I"m way behind, and dropping into the middle of a discussion, but speaking of the last few administrations, here's a NYT piece by Gore Vidal. It's about Edmund Morris's new biography of Ronald Reagan.
I plan to memorize the Wodehouse line and use it frequently.
Is today your birthday? If it is, Happy Birthday, Steven!
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September 26, 1999, Sunday
Editorial Desk
A Biographer Writes Himself Into
the Picture
By Gore Vidal
Fiction versus biography. Fact versus invention. A mine
field. Tread warily. I have a vague recollection of a
conversation several years ago with Edmund Morris. I was
still waiting for the second volume of his splendid life of
Theodore Roosevelt. What had happened? Postponed.
Why? He told me. I would have fallen to the floor had I
not been able to clutch at a passing console, courtesy of
P.G. Wodehouse.
Reagan? Yes! Total access was mentioned. Every day. No
secrets. A seat beside the throne. I warned: 'You will
need hardship money. Battle pay.' I visualized a broken
biographer, eyes glazed, sleep-famished after days
listening to the most awesomely boring man ever to be
chief magistrate. I knew. I was there. Back in the 50's,
early 60's, I saw strong men faint, powerful women
defenestrate themselves whenever Ron entered a room
all-aglow with highly polished anecdotes culled from recent
Reader's Digests and golden oldie Saturday Evening Posts.
Since none of us knew then that the wealthy used-car
dealers he quietly consorted with were planning to make
this very good actor (point never to be lost sight of) into a
governor of California and that they would, in turn, attract
a group of even greater financial interests to make him
President, we steered clear of him as we did of his friend
Robert Taylor, reputedly the second most boring member
of the Screen Actors Guild. Nancy, on the other hand, was
bright . . . .
But to work. I had the impression that Morris had no idea
of what Hollywood was all about: particularly the
Hollywood of the studios where actors were not-so-highly
paid puppets held to rigid contracts, their every move
literally supervised by, in Ron's case, the Brothers
Warner. More than one of Ron's directors called me after
he was elected President, horrified at this astonishing bit
of national miscasting. All they could hear themselves
saying was, Hit your mark, Ron! No, not there. There!
I don't think Morris suspected any of this. A President
who was not interested in politics was something odd; he
also read no books, knew no history. Nevertheless, full of
folksy charm, he could 'communicate' masterfully on TV
whatever message had been crafted for him, from that
evergreen favorite 'the Russians are still coming' to let's
cut the capital gains tax for the rich as well as any tax on
corporate profits because a rising tide sinks all boats, or
whatever the conventional wisdom was.
In due course, Morris was on the case. Day after day, he
must have been told, yet again, about Ron's truly important
life as president of SAG. The intricacies of the Ida Lupino
Warner Brothers' contract of 1937, no, it must have been
'36, ever fresh in his perfect anecdotal memory. Of all
our Presidents, he appears to have been, for his handlers
and managers, the least trouble. Only occasionally would
obsession undo him. Nicaragua. Contras. Red Menace in the
Americas. In fact, he was approaching what looked to be a
disastrous ending to his Presidency when he gave
Congressional testimony -- on film, naturally -- about the
role he played in the Iran-contra affair where he must
have thought dealing, illegally, with our enemy Iran was
child's play compared to dealing with Bette Davis when she
went on strike against Warner Brothers. ('I never called
Jack Warner 'Jack.' He was always Mr. Warner. The
greatest man I ever knew.') Ayatollah Khomeini was a
pussycat compared to Davis on the rampage; incidentally,
our greatest screen actress was a hard New England
liberal, who always referred to Reagan as 'little Ronnie
Reagan,' quite ignoring how good he was acting the part of
an alcoholic playboy in her memorable weepy 'Dark
Victory.' In any case, Reagan sailed through his testimony
on a wave of 'I don't remembers.'
What was Edmund Morris to do with such a subject? In
Reagan, the masters of the media had found their most
obliging President. Whatever corporate America wanted,
corporate America had finally got. Small marginal lefty
papers like The Nation might mock this beloved paladin of
all that was good in America, shining upon its hill, but for
eight years no one was allowed to give the game away. We
were told he was on top of everything; he was widely read;
with an innate instinct for high diplomacy. Finally, he had a
sense of fairness that included even the downtrodden 1
percent that owns most of the wealth of the country as
well as a lot of that of the rest of the world. It took a man
of saint-like compassion to realize that when taxed the
rich feel pain, bleed.
The myth of this Wizard of Oz was furiously sustained on
all sides. Now a serious historian was given a crack at him
and found . . . Nobody there. This is the dilemma for
Morris and his publisher. How do you write about no one
without giving away the game about how and why
Presidents are selected?
I believe at some point on Morris's long road to Damascus,
he had his vision: This is all fiction. So, obligingly, Morris
has fictionalized himself, too. He appears as a character in
scenes from the past where he could not have been but
has sufficiently researched so that he could reinvent
himself as the hero was inventing himself, with a little help
from his friends and agents at M.C.A. I think this is a
superb solution even though, as a historical novelist, I
would never have dared to be so avant-garde. But then,
I've never dealt with an American President whose life
owed so little to Parson Weems and so much to Pirandello.
Can't wait to read the book! |
