1. After The Women opened in Los Angeles on Aug. 31, 1939, the careers of Crawford, Fontaine, Goddard, Russell, and Main experienced an upsurge.
2. Rogers wrote CBL that while lunching with Scott Fitzgerald she had noticed three copies of The Women on his desk. When she asked him why he had “this collector’s mania” for Clare’s plays, he replied, “I love her.” Elisabeth Cobb Rogers to CBL, n.d. 1938, CBLP.
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald, working notes for his screen adaptation of The Women, June 17 and July 2, 1938, MGM. In his first outline Fitzgerald said, “The biggest triumph is not of Mary over Chrystal [sic], but of the home over the more predatory and destructive habits of the female.” FSF Notes, 28–29.
4. Gary Carey, Anita Loos (New York, 1988), 184. Cukor said, “If the weak scenes got by on stage, they’ll get by on screen. And if you try to improve on them, you may unravel everything.” Fitzgerald qu. Andrew Turnbull, The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald (New York, 1963), 33.
5. Anita Loos, Cast of Thousands (New York, 1977), 225. Loos wrote that Cukor was ready to start directing when he was “balked by a Board of Censors that removed the best jokes from Clare Luce’s script, so George and I had to concoct each scene right there on the set before the cameras started to grind.”
6. Production file for The Women, MGM. One scene called for $50,000 worth of jewelry. Clifton Fadiman wrote, perhaps with tongue in cheek, “The Women is the most convincing argument for homosexuality I have ever encountered.” The Stage, March 1937; U.K. undated 1986 review by Helen McNeil, SJMP.
7. Ibid. Feminine rivalry became so intense on the set that Cukor warned his cast that anyone caught scene-stealing would be edited out of the final print. This did not deter Rosalind Russell from twice biting and drawing blood from Paulette Goddard’s leg during their knock-down Reno fight. Unidentified London newspaper, CBLP.
8. Twenty-four of Adrian’s outfits were for Norma Shearer alone.
9. New Republic, Sept. 6, 1939; New York Times, Sept. 22, Dec. 31, 1939, Jan. 13, Feb. 28, 1940.
10. Kiss, Oct. 1941; Margin, Feb. 1943.
1. CBL Diary, Mar. 4–5, 1940, CBLP; CBL, Europe in the Spring (New York, 1940), 34–35. CBL had spent time after docking in Naples touring with Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.
2. CBL, Europe, 38.
3. Ibid., 52. CBL sketched a vivid cameo of Edda Mussolini Ciano. “She was very pale and emaciated, and her red-gold hair and heavy-lidded eyes slipped by my direct eager glance, like a green wave from the prow of a ship, impersonal, indifferent, curiously cruel and strong. You felt right away that Edda Ciano ‘met’ nobody. In the course of events you came into contact with her, and then moved on, and she was there, sullen and ambiguous as a March sea, and you were gone.” Ibid.
4. Ibid., 54–58. Ciano’s diary entry for Mar. 7, 1940, eschews any mention of CBL in favor of the carbonara [coal] shortage that had dominated the dinner conversation. Galeazzo Ciano, The Ciano Diaries, 1939–1943 (New York, 1947), 21.
5. CBL, Europe, 59–61.
6. Ibid., 87.
7. Ibid.
8. CBL Diary, Mar. 23–25, 1940, reads “Country Joe.” CBLP; Michael Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (New York, 1980), 192.
9. HRL to CBL, Mar. 18, 1940; CBL to HRL, Apr. 11, 1940, CBLP; CBL Diary, Apr. 2, 1940. CBLP.
10. CBL, Europe, 148–150.
11. Cablegram, Mar. 31, 1940, CBLP.
12. CBL, Europe, 150.
13. Ibid., 150–152.
14. CBL met de Chambrun on Long Island in the summer of 1933. As a lawyer in Paris, he had successfully defended Harry in the suit brought by French newspapers against Time Inc.
15. CBL, Europe, 152–153, 180, 154.
16. Ibid., 156; René de Chambrun, I Saw France Fall (New York, 1940), 102–104; and Mission and Betrayal, 1940–1945 (Stanford, Calif., 1993), 30.
17. CBL, Europe, 157.
18. Ibid., 156–157.
19. Ibid., 159–160; de Chambrun, I Saw, 104.
20. CBL, Europe, 161–167.
21. CBL cable report to Time-Life editors, Apr. 9, 1940, TIA.
22. CBL to ACB, Apr. 12, 1940, CBLP.
23. Ibid.
24. John Billings Diary, Apr. 11, 1940, JBP.
25. CBL, Europe, 172–176.
26. Ibid., 186–187.
27. Ibid., 205, 207.
28. Ibid., 214–215.
29. Ibid., 223–224.
30. Ibid., 225.
31. Ibid., 229.
32. CBL cable report to Time-Life editors, May 11, 1940, TIA.
33. John Billings Diary, May 5, 1940.
34. CBL, Europe, 233–234.
35. Ibid., 239–241.
36. Ibid., 245.
37. Ibid., 255.
38. HRL to CBL, May 17, 1940, CBLP.
39. Ibid.
40. CBL, Europe, 250.
41. Ibid., 250–251.
42. CBL to John Billings, May 23, 1940, TIA. Also see CBL, Europe, 253.
43. CBL int. SJM, Apr. 3, 1987.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.; Otto von Habsburg qu. Time, Sept. 4, 1989, and to SJM, Sept. 7, 1989, SJMP.
46. CBL int. SJM, Apr. 3, 1987; Otto von Habsburg to SJM, Sept. 7, 1989, SJMP.
47. CBL, Europe, 269.
48. “There are no hopeless situations, there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.” CBL, Europe, 271.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 284–285.
51. Ibid., 33.
52. Harold Nicolson, Diaries, 1930–1939 (New York, 1966), 359. Oliver Stanley was the son of an earl.
53. CBL to HRL, June 3, 1940, CBLP.
54. CBL, Europe, 291.
55. Ibid., 301.
56. The following account is taken from ibid., 302–304.
57. Ibid., 302–304. CBL had come to know Coward well during her years at Vanity Fair, and had never quite gotten over her teenage crush on him. But she had long realized that their friendship could not progress beyond mutual admiration. At a business lunch on December 2, 1932, he had thrilled her with the brilliance of his repartee, and complimented her on her editorial expertise. “What a pity he is a fairy,” she wrote in her diary that night. SJMP.
58. Ann Brokaw Diary, June 12, 1940, CBLP.
59. HRL to CBL, qu. Billings, cablegram, May 23, 1940, CBLP. Billings praised CBL, in some embarrassment, after having rejected an article by Harry because of its excessive partisanship. John Billings Diary, May 25, 1940.
60. John Billings Diary, June 14, 1940.
1. Ann Brokaw Diary, July 7, 1940, CBLP.
2. HRL to CBL, cable, n.d. June 1940, CBLP; Al Morano int. SJM, Oct. 6, 1981; Corinne Thrasher to CBL, June 28, 1940, CBLP.
3. DFB to CBL, July 21, 1939, CBLP.
4. See Ch. 22.
5. DFB to Gladys Freeman, May 28, 1940, CBLP. The bill was for $1,050, in today’s terms over ten times as much.
6. Nora Boothe to HRL, enclosing seven invoices, c. July 14, 1940, CBLP; CBL int. SJM, June 24, 1982.
7. HRL to CBL, Mar. 8, 1940, CBLP; Ann Brokaw Diary, June 20, 1940; DFB to CBL (confirming he got $250,000 in four years), Jan. 28, 1940, CBLP. DFB had also taken money from Joel Jacobs.
8. HRL to CBL, Apr. 3, 1940, CBLP.
9. DFB to CBL, July 15, 1940, CBLP.
10. Daniel A. Doran’s report to the Luces, July 19, 1940, CBLP.
11. Ibid.
1. Ann Brokaw Diary, July 24, 1940, CBLP.
2. The following account is based on CBL, “The White House,” ts. memorandum, July 25, 1940, CBLP.
3. CBL, Europe in the Spring (New York, 1940), 23–24; CBL, “White House.”
4. CBL, “White House”; Europe, 307.
5. CBL, “The White House.”
6. Ann Brokaw Diary, July 29 and 26, 1940.
7. New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 29, 1940; New York Times, Sept. 22, 1940; Saturday Review, Sept. 14, 1940; qu. Allene Talmey, “Clare Boothe … in a Velvet Glove,” Vogue, Dec. 15, 1940.
8. PM, Oct. 13, 1940.
9. Helen Lawrenson, “The Woman,” Esquire, Aug. 1974; CBL int. Marc Pachter, Historian National Portrait Gallery, Mar. 21, 1983.
10. New York Times, Aug. 26, 1940, CBLP.
11. CBL to Joseph P. Kennedy, Aug. 26, 1940, CBLP.
12. CBL to Herbert Pell, Sept. 3, 1940, CBLP.
13. Peter Kurth, American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson (Boston, 1990), 35; CBL int. SJM, June 13, 1982.
14. Dorothy Thompson, “Off the Record,” New York Herald Tribune, Mar. 29, 1939.
15. CBL to BMB, Oct. 11, 1940, CBLP.
16. The following account is based on a report in the New York Herald Tribune, Oct. 16, 1940.
17. Kurth, American Cassandra, 325.
18. Luce, Clare Boothe, Current Biography, 1942.
19. Dorothy Thompson to Mrs. Henry Winters Luce, n.d. c. Oct. 1940, DTP.
20. New York Post, July 22, 1943.
21. CBL to John S. Mayfield, July 15, 1963, CBLP.
22. New York Times, Oct. 20, 1940.
23. New York Herald Tribune, Oct. 23, 1940.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. CBL scrapbooks, CBLP; Talmey, “Clare Boothe.”
27. Baltimore Sun, Nov. 3, 1940.
28. Vogue, Dec. 15, 1940.
29. CBL to Dorothy Thompson, cablegram, Nov. 6, 1940, CBLP.
1. CBL to Wilfrid Sheed, May 30, 1973, CBLP.
2. Albert P. Morano int. SJM, Oct. 6, 1981.
3. Unidentified news clip, c. Oct. 20, 1940, CBLP.
4. Margaret Case Harriman, “The Candor Kid I,” New Yorker, Jan. 4, 1941. In fact Clare was born nearer to Spanish Harlem than Riverside Drive.
5. See also Harriman, “Candor Kid II,” New Yorker, Jan. 11, 1941.
6. Corinne Thrasher to DFB, Oct. 29, 1940, CBLP.
7. DFB to HRL, Nov. 11, 1940, CBLP; DFB to CBL and HRL, Dec. 23, 1940, CBLP.
8. Transcript in CBLP.
9. Diana Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep (Boston, 1960), 68; John Billings Diary, Feb. 27, 1941, JBP; Ann Brokaw Diary, Mar. 12, 1941, CBLP.
10. Henry Luce, “The American Century,” Life, Feb. 17, 1941.
11. Qu. W. A. Swanberg, Luce and His Empire (New York, 1972), 182. The accusation shocked HRL, who considered himself an opponent of colonialism. Billings coined the title and he and Noel Busch worked on “The American Century.” HRL complained that his editors had “cut all his transitions, which he admitted were weak, but which he wanted replaced with better stuff.” John Billings Diary, Feb. 6, 1941.
12. John Billings Diary, Feb. 8, 1941. CBL went to Washington herself on March 12 and spent the day trying to get a visa, without success. She saw her daughter, who wrote, “Mother told me her big secret … why she must go to Germany.” ACB Diary, Mar. 12, 1941.
13. Ts. dated Mar. 9, 1941, in CBLP.
14. Peter Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles (New York, 1992), 74.
15. New York Times, May 6, 1941.
1. CBL, “Mr. and Mrs. God,” notes for a planned book, “China in the Spring,” CBLP.
2. Ibid.
3. HRL, “China to the Mountains,” Life, June 30, 1941.
4. CBL Diary fragment, n.d. 1941, CBLP.
5. Ibid.; CBL, qu. “Chungking’s Broadway,” Vogue, Sept. 1, 1941.
6. HRL, “China to the Mountains.”
7. Ibid. Theodore White, Time’s correspondent in Chungking, wrote that no visitor he had seen in China, not even Nehru, was received with the deference given the Luces. White, In Search of History (New York, 1978), 126.
8. CBL, “Wings over China,” Life, Sept. 8, 1941.
9. CBL Diary fragment, n.d. 1941.
10. CBL, “Wings over China.”
11. CBL Diary fragment, n.d. 1941.
12. HRL, “China to the Mountains,” and CBL, “Wings over China.”
13. “A friend of the Luces … says that one of the few quarrels that ever took place in their home life occurred one evening when Luce remarked that he could not think of anyone who was mentally his superior. His wife felt that this was extreme, and argued with him hotly and in vain, bringing in the names of Einstein (who, Luce objected, is a specialist), and John Kiernan (a freak, said Luce). After five years of marriage Luce has finally convinced his wife that he invariably means what he says.” Margaret Case Harriman, “The Candor Kid I,” New Yorker, Jan. 4, 1941. James Gould Cozzens, who worked briefly at Time Inc. in 1938, corroborated HRL’s opinion. “Though in vanity and self-assertion I yield to no man … at heart I knew … that I was not in his class … He was a more considerable person, with a better brain.” Qu. Matthew J. Bruccoli, James Gould Cozzens: A Life Apart (New York, 1983), 139–140.
14. HRL, “China to the Mountains.” According to Steve Neal, Dark Horse: A Biography of Wendell Willkie (New York, 1984), 258, the Luces were duped by Chiang’s exhibitions of military prowess. In fact over half his soldiers were starving, and peasants were forced to the front tied together by ropes.
15. CBL, “Wings over China.”
16. HRL, “China to the Mountains,” and CBL, “Wings over China.”
17. CBL, “Wings over China.”
18. CBL, qu. “Chungking’s Broadway.”
19. CBL, “America Reorients Itself,” address to the Junior League of New York, Jan. 13, 1942, CBLP.
20. Ibid.
1. CBL int. SJM, June 21, 1982; D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur (Boston, 1970–1985), II. 79.
2. Faubion Bowers int. SJM, May 1, 1995; Edward Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War (New York, 1987), 333–334.
3. Ann Brokaw Diary, July 7, 1941, CBLP.
4. CBL to CAW, July 25, 1941, CBLP.
5. Ibid.
6. Douglas MacArthur to CBL, Aug. 4, 1941, CBLP.
7. John Billings Diary, Aug. 5, 1941, JBP. Tex McCrary to CBL, n.d. Nov. 1941, re: her Life articles: “You still aren’t the best editor, but you are easily the best reporter in the racket now.” CBLP.
8. Irene Selznick int. SJM, Feb. 4, 1988; CBL qu. Willoughby in her letter to him, July 25, 1941.
9. John Billings Diary, Aug. 23, 1941.
10. CBLP.
11. Diana Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep (Boston, 1960), 97; Diana Cooper to Rudolf Kommer, Mar. 26, 1941, copy in CBLP.
12. Cooper, Trumpets, 99.
13. CBL, “Destiny Crosses the Dateline,” Life, Nov. 3, 1941.
14. Ibid.
15. CBL, “The Filipino Nut,” unpublished chapter of “China in the Spring,” CBLP; CBL debating on “Philippines: Asset or Liability,” Univ. of Chicago Round Table broadcast, Nov. 16, 1941, ts. CBLP.
16. CBL, “What Price the Philippines?” Vogue, Jan. 2, 1942.
17. Ibid.; CBL, “Filipino Nut.” Diana Cooper left Manila on September 9 for Singapore. She wrote CBL from the Manila Hotel. “Good-bye—be happy. I’ve always had faith in you—tho’ shy and inarticulate I felt happy with you this morning.… Come and stay with us at Sing Sing.” CBLP.
18. CBL, “America Reorients Itself,” address to the Junior League of New York, Jan. 13, 1942, CBLP.
19. Ibid.
20. Hart qu. CBL notes, Manila, Oct. 1941, TIA.
21. CBL, “America Reorients.”
22. Ibid.
23. CBL, “MacArthur of the Far East,” Life, Dec. 7, 1941; CBL to Noel Busch, Oct. 17, 1941, CBLP.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid. At a dinner in Willoughby’s apartment with MacArthur towards the end of her stay, CBL became “gloomily prophetic” as she “envisaged an America at war, growing daily more totalitarian.” Later that night she told Charles that the United States needed a great military leader and that “MacArthur would either never be heard of again, or he would one day return to the U.S.A. while the whole American people yelled, ‘Hail MacArthur.’ ” CBL reminding Willoughby of the evening in a letter dated “Bastille Day” 1942. CBLP.
26. CBL, “Ever Hear of Homer Lea?” Saturday Evening Post, Mar. 7, 14, 1942.
27. CBL, “What Price the Philippines?”
28. CBL int. SJM, June 21, 1982; Charles Willoughby to CBL, May 28, 1945, CBLP; CBL to Willoughby, Jan. 5, 1946, CBLP.
29. CBL int. SJM, June 13, 1982; Charles Willoughby to CBL, Feb. 15, 1945, CBLP.
30. Charles Willoughby to CBL, Aug. 20, 1944, CBLP. The Heidelberg city register showed only the birth of one Adolf August Weidenbach in 1892, to a rope maker of that name. Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief (New York, 1987), 334 qu. Der Spiegel, 1951. Willoughby confessed to CBL that he “squirmed” when reporters “probed and dug” for his genealogy. He also said that American citizenship was more valuable to him than a title.
31. News clips in CBLP.
32. Faubion Bowers int. SJM, May 1, 1995; Charles Willoughby to CBL, May 4, 1944, CBLP.
33. Capt. Parker [CBL’s Manila driver] diary excerpt, Oct. 5, 1941, ts. CBLP. Influenced by HRL, CBL later became unfailingly punctual in keeping appointments.
34. CBL, “America Reorients.”
1. Vogue, Sept. 1, 1941; Harper’s Bazaar, Aug. 1941; Walton Wickett int. SJM, Nov. 15, 1983.
2. Ann Brokaw Diary, Oct. 15, 1941, CBLP.
3. ACB to Dorothy B. Holloran, Oct. 17, 1941, CBLP; CBL to Mrs. Reece, Apr. 29, 1937, CBLP. Clare had earlier written of eight-year-old Ann: “Since she is no ‘brain’ I must make an athlete of her.” CBL Diary, Sept. 5, 1932, SJMP.
4. Unless otherwise attributed, the descriptions of ACB here and elsewhere in this book are based on her school reports, diaries, and correspondence in CBLP, supplemented by the author’s conversations with CBL, Walton Wickett, Norman Ross, Daphne Root, Evelyn Stansky, and other contemporaries who knew her.
5. CBL to ACB, Nov. 20, 1938, CBLP.
6. Evelyn Stansky int. SJM, Apr. 5, 1988; Malcolm Lovell int. SJM, May 18, 1988.
7. CBL to Isabel Hill, Sept. 2, 1941, CBLP.
8. John Billings Diary, Oct. 18, 1941, JBP; CBL to HRL, Nov. 15, 1941, CBLP.
9. John Billings Diary, Oct. 17–18, 1941.
10. David O. Selznick to CBL, Nov. 21, 1941, CBLP.
11. Ibid.
12. David O. Selznick to CBL, Nov. 29, 1941, CBLP.
13. CBL to Elizabeth Sayre, qu. Stephen Shadegg, Clare Boothe Luce (New York, 1970), 132.
14. Gladys Freeman int. SJM, Nov. 10, 1982. CBL, interviewed by Stephen Shadegg in the 1960s, characteristically remembered the butler giving the message to her rather than Harry, whereupon she announced the bombing to their guests. Shadegg, CBL, 132. Gladys Freeman was at the Dec. 7 lunch, and recalled it vividly.
15. Elinor Langer, Josephine Herbst (Boston, 1983), 245–246. That night, HRL called his father to ask what he thought the outcome of Pearl Harbor might be. The old missionary said that China and America could only be drawn closer. A few hours later Henry Winters Luce, aged seventy-three, died in his sleep. W. A. Swanberg, Luce and His Empire, (New York, 1971), 189.
16. John Billings Diary, Dec. 7, 1941.
17. CBL, “A Reappraisal of U.S. Foreign Policy,” address to Association of the U.S. Army, Hawaii, June 18, 1975, ts. CBLP.
18. CBL, “Ever Hear of Homer Lea?” Saturday Evening Post, Mar. 7, 1942, John Billings Diary, Dec. 31, 1941, Jan. 3, 6, 1942.
19. CBL to ACB, Feb. 5, 1942, CBLP.
20. Saturday Evening Post, Mar. 7, 14, 1942.
21. CBL, “The Valor of Homer Lea,” introduction to Homer Lea, The Valor of Ignorance (New York, 1942), 4.
22. CBL to Irene Selznick, Feb. 2, 1942, Irene Selznick private collection, New York, N.Y.
23. Ts. in CBLP.
24. CBL to ACB, Feb. 5, 1942, CBLP.
25. Walton Wickett int. SJM, Nov. 15, 1983.
26. Ibid.
27. Alexander Hehmeyer to CBL, Oct. 16, 1941, CBLP.
28. “Maggie” to “Felix,” unidentified letter forwarded to HRL, Jan. 12, 1942, CBLP.
29. The Horst shoot took place in November 1941. Margaret Case borrowed the dress and gems on behalf of Vogue. She gave the costume details to CBL in a letter dated November 12, 1941, CBLP. The portrait illustrating this chapter is different from the one used in the article “The House of a Distinguished Couple,” Vogue, Feb. 15, 1942.
30. CBL to AEA, Jan. 20, 1942, CBLP.
31. Ibid.
32. Clare told Ann she stayed away from Dr. Austin’s funeral because “there were too many people there I didn’t want to face again and get all mixed up with after so many years.” CBL to ACB, Feb. 5, 1942, CBLP; Albert P. Morano int. SJM, Oct. 6, 1981.
33. Morano int., Oct. 6, 1981.
1. Qu. Theodore H. White, The Stilwell Papers (New York, 1991), 35.
2. Recalled by Frank Roberts to CBL, Dec. 9, 1942, CBLP.
3. CBL, “By Clipper to African Front,” Life, Mar. 30, 1942. See Ch. 35.
4. Life, Apr. 27, June 1, June 15, June 22, July 13, July 20, 1942.
5. CBL, “Burma Mission I,” Life, June 15, 1942.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. CBL, “Burma Mission II,” Life, June 22, 1942.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. CBL Diary fragment, “On the Road to Mandalay,” Apr. 5–8, 1942, CBLP; CBL, “Burma Mission II,” Life, June 22, 1942.
12. CBL, “The Battle for Egypt,” Life, July 13, 1942.
13. Ibid.
14. CBL, “Burma Mission II.”
15. Jawarharlal Nehru to CBL, Apr. 1, 1942, CBLP; CBL Diary fragment, Apr. 1, 1942; CBL to Frank Roberts, June 28, 1942, CBLP. CBL was not overly impressed with India’s military capability, writing that the Allies would find it “risky to turn over vital matters of defense to a bunch of people who have for hundreds of years wrangled and fought as to whether you should kiss a cow or kill it.” CBL to David Hulburd, c. Apr. 12, 1942, CBLP.
16. CBL Diary fragment, May 1–5, 1942; CBL int. SJM, June 28, 1982.
17. CBL int. SJM, June 28, 1982; Hugo Vickers, Cecil Beaton: The Authorized Biography (London, 1985), 262.
1. CBL to ACB, Feb. 5, 1942, CBLP.
2. Marilyn Bender and Selig Altschul, Pan Am, Juan Trippe: The Rise and Fall of an American Entrepreneur (New York, 1982), 375; CBL int. SJM, June 16, 1982; Greenwich Time, June 8, 1942.
3. Greenwich Time, June 26, 1942.
4. John Billings Diary, July 1, 1942, JBP.
5. Albert P. Morano int. SJM, Oct. 6, 1981. All subsequent Morano quotes are from this interview.
6. Ibid. Eric Hodgins, a Time-Life senior editor, once said, “Harry just plain disliked giving orders. He would prefer to discuss, to soliloquize, debate and do everything else imaginable in preference.” Qu. Robert T. Elson, The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, Volume 2: 1941–1960 (New York, 1973), 61.
7. News clip, n.d., CBLP.
8. John Kobler, Luce, His Time, Life, and Fortune (New York, 1968), 124–125.
9. Stephen Shadegg, Clare Boothe Luce (New York, 1970), 159; Greenwich Time, June 22, 1942.
10. CBL to Frank Roberts, July 31, 19, June 28, 1942, CBLP.
11. Ibid., July 31, 1942, CBLP.
12. Shadegg, CBL, 159.
13. Greenwich Press, Aug. 5, 1942.
14. Morano int., Oct. 6, 1981; Shadegg, CBL, 160; Bridgeport Post editorial Aug. 5, 1942; Greenwich Press, Aug. 5, 1942. CBL met George Waldo on June 16 and made such an impression that he never forgot the date.
15. Ann Brokaw Diary, Aug. 11, 1942, CBLP; theater program, CBLP.
16. John Billings Diary, Oct. 29, 1942; CBL to Alexander King, Mar. 7, 1941, CBLP.
17. The Barter Theatre playbill for the Tenth Annual Drama Festival advertises the play as a new one by “Karl Weidenbach.” At school CBL had written under the name of “David Boothe.” As a teenage runaway she had called herself “Jacqueline Tanner” (see Ch. 8), and as a teenage poet she had signed three odes with the name “David Ivor Austin.” At Vanity Fair she used the nom de plume of “Julian Jerome.” A draft of her unpublished play “O, Pyramids” (1935) is credited to “John Grace.” CBL int. The Dick Cavett Show, PBS, Jan. 20, 1981.
18. New York World-Telegram, Aug. 14, 1942.
19. Bridgeport Herald, c. Aug. 17, 1942, news clip in CBLP.
20. Ann Brokaw Diary, Aug. 15 and 19, 1942. Ann’s boyfriend was named Geza Corvin. He was playing the lead in a concurrent production of There’s Always Juliet. Ibid.
21. Ibid., Aug. 20, 1942.
22. Ibid., Aug. 22, 1942.
23. CBL to BMB, Aug. 27, 1942, CBLP.
24. John Crosson in unidentified Bridgeport newspaper article, Aug. 28, 1942, CBLP; CBL to Cecilia Murray, Aug. 31, 1942, CBLP. “I am aware of the responsibility,” she wrote. “It is now my decision to run for Congress and to fight with you for the election.”
25. Perhaps sensing HRL’s feelings of being neglected, CBL went out of her way to cable affectionately from Port Chester: “Good night my darling and wonderful husband. I know so much of what goes on in your secret heart but what can I do. Always Wiff.” Oct. 17, 1942, CBLP.
26. Ann Brokaw Diary, July 5, 1942; John Billings Diary, Sept. 3, 1942. Billings said that Harry was working as managing editor of Time “two weeks on, one week off” and was “short-tempered and unreasonable.”
27. Hartford Courant, Sept. 11, 1942; New York Daily News, Sept. 11, 1942; Faye Henle, Au Clare de Luce: Portrait of a Luminous Lady (New York, 1943), 150. Time reported on her spectacles and the reaction to them in its Sept. 21, 1942, issue.
28. CBL address, ts. in CBLP.
29. When State Chairman Bradley informed Kellems that he was supporting CBL, she accused him and Committeeman Pryor of “dictating Mrs. Luce’s nomination in order to … repay Henry Luce for the thousands he poured into Mr. Willkie’s campaign.” New York Sun, Sept. 4, 1942; Ann Brokaw Diary, Sept. 10, 1942; Time, Sept. 18, 1942.
30. Ann Brokaw Diary, Sept. 10, 1942. Former President Herbert Hoover sent her a congratulatory telegram: “You will be a most valuable addition to the government of this country.” Sept. 15, 1942, HHP.
31. New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 15, 1942.
32. Morano int., Oct. 6, 1981.
33. Shadegg, CBL, 163.
34. Memorandum, n.d., CBLP. Congressman Downs incurred only $3,302 in expenses.
35. Henle, Au Clare, 150, 153.
36. Ibid., 146.
37. Ibid., 148, 144.
38. Ibid., 142; Waterbury Republican, Sept. 19, 1942; Greenwich Time, Oct. 2, 1942.
39. Ibid., quoting a broadcast speech of Gov. Robert T. Hurley.
40. Wesley Bailey Campaign Diary, Oct. 31, 1942, CBLP; Current Biography, 1942.
41. Henle, Au Clare, 154. Miss Thompson further said, over WSSR radio: “I am for Clare Boothe Luce for the same basic reason I was for the President [in 1940]—I believe that she knows more about world affairs than the other candidate.” News clip, CBL scrapbooks, CBLP; Henle, Au Clare, 153.
42. Greenwich Time, Nov. 2, 1942; Morano int., Oct. 6, 1981.
43. New York Daily News, Nov. 11, 1942; Bailey Campaign Diary, Nov. 3, 1942. CBL was accompanied at dinner and to campaign headquarters by HRL, Elisabeth Moore and her husband, Maurice, John Gunther, and ACB’s boyfriend Geza Corvin. ACB had returned to Stanford University.
44. Long Island Star Journal and Bridgeport Telegram, Nov. 4, 1942. Downs, haggard and unshaven, conceded: “I guess I just haven’t got glamor.” Shadegg, CBL, 165. An Independent polled 250. New York World-Telegram, Nov. 4, 1942. Sunday Worker, Aug. 13, 1944, noted that CBL’s 1942 win was made possible by the Socialist candidate’s 15, 573 votes.
45. Bridgeport Telegram, Nov. 4, 1942; Bailey Campaign Diary, Nov. 3, 1942. Later she would give Morano a watch engraved with the legend “You can’t miss.” Morano int., Oct. 6, 1981.
46. Bailey Campaign Diary, Nov. 3, 1942; Henle, Au Clare, 156.
47. CBL to ACB, Feb. 5, 1942, CBLP. In the ts. CBL actually wrote, “First lady Vice-President.”