Director Elia Kazan remains one of Hollywood's most polarizing figures. He directed such classics as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), East of Eden (1955) and Splendor in the Grass (1961). The native New Yorker's career began on the stage and, as such, Kazan was an actor's director; he discovered Marlon Brando, James Dean and Warren Beatty. He also loved writers and proved a nimble collaborator for such icons as Tennessee Williams and John Steinbeck.
But when he testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee about being a member of the
Communist Party in the '30s, he "named names" -- an act that drew scorn
from some of his contemporaries and colored his career and his 1999
honorary Oscar (some of the attendees, like Kirk Douglas, steadfastly refused to applaud).
While a look at the correspondence he left when he died in 2003 at 94 -- collected in The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan,
out April 22 -- can't form a complete portrait of the man, it offers
invaluable insight into the mind of one of the 20th century's great
cinematic artists.
He was a man who admitted to various marital infidelities, including one with Marilyn Monroe ("a touching pathetic waif," see full letter below), recognized the appeal of Paul Newman
("plenty of power, insides and sex"), scolded Beatty for being a diva
and fought tooth-and-nail with censors and studio heads to preserve his
directorial vision. He was a man who loathed much about Hollywood --
writing his wife, Molly Day Thacher, that he hated it
"in a shrieking insane way. … It's like the grave, the tomb, the charnel
pit -- except it's all very fancy … full of really very fine people,
all in various stages of decomposition, without knowing" -- but came to
Tinseltown anyway because that's where movies are made.
In 1955, a defiant Kazan, 46, confessed to his wife an affair with Monroe, 29, a few years earlier -- not the first or last time he would stray. His letter offers an intimate view of not only their relationship but Monroe's marriage to Joe DiMaggio. It shows how Kazan was both tender and tough to the women he loved.
Nov. 29, 1955
To Molly Day Thacher
The reason I can't write you
about what I'm ashamed of is because I'm ashamed of it. I'm ashamed I
hurt you ever. On the other hand I resent being made to feel guilty and
low and less. This harks back to the worst times I ever had
when I felt low and less and all that. I don't feel that way any more
ostensibly. I just want you to know that it's not a philosophy of mine,
or a callous piece of habitual aggression. And it's not like the earlier
episode because I don't feel vengeful, hardly at all, if at all. I
guess it's accurate to say: not at all.
Director Chastises Warren Beatty for Acting Like a Diva
In one sense it's true to say
that it meant nothing. On the other hand it was a human experience, and
it started, if that is of any significance, in a most human way. Her boy
friend, or "keeper" (if you want to be mean) had just died. His family
had not allowed her to see the body, or allowed her into the house,
where she had been living. She had sneaked in one night and been thrown
out. I met her on Harmon Jones' set. Harmon thought her
a ridiculous person and was fashionably scornful of her. I found her,
when I was introduced, in tears. I took her to dinner because she seemed
like such a touching pathetic waif. She sobbed all thru dinner. I
wasn't "interested in her"; that came later. I got to know her in time
and introduced her to Arthur Miller, who also was very
taken by her. You couldn't help being touched. She was talented, funny,
vulnerable, helpless in awful pain, with no hope, and some worth and not
a liar, not vicious, not catty, and with a history of orphanism that
was killing to hear. She was like all Charlie Chaplin's heroines in one.
Director Defends Risque Scenes in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'
I'm not ashamed at all, not a
damn bit, of having been attracted to her. She is nothing like what she
appears to be now, or even appears to have turned into now. She was a
little stray cat when I knew her. I got a lot out of her just as you do
from any human experience where anyone is revealed to you and you affect
anyone in any way. I guess I gave her a lot of hope. She is not a big
sex pot as advertised. At least not in my experience. I don't know if
there are such as "advertised" big sex pots. She told me a lot about
[Joe DiMaggio] and her, his Catholicism, and his viciousness (he struck
her often, and beat her up several times). I was touched and fascinated.
It was the type of experience that I do not understand and I enjoyed
(not the right word) hearing about it. I certainly recommended her to
Tennessee's attention. And he was very taken by her.
I'm not sorry about it. I love
you and only want to help you. I'm awful sorry I hurt you. I am human
though. It might happen again. I hope not, and I have resisted quite
some other opportunities. No loss. I got a lot out of this one; can't
say I didn't. I think I helped her. If you don't like what I say and
feel it necessary for your own sense of honor to divorce me, divorce me.
I don't think I should not be married or anything like that. If you
divorce me, I'll tell you plainly I will in time get married again and
have more children. I feel I'm a family man and a damned good one. I
don't care what your judgment is on that.
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