Blues of a Lifetime: Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich

Notes

Notes Epigraph The epigraph to Blues of a Lifetime, from Thomas Mann's 1901 novel Buddenbrooks, conveys the decision of an aging patriarch to reflect upon his life. The full passage reads: Thomas Buddenbrook had played now and then throughout his life with an inclination to Catholicism. But he was at bottom, none the less, the born Protestant: full of the true Protestant's passionate, relentless sense of personal responsibility. No, in the ultimate things there was, there could be, no help from outside, no mediation, no absolution, no soothing. syrup, no panacea. Each one of us, alone, unaided, of his own powers, must unravel the riddle before it was too late, must wring for himself a pious readiness before the hour of death, or else part in despair. [From H.T. Lowe·Porter, trans. (1924), rpt. New York: Knopf, 1955: 523.] I IThe typewriter for which this chapter is named was mentioned in the dedication of Woolrich's first "black" (noir) novel, The Bride Wore Black (1940). It was Woolrich's first typewriter. However, the text of Blues was typed on another, later typewriter, which "looked different" from the old Remington Portable. 2Because the chronology of Blues of a Lifetime is problematic, readers should view this claim with some skepticism. 3Woolrich's first love is the subject of "The Poor Girl." His third love culminated in a brief. unconsummated marriage to actress Gloria Blackton (see Nevins' Cornell Woolrich and appendix). Nothing is known of his second love. 4This passage-on personality, pretense, and truth-casts doubt on Woolrich's motives in writing Blues of a Lifetime. After having admitted episodes of "lying to myself" and mistreating his friends, why does Woolrich claim the virtue "self·honesty"? Furthermore, we know Woolrich did in fact lie about his birth year to Stanley J. Kunitz (editor, First Supplement, Twentieth Century Authors), saying he was born in 1906 instead of his actual birth year, 1903. And this particular lie has been repeated, beginning as early as 1927, when Woolrich ended an unhappy college experience at Columbia University (see the next note). Francis M. Nevins, Jr., author of Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die, (New York: Mysterious P, 1988) has compiled a variety of Woolrich's (self-) deceptions. ~Woolrich attended Columbia University during 1921-1926, but after his five years' study he failed to graduate. According to his transcript, several extended absences in the spring 1925 semester led to failing grades, even in English (his best subject), and to academic probation. One of his Columbia classmates, historian Jacques Barzun, recalls Woolrich's sudden disappearance (interview in 1985 television documentary by Christian Bauer, Nacht 138 Notes 139 ohne Morgen: Die dunkle Welt des Cornell Woolrich). This evidence indicates that Woolrich may have contracted jaundice in March 1925. (This story takes place during 1922-1923.) On the other hand, Woolrich has given alternative accounts of his illness and his college experience. In 1944, for example, he told A.L. Furman, editor of Third Mystery Companion (New York: Gold Label, 1945), that he became a less "conscientious" student after publishing Cover Charge (1926). He had explained, in 1927, "I made $12,000 in my first full year of writing, but flunked in German (I think it was). I never did make up the extra credits I needed for that. It was more fun writing. And a lot more remunerative" (College Humor January 1927: 395). Still another version of his illness is related by Ellery Queen in the introduction to The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich (New York: Simon, 1965): "A common, everyday occurrence (how propheticl) led Cornell Woolrich into a writing career. ..an old soft-soled gym shoe...rubbed one of his heels raw, an infection developed, and Woolrich had to keep his foot up on a chair for weeks" (9). 6Woolrich's maternal grandfather, George A. Tarler, lived at 239 West 113th Street in Morningside Heights, a few blocks east of Columbia University across Morningside Park. At the time, Spanish Harlem lay farther east, beyond Lenox Avenue. (See the maps in the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City, rpt. New York: Pantheon, 1982: 255, 293.) 7Woolrich's father, Genaro Hopley-Woolrich, is a shadowy figure about whom little is known. (The fullest account is provided in Nevins' Cornell Woolrich.) He seems to have been working as an American mining engineer in Mexico during the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution. According to McClure's Magazine, August 1927, Woolrich traveled with his father in Mexico and...