‘Nick Ray, at thirty-five, had worked with me in theatre and radio. Our collaboration in film was about to begin. He was a stimulating and sometimes disturbing companion: garrulous and inarticulate, ingenious and pretentious, his mind was filled with original ideas which he found difficult to formulate or express. Alcohol reduced him to rambling unintelligibility; his speech, which was slow and convoluted at best, became unbearably turgid after more than one drink. Yet, confronted with a theatrical situation or a problem of dramatic or musical expression he was amazingly quick, lucid and intuitive with a sureness of touch, a sensitivity to human values and an infallible taste which I have seldom seem equalled.
‘From his year’s apprenticeship as a scholarship student with Frank Lloyd Wright, Nick had acquired a perfectionism and a sense of commitment to his work which were rare in the theatre and even more rare in the film business. But in his personal life he was the victim of irresistible impulses that left his career and his personal relationships in ruins and finally destroyed him. He was a handsome, complicated man whose sentimentality and apparent softness covered deep layers of resilience and strength. Reared in Wisconsin in a household dominated by women, he was a potential homosexual with a deep, passionate and constant need for female love in his life. This made him attractive to women, for whom the chance to save him from his own self-destructive habits proved an irresistible attraction of which Nick took full advantage and for which he rarely forgave them. He left a trail of damaged lives behind him — not as a seducer, but as a husband, lover and father.’
~ John Houseman in Unfinished Business.
Whew! Considering how little space Ray then occupies in Houseman’s narrative (there’s a great account of the first day’s filming of THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, then almost nothing) this is an excessively detailed and passionate account, also possibly the first published work to suggest Ray’s bisexuality.
(Mis)quoting from memory, there’s also a nice passage in Chuck Heston’s memoirs about Nick R. About to embark on the disastrous 55 DAYS AT PEKING, Charlton asked a friend’s opinion of the director. “Well, he’s very smart. Talented, imaginative. But… I’ve played poker with him, Chuck. And Chuck… he’s a loser.“
shadowplay 