Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Author.
On the island
Eight records
The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
He was known as Stokie to us. My father used to years later called him the Rich Man Sinatra. But the trick was that every urchin in Philadelphia who had ten cents could go to Stokovsky's youth concerts.
Comfort ye, my people (from Messiah)
I was terribly broke and I lived in a furnished room. But once a year, if I had to go without food for two or three days, I went to hear Handel's Messiah at Carnegie Hall in those days, and I'd slide into my seat and just as it started I'd think I made it one more year.
But this was the first American composition I heard that had lovely, lovely words, which were as much Americana as the music. The words are by James A. G. It's called Knoxville, Summer of Nineteen Fifteen, and it's his recollection of being a little boy in that town at that time.
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
It is a combination of English music and English literature. Which was terribly important to me because being a writer, born speaking English, London was to me what Rome is to a parish priest.
The one most nostalgic record of that time for me. Is Sir Arland Bax's Coronation fifty three. It was written for Elizabeth's coronation, but it was also the theme song on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
I Shall Marry the Miller's Son (from A Little Night Music)
I think what prevents me from being persecuted by the fact that I never got in anywhere in the theatre is being confronted with the man I believe to be the greatest genius the American theater has ever turned out, and that's Stephen Sunnheim.
In Tears of Grief (from St Matthew Passion)
The Bach Choir and the Thames Chamber Orchestra conducted by Sir David Willcocks
If you had asked me, if you had told me, I could only take one piece of music to a desert island with me. It would have been the box at Matthew Passion because I think it is beyond all odds the greatest music in the Western world.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
Every time I hear it, I know everything's going to be all right, you know. Course my life was all right. I mean, I've had very bad patches. But if they play The End of the Firebird, I would like to hear this when I die.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:33In the event of real isolation on a desert island, could you endure it, do you think?
Oh, I wouldn't last three days.
Presenter asks
0:50Does music mean a lot in your life?
Means so much that I was up all night thinking I couldn't go there with only eight selections.
Presenter asks
3:24As a schoolgirl, what was your ambition?
Oh, I wanted to be a writer. I had got stage struck since we went to theater every Monday night.
Presenter asks
9:45How many plays did you write altogether?
Twenty. ... Oh, no, my word, none ever got as far as a rehearsal. Lots of options. Well, options are handy. An option means that a producer takes it for three months and has you rewrite it completely and drops it.
The keepsakes
The book
Memoirs of Louis de Saint-Simon
Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon
All the parts I now find long winded I would read with great pleasure. And I would have the comfort of knowing I've got five more volumes and by the time I got through the sixth I'd have forgotten the first completely, so I could start over.
The luxury
You can play endless Scrabble Solitaire. And you're not playing against yourself, you're playing against chance, against luck. And being on a desert island, you're totally at the mercy of chance and luck. And it would appeal to me, and it uses up endless hours and it calms you down. And I love words.
Presenter asks
21:41Who was it suggested that you should write an autobiographical book about the trials and tribulations of being a [playwright]?
The Harper's editor wrote me, Dear Miss Hamp, do you have a book in mind? ... So I met her for lunch and as soon as she saw me she said, I've got a great idea for your book Why don't you write a funny book about everything that's happened to you since you came to New York? ... So I went home and I wrote a book without any idea what I was doing, and that was Underfoot and Show Business
“He took music out of the rich man's concert hall and gave it to the people.”
“Writing a three-act play takes no time at all if you haven't got any idea what you're doing.”
“It does not pay to educate playwrights.”
“London was to me what Rome is to a parish priest. It was the one Mecca I wanted to get to before I died.”