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chapter 14 of Kathleen and Frank in the rough draft. Tomorrow we are probably going up to San Francisco for a couple of days, chiefly because there is a postmidnight showing of The Shanghai Gesture at a theater there! But we’ll also see Ben Underhill 11 and maybe I can show Don the [Frank Lloyd] Wright Marin County Building. Would like to see it again.
    On Monday I did a short speech for a BBC T.V. film about Morgan. A man named Eric Timmerman shot it and he had the really absurd idea of doing so in the midst of the Japanese garden at the top of Orange Drive above Hollywood Boulevard. So I squatted on a Japanese toy bridge over a miniature stream with a waterfall, which had been turned off so as not to interfere with the sound reception, and spoke about Morgan to Timmerman and his cameraman and a girl with nearly no skirt—none of whom had even read him. (Timmerman confessed that he mixed Morgan up with [C.S.] Forester and—Conrad!) It was very hot and I had to shout because a Mexican was working with a vacuum cleaner in the background and in the middle of it all a plane flew over.
    Yesterday, Phil Carlson came and interviewed Don for Esquire —at least that was what Don had been told in advance. But it was just on speculation and had been suggested by Elsa. Don was on his guard and how rightly, because Carlson tried to get him on the subject of our friendship, how did we meet, etc. Also, the day before, he’d brought a cameraman to get Don’s picture with a drawing of me; he took no interest in any other work by Don! Don refused to sign a release on the photos until he’d seen them, which rather shook Carlson. He is probably just an innocent. He is certainly an amateur. I’m still waiting to decide just how furious to be with that bitch Elsa.
    Don went to take a look at the Roller Derby, downtown, on Sunday afternoon. He decided that he really didn’t want to have anything to do with it because it is so faked, the skaters playact fights and feuds and the audience pretends to believe that they’re real. However, that was just his first reaction. It’s entirely possible—as so often when an idea is suggested to him—that, after turning it down, he’ll keep on thinking it over and finally come up with another idea which is an adaptation of it.
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    June 29. Two girls named Mercedes are cleaning house this morning! One was supposed to show the other the ropes, but neither of them knew how to work the washing machine.
    Clement Scott Gilbert and Bob Chetwyn now want to open the play at the Phoenix Theatre at Leicester on August 19, without stars, just to see how it works. Rehearsals would begin about July 27. So back we shall go, I suppose, at our own expense. It is a nuisance but a good thing in the long run, in fact what we’ve always wanted.
    We went up to San Francisco on the 25th and came back here early on the 27th. It was chiefly to see The Shanghai Gesture , which turned out to be terrible. We also saw Ben Underhill who, as always, produced some awful friends. But San Francisco is still beautiful, despite all the new towers, and I feel stimulated by the visit.
    Rushing on with the book. Don has offered to help but now he has such a bad cold. Even if I can get as far as the outbreak of war before we go to England it will be a great advance.
    Last night we had supper with Julie Harris and Jim Murdoc[k]. Jim is almost babylike in his vanity and general behavior but I can imagine getting fond of him and even not being embarrassed by Julie’s embarrassment. We talked a lot about his nose, which has just been fixed (though Don says, with his expert eye, that this obviously wasn’t for the first time) and about diets. Am still hanging on to mine but with no loss of weight to speak to.
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    July 6. The dreadful holiday is over and now I must work harder than ever to get this book finished. There are still some very big humps of raw material to be worked over.