stateless82 — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:32:38 GMT

Dorothea Tanning turned 100 on August 25th.

stateless82 — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:47:17 GMT

This is from A Hell of a Life by Maureen Stapleton- page 179. A small story about Lillian Hellman.

"After Toys in the Attic, I began a ritual with Lillian. Once a year I'd take her out to a restaurant of her choice. "I'm not picking it," I told her, "because if I choose the joint, you'll find something to bitch and complain about." She'd select the place, and I'd order a limousine and take her out in style. Once time, after a splendid meal during which she smoked four hundred packs of cigarettes, we got into the limousine and she started to light up again. Jesus, the woman had emphysema. I couldn't help it; like a schmuck, I reached over and took the cigarette away from her. Lillian glared at me. "Do I take the wine out of your hand?" "I'm sorry," I said, handing back the cigarette. "I lost my head. Here, smoke."

Lillian and I kept up out friendship until she died. Everything went kaput at the end- her eyes, her lungs, her legs; everything except that brilliant mind and that sublime wit. At the end, she couldn't see, she couldn't walk, and she could barely breathe. She was hospitalized and lay blind and bedridden in her smoke filled room. Peter Feibleman told of going to see her toward the end; he walked in and asked, "How are you feeling?"

Lillian turned her head. "Terrible!" she groaned, "Oh, Peter, I have the worst case of writer's block I've ever had in my life." "

Susan