[Mary Zimbalist, film actress and disciple of Krishnamurti.] Collection of 28 letters and cards to playwright Christopher Fry, an intimate and affectionate correspondence on a number of topics.

Author: 
Mary Taylor Zimbalist (1915-2008), actress, socialite, fashion model, activist and disciple of Krishnamurti, wife of film producer Sam Zimbalist (1901-1958) [Christopher Fry (1907-2005), playwright]
Publication details: 
From Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire, and Ojai, California. Between 1978 and 2008.
£650.00
SKU: 21925

A total of twenty-eight items of correspondence, comprising: nineteen Autograph Letters Signed (two on the backs of cards), two Typed Letters Signed, and seven Autograph Cards Signed. In good condition. All signed 'Mary', and the large part addressed to 'Christopher', with a few to 'Kit' and one to 'Dear Phyl [i.e. Fry's wife Phyllis], dear Christopher'. The correspondence indicates a deep affection and long-standing intimacy. In 1987 she transcribes entries from her diary of 1958, regarding dinners in Rome between the Frys and Zimbalists (while Fry was working on the script of the film 'Ben Hur', which Sam Zimbalist produced), commenting: 'it is startling to find how these pale ink lines evoke us then – almost 20 [sic] years ago'. Later in the letter she states: 'I wish I could have seen the tv broadcast of The Lady and hope you have a video recording of it. It is like wanting to again hear the English language rising and thundering like winter surf and pure as a Bach prelude. Since Christopher Fry this does not happen these days.' In 1997 she writes: 'So many things hovered in my head all night, some of them reaching back to Italian summer days when you and Phyl and Sam and I were together. An unbroken line began then, for me, of feeling whenever I was with Phyl and you that all was well with the world. That has continued ever since – something wondrously enduring.' And in 2000 she tells him that hearing his news 'is a sort of centre of gravity'. Topics include: her pleasure in his messages and calls, texts he has sent her ('What you have said about death and love touches so many things I feel profoundly and the eloquence is no less than the truth.'), her admiration for his work ('Language is such a root of human understanding. Other writers seem to be stuttering alongside the eloquence of your plays. Your language unfolds in breadth, in splendour, a music of the mind. It is as if you are creating language of a different order, new and yet with its original and intrinsic meaning freed.'), her travels, her health (in 1988: 'I seem to be hobbling about with little grace but ground-covering success'), the taking of vitamins, a centenarian's death. In 1999 she comments on a list of 'Krishnamurti books' she is sending him, concluding by noting that 'Krishnamurti's Notebook' is 'one that is not personal, for a time a daily recording of consciousness. In it he notes the curious physical pain he called “the process”. It had begun with extreme severity in 1922, after a spiritual experience that altered his life, and continued to manifest from time to time with differing intensity. He did not consider it as physical illness, but as having to do with perceptive ability. He never took anything to mitigate or affect it and seldom spoke of it.'