I was reading through a lot of these blogs, and have been impressed with the strength, courage and vision of these friends of mine. Its odd that we've taken to blogging at around the same time (I'm still a newbie at it) and I don't want to sound like an adolescent who raves on about his relatively new friends as if I'm six and "we're gonna be bestest friends until we're like, ninety-five!!" because, hell, who knows what the future holds or will bring? But for now, they're in my life and I am enjoying them hugely. Each of them in a way provides me with a different view, a different vantage point for looking at life, and its impossible (not to mention egotistical of me and vaguely insulting to them) to try and sum up what each of them encompasses, as they are all such complex and complicated creatures.
So I won't try.
I read their entries and I feel somewhat stilted and dry by comparison, but I am in such awe of their courage, and passion for living, that each thing I read of theirs is a singular and rivetting delight that inspires me on in my own journeys. In short, they are my friends and they inspire me.
My point however, (and yes, Ellen, I DO have one) is that their courage and outspokenness reminded me that I had never mentioned, much less acknowledged the debt I had to another hidden friend I've had all my life. The man who quietly, through his art and his experience, kept me from oblivion and despair and inspired me with his tragic genius more than any other stranger in my life ever has; Tennessee Williams.
What started me off on this realization was that lately, I've been reading his early letters in the hopes that, like a good tonic, it would get me off my ass and back to my writing again. More specifically, back to my play. You know, the one I am perpetually bitching about, THAT one. But its done more than that; its made me seriously think and consider for the first time in years, Tennessee Williams.
Born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus Mississippi on March 26th, in 1912 or 1914, (depending on which birthdate source you read) the first volume of his letters are from 1920 to 1945. The first letter included was written when he was about six to eight years old, writing his mother, after a long, surprisingly solitary train trip to visit his grandparents in Mississippi.
Apart from his sister Rose, its quite apparent that his grandparents were the great loves of his early life. His adoration for them shines through in every word. Its fascinating and funny and quite touching to hear this feisty youngster metamorphose into the eloquent and shy young man who would eventually become one of America's greatest playwrights. To hear him refer to his grandfather, the Reverend Walter E. Dakin as "Grandfody" and to hear his breathless description of roosters being killed and cooked by his Grand (mother) for supper (no punctuation naturally) and of bike rides taken and adventures had, quite clearly shows the physically strong, energetic and alert little boy he must have been. Simply put, his character radiates through his letters, and it's impossible not to like him. I'm not finished the book yet, and when I do, I'll probably put a more detailed analysis of it in here. There are two other volumes, the third (not yet published) which carries right on up to a few months before his death in 1983.
But I digress...
Williams has always been a hero of mine, albeit one I discovered by accident when I was a teenager. I was an old movie star buff (still am as anyone who knows me will tell you) and my current obsession when I was thirteen was the British actress, Vivien Leigh. I had seen her in Gone With the Wind, and fell madly in love with her, as most boys, (gay and straight) would, (she was added to Kate, Judy and Lynda Carter by that point) and I wanted to see and read everything I could about her. In the course of this new obsession, I naturally watched A Streetcar Named Desire, and started learning about its author, Tennessee Williams. Curious about this writer, I escaped to the library and read the original play of Streetcar and then I read his memoirs (scandalous reading to a hormonally amok 14 year old boy). My jaw hit the floor. I could scarcely believe that this elderly man had been rich, famous, lionized AND he was GAY!!! (Plus he was an Aries too!!!) In the deep dark well of my denial a small candle of possibility was lit. Was there hope for me after all?
Tennessee Williams was the first gay male icon I became aware of. For me, his example, his very being, at that point was literally like a light in the wilderness. He was the first public figure I was aware of who was gay, a mainstream legend, and open about it. It was like a bell went off in my head. I was becoming aware that my inclinations were leading towards other boys, and it tormented me. Living in King City, I was aware that THAT wasn't going to make me very popular, and popularity at that stage of the game was of singular importance to me. So the possibility that it might not be the end of the world if I was gay was something I seized on with the desperate appeal of the drowning. It was Williams who had unknowingly pointed out the way.
As I read more about him, and learned more about his tormented childhood, I could see that he too had gone through a lot of the same torments and doubts and fears that I was going through. I turned inward also, as he did, and sought an escape through the theatre, although at that point, where he wrote, I acted. I had always written and painted and acted, but it wasn't until high school, that acting really took off for me, and became an obsession; among other things, a way out of dealing with the reality of my homosexuality.
Tennessee became an obsession for me. He had escaped his childhood, and so would I. I would get through high school and eventually be able to deal with myself, but for the time being, until I could manage it, I would wait. He survived, (there was proof enough in his achievements so that anyone could see it) and for a young gay kid who knew nothing of gay culture at large, that was all I needed. If he could do it, I thought, so could I.
Williams and his art, so close to my own ideals, became beacons for me, signposts to help me steer past the shoals on my way through the twists and turns of adolescence. An average looking gay male had worked his way to mind-boggling success and acclaim. That he paid a very high price for it is common knowledge now; the pain of his childhood, the madness and loss of his beloved sister Rose's sanity, the death of his lover Frank Merlo, his own fear of insanity and hypochondria all helped fuel his own self-destructive nature. But. He had survived, and he had succeeded past anybody's wildest dreams. Nobody had thought he would amount to much, but he did, and he surpassed anything anyone could have dreamed of, and he took the future of American theatre with him while he did it.
It was this quality of being the underdog that I really identified with as a youngster. He was never earmarked for success. He wasn't a brilliant scholar and and he wasn't out of the ordinary way at all. But he succeeded. He believed in his daemon, his muse, and he worked hard at exploring and deciphering it. That he was a genius is undeniable. That he worked, and worked HARD for it, is less remarked upon. He proved himself, on HIS terms, on issues and dreams and hopes and fears that mattered to HIM, and that meant more to me than anything else.
How many times since hearing of his death when I was fifteen, have I wished that I could have told him, (had I known him then) what he and his work would mean to me in my life. In today's queer culture, with young queers out and proud and loud about it, I wonder if they know or even think about the price that trailblazers like Tennessee Williams paid for their ability to have Pride Parades, to get married, and to stand up in society and not be as stigmatized as they once were. There are and were so many of course to whom we owe a great debt, but Williams was one of the first mainstream public figures who was out at a time where it was seen as either an illness or a crime to be homosexual. This was before Stonewall, before AIDS, before all of it. He was out there, and tormented as he was by so many things, he never lied or tormented himself about his sexuality.
If Tennessee Williams were alive today, he'd be 94 (or 96) years old. What would he think of shows like Will and Grace, and films like Boys Don't Cry and plays like Angels in America and the explosion of queer culture on the mainstream? What would he have written about AIDS and the holocaust it's cost the world in so many ways? I can't imagine he would have been silent about it. What would he have said about how far homosexuals have come since the days when young Tom Williams was being jeered at and called "Miss Nancy" by his father, Cornelius Coffin Williams? In this day and age, what would he say about the neo-fascistic rise of the Republican party, and radical fundamentalism of the religious right? Growing up with an Episcopalian minister as a dearly loved grandfather, how delightful it would be to watch him cut down right wing religious zealots with his poetic gifts and religious history.
Oh, how we need his poetic eloquence and brutal honesty in these times of lying right wing propaganda and paranoid finger pointing. What might he have said about George W. Bush and the slippery slope he is leading his country down? Williams was always acutely aware of the state of his country, and he worried about it endlessly. I shudder to think of the horror he might have felt at the backwards social regressivism a large number of his countrymen have embraced in recent years. Paradoxically, I also glow thinking of the harsh indictment of it he might have given them for their blindness.
There is also a part of me that hopes that at the same time he would have been satisfied by the fact that people knew he had lived his truth and inspired others to do the same. Part of me hopes that he would be justly lionized by the queer press and queer culture for being brave enough to open the American cultural landscape to the inner pain of those who are different, who are sensitive to ways that aren't of the mainstream and the norm. One can only hope that he was aware of this in some way before he died, and was contented somewhat by it.
Tennessee Williams and his beautiful dreams and dreamers kept me going when I was a youngster and they have kept me aloft with their hopes ever since. Blanche Dubois may have depended on the kindness of strangers, but for myself, I have always depended on the dreams and courage of my old friend, a stranger, Tennessee Williams.
Both photos courtesy of J. Huctwith, Esq.
