For BEST clarity, please read THIS: http://www.amazon.com/Tennessee-Williams-Mad-Pilgrimage-Flesh/dp/1491519738
And perhaps this: http://LaterDaysofTennesseeWilliams.blogspot.mx, which John Lahr kindly reviewed.
To begin with, in my last posting, I stated something that would legally be considered a lie – which I never intend to do. I’m leaving it for the legal record, but I was mystified that I had proofed it three times before posting – and had not noticed it. It was NOT written in anger, although the tone of the writing might suggest that. It is more than MY belief – it was the published belief of Dakin Williams, a lawyer and Tennessee’s brother, as well as of Dotson Rader, the close writer friend of Tom’s. I knew them both.
Also, as I occasionally remind readers, this is a LITERARY blog and holds to a different standard than court testimony, so anyone wanting clarity about what I’d say in court should ask. That said, in recent months I have usually tried to reach court standards.
John Uecker NEVER admitted to smothering Tennessee Williams with a pillow – at least not to me. He might have to his top drama student and close friend, James Gandolfini, who mysteriously died recently from a drug overdose and even MORE mysteriously ended up in Episcopal Cathedral St. John the Divine in Manhattan for his funeral. He played an Italian Catholic mobster – and funeral in the same room as Tennessee Williams’s Poet’s Stone – and I am NOT one to flatter that church, especially.
However, if you take the timeline of the chain of events -- as so well documented by John Lahr in his Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh – and what I know from BOTH Vassilis Voglis telling me in 1983 and what John Uecker told me in 2009 (all published many places in this blog), John’s smothering Tennessee is the only theory that works that I can think of.
Uecker would not have had anything to do with whatever was fed Tennessee, and if he was in the shape all Tom’s close friends told me about, it could well have been a mercy killing, so I am not angry with John Uecker. And I THANK John Uecker for telling me that Schuyler “Skye” Wyatt told him – the same thing Skye had told me – that it was a high-placed Republican in the Tennessee State Legislature who had paid for his and Gary’s luxury lifestyles all those years – and we know it was in exchange for testifying that Tennessee was incompetent when he signed the codicil to his will, changing the main beneficiary to Harvard, rather than Sewanee.
Tennessee waited an incredibly long time to do that, and I can only speculate that it was his lawyer, John Eastman (who conspired with Sewanee and Maria St. Just), who deliberately dragged his feet so that by the time it was ready – late fall, 1982, I believe – Tennessee’s health WAS in decline. This had been recommended for Tom to do by Jackie Kennedy Onassis at the party where I met her, January 11, 1982, and Tennessee intended to have John Eastman take care of it right away. Of course there was always so much DRAMA around with Skye and Gary living in the house, things got forgotten.
And all those close friends that evening in 1983 in Vassilis Voglis’s apartment, kept saying that Tennessee would not stop complaining about being fed ground glass – which they, like I, thought paranoid and delusional.
But I’m not so sure now. I don’t know a thing about how the body deals with powdered glass – except that even that tiny, it is all sharp edges. It would NOT show up in an autopsy blood report – and given that it was at least a month or so since he had been around Skye and Gary, it likely would have passed through his body completely – or maybe not???
Is an exhumation called for???
But more to James Grissom and his Follies of God, I have NOT read it, but I have some of his blog. A friend of mine who followed the blog for about a year and recently read the book told me his observations, so they are not mine, said it is clear Grissom met with Tennessee at least three times, and the last of these very lucid encounters was in October of 1982 – when according to Jane Smith and Vassilis Voglis, Tennessee was ALREADY too rough to have a decent conversation with, so his (reported to me), fairly regular interview could not have happened like that AT ALL.
I wonder which interviewees are still alive so they can verify what James reports. I knew Maureen Stapleton fairly well, so if I read it, I’d have an idea if it rang true. I forget who-all he interviewed, otherwise.
In the time I worked for him, Tennessee NEVER took a single drug that he did not get legally from a doctor – except on two occasions, he took a few tokes of someone else’s marijuana joint. He would have been TOO PARANOID to buy ANY street drugs -- if he wanted to.
>>> TO BE CLEAR TO THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS/NEW ORLEANS LITERARY FESTIVAL: www.TennesseeWilliams.net. Email just sent Paul Willis, Executive Director:
This came back BLOCKED to info@tennesseewilliams.net, so I sent it to Paul at the Saints and Sinners Festival (simultaneous).
Hi Paul,
I hope all is going well and you are not going too far past crazy preparing. I wanted to send a note to hopefully put your mind at rest about my attending this year’s Festival.
Most importantly, the event is about Tennessee Williams and NOT me or my information that might shock or annoy some for various reasons. And every individual event is about its title and presenter(s). Additionally, there might be a presenter or two who would rather I did not attend their event, and I will honor their request and NOT blog about that – unless it is everyone – LOL!!!
If I raise my hand and the person does not want me to speak, I will NOT take it personally, and WILL “behave”.
But mostly, I would prefer to meet with anyone interested outside scheduled events, as so many of us have information that it is not easy to speak about publicly.
That said, I expect to have a lot of fun – and will remain in a fun spirit – despite any annoying happenings. I arrive late Tuesday night, and fly home very early Monday.
All best,
Scott Kenan
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment