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Now since the time I sat for Don Bachardy, which was shortly before Chris died (in fact, as we worked, Chris was downstairs in his bedroom, quite ill by then, but still clinging to life). Since then Don has published a book of his drawings of the famous entitled STARS IN MY EYES. When I finally managed to read it I was amused at how well Don captured his feelings regarding the way he seemed to be treated by famous people whose only motive for enduring his attention was to please Isherwood. Nearly every personality Don encounters is either hostile or barely tolerant of his attention. Unlike the way we worked, Don would travel to wherever the subject lived, whether it was their homes or hotels. He arrived ready to do his best and was more often than not greeted with barely concealed disdain for having to make time for what for them was an ordeal. To his credit, Don uses this animosity to create a warts-and-all memoir of working with the rich and famous. The women come off the worst and he drew the aging divas of cinema at the end of their ropes with sagging chins and ill-conceived make-up. Both JOAN FONTAINE and her sister OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND are depicted as self-servicing bitches; however much they hate each other they both agreed that Don Bachardy wasted their time and captured none of their former glamour. Don has the last laugh, placing a well-aimed pin into every aging butterfly in his collection.

As for my sitting with Don, it took place in 1985 on a beautiful sunny day in Santa Monica with just a hint of smog on the horizon. Don had placed my chair directly towards the sun, making eye contact almost impossible. He finally organized my chair so I was still in the light but could give him my attention without my eyes tearing up. I always will remember him telling me about the large house on the opposite hill that sat high over the ocean, directly in my eye line. “You know, David that house was once a brothel. At the time Chris and I first moved here, years ago, at night you could watch the cars drive up the mountain and see the men get out, ready to choose their pleasure for the evening.” I told Don about my visiting the set of DAY OF THE LOCUST, which depicted a variation of what he was talking about. We laughed about our mutual friend Natalie Schafer, whom Don would paint a few years later.

As a rule Don did not encourage conversation while he worked, especially if it was the mouth he was drawing at the time. He felt like each session was unique, casting a spell that must remain constant; in other words, you don’t stop until the drawing is finished to his satisfaction. Don worked at his own pace and each drawing took about two hours. I was flattered to be asked to pose for not just a second drawing, but five of them, taking us through the entire afternoon until there was no more natural light. I must confess that, not unlike his movie star subjects, I was not thrilled with the results when I was at last allowed to view my image as seen by Don Bachardy. It took me reading his book years later to understand that being drawn by Bachardy is a bit like being drawn by Francis Bacon or Hunter Thompson’s favorite artist Ralph Steadman: it is your image yet it isn’t. If you want a flattering portrait, Don cannot be depended on to give it. What I was confounded with in my drawings was how much weight he added to my face when, at that time, I was about 150 pounds tops; yet in his mind’s eye, in one of them, I looked a bit more like Charles Laughton than David Del Valle.

Thank God Don did five of them! As I examined each and every one I think I chose the best one to use for my byline and happily signed them all for him and left with the one used here at Camp David for the last ten years. I was allowed that evening to see Chris. We had spent the whole afternoon into evening as he slept, and Don needed to look in on him again, as he had done throughout the day, whenever he chose to take a break.

While sitting for the five drawings Don and I both found it impossible not to talk once he had drawn the mouth for each one. Unfortunately, time has erased some of the conversation. However some memories do come back: as I put this together I remember I had seen a drawing Don had created of Walter Plunkett, the costume designer (and more importantly, the artist) who will always be remembered for designing the iconic gowns from GONE WITH THE WIND. I got to know Walter slightly one wonderful evening a few years back when John Kobal took me to Walter’s home for a small dinner party. The party consisted of Bob Mackie, myself, John, along with Walter’s longtime companion, Lee, whom Walter referred to around company as his “son.” Lee explained to me that Walter had formally adopted him so he would not have any problems inheriting Walter’s estate upon his death. The difference in their years made this seem a sensible thing to do, considering where we were in 1980 with Gay Rights. Same-sex marriages were still to be realized. I told Don about the dinner and how charmed I was by Walter’s gentle manner and grace. His hobby was knitting and he knitted cakes and pies that were so realistic that at a distance you could easily mistake them for dessert. I had brought a lobby card from AN AMERICAN IN PARIS for Walter to autograph for me. Walter looked at the card, then signed it, “Walter Plunkett did not design this costume.” Don and I both loved to get autographs as keepsakes from such encounters. When I mentioned what Lee had said about Walter’s estate I remember Don looking up at me and remarking how no such thing would happen with Christopher’s legacy, as he had seen to it that Don was taken care of for the rest of his life, and I have no reason to doubt it some twenty fives years after Isherwood’s death since Don still resides in the home Chris made for them nearly half a century ago.

There was one afternoon in particular, a couple of years before the sitting, when I had asked Don if I could interview Chris about the FRANKENSTEIN film they co-wrote in 1973 for Universal under producer Hunt Stromberg Jr. At that time I was still under the impression I liked the film, which was originally televised over two nights and running over 200 minutes. This was to have been the first true adaptation of Shelley’s novel, yet upon examination most critics found it wanting and with good reason; in many ways it was a grand mess from start to finish. I will never know to what extent Don worked on the text. It did seem to have a homoerotic subtext which was lost on no one. The monster was played as a pretty boy with Leonard Whiting as the obsessed Doctor Frankenstein. In their adaptation both the good doctor and his creation enjoy each other’s company too much and only when the creature starts to lose his looks does the relationship sour. Sound familiar?

Anyway, I arrived at the house and Christopher Isherwood has already had a couple of drinks. We went into the living room and I begin asking Chris just how all this came to pass. He explained that Universal was keen at that time to revive their horror franchise with new adaptations with a more modern, with-it approach. Don entered the conversation by explaining that they were to have done THE MUMMY right after the true story and Chris had a treatment already done by the time the Frankenstein film aired on television. I asked Chris if I could read this treatment and of course he said yes, but I never did see it and felt too awkward about it to bring it up again. Films had never been Isherwood’s forte, and I believe it was just the quickest way for a novelist with his reputation to make serious money while working on loftier subjects. I had brought with me a specially bound book by Terry Southern of THE LOVED ONE which Chris co-authored with Terry. I then asked Chris to autograph it for me, which he did, reminding me that he appeared in a cameo during the funeral service for John Gielgud. We laughed about the studio dubbing Bobby Morse’s voice because he was not English and could not seem to get the accent right. Don mentioned to me once that he had dreamed of being in the movies until Chris arranged for him to appear as an extra in his longtime friend Tennessee Williams’ film adaptation of THE ROSE TATTOO. I have seen this film a few times and never realized Don was in it, however briefly.

When the subject returned to Frankenstein once more I realized that this was just not on as far as Chris was concerned because he hated the film and felt that Stromberg did not have the slightest idea what they were trying to do with the material and went for gore effects with plots lifted from previous Frankenstein films from THE BRIDE on down. Chris felt strongly enough to publish a book with his and Don’s original concepts, released right after the film aired on national television. I changed the subject to something I knew they both would rather discuss, and that of course was David Hockney, whose work was in abundance all over the place. Christopher lightened up considerably at this moment, laughing about the first time they met when David first arrived in Hollywood. It seems that David Hockney was a huge admirer of his and upon their meeting, Chris told him almost at once, “Oh, David, we’ve so much in common. We love California, we love American boys, and we both come from the North of England.” Hockney has painted both of them many times including, of course, a rather famous one which also included David’s boyfriend at the time, the artist Peter Schlesinger.

It is interesting to compare CHRIS AND DON: A LOVE STORY with the documentary that was made in 1975 by Jack Hazan, A BIGGER SPLASH, which began as a documentary about Hockney as the dandified iconic painter who almost single-handedly represented the swinging 60’s at its most decadent. However what they got instead was an on-camera meltdown of David’s breakup with his lover, who was his muse as well. This completely horrified Hockney at first but time has made this a fitting swan song to that era and David Hockney went on to become one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His lover also went on to become an artist of importance, as well as a living testament to the era that continues to fascinate historians of pop culture, the love generation of the 60’s.

It was seeing the documentary of CHRIS AND DON that brought out all these recollections of my time in their company. The first part of the program, which focuses on Isherwood in the thirties when he was living and writing THE BERLIN STORIES, are most fascinating as I could only read about those days and this brings them to life through still images and film. One really grasps just how much of life Chris had tasted before he settled down with Don. Of course, what is most stunning are the images of Don Bachardy at the age of sixteen, and then eighteen, when he formally moved into Isherwood’s life for good. Don was indeed a beautiful boy and from what one is told, his brother Ted was even more so, and it was with Ted that Chris first began his courtship of first one and then the other. It must not have been lost of Chris that his old friend Tennessee Williams put the speech about “chicken hawks” in THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE into the mouth of “the Contessa” who pimps Paulo for Signora Stone. The Contessa explains to Mrs. Stone that her desire for boys at a certain age makes her a chicken hawk, a Yankee term used almost exclusively in the gay lifestyle. The fact that this was in the early sixties made the reference so obscure that it went over most of the audiences’ heads.

The second half of the documentary is equally compelling and somewhat sad as we see Don going to his brother’s apartment and observing just how ill Ted really was…you can sense how it must have terrified Don that what happened to Ted could have happened to him; it was fate that decreed who lived a charmed life and who did not. Ted died soon after this documentary was made, adding yet another layer of sadness to the proceedings.

I had not seen Don Bachardy in nearly twenty years. Seeing him now on camera as a 75 year-old man was jarring, yet Don is fit and aware of everything and seems to be comfortable in his own skin. He still keeps the British accent and vocal mannerisms that made it impossible back in the day to tell Don or Chris apart on the phone. The most dramatic thing in examining what has transpired in both our lives is that we have both lost longtime companions named Chris, and we are both alone after a lifetime of being secure in the fact that we had found our soul-mates and everything else would take care of itself…

A SINGLE MAN…

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