THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1956.
I HAVE SOUGHT THE TRUTH ABOUT
U
Good
The Most Fantastic Character
JOHN HUSTON
Gane Marilyn her first chance.
in "The Asphalt Jungle."*
T
New York. HE most successful play in New York is
DYLAN THOMAS
Of Our Time
'N the pubs of the little grey Welsh town of Laugharne, in Car- marthenshire, where the poet Dylan Thomas lived and now lies
"Disgusting, it is."
"Poison, man, all lies."
"A fine fel-low he was, Dil-lan Tho-mas."
"A tidy chap, I'd say."
"They all loved him round here, man."
That book is called "Dylan Thomes in America," and was written by John Malcolm Brianin, an American poet and university reluver, who arranged Dylan Thomas's four American verse-reading tours, during the last of which he died, In New York on November 9, 1983, 12 days after his 39th birthday,
It is a grisly record of the poet's abysmal progress from party to party and bar to bar: it is as if the chronicler, notebook and pencil in hand, had
katiewe his every
tnomeni, noting down such drink (the first & double Sevich and Mala "for breakfast" on the airport), och smoke, each cough, each throb of would aurelimus follow the bucht hangover, cael bout of sickness which patuxyems of coughing to which Dylan Thomas had long been subftet, euen look, word, gesture addressed to the females who, no doubi, pursued such a pic turesque iterary lon.
Unhappily, it is out all Hes." Dylan Thomas often drank too much, often behaved in a manmer extravagant even for a picturesque poet, often appeared to the impressionobie as R Byronic gure more fascinatingly wild than the origirant.
But what those who knew him bitterly resen is that those who did not know him may well receive from the book the picture of a lecherous dipsomaniae, And that, they say, is a monstrous traVERY.
Mr Jirisant parades three alleged mistresses of Dylan's during the tours he do mute alone this wite was with him on one).
He gives them only Christian CHUDES. Therefore they are but ghosts, if attractive ghosts, waft- ung in and out of the pages, in- suustontal best painted vividly nough to haunt those who were
AND THIS IS HIS STORY
It tells of a man with
poetry in his heart and magic in his voice
who enriched the world by his genius, who lived passionately, and died tragically
By JOHN MARSHALL
Lu
1: Jeanz and Tiada singt He was a rare wit, though not with much bare flesh "care in the Oscar Wilde tradition of tessly displayed," und even the highly polished epigran, A Tetails "reports" frum Boston to tremendous and a scintillating Los Angeles
— in suggesting that he talker
his always self- ved by techery."
deprecatory way he clutmed All his friends can de
merely fo have "the lovely gift nearest lo Dylan and loved him say that sich behaviour was of the gab rare buffoon and most dearly.
Only
Inveterate pub crawler who want, same time, a religious thedicated poet, perhaps the most meticulous craftsman of them all, with a knowledge of poetry and pools surpassing, perhaps, that of any other of nis contemporaries.
great
Mr Betonin also charges "be- haviour that Threatened the pulidarity of antique furniture are the virtue of girls
from Kadehilfe" al
after a at party Horeard reading, patats a res pellent pleture of a drooling Dylan quraging the authorities a other
Dy H university ronditet -hin "Inemulious ro marks" when surrounded by " whole harm of college Kiria"
• Published IN thent's
Greut
Britain by
Monroe And
"The
Method'
MAJDALANY CONCLUDES HIS STORY
"Six months ago I could not have even thought about doing
Chirely out of character. Dylan almaself could huve Je- at Tuled the charges.
A tribute
the
poet.
He could have been a
ET us laten agam Lindignant Welsh voleos In actor (the greatest since Kean, Cross it has been paid). And, in my Brown's Hotel and the
view, which to
singular not the House Ion in
towns uny
hava
been
the where he lived with his family view, he could for more than 15 years:
most inesneric preacher of his "He liked his drink but never
age; for that grandly гестица
the voice of his ranged from was a drunk-urd,"
a wavelet to whisper of
tho thunder of a tempest
"A decent kind of # chap, never a wo-man cha-seT."
"Never looked at them twice he did not.
"From a fel-low po-et too." "And after
their acceptin
hos-ple-at-ty,"
infinite care
Some evoca- humorous proso,
WHERE will posterity place the W bubbling, roystering, brilliant, an outrage, man," Certainly Mr Brinnin pays beer-quaffing little Weishman in tribute to Dylan Thomas as one baggy tweeds who wrote of the
of the most luminously greal poets of his day, as
of live, richly IL truly magnificent reader
endearing human being. But the book is, to put the best con- and struction upon it, bitterly unhappy fragmem token entirely out of the context the man and his life.
that. That is what my sons poetry, as the most completely moving and easily
some poetry that was deeply
have done for me."
Aelors' Studio, the name of the esoterle nursery where she has been studying, is a current fad of New York's theatrical intelli- It is a theatre workshop gentsta. (with school attached) that is developing a new style of acting <> which there cre divided views and which has been nick. named "The Method."
Briefly. "The Method" may be said to encourage a more sub- Jeelive anotional approach
The business of acting, And this
Ite critics) (say
AR
Alurid
Note-taking
MR BRINNIN
лю
of
and
comprehen
word
sible,
some "modern"
beautiful poems which,
as they are, simply patterns cannot be understood by
the ordinary chop he liked so much? Where wit they place the ragichara with words who
child-
can take ur back down hood's enchanted glades so that we are ourselves children again, who could dip his hand into a
D gold crock filed with the Eng- lish words he loved o placing them reverently
and arranging with the most infinite care stead of
Dylan Thomas for the first time when he arrived in New York for his rat tour of the United the table 10
Siates on February 21, 1950, and knew him only for a few months spread over less than four years.
must have sta
started his relentless note-taking from the moment bewildered Dylan Inomas arrived at Idlewild Air-
seas sometimes
operates at the expense of the
When Fox saw this Metro effect the company chocses the
Dat Marilyn hires The rudiments of Goldwyn-Mayer film they car
chauffeur The Journey and the cues, audibility,
called "at on a Hot decided that she was, after driving are likely to conform Lails.
all.
photographable. Tin Roof." Marilyn Monroe's disagreement with rest is common knowledge.
came
long
before
The
with her own wishes.
she
The arrival from England of Olivier has given the story * happy ending and justified her ballef in herself
Grame as an ally.
think, is that point, I
went not to her head
The
SUCCES
the cruft such as
and such
A cult
old boy of Actors'
سام کی
Studio,
port for the first time, looking, us Brinnin records, "bundled Take an immigrant in a shapeless rough woollen parka, his hair, os tangled as a nest from which flown, his eyes wide, scured.
spontaneous,
-
letting them
through his fingers?
well
upon them
in-
run
Already the arguments
have started. There are those who
15
the
Vivid scenes
his niche
of
in
I dare to say that the humour,
the imagery,
astounding observation in such prose pieces "Return Journey--Swansea" and Festival of Britain" may may her Hollywood studio is the It
survive some of his more story of a kitten on a hot began to exercise passive resis
mystical, tragic, obscure pocna. as it comeji - ARLON Brando is the prize the bird hus
MA tin roof, but a kitten whose lance to the subjects they chose
There are others, many She disliked "River of enne, but it should be remem- for hus paws had learned the hard No Retum" and "There's No bered that for a long time she and with New York's younger
them, who claim that posterity way to resist heat,
I cannot claim to have known will welcome him as one of the Business Like Show Bussiness, fought alone, with only Milton actors "The Method"
has be and I um on critical record as
Dylan Thomas well, but I did greatest poets in the English come a cult. It is also a current meet him, and, like 60 mony She was not inexperienced having concurred
ny language this century. with what I
subject of many jokes.
1 fell under the spell of alters, in overcoming odds, and the d not at the time know to be
a complex but uiterly
lovable battle with 20th Century. her own views.
"One of these may give an idea personality; ho was warn and. but to her mind. She wanted both of "The Method" Helt and Fox was no more than the
When a picture called "Pink to use the power that went with the scepticism with which many tirely charming, truculent, and
exasperating, culminating phase of a Tights'
up with the stardom to lear
more about older hands regard it.
devastatingly critical, hilariously the Hall of Fame that book
WHATEVER struggle that hat been rations her resistance cvsed to her
her natural job, improve be pasive, She did what all talent. and enjoy the good
runny, plouringly erudite, and going on all her life.
sensible kittens do, she bolted things of life previously denied access was told by the Producer
During rehearsals a Method- medievally bawdy.
simply does not bring out the
- sidediners of of many- up a free-to be precise, New her.
I recall a meeting in one
Dylan Her childhood
was York-10
to walk
the stage on a lyft them to shout
certain cue-line and sit down. in St Martin's Lane, across the
his favourite pubs, the Salisbury Themas. neither
happy, for the fire brigade.
Ils publication in 00 years' easy nor
"But
why?" she wanted though she avoide talking
for reading, which is no know, "Give me a reason. What passage from the Now Theatre, time might have been justined The hot tin roof went up in about it, saying quickly: "A
more than the usual intensity is my motive?" The studio smoke
suspended of the convert making up lot of people had a tough her, stopped her pay, and said lust fume.
The producer, start," and then changing that if she did not return pretty
mun looked hård the subject.
quickly I would make certain thut within two years the name
give you a reason," he said. "Your salary." She
brought up of Marilyn Monroe was not even without affection by B
is a moot point whether Buccession of foster parents,
not come back. H to New York (now her per- the right place
IJENCE her immediate devotion this somewhat precious school is received the bare minimum She stayed on in New York with
a gifted I have the of education and at 16 she her friends Milton Grene and manent home), because it is so natural lite Marilyn. was working in a war-time his wife, started to take acting much more civilised than Holly feeling that in due course Pro- lessons, and with Milton Greene wood-where, as someone once fessor Oilyler's finishing school aircraft factory.
formed her own company. That said, life is wonderful if you will prove more txmetcial, was at the end of 1954.
Was
A chance photograph led to modelling: modelling led
a memory.
But she did
to Hollywood: Hollywood Compromised
led to the usual period of
lenco
zest
much-advertised her
Compensated her
happen to be a grapefruit.
for
Hence the single-mindedness with which she addressed her- self to daily acting lessons,
Americans are more con
we BTC of the
hunger. In succession Fox rph15 was one time in jungle and Columbin both took her T history when the Small clous than
It
ما
a non-Method
for
He ilked the Victorian atmo- as one contribullon to the Dylan library. sphere, the heavy furniture, and Thomne biographical ornate, shining copper decor, the That is what his widow, Caitlin cosmopolitan, stage-and-scribe
at her. "I'll i odds-und-ends company. It wass, thinks, and so does his
Great gift
not long before his death.
Enriched
abominated.
I have met and talked with both of them, I have spent many hours with some of Dylan's close friends, delved into the splendid collection of Thomastana in Swanse Library, sayed at wandered podgily in, those ever-rebellious curle in the Boat House, which was his glorious tumble, his great, bulge home, walked in the lanes he loved and sal 112 the pubs ing, luminous eyes glowing like Amontillado held to the light, he loved too-hose pubs where true- the he met real people, the thick Ups starting to tell
who were his Ute characters story before he reached basic material; the so-called in- hands thrust Into tweedy pockets, cigarette dangling from telligentsia; the arty ones ho the lower lip; an anticipatory
I have visited the scenes of NE of her grealest gifts is i ONE
half-pint of bitter was already her capacity for commending sing along the wet counter his childhood in Swansea; and
thing towards him.
had not the slightest difficulty motions of education. affectkin. The unusual on, but both quickly rejected White Rabbit (if I may be formal
It was
a long, lugubrious in recognising them, for no only to mon who are naturally story, the principal character writer ever evoked such scenes allowed to swap furry symbols They mind about not having about this is that it applies not
more vividly than did Dylan get away from the Big Brown degree. I believe that the chief
to women in the of Marilyn's acting in young women but
Mother Red Cap at Thomas, who went back to his Fox. Only recently was the value disputo sottied when it
who are not. struction is that It has com-
Camden Town. None of us can own boyhood for so much in his was pensated her
ail too few writings and broad- WDS for something sho agreed that Marilyn Monroe
riotously funny.
crats. Productions, Inc., would lend its feels she missed earlier in her
about whether the
So that it cooms appropriate The thousands
of ordinary Innocence folk" nrughtiness or the
apart from his many
to start out upon the attempt
the roal prosent noticeable that when is the true picture turns out to devoted friends who It was
were to
Dylan she referred to any of her ple- bo simpts. The answer la both, privileged to meet him as I did Thomas in the rather crowded unprofen- "We compromised,” she told fures she did so without interest, which is another way of saying may have left the poorer In front parlour of an
pocket after an unbudgeted tious house on the outskirts of "They retain the right to But it was with the pride of a that she is a whole person, choose the scripte." She paused, schoolgirl who has been, paited
But she is something more rsion, but all must have been Carmarthen where DOW Then with a perfectly straight on the head by teacher that she besides. She has a natural ap-For Dylan Thomas was
immeasurably enriched in spirit. Mrs Thomas senior, mother of It was John Huston who she said: "But I have to told me that she had just given petite for what Oxford calls theor
- alde character, her furat performance on a stage. Pamanice, and it is the more original, perhaps the very last Bo the director. gave her her first chance in approve
She had played a "The Asphalt Jungle," and should be all right."
for the chance to milaty 3.
her on the grounds that she did not photograph well.
First chance
I MENTION these brief facts because, seen in explain perspective, they much of what happened to her later.
In mid-metaphor) did happen to been a college and picked up a afectkmate towards pretty being an undertaker he had met
president to Fox for four ple- life, tures within the next seven
years.
me.
.
it
#ceno from
So the answer to Olivier's remember the details, but it
conundrum
the poet,
on
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