10/19/54: Halls of Ivy tv premiere. An LA Mirror, columnist thought the show’s tempo might be too slow, a laugh track disrupted scripts not made of punchy one liners…it requires a great deal of concentration from the viewers to catch all of the dialogue.” Worked better on radio

10/19/59: Publishes a still life of shed, stove, trunk, tire, wheelbarrow, and washing machine: “One can try to capture them with a few lines of the pen, or, lacking cupboard space, store them in a niche of words.” www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

10/18/47: WF on A Fable: “It’s like standing close to an elephant; after a while you cant see the elephant anymore at all.” www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...; his statement has been used to knock the novel; a contrary opinion: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Faul...

10/18/62 “he was furious I had not committed suicide: reminiscent of the film, Gaslight. As Gail Crowther notes, to be gaslit is to make you believe that your feelings are the problem. More on Gaslighting: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

“Some Observations on The City of God,” typescript with supervisor’s comments www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

October 17, 1932: Paramount executes its option for Sanctuary and Faulkner receives $6000. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...; made into a good film, The Story of Temple Drake, discussed here: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Faul...

I’ve completed 65,000 words of my biography, Our Eve Arden.

The confidence and the extremity of “Daddy” is understandable.l She wrote to her mother on October 16, adding: “I am a genius of a writer, I have it in me.” She had never before said anything like this about herself or her work. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

In the Los Angeles Times (October 16, 1994), Patt Morrison noted that a decade before the Charles Van Doren quiz show scandal, Champagne for Caesar satirized rigged quiz shows with “droll prescience.”

10/15/37: Spokane Chronicle ad: “IN LOVE as a romantic adventurer dares every danger for the smile of a beautiful women IN ACTION as men battle for power . . . fired with hate . . . fearless of death.” Audiences were assured that the film would “take your breath away!”

10/14/56: Donald Hall to WF re People-to-People program: “There seems to be a general recalcitrance against joint action, some of which sounds vain, megalomaniac (imagine thinking that this committee would help Eisenhower be elected!)…” www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...

October 14, 1958: Secures job answering phones and typing records in a psychiatric clinic at Massachusetts General: “my objective daily view of troubled patients through the records objectifies my own view of myself.” Undated hospital notes on patients www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/S/Sylv...

October 14, 1998: In “Moon Over Buffalo,” actor George Constance loses the starring role in ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel” to Ronald Colman who is “wearing my tights.” (Review of a new play by Sandra Knipe in The Evansville [Indiana] Press) www.amazon.com/Ronald-Colma...

October 13, 1961: “Dear mother”: “The Bendix has arrived! Huge and beautiful.” To see a picture of that Bendix: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

October 13, 1918: Writes to his mother from RAF camp in Toronto: Still under quarantine during flu pandemic: “My hair is so long that I am going to powder it and put a black satin ribbon in it.”https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/William-Faulkner-Day-by-Day

Awaiting the nor’easter.

10/12-17/55: Arrives in Reykjavik to begin 5 day stay lecturing on the American Dream, meeting informally with individuals and groups, giving interviews, supporting NATO and the presence of American troops in Iceland as a guarantee of liberty. www.amazon.com/William-Faul...

By 10/12/62, she had completed “Daddy.” Whatever you believe about the symbiosis of a writer’s life and her work, this poem shows she was in full control of her feelings, casting them into a dramatic monologue that rivals anything Robert Browning wrote. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

She began diary entries “Dear Diary,” as if addressing an alter ego and putting her life in order. “Dear Diary—you’re one of the ‘musts’ for peace of mind,” she wrote on October 11, 1945. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/S/Sylv...; www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

“You ought to write a biography of so and so.” Usually the suggestion is good, but not for me. Something in a subject has to resonate with me. In other words, the choice has to be organic.

October 10, 1949, 4:30 p.m.: A mile-long parade with university and high school marching bands and floats celebrate the opening of Intruder in the Dust. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...; for a new interpretation of the novel: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Faul...

October 9, 2009: Old Chestnut Film Society Presents “The Debonairs,” including A Tale of Two Cities, Under Two Flags, Talk of the Town, Random Harvest, Champagne for Caesar. (“Classic Debonairs, The Buffalo News). www.amazon.com/Ronald-Colma...

October 8, 1932: Saturday Review of Literature review of Light in August: “one perfect chrysoprase.”https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/William-Faulkner-Day-by-Day

October 8, 1950: “Halls of Ivy Real to Many,” the headline read in Fort Worth Star Telegram. Frederick L. Horde, president of Purdue University, flew to Hollywood to present Ronald Colman with an award for “giving the American people, honest realistic stories of American college life.”

10/5/45: Party with writers on their heels and knees “in a kind of circle in front of me. I’ll have to admit though that I felt more like a decrepit gaffer telling stories than like an old master producing jewels for three junior co-laborers.” www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...

On October 5, 1956, in the early, heady days of their marriage, she had written to Hughes that he represented the “whole male principle,” father, brother husband, son. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

10/4/88: “Benita Hume owned the [Charles Addams] cartoon of a psychiatrist asking a woman patient, ‘Now in your dreams of being chased by Ronald Colman and a plumed alligator—which is in the lead?’” “Say Good Night to Chas Addams—the man who made us laugh,” The Berkshire Eagle).

He performed roles not his own choice but part of a necessary stage in his career kept separate from the rest of his life, which he deemed “absolutely normal…I don’t like to sit in an audience and watch my own pictures” (Reading, PA Times, 10/3/27). www.amazon.com/Ronald-Colma...

October 1, 1953: Phil Stone to Robert Coughlan: “Your article, I think, has the town stewing.” Predicts a storm among the Faulkners about who supplied the family photographs. Coughlan was the first writer to publicly discuss Faulkner’s drinking. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...

In his dual role, Colman used mirrors to watch himself, making sure to differentiate his gestures, switching from the light-hearted yet bitter king to his adventurous, yet sober-minded kinsman (Vero Beach Press Journal, October 1, 1937).

Sylvia returned to Cambridge on October 1, 1956, done with what had been a harrowing time in the Hughes home relieved by those country interludes that calm the spirit as in Frankenstein films. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-...

September 30, 1943: From Oxford, reports to Ober that he is writing a new work, “a fable, an indictment of war perhaps, and for that reason may not be acceptable now.” More on A Fable: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Faul...

9/30/62, c. 5:00-8:00: Completes “A Birthday Present” Ruth Beuscher advises a divorce.: “You can certainly get the goods on him now while he is in such a reckless mood.” She advises Sylvia to keep Ted out of her bed and to cut contact with his family. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/S/Sylv...

On September 30, 1938, Two days after the release of If I Were King, Ronald Colman (47) married Benita Hume (32).

9/29/79: Mary Paige reminisces at Scranton, PA Century Club about a party at Mary Pickford’s: “Ronald Colman…seeing her alone ‘gallantly’ asked her to dance. ‘I’m sure we talked, but all I can remember about the dance is wishing my friends could see me.” www.amazon.com/Ronald-Colma...

What tributary nations would I bring/To stoop before your sceptre and to swear/Allegiance to your lips and eyes and hair./
Beneath your feet what treasures I would fling:/The stars should be your pearls upon a string,/The world a ruby for your finger ring…If I were king

9/26/48: Dallas Morning News rev of Intruder in the Dust: “it should not seem particularly strange that Faulkner…should finally come to deal explicitly with the most dispossessed and displaced of all, the Negro.” www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...; www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Faul...

9/26/52: Begins third year at Smith. Claiborne Phillips saw her “cross-legged on her bed with her hair falling down around her face in the “late afternoon sun shining in through the window,” a “companionship of loneliness together.” www.amazon.com/The-Making-o...

September 26, 1925: Colman in Her Sister From Paris: “The Screen’s Most Perfect Lover” (New Castle [Pennsylvania] News). www.amazon.com/Ronald-Colma...

I put Marilyn Monroe on Mount Rushmore on the cover of my book American Biography, doing well this month as an audiobook. www.amazon.com/American-Bio...

9/25/43 episode of Command Performance ended with Colman’s paean to democracy: “Tonight the world knows that everything America stands for will live as long as there is human life on this earth, knows that all America has achieved will never be given up.” www.amazon.com/Ronald-Colma...

September 24, 1936: Completes temporary film script for The Last Slaver. www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/W/Will...; more on WF and slavery: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Faul...