An Unusual Correspondance and Lost Friendship
My Dad is gone now; he died in 1983. He was a professional writer; specifically a screenwriter, mostly during the so-called Golden Age of the film industry. He won two Academy Awards for Best Short Subjects. Yes, you have probably seen at least one of his flicks but I'm not going to name them as they would then identify him and therefore me. He was a tall handsome man who played tennis 7 days a week and was very athletic. My parents were divorced in 1950 when I was 5 years old.
Dad was sometimes called "the last of the old fashioned gentlemen" by his friends and acquaintances. He was generally ethical in his behavior, honest and trustworthy.
However, nobody's perfect. And this story is about one of the few times in his life that he messed up big time. His remorse was very real and painfully intense. This story is not about him being my father, but about his life as a man.
Dad loved to write. And recreationally he really enjoyed a good correspondance with another writer; over the years he had several such epistolary relationships. He, and his pen pals (typewriter buddies...?)kept all their carbons and eventually sent them, or copies of them (when Xerox came along), to each other. So Dad saved all of these letters and I found them in a box with his many diaries after he died. He had them organized carefully in files.
The one that fascinated me was his correspondance with a famous popular novelist who was on the NY Times bestseller list at the time. I am not going to name that novelist here (sorry) for reasons that will be obvious. The man wrote spy thrillers and was good at it; he had himself been a British intelligence officer in WWII after fighting in the British Army (yes, he and his wife were British). He was about 20 years younger than Dad and like Dad athletic and strong.
Both men admired each other as writers. Dad began their correspondance by writing to Collin Moran (as I'll name him here) and eventually they did meet in person. Dad, (whom I will call William Baxter here), had read Moran's latest best seller and was greatly impressed with Moran's abilities. Moran was interested in learning to write screenplays because he had accepted a job turning his book into a movie and had never written either a film treatment or a screenplay.
A strong friendship developed which was pleasing to both of them. Dad also got along quite well with Collin's very beautiful wife Dahlia.
Perhaps you can see it coming. Dad didn't so he didn't have his defenses in place. He fell passionately in love with Dahlia. And an affair happened.
This was completely atypical of Dad's usual restrained and decent behavior. He had never become involved with a married woman. He saw himself as someone incapable of such a thing. He suffered so much guilt over what he saw as the betrayal of a friendship (the worst thing a man could do in his estimate) that he lost weight, turned pale, and could barely speak. I knew something was wrong but he refused to tell me what it was. When he ate lunch one day at a local restaurant with Collin Moran, a much more worldly man than Dad, Moran put his observation of Dad together with his observation of his happy looking wife and drew a very correct conclusion.
The next part of their correspondence was less friendly. But just as articulate and witty as ever and it still makes entertaining reading.
Dad admitted the truth of Moran's perception; he was in love with Dahlia and had been her lover. He apologized as he confessed his overwhelming guilt over his, as he saw it, dishonorable behavior in betraying a friendship.
To Dad's amazement, Moran forgave him saying that he and his wife had what today some call an "open marriage," an arrangement that allowed a certain amount of straying. He said he wasn't angry with his friend and still considered their friendship viable and valuable.
This didn't make Dad feel any better about his affair with Dahlia, but actually made him feel worse, as if he was not only involved in an adulterous affair but a kinky sort of arrangement, the sort of thing he could easily picture winding up in the National Enquirer or some other tabloid. Fearful that this might really happen, he very awkwardly explained the situation to me. He said he was trying to find the strength to end the affair.
Meanwhile the correspondance continued. Dad found Moran's attitude incomprehensible. He begged Moran to kill him, or at least punish him appropriately with a good beating. His guilty conscience was torturing his soul. Moran kept saying he should stop being guilty, everything was OK.
At one point, Dad suggested that Moran, who was a crack shot with guns and collected antique weapons, load his two 1840s dueling pistols and meet Dad at dawn on Sunday in Griffith Park (east of Hollywood) where they would resolve the situation in the traditional manner.
Moran's answer was filled with the kind of language that would not have passed the Motion Picture Code back then. I don't have a copy of that letter with me, don't want to try and tear apart my closet to find it, so I will attempt to paraphrase:
"Baxter, are you crazy?! Have you considered seeing a psychiatrist?! The last time I shot anyone was in the War during combat in the British Army. In the highly unlikely event I were ever to use a gun on a civilian in peacetime, it would not be on a close and valued friend. Don't even think about it. If this awkward situation is to be resolved, Will, you'd goddamn well better come up with an improvement over pistols at 20 paces!!!"
Dad's return mail reply: "TEN paces?"
Moran's next letter expressed his enduring affection for my father and stated he could never shoot a friend. He asked my father for an attempt to revive their friendship.
My dad replied that he didn't deserve to have Moran as a friend. He said:
"I don't deserve to die a natural death.(and he didn't as it turned out; someone else killed him, not Collin Moran, and for entirely different reasons) And I don't deserve you for a friend! All I deserve from you is a well aimed bullet through my treacherous heart."
Yes, Dad was really awash in guilt. It nearly killed him, no pistols needed.
After a while, Dahlia couldn't take it anymore and the affair dissolved into memory.
Even after the affair ended, Moran couldn't persuade Dad that they could revive their former friendship although the correspondance did continue for a few more months mostly dealing with subjects like the latest films, books and plays plus screenwriting techniques. But it ended after a while due to Moran's unwillingness to take what Dad considered an appropriately punitive approach to him. Eventually their friendship ended, not because Collin Moran could not forgive my father but because my father could never forgive himself.
Just to add further information:
Dahlia developed cancer soon after the affair had ended and she died a year later. Moran complained to his friends of loneliness and died about a year after Dahlia of a heart attack. Dad lived on for many years but eventually developed heart failure and died in an intensive care room in a hospital in the middle of the night when someone who hated him (for reasons entirely separate from his love life) cut off his oxygen and killed him hours before nature would have. Perhaps he perceived it as cosmic justice over his affair with Dahlia.
Dad was sometimes called "the last of the old fashioned gentlemen" by his friends and acquaintances. He was generally ethical in his behavior, honest and trustworthy.
However, nobody's perfect. And this story is about one of the few times in his life that he messed up big time. His remorse was very real and painfully intense. This story is not about him being my father, but about his life as a man.
Dad loved to write. And recreationally he really enjoyed a good correspondance with another writer; over the years he had several such epistolary relationships. He, and his pen pals (typewriter buddies...?)kept all their carbons and eventually sent them, or copies of them (when Xerox came along), to each other. So Dad saved all of these letters and I found them in a box with his many diaries after he died. He had them organized carefully in files.
The one that fascinated me was his correspondance with a famous popular novelist who was on the NY Times bestseller list at the time. I am not going to name that novelist here (sorry) for reasons that will be obvious. The man wrote spy thrillers and was good at it; he had himself been a British intelligence officer in WWII after fighting in the British Army (yes, he and his wife were British). He was about 20 years younger than Dad and like Dad athletic and strong.
Both men admired each other as writers. Dad began their correspondance by writing to Collin Moran (as I'll name him here) and eventually they did meet in person. Dad, (whom I will call William Baxter here), had read Moran's latest best seller and was greatly impressed with Moran's abilities. Moran was interested in learning to write screenplays because he had accepted a job turning his book into a movie and had never written either a film treatment or a screenplay.
A strong friendship developed which was pleasing to both of them. Dad also got along quite well with Collin's very beautiful wife Dahlia.
Perhaps you can see it coming. Dad didn't so he didn't have his defenses in place. He fell passionately in love with Dahlia. And an affair happened.
This was completely atypical of Dad's usual restrained and decent behavior. He had never become involved with a married woman. He saw himself as someone incapable of such a thing. He suffered so much guilt over what he saw as the betrayal of a friendship (the worst thing a man could do in his estimate) that he lost weight, turned pale, and could barely speak. I knew something was wrong but he refused to tell me what it was. When he ate lunch one day at a local restaurant with Collin Moran, a much more worldly man than Dad, Moran put his observation of Dad together with his observation of his happy looking wife and drew a very correct conclusion.
The next part of their correspondence was less friendly. But just as articulate and witty as ever and it still makes entertaining reading.
Dad admitted the truth of Moran's perception; he was in love with Dahlia and had been her lover. He apologized as he confessed his overwhelming guilt over his, as he saw it, dishonorable behavior in betraying a friendship.
To Dad's amazement, Moran forgave him saying that he and his wife had what today some call an "open marriage," an arrangement that allowed a certain amount of straying. He said he wasn't angry with his friend and still considered their friendship viable and valuable.
This didn't make Dad feel any better about his affair with Dahlia, but actually made him feel worse, as if he was not only involved in an adulterous affair but a kinky sort of arrangement, the sort of thing he could easily picture winding up in the National Enquirer or some other tabloid. Fearful that this might really happen, he very awkwardly explained the situation to me. He said he was trying to find the strength to end the affair.
Meanwhile the correspondance continued. Dad found Moran's attitude incomprehensible. He begged Moran to kill him, or at least punish him appropriately with a good beating. His guilty conscience was torturing his soul. Moran kept saying he should stop being guilty, everything was OK.
At one point, Dad suggested that Moran, who was a crack shot with guns and collected antique weapons, load his two 1840s dueling pistols and meet Dad at dawn on Sunday in Griffith Park (east of Hollywood) where they would resolve the situation in the traditional manner.
Moran's answer was filled with the kind of language that would not have passed the Motion Picture Code back then. I don't have a copy of that letter with me, don't want to try and tear apart my closet to find it, so I will attempt to paraphrase:
"Baxter, are you crazy?! Have you considered seeing a psychiatrist?! The last time I shot anyone was in the War during combat in the British Army. In the highly unlikely event I were ever to use a gun on a civilian in peacetime, it would not be on a close and valued friend. Don't even think about it. If this awkward situation is to be resolved, Will, you'd goddamn well better come up with an improvement over pistols at 20 paces!!!"
Dad's return mail reply: "TEN paces?"
Moran's next letter expressed his enduring affection for my father and stated he could never shoot a friend. He asked my father for an attempt to revive their friendship.
My dad replied that he didn't deserve to have Moran as a friend. He said:
"I don't deserve to die a natural death.(and he didn't as it turned out; someone else killed him, not Collin Moran, and for entirely different reasons) And I don't deserve you for a friend! All I deserve from you is a well aimed bullet through my treacherous heart."
Yes, Dad was really awash in guilt. It nearly killed him, no pistols needed.
After a while, Dahlia couldn't take it anymore and the affair dissolved into memory.
Even after the affair ended, Moran couldn't persuade Dad that they could revive their former friendship although the correspondance did continue for a few more months mostly dealing with subjects like the latest films, books and plays plus screenwriting techniques. But it ended after a while due to Moran's unwillingness to take what Dad considered an appropriately punitive approach to him. Eventually their friendship ended, not because Collin Moran could not forgive my father but because my father could never forgive himself.
Just to add further information:
Dahlia developed cancer soon after the affair had ended and she died a year later. Moran complained to his friends of loneliness and died about a year after Dahlia of a heart attack. Dad lived on for many years but eventually developed heart failure and died in an intensive care room in a hospital in the middle of the night when someone who hated him (for reasons entirely separate from his love life) cut off his oxygen and killed him hours before nature would have. Perhaps he perceived it as cosmic justice over his affair with Dahlia.
70-79, F
