Questions and Answers

As I discovered last week, it is impossible to come to Paris and not encounter something that relates to GertrudeandAlice, even if you’re not specifically looking for something pertaining to them.

We had made plans about a month ago to end our around the world trip with seven days in a rented apartment in Paris. We’d rented apartments in the city before and our primary criterion this time as it was August, was to find a place that had air conditioning. It was a smart decision as the temperatures during our stay were in the upper 80s, low 90s.  We found a rental on rue de Seine.

rue de Seine, August 2009

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Sixty three years ago today Gertrude Stein died at the age of  72.  Alice would live alone for another twenty one years.

Several years ago I wrote a short piece called “Alice: A Reverie, July 27, 1946.”  On this anniversary of Gertrude’s death, I include it here.

GertrudeandAlice's grave, Père Lachaise Cemetery Paris

Alice: A Reverie, July 27, 1946

“Then the whole afternoon was troubled, confused and very uncertain, and later in the afternoon they took her away on a wheeled stretcher to the operating room and I never saw her again.” – the final sentence of  Alice’s 1963 memoir, WHAT IS REMEMBERED

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In the previous blog I wrote about well-known people who had met GertrudeandAlice. One American icon that I forgot was T.V. news great Walter Cronkite, who died last week. He met them when he was a student at the University of Texas-Austin.

COPYRIGHT HANS GALLAS ©2009

Walter Cronkite and JFK

He wrote about that meeting in the university newspaper and it was re-posted this week:

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/walter-cronkite/daily-texan-talks-great-depression-with-author-1.1775552

As a boy in Springfield, Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, I recall that the aunt of a family friend once mentioned that she had met Mark Twain in San Francisco. How amazing, I thought, to know someone who had known someone who was that famous!

When it comes to GertrudeandAlice, they met lots and lots of famous people and lots and lots of not  so famous people.   Many of them flocked to rue de Fleurus, rue Christine and their country place near Bilignin while others got to know them on their travels.

It’s been said that there have probably been more people who have written about  meeting GertrudeandAlice than have written about encounters with any other well-known 20th century personalities. They were a very sociable couple.

Who doesn’t know about some of the key players in their circle – Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Gris, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, Wilder, and Van Vechten?

F. Scott & Zelda in the latest hairdo

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“The envelope please. The Oscar for best actress in a supporting role goes to …”

Just imagine that in that great  movie year 1939 – the year of   “Gone with the Wind,” The Wizard of Oz,” “Stagecoach,” “Ninotchka,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and “Wuthering Heights”- GertrudeandAlice had starred in a movie version of  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF ALICE B. TOKLAS and the double feature at the local Bijou one-screenplex would have been Gertrude’s children’s book THE WORLD IS ROUND produced by Walt Disney!

Well, it could have happened, though it didn’t. Studio politics and World War II probably side-tracked plans.

After the success of the Autobiography, GertrudeandAlice visited Hollywood in the spring of 1935 as part of their six month criss-cross lecture tour of America. They were guests at a star-filled dinner party in Beverly Hills and Gertrude had a lively discussion about film with Charlie Chaplin who was seated next to her.

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At the beginning of Jill Godmilow’s 1987 film WAITING FOR THE MOON GertrudeandAlice, played by Linda Bassett and Linda Hunt, are sitting in the garden of their country home proofreading a manuscript.  This was probably not an uncommon scene in their lives. What makes the film’s opening shot so unusual is that there is a crying baby in the picture.

Linda Bassett and Linda Hunt in WAITING FOR THE MOON

When I first saw the movie when it was released, I assumed that the child was Hemingway’s son and that GertrudeandAlice were babysitting. It was not until the DVD version of the film came out a few years ago with a director’s interview as an added feature that I learned  the baby was supposed to be GertrudeandAlice’s child.

Ms. Godmilow says in the interview that since it is impossible to make an historically accurate, biographical film about famous people, a film may include any incidents or characters which tell the story the way the filmmaker wants to present it. In this case GertrudeandAlice  have a baby. (The film was criticized for its historical inaccuracies, but that’s another blog.)

Children and GertrudeandAlice, however, seem to fit.

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When I write or speak about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, the question arises as to how they should be addressed. Should it always be “Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas” or “Miss Stein and Miss Toklas” or “Gertrude and Alice” or somewhat coldly “Stein and Toklas?”

I inaugurated  the term “GertrudeandAlice” (one word) when I began this web site since to me they are one interdependent entity and I now use it regularly. “Gertrice/Altrude” was used in an essay about their relationship a number of years ago, though to me that sounds like a new anti-whatever drug advertised on CNN with a myriad of side effects worse than the disorder. » Read the rest of this entry «

One of the questions I am asked most frequently pertaining to GertrudeandAlice is how I became interested in them and what prompted me to begin collecting items relating to them. As I’ve told the story so many times over the years, certain phrases find their way into the narrative.  With each telling, before I use a phrase, I often try to catch myself wondering if someone has heard me tell this before and should I therefore try to relate the circumstances in a different or more creative way. (So for those of you who have heard this before with those familiar phrases, my apologies.)

It all began almost 25 years ago after reading the book, CHARMED CIRCLE: Gertrude Stein and Company by James R. Mellow.  I’d been interested  for a long time in the art and artists of the  period between the two World Wars and somehow Stein and the artists around her made it even more exciting for me.  After finishing the book, I wondered if it was possibly to find first editions of Gertrude Stein’s works at an affordable price.  I started looking for books in antiquarian bookstores (this was before eBay was around).  I began finding some.  I think the first one was in a bookstore in Santa Fe on a business trip.  I don’t recall which book it was, but I believe it may have been the American edition of WARS I HAVE SEEN. » Read the rest of this entry «