The Bradbury Chronicles (36 page)

 

I
T IS
not every day that an author's reach extends beyond the planet Earth. In the case of Ray Bradbury, in July 1971, that is precisely what happened. The crew of
Apollo 15,
David R. Scott, Alfred M. Worden, and James B. Irwin, helped Ray footprint the moon. It was an Apollo tradition for astronauts to christen the craters in the vicinity of the lunar module touchdown location. Accordingly, a small crater was given the name “Dandelion” for Ray's book
Dandelion Wine
. It was a resounding declaration of the profound impact Ray Bradbury had on the culture of his times. Sales figures of his books only supported the notion that Ray was an iconic figure on the international literary landscape. By 1971, the Bantam paperback editions of
The Martian Chronicles
had sold more than 1.1 million copies;
The Illustrated Man
paperback sales were approaching one million.

In August 1972, Ray's book
The Halloween Tree
was published by Knopf. While it was marketed as a Young Adult title, Ray never set out to write something targeted to just one demographic. If anything, he was frustrated that Knopf refused to market it as a book for all readers. Like so much of his work, it was a book that appealed to children of all ages.

The origins of
The Halloween Tree
went back five years to the fall of 1966. Ray had been at home, watching a television special,
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,
with his children. Ray, an admirer of
Peanuts
creator Charles Schulz, had met the cartoonist on several occasions. But as much as Ray loved Schulz and his beloved characters, he was deeply disappointed by the
Peanuts
Halloween special. “I hated it,” he stated. “After it was over, my children ran over and kicked the television set. They promised the Great Pumpkin was going to come and he never did. You can't do that to people. It's like shooting Santa Claus as he comes down the chimney. Myths should not be touched. We all know they're not true. You don't have to prove that they're untrue.”

The day after
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
aired, Ray received a telephone call from his friend animator Chuck Jones. Jones was the godfather of the Golden Age of animation at Warner Brothers. He had worked on all the Warner cartoon classics, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck; Jones himself created the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin Martian, and Pepe le Pew. Decades after the fact, his work is still a key chapter in twentieth-century popular culture. After leaving Warner Brothers, Jones went on to direct the Dr. Seuss holiday television mainstay
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
. Ray Bradbury met Chuck Jones early in 1966, the same year the
Grinch
ran on television, the same year
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
aired for the first time. Chuck Jones was an excitable guy, an idea machine just like Ray Bradbury; they hit it off immediately. “As soon as I met Chuck, it was instant love,” declared Ray.

After seeing the Charles Schulz holiday special, Jones felt the same disappointment that Ray did. The two men grumbled about the
Peanuts
Halloween special and how the Great Pumpkin never appeared. Schulz was a master—there was no doubt of that. But they both felt his Halloween program had done a great disservice to children, and to the myth of the holiday. Jones believed he could do better; he could do justice to Halloween. And so he called Ray, the gatekeeper to
The October Country,
the man who wrote of evil autumn carnivals, of ghosts in graveyards, and of whimsical vampire family reunions. Jones suggested to Ray that they do their own Halloween film.

The suggestion triggered an idea. Ray had done a painting that he thought Jones might like. On occasion, Ray enjoyed taking out his tubes of oil paints and gathering his daughters to go down to the basement, where they created personal masterworks. In 1960, Ray had finished a large oil painting on a piece of smooth plywood, which he titled “The Halloween Tree.” As with all of Ray's artwork—from his doodles to his more elaborate paintings—“The Halloween Tree” had a childlike quality to it. It was a primitive work, cartoonish, yet at the same time highly evocative. The painting was done in all the earthy tones—umber, burnt sienna, gold, orange, red, and yellow—of autumn. In the background was a small house, with a single upstairs light aglow and whirls of smoke rising from the chimney. In the foreground was a vast, looming tree, its foliage blazing October orange. Hanging from the limbs and branches were dozens and dozens of carved jack-o'-lanterns. This Halloween Tree was in full bloom.

When Ray showed his painting to Chuck Jones, the animator loved it. Jones suggested that it could be the focal point of their film, the metaphor, as they told the entire sweeping history of Halloween through the ages. Excited, Ray agreed to work with his friend on the idea. He began haunting the library, seeking the history of Halloween in other cultures. At the time, Chuck Jones was employed by the animation department of MGM, so the duo instantly had a studio behind them. Ray began writing the screenplay, which took, as he remembered, nearly two months to complete. During that time, he met with Jones once a week, late in the afternoon, at Jones's office on Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. There, the two men would discuss Ray's progress on the script, and enjoy happy-hour martinis and finger sandwiches at the upstairs bar in Jones's office building. It was a splendid, exhilarating collaboration. When Ray had completed his script, Jones read and loved it. The story centered upon a group of children on a quest for the origin of Halloween.

But now that they had the screenplay in hand, the money behind the project disappeared. MGM dismantled its animation unit, dismissing all its employees, including Chuck Jones. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ray and Jones shopped their script, but could not drum up interest. Ray recalled that they even optioned the screenplay, selling the rights to the story, but it was not made and the rights reverted back to them. Frustrated, Ray decided to adapt his own screenplay into a book,
The Halloween Tree
(as he had done with
Something Wicked This Way Comes
).

Knopf would publish
The Halloween Tree,
and, as Ray wrote it, he brought in his longtime friend Joe Mugnaini to illustrate it. Upon seeing the artwork, Ray's editor, Bob Gottlieb, was awed by Mugnaini's talent. Just as Ray had done with so many of his books, he had envisioned a look to
The Halloween Tree
that Mugnaini, through his series of black-and-white illustrations, brought to life. “I've got to hand it to you,” Gottlieb wrote Ray in late 1971, “you are a great art director.”

By January 1972, Ray had submitted his manuscript of
The Halloween Tree
to Knopf. The story, Ray said, “was much richer than the original screenplay. I added a lot of new material to the book.”

“One of the main things I added to the book,” said Ray, “was the idea at the end of the story where Moundshroud says to the boys, ‘You can save your friend, if you each give a year from the end of your life.' They all give up a year. They go to Pip's house, they look up and he's home and he's well. And they all stand out on the sidewalk and they cry. That humanized the whole concept.”

Gottlieb liked the first draft of Ray's manuscript, but felt that the balance of the story was somehow off-kilter. He sent Ray specific but minor editorial suggestions on January 10, 1972. A few passages were too long, the opening section on Egypt was too didactic, a section on witches was “impersonal and unlived.”

By most accounts, Ray took editorial suggestions extremely well. If he disagreed, he argued his cause. Norman Lloyd, Ray's producer during his tenure writing for Alfred Hitchcock, went so far as to call Ray “a dream to work with.” Of course, Lloyd added he had heard rumors in Hollywood circles that Ray Bradbury did not like to cut his own work (rumors that possibly surfaced from Ray's rocky relationship with
The Twilight Zone
), but Lloyd said that he had never personally experienced such a problem.

Within two months of receiving Bob Gottlieb's editorial remarks on
The Halloween Tree,
Ray had made all the requested changes. Gottlieb was elated. There were a few line-edit suggestions left to be made, but mostly the hurry now was to get the illustrations and cover art from Joe Mugnaini. When the artist submitted his work, some of his best ever done in collaboration with Ray Bradbury,
The Halloween Tree
was complete. The book was published in August 1972, in time to celebrate All Hallows' Eve.

 

T
HERE WAS
a great dichotomy to Ray Bradbury. He was, all at once, gregarious, approachable, loud, hilarious, and full of philosophies he was eager to share with everyone and anyone who would lend an ear. Ray loved being the center of attention. But Ray Bradbury was also a very private man. There was a guarded side to him—he was hesitant to discuss matters of health, familial troubles, or marital woes. He grew up in a household in which one did not discuss such subjects. “It's boring to talk about those things,” he often said. Instead, Ray preferred discussing his work. “Just get your work done” was his credo. But Ray Bradbury, like all of us, was human.

And so, beginning in 1968, throughout much of the creation of
The Halloween Tree
first as a screenplay, then as a book, the difficulties in his marriage to Maggie began again. Since Maggie first professed her discontent with their marriage in 1957, the couple managed to hold things together for the family's sake. They even went on to have another child, the beloved baby of the brood, Alexandra. But ever since Maggie had asked for a divorce, Ray felt tentative and insecure in the relationship. Ray always feared that Maggie might again decide that she wanted to leave. “I couldn't trust her anymore,” Ray said with a heavy sigh. In Maggie's defense, many years later, she claimed no memory of ever asking for a divorce. And after Maggie Bradbury passed away in November 2003, Ray was protective of her when discussing the cracks in their union. “She's no longer here to defend herself,” he said, sadly. “It's not fair to her to talk about it.”

In 1968, while lecturing in California, Ray met an attractive woman, nearly twenty years his junior. “I knew right away,” Ray said, “that she wanted to have an affair with me.” She was married, and at first the signals were subtle. When Ray lectured in Los Angeles, she often showed up, along with her husband. Ray sometimes dined with the couple, and all the while, there was the unspoken undercurrent of passion between the woman and Ray. Ironically enough, Ray liked her husband very much. “My admiration for him was fantastic. Here I am in the middle of this situation,” said Ray, “and I love the husband. He was a nice man.” A few years went by, but Ray never acted upon his feelings. Ray even wrote her letters, telling her, “My body says yes, but my mind says no.” Then, one day, she appeared at Ray's office on Wilshire Boulevard, alone. They both had strong feelings. They both felt desirous. Even then, Ray recommended that it would be best if she left.

The following year, she again visited Ray's Beverly Hills office. The temptation was too much. Ray went out and bought a bottle of wine and food and she stayed. But after two years, Ray's mistress, as he called her, began having remorse. Her husband had begun to lavish her with romantic gifts. “She began feeling guilty about him treating her so beautifully,” Ray said. In 1974, the affair ended.

During much of Lyndon Johnson's administration, Ray watched the war in Vietnam unfold and swell, and he balked at the thought of more American soldiers being shipped to the Southeast Asian country, only to die. As Johnson deepened the United States' involvement in the war, Ray became thoroughly disenchanted with the Democratic Party. His daughters Susan and Ramona even protested when Johnson was in Los Angeles giving a speech. Even after the president announced that he would not seek reelection in 1968, Ray determined not to vote Democrat—this from a man who had taken out an ad in defense of the party during the McCarthy hearings. For the first time, Ray voted Republican, and did so thereafter, in all but the 1976 election. Then Jimmy Carter's inept handling of the economy, he explained, pushed him permanently away from the Democrats.

In the midst of the Vietnam conflict, in January 1970, Ray met Italian film director Federico Fellini, who would eventually become a good friend. Fellini was visiting Los Angeles, promoting his latest work,
Satyricon
. As Ray was an ardent fan of the director, he attended a Hollywood screening of the movie. Afterward, Ray walked up to Fellini to introduce himself; when he proffered his hand and said his name to the director, Fellini did not recognize Ray. “I went away desolated,” said Ray. “I wanted Fellini to know my name. I wanted him to know that I loved him.”

The next evening, the director spoke in a seminar held in Beverly Hills by the American Film Institute. Naturally, Ray was in the audience, packed with the institute's students and Hollywood luminaries such as Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder. At one point, Fellini commented that he never looked at film rushes—the raw footage after a day of shooting. This intrigued Ray, who, when the discussion opened to the audience, engaged the director in dialogue. “I asked him,” recalled Ray, “‘How can you make an entire film without looking at it as you go along?' and he said, ‘I don't want to know what I'm doing.'” Ray thought how much like his writing process this approach was. Trust the subconscious, Ray always believed; in thought comes analysis and second-guessing. “An artist must never do that,” Ray cautioned.