PINK TRIANGLE

Fame is a bee.

It has a song.

It has a sting.

Ah, too, it has a wing.

—Emily Dickinson

Pink Triangle is dedicated to two exceptional men, Frank Merlo and Stanley Mills Haggart, both of whom I met one long ago winter’s day in Key West, Florida, where I had been appointed as the young bureau chief of The Miami Herald.

Frank, in turn, introduced me to his longtime companion, Tennessee Williams. From that day, Frank and I bonded, and he invited me to virtually every party, premiere, or event revolving around Tennessee until Frank’s early death.

When distinguished visitors came to Key West, Frank saw to it that I got to “hang out” with them in preparation for writing profiles on them. Guests flying in to confer with Tennessee in his heyday included some of the most flamboyant personalities in show biz—from Gloria Swanson to Marlon Brando, from Paul Newman to Geraldine Page.

In the early 1960s, after Frank and Tennessee separated, before Frank’s death from lung cancer in a New York City hospital, he came to my home in Greenwich Village. There, he proposed that I write a memoir, with his help, about his experiences with Tennessee. Frank had been his companion during the most creative period of the playwright’s life, an era when he created masterpieces which included A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Up until about a month before his death, Frank was still dictating his memoirs to me, but asked to stop the narrative when the topics addressed the collapse of his relationship with Tennessee. “I can’t go on,” he said weakly. “It’s all too painful.”

One of my first interviews in Key West was with a promising new playwright and novelist, James Leo Herlihy. He’d written a play, Blue Denim, on Broadway, and had just completed a nationwide tour of his latest play, Crazy October, starring Tallulah Bankhead and Joan Blondell, both of whom became friends of mine. Herlihy provided many insights for this book, years before he wrote his famous novel, Midnight Cowboy, which was filmed in 1969, winning an Oscar as Best Picture of the Year.

For years, Herlihy was my best friend. He introduced me to Stanley Mills Haggart, an author, art director for television commercials, and an awesome force in the arts and entertainment underground of Hollywood.

Stanley and his mother had arrived in Hollywood during its Silent Picture era, and got to know many of the players there, including both the friends and enemies of Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, and later, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. For years, he was a “leg man,” and reporter, gathering secrets (many of which could not be printed back them) for Hedda Hopper’s much-feared, widely syndicated newspaper column.

Until he died in 1980, I worked with Stanley in television advertising. In those days, movie stars shamelessly promoted commercial products, Ronald Reagan selling Arrow Shirts, Eva Gabor selling cigarettes, and Joan Crawford hawking Coca-Cola. [Later, after she married Alfred Steele, Chairman of the Board at Pepsi, despite her preference for vodka, she switched soft drinks.]

With Stanley, I created a series of travel guides to Europe that became known as the Frommer Guides, selling a few million copies.

Near the end of his life, Stanley had me ghost-write his memoirs, which eventually stretched out in a disorganized draft to five volumes, never submitted for publication. He’d known not only Tennessee, but Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. He’d become close friends of these writers in the immediate aftermath of World War II. He met them through a mutual friend, the diarist, Anaïs Nin. Although later, I got to know both Truman and Gore personally, for the purposes of this book I drew heavily on Stanley’s revelations about Gore and Truman in the 1940s and 1950s.

Without the experiences of both Frank and Stanley, this book could not have been written—at least not with so much inside information into the writers’ private lives.

I’m also deeply grateful to Key West resident and author Donald Windham, who had co-authored, with Tennessee, the play You Touched Me! in the early 1940s.

Three women in Tennessee’s life offered invaluable information—Marion Vaccaro, Maria St. Just, and Margaret Foresman, the managing editor of The Key West Citizen before she came to live and work with me in New York.

Over the years, as I roamed the world doing research for Simon & Schuster, Prentice Hall, or any other entity then in control of the Frommer Guides, I encountered literally hundreds of people who had had some experience with Tennessee—everyone from movie stars, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, to hustlers and bartenders.

Countless others also had memories to share of Truman and Gore. Even if I couldn’t use all their material, I did come across many revelations that made their way into this book. I can’t mention all of those who contributed—some sources asked to remain anonymous—but my gratitude is extended.

There were, however, some people who were especially helpful because of their individual familiarity with one or even all three writers. I’ve singled them out for particular mention below:

Alvin Ailey (for his memories of House of Flowers); Hermione Baddeley (for her experience starring in The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore); Anne Bancroft (a dear friend of long ago who shared her memories of both Broadway and Hollywood in the 1950s); Tallulah Bankhead (whose stories were always outrageous and fascinating); Diana Barrymore (a tragic, dear soul); Barbara Baxley (the female star of a film based on a novel I wrote and one of Tennessee’s favorite actresses); Anne Baxter (for those long, soggy nights in Connecticut); Ingrid Bergman (who allowed me to visit her vacation home on an island in Sweden); Lem Billings (at the Garon/Brookes Literary Agency, JFK’s best friend once discussed with me his hope of penning his memoirs); Joan Blondell (who was spontaneous and generous with her memories over extended periods in my home); José Bolaños (whom I first met in Puerto Vallarta); Jane and Paul Bowles (my friends when I lived in Tangier); Marlon Brando (who allowed me to show him “the hidden treasures” of Key West); Montgomery Clift (and especially his brother, Brooks); “Celebrity Seer” John Cohan (for his insider tips); Noël Coward (the information on this witty charmer came from Greta Keller’s unpublished memoirs, which I ghost-authored); Joan Crawford (for our association during the period when she was promoting Pepsi-Cola); Candy Darling (back when I was a frequent visitor to Andy Warhol’s Factory); Bette Davis (who, to my knowledge, always spoke the truth, as devastating as it was); Marlene Dietrich (she told me only what she wanted to tell—and nothing else!); Troy Donahue (whom I met when the Hollywood parade had ended); Tom Drake (a gentle man ruined by Hollywood); Mildred Dunnock (a great actress and a great human being); Jack Dunphy (Truman was his favorite subject); Carlos Fiore (who knew most of Marlon Brando’s secrets); Frank Fontis, Tennessee’s Key West gardener and handyman, “a spy in the house of love”; actor Robert Francis (one of Gore’s lovers who died before completing his life); Ava Gardner (my fellow Tarheel and a forever delight); Tamara Geva (a difficult friend, but a loyal one); my traveling companion in the Balearic Islands, Dick Hanley (for his memories of Elizabeth Taylor); Gregory Hemingway (for his remembrances of a brutal father); William Inge (my houseguest in Key West); Christopher Isherwood (who shared memories of all three writers, especially of Tennessee during his early days in Hollywood); my friend and neighbor James Kirkwood (who knew all three writers intimately); Harold Lang (for his relationship with Gore Vidal); Guy Madison (who, during our meetings in Thousand Oaks refused to let me ghost-write his memoirs—perhaps with good reason!); Carson McCullers (for her special, often provocative, insights into Tennessee and “that squeaky dwarf, Truman Capote”); Anaïs Nin (for her disapproving memories of Gore Vidal, and for the many times I was invited into her home in Greenwich Village); Patrick O’Neal (for his side of the story about the theatrical run of Night of the Iguana); Anne Meacham (for sharing details of those turbulent weeks she spent with Tennessee); and for my friend Danny Stirrup (for his shared memories of the early days, in the 1940s and 50s, of Tennessee and Frank Merlo’s time together in Key West). I also owe a special debt of gratitude to the information relayed to me by Tennessee’s long time literary agent, Audrey Wood. (“Marketing and coping with Tennessee was one bumpy ride,” she said. “But what a thrilling experience it was.”)

Most of all, I am grateful to my co-author, Danforth Prince, for the tireless months he spent reviewing mountains of data and researching the most minute details of what happened when. He’s a marvelous young publisher and writer, a tireless researcher, who seems to know how to locate the “gold nuggets” in a field of stones.