{"id":109872,"date":"2017-04-13T12:01:08","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=109872"},"modified":"2017-12-19T11:09:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T16:09:32","slug":"salingers-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"Salinger\u2019s Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unemployed actor tracked down\u00a0Salinger to get his permission\u00a0to adapt\u00a0<\/em>The Catcher in the Rye.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>

J. D. Salinger on November 20, 1952. Photo: San Diego Historical Society<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1953, J. D. Salinger fled Manhattan for rural Cornish, New Hampshire, hoping to protect his privacy and find the solitude he needed for his work. The Catcher<\/em> in<\/em> the<\/em> Rye<\/em>, which spent thirty weeks on the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u2019 best-seller list, had generated immeasurable publicity and adulation for Salinger, who wanted none of it. Among his new suitors were such Hollywood bigwigs as Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick, both vying for the screen rights to Catcher<\/em>. They failed to secure Salinger\u2019s approval, as did many others, in turn\u2014but that didn\u2019t stop Bill Mahan, an unemployed former child star\u00a0and devoted fan from Los Angeles, from giving it a shot. In the early sixties, he resolved to claim the film rights himself, even if it meant disturbing Salinger at home.<\/p>\n

Mahan\u2019s account of his unlikely adventure can be found in his papers at the University of Wyoming\u2019s American Heritage Center. On December 1, 1961, he wrote to Salinger by registered mail to share his vision for turning Catcher<\/em> into an independent feature, with the author retaining \u201cartistic control.\u201d At the age of thirty-one, Mahan had no credits as a producer or a director, and very little money, so he proposed to shoot the film \u201cart-house\u201d style, without changing a word of dialogue. Given the shoestring budget, Salinger would, of course, have to grant him the rights for free. In hopes of sealing the deal, Mahan wrote that he would arrive in Cornish on December 13, whether he\u2019d heard from Salinger or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Salinger had fielded more than his fair share of oddball requests over the years, and he knew how to ignore them\u2014but Mahan\u2019s pluck must\u2019ve convinced the author that he really would show up. On December 7, he fired off a telegram that spelled out, in no uncertain terms, his utter disinterest in the proposal. He urged Mahan to stay home.<\/p>\n

The message fell on deaf ears. Overjoyed to receive any response at all, Mahan seized on the telegram as a positive sign and decided to go ahead with the plan, believing he could \u201csell anything to anybody.\u201d He\u2019d learned to rely on his charm\u2014and he had vast stores of confidence, having risen to fame as a child star. From 1936 to 1940, he\u2019d featured in eighteen pictures as Bobby Jones<\/a>, the youngest member of the Jones family. It was a lucrative comedy franchise, and the public loved little Bobby; a studio press book described the one-hour comedies as \u201cenergetic hokum \u2026 tolerably amusing in an entirely inconsequential way.\u201d Now, decades later, Mahan had resolved to take that \u201cenergetic hokum\u201d of his on the road: he was heading east.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The trip to New Hampshire proved exhausting. Traveling on the cheap, Mahan boarded a small, piston-driven plane in Burbank that stopped twelve times en route to New York, where he made his way to the Saint Regis Hotel. His sister Colleen, a secretary to David O. Selznick, was staying there with her boss and some other staffers. Selznick was out for the evening, so Mahan took a shower, ordered a chicken sandwich, and helped himself to a drink from the well-stocked bar, careful to choose an off-brand vodka rather than the premium Smirnoff. But he wasn\u2019t cautious enough. Selznick returned early\u2014\u201ca big man,\u201d as Mahan describes him, \u201cexpensively dressed, with a heavy shock of pure white hair\u201d\u2014and gently chastised him for drinking the imported Russian vodka instead of the much cheaper domestic stuff.<\/p>\n

When Colleen told her boss that Bill was headed to see J. D. Salinger, Selznick was incredulous. \u201cSalinger!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cI can\u2019t even get near him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a telegram from him just the other day,\u201d Mahan said, dipping into his pocket to show it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me know how you make out,\u201d said Selznick before heading off to bed.<\/p>\n

From Idlewild Airport, Mahan flew to Manchester, New Hampshire, then rented a car and drove the hundred or so miles to Cornish. He wasn\u2019t impressed: the place lacked any amenities and didn\u2019t strike him as a \u201creal town,\u201d just a hamlet. Most residents, Salinger included, conducted their business affairs on the other side of the Connecticut River in Windsor, Vermont. In his early days in Cornish, before he became more withdrawn, Salinger was known to be reasonably sociable. He liked to hang out with a group of Windsor High students, inviting them to his place to watch movies and listen to records, but when he agreed to be interviewed for the school paper, the subsequent uproar and attention convinced him to cut off all contact.<\/p>\n

Mahan checked into a Windsor hotel and pumped the locals at a corner bar for directions to Salinger\u2019s house. He had no trouble finding it: a roomy, wood-frame place he recognized from the photos that had accompanied a recent spread in Life<\/em> magazine. The house had a gambrel roof, a Jeep in the yard, and a superb view of Mount Ascutney. The gate was wired shut, but Mahan opened it and knocked on the front door. No one answered. He suspected Salinger might be working in a smaller cinder-block house nearby, also pictured in Life<\/em>, and started for it only to change his mind. Interrupting a writer who was concentrating might be unwise. He returned to his hotel to clean up and rest.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

A paparazzo\u2019s shot of Salinger at home.<\/p><\/div>\n

On his second run to the house, he spotted the Jeep crossing the bridge to Windsor and followed it. Sure enough, Salinger was at the wheel. He parked by the Windsor News general store and walked in. Mahan jotted in his journal, \u201cAbout six feet one, maybe even two. Very slender. Gaunt bony face \u2026 He was wearing regular businessman\u2019s hat and a light colored raincoat. Light brown I think. He is very heavy bearded.\u201d He took up a position outside the store, ready to intercept Salinger when he left.<\/p>\n

Mahan recorded the ensuing conversation in minute detail. It bears a fair resemblance to a one-act play bound for the theater of the absurd. Both men were so \u201cdeadly serious\u201d that they were unable to find the humor in a situation whereby Salinger steadfastly refused to see the man he was in fact seeing at that very moment. Mahan\u2019s strategy, such as it was, appeared to be based on the same boyish charm that had won him favor as little Bobby Jones. He greeted Salinger by saying, \u201cHi! I came anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d Salinger asked, no doubt startled. \u201cWhat do you want? Who are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Bill Mahan.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can only imagine Salinger\u2019s despair on hearing those words. \u201cOh, you didn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy did you come?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I thought if I came to see you personally,\u201d Mahan explained, \u201cyou might at least listen to what I have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I won\u2019t,\u201d Salinger insisted. \u201cI just don\u2019t see why you came here. What are you going to do?\u201d He was so uncomfortable he looked to Mahan \u201clike someone on the brink of a seizure. He speaks with a heavy New England accent and when he gets excited (which is most of the time) the voice goes up and is as squealy as hell.\u201d Salinger continued, \u201cI don\u2019t understand you people. You wrote to me and I even went to the trouble of sending you a telegram saying no.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. I remember it. In fact I can quote it verbatim,\u201d said Mahan, probably hoping to score a point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember it, too. Why didn\u2019t you contact my agent? \u2026 You\u2019re all so selfish.\u201d Salinger paused to correct himself. \u201cI can\u2019t say that though. I certainly understand selfishness.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few more volleys, Mahan grasped the error of his ways and admitted he shouldn\u2019t have come. \u201cI\u2019m terribly embarrassed about the whole thing now,\u201d he apologized.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no point in being embarrassed. We\u2019re both grown men. It\u2019s just that I don\u2019t want to see anyone. What are you going to do?\u201d Salinger repeated, obviously concerned about the welfare of his uninvited guest and what to do about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s your wife?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy God, she must think you\u2019re a nut or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Mahan assured him. \u201cI gambled that I might have a chance at the book. It\u2019s really pretty great, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salinger refused to discuss it. \u201cI\u2019m just terribly irritated by the fact that you came after I said no.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m terribly sorry, too. I didn\u2019t realize that it would upset you like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

With rising frustration, Salinger delivered a long lament: \u201cPeople won\u2019t seem to let me alone. They hang around the house and peek in the windows and upset my wife. They throw beer cans on the lawn. They even bother my children. Reporters follow me on the road \u2026 I just feel terribly about this whole thing\u2014that long trip and everything.\u201d He asked again: \u201cWhat are you going to do now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to feel responsible for me,\u201d Mahan suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do feel responsible.\u201d This was a telling moment. In writing a novel that had touched and even altered the lives of so many people, Salinger was forced to consider to what extent he might be responsible for its effect on them. What drew so many pilgrims to his doorstep? (Almost twenty years later, Mark David Chapman would invoke Catcher<\/em> as his \u201cstatement\u201d after assassinating John Lennon.) His rigorous discipline clashed with a desire to be decent, to treat Mahan kindly. There was a monstrous element to his selfishness and isolation, and he appears to have known it. \u201cYou made this long trip,\u201d he reiterated, in the grip of an obsession, \u201cand I can\u2019t see you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight here,\u201d Mahan noted perceptively, \u201che looked like a really sad little boy with a terrible problem that he could neither solve nor run away from.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation ground to a halt. As a parting shot, Mahan put yet another request to Salinger. Would he read a story his mother had published in Good<\/em> Housekeeping<\/em> ten years ago? To his great credit, Salinger didn\u2019t lose his temper or laugh out loud. Instead he voiced a weary resignation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t. I really can\u2019t,\u201d he all but sighed. \u201cIt would just lay around and probably get lost. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s valuable to you.\u201d Walking toward the store, he turned back and said, \u201cPlease don\u2019t leave it in my car.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Salinger\u2019s house in Cornish, New Hampshire.<\/p><\/div>\n

*<\/p>\n

Mahan checked out of his hotel, but he couldn\u2019t tear himself away from Cornish. Despite Salinger\u2019s firm denial, he seemed not at all displeased with the results of his trip; he lingered in its aftermath. Musing over a cup of coffee at Windsor News, he felt he should write a farewell letter to Salinger and deliver it himself. So he did: trudging through the snow with his flashlight to the wired gate.<\/p>\n

Through a kitchen window, he could see Salinger fixing dinner, whistling and looking happy. As Mahan looked on, a big white Samoyed bounded out of nowhere, pinning him to the ground and exploring his ear with its tongue. The dog was friendly but disinclined to budge, so Mahan was forced to cry for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Salinger!\u201d he shouted. \u201cOh-ooh, Mr. Salinger!\u201d<\/p>\n

Salinger came to the rescue. He can\u2019t have been delighted. \u201cMy God, it\u2019s you again! What do you want?\u201d He accepted the letter and pulled Mahan to his feet. They proceeded to the porch.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince you delivered it in person, I may as well read it,\u201d Salinger said, leaving Mahan to wait outside, still unable to give him the boot, and retreating into the house. On his return, he made no mention of the letter. Instead he spoke with Zen-like economy, saying only four words, \u201cSeven inches expected tonight,\u201d as a light snow began to fall.<\/p>\n

They shook hands, and Salinger waved goodbye. Six hours later, Mahan was at the Saint Regis again, regaling David O. Selznick with the tale of his adventure in Cornish. Selznick, impressed with his chutzpah, offered him a job in South America selling a block of twenty-one movies he owned.<\/p>\n

But Mahan wasn\u2019t done with Salinger just yet. In May of 1963, Mike Connolly of The<\/em> Hollywood<\/em> Reporter<\/em> ran an item in his column:<\/p>\n

J. D. Salinger descended from his ivory tower and slipped his Catcher<\/em> in<\/em> the<\/em> Rye<\/em> screen rights to producer Bill Mahan, having previously spurned such top moviemakers as Elia Kazan and David O. Selznick. Salinger will be technical advisor. On camera, as narrator, he\u2019ll be portrayed by Kier Dullea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether Mahan was involved in placing the item, an old Hollywood ploy, isn\u2019t known, but he was quick to write Salinger and deny it. \u201cI had nothing to do with it,\u201d he swore, \u201cand I am terribly sorry that misinformation got into print.\u201d The trip to Cornish had turned out to be good luck, he confided, leading to his success with Selznick and his new position as the director Henry Koster\u2019s assistant on the feature film, Take<\/em> Her<\/em>, She\u2019s<\/em> Mine<\/em>. He closed with a paragraph that must\u2019ve had Salinger pulling out his hair by the roots.<\/p>\n

The more I think about it, at the end of this job I believe I\u2019ll come and see you again, and maybe this time you will at least give me the chance to tell you what I would like to do with your book.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Salinger wrote back two days later. Why did he bother to keep the connection alive? It would\u2019ve been easy enough to say nothing. But maybe Mahan\u2019s charm had worked, and Salinger now saw the humor and absurdity of the situation. Certainly the tone of his letter is bemused, even if its message is firm. There would be no movies based on his work, and no further visits from Mahan.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Afterward, Bill Mahan had a checkered career in and around Los Angeles. In 1963, he served as a producer on Strange<\/em> Lovers<\/em>, a B-movie about gay men that carried the tagline \u201ca deep penetration into the world of unnatural love.\u201d He also became a successful syndicated newspaper columnist, covering movies, TV, and entertainment. For convincing the actor Jeff Hunter to play the lead in No<\/em> Man<\/em> Is an<\/em> Island<\/em>, he earned ten thousand dollars and twenty weeks of work on the film. He wrote an autobiography about being a child star, The<\/em> Boy<\/em> Who<\/em> Looked<\/em> Like<\/em> Shirley<\/em> Temple<\/em>, and, with his sister Colleen, a novel, The<\/em> Moviola<\/em> Man<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fiction was on Mahan\u2019s mind on April 3, 1984, when he composed one last letter to Salinger. His mood was melancholy. He\u2019d gone through a divorce and he was still out there hustling. He addressed Salinger as \u201cJerry,\u201d spoke of trying to imitate him as a writer, and enclosed a copy of a novel, presumably The<\/em> Moviola<\/em> Man<\/em>. \u201cYou\u2019ll enjoy it and you\u2019ll relate,\u201d he asserted. \u201cYou are responsible for it.\u201d Responsible<\/em>\u2014that word again. \u201cIt should kind of make you proud because it is a good novel\u2014my new one is even better.\u201d Mahan was ever the optimist: \u201cNot yet sold but it will be.\u201d And he added, \u201cJust wanted you to know that you are (as you were, many years ago worried about) responsible for me\u2014only in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time Salinger chose not to reply.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Digital reproductions of select material from the Bill Mahan Papers (Collection Number 10045) are unrestricted, open to the public, and available online at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming<\/a><\/em>. The quotes, letters, and observations attributed to Mahan in this essay, along with the verbatim record of his conversation with Salinger, can be found in Box 3, Folder 4 (J. D.Salinger 1961\u201370), except for Mahan\u2019s last letter to Salinger from Box 3, Folder 1 (Personal Correspondence 1962\u20131984).<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Barich\u2019s books include <\/em>Big Dreams, <\/em>A Pint of Plain, and the racetrack classic <\/em>Laughing in the Hills.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the sixties, an unemployed actor hatched a crazy scheme to convince the reclusive Salinger to give him the film rights to \u201cThe Catcher in the Rye\u201d\u2014in person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[28331,28332,10590,28338,28343,26308,995,910,28336,3877,28333,4699,28335,28334,28339,28341,1818,28337,28342,1473,28340],"class_list":["post-109872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-bill-mahan","tag-billy-mahan","tag-cornish","tag-david-o-selznick","tag-desperation","tag-film-rights","tag-hollywood","tag-j-d-salinger","tag-journeys","tag-life-magazine","tag-movie-rights","tag-new-hampshire","tag-schemes","tag-screen-rights","tag-st-regis-hotel","tag-stalking","tag-the-catcher-in-the-rye","tag-the-jones-family","tag-unemployment","tag-vermont","tag-windsor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy an Unemployed Actor Flew Across the Country to Stalk Salinger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An unemployed actor hatched a crazy scheme to convince the reclusive Salinger to give him the film rights to \u201cThe Catcher in the Rye\u201d\u2014in person.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Salinger\u2019s Nightmare by Bill Barich\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 13, 2017 \u2013 In the sixties, an unemployed actor hatched a crazy scheme to convince the reclusive Salinger to give him the film rights to \u201cThe Catcher in the Rye\u201d\u2014in person.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-04-13T16:01:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-12-19T16:09:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/salinger.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"881\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bill Barich\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bill Barich\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"14 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bill Barich\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5ce2c52ea353823354c4fd9d1997ce32\"},\"headline\":\"Salinger\u2019s Nightmare\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-04-13T16:01:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-19T16:09:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/\"},\"wordCount\":2741,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/13\/salingers-nightmare\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/salinger.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Bill Mahan\",\"Billy Mahan\",\"Cornish\",\"David O. 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