother, and his father’s relationship with West.
West, Mae
(1893–1980) American vaudeville comedienne and stage and screen actress. Having performed in vaudeville since she was eight, West made her Broadway debut in 1911. She continued to tour in vaudeville after this debut, but this time with star billing. She was known for her unconventionally explicit sexuality. In 1926 she performed on Broadway again, this time in
Sex,
a play she wrote herself—and her notoriety as a femme fatale eventually earned her a film contract with Paramount Pictures. She made her screen debut in 1932 in
Night After Night.
Whitteker, Lillian
(1895–1978) American painter. Eugene introduced her to Italy by helping to organize shows for her in Rome and Positano.
Wilde, Oscar
(1854–1900) Irish writer. Wilde wrote a great deal of poetry, dramatic literature, and fiction, including the novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1890) and the play
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895). After serving two years upon his conviction for sodomy, Wilde wandered in exile on the Continent for a few years. He died penniless in Paris.
Wilder, Thornton
(1897–1975) American writer. Wilder wrote novels as well as dramatic literature. His novel
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
(1927) won a Pulitzer Prize, as did his plays
Our Town
(1938) and
The Skin of Our Teeth
(1942). Another of his plays,
The Matchmaker
(1954), was adapted in 1964 into the musical
Hello, Dolly!
Williams, Oscar
(1900–1964) American poet, editor, critic, and anthologist. Williams was the general editor of the Little Treasury series, poetry anthologies that have become standard textbooks in colleges and universities across the United States. He contributed writing to
Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Harper’s Bazaar,
the
Saturday Review,
the
Southern Review, The Nation,
and the
New Republic.
He was married to the poet Gene Derwood.
Winters, Shelley
(b. 1922) American actor. Among the dozens of films, television appearances, and stage performances on Winters’s résumé are the films
A Place in the Sun,
in which she costarred with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift (1951), and
Lolita
(1962), directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Zeffirelli, Franco
(b. 1923) Italian director. Zeffirelli is best known in the United States as the director of the films
Romeo and Juliet
(1968),
Brother Sun, Sister Moon
(1973), and
The Champ
(1979).
Zev
(1919–1987) American artist. Born Daniel Harris, Zev took his family’s original name, which means “wolf” in Hungarian. Zev created a kind of sculpture in architecture, called
Crazy Crescent,
at Big Sur in California. Eventually this structure was condemned, but before its destruction, architects and students came from French and English architectural institutes in teams to record it. Zev illustrated Eugene’s
Singerie-Songerie,
a version of
Hamlet
for monkeys.
Acknowledgments
There are many people without whom my collaboration with Eugene Walter would have come to naught, or never happened at all. Matt McDonald is the one who first told me about Eugene, and arranged for me to meet him on the very night of my move to Mobile. This meeting took place at the house of Ted Dial, who became a great friend and was a supporter of the project from its earliest inception. It was Ted’s friendship that sustained me during the fiendishly hot summer in Mobile when I interviewed Eugene. And it was my father’s money that literally supported me and made those interviews logistically possible. I am also indebted to my father, Lawrence Clark, for the legal advice and assistance he has rendered. Mary Lillian Walker and Sean Smith are two others who have given both financial as well as legal assistance to this endeavor.
Then there is Frank Daugherty, whose continuous encouragement and feedback, along with various odd jobs of research and fact-checking, ensured that this project came to fruition. Frank is the one who relit the fire under me when my own faith had dwindled after various setbacks and rejections. One of the many services Frank rendered was to introduce me to John Sledge, then head of the Mobile Historic Development Commission. John made sure that the fire Frank had rekindled did not go out, as he quickly became my mainstay for the duration of this project. Without John, my interviews with Eugene would have remained just that, and would not have been transformed into this book. It was John’s idea to approach Palmer Hamilton, a Mobile attorney and dedicated preservationist of his city’s history. Although usually given to preserving architecture, Palmer rose graciously to the occasion of helping preserve Mobile’s history in another way by donating the services of his extraordinary secretary, Doty Lowe. In addition to her usual tasks of transcribing depositions and typing briefs, Doty quickly set to work transcribing the tapes of my interviews with Eugene.
It was Doty’s tireless and outstanding work that helped me secure the services of my agent, Jessica Jones, whose faith in my incipient manuscript has led ultimately to its publication. JoAnne Prichard was the one who acquired the manuscript for Crown, and I am beholden to her vision and insight. Lucky am I that the manuscript landed in the lap of Doug Pepper, who became my actual editor at Crown. Doug was ideally suited for this job, both rigorous and judicious in his use of the blue pencil, both hands-on and hands-off at just the right moments. The book could not have had a better editor. I was also blessed to obtain the assistance of Georgette Bisson, who researched and compiled the material for the Cast of Characters at the back of the book. Without her superior and indefatigable efforts, this portion of the book would not exist. Althea Bennett took up where Doty Lowe left off, and transcribed the remaining tapes with remarkable speed and accuracy.