“COME RIGHT OVER”

By Tom Rogers, Tor House Member and Filoli Center Curator

It was the spring of 1952, and I was a theatre student at Hartnell Junior College in Salinas.  We were preparing for a production of Robinson Jeffers’ “Medea”.  Director Hal Ulrici was very big on our researching our roles, so Phyllis Williams (playing Medea) and I (playing Creon) decided to call Robinson Jeffers at his home in Carmel.  After all, his name was listed in the phone book!

 

A woman answered and when I asked to speak to Robinson Jeffers she abruptly answered that he “didn’t take calls,” and hung up.  I was offended, so waited several hours and called again.  A man answered.  I said I wanted to speak to Robinson Jeffers, and he answered, “Speaking.”  I told him why I was calling and asked if he would see us.  His answer was, “When do you want to come?  Come over right now.”

 

We climbed into the car and drove the 25 or so miles to Tor House, where he greeted us and invited us in.  He told us that his daughter-in-law was very protective, but that she was not at home.  He showed us around the house and told of building it.  When we went up in the tower, I asked if this was where he wrote.  “No, look at the view.  I couldn’t write anything up here.”  We then went to a small desk in a corner near the kitchen where he pointed out some writing in progress.  We talked about the play which had starred Dame Judith Anderson, about the characters we were playing, and about living in Carmel.  I invited him to come see our production, and he replied that he would not do that, and that he had gone to the opening on Broadway only because his agent made him.

 

He walked us to the car, returned to the porch, waved, and went inside.  We sat in the car a little thunderstruck at what had just happened to us.  The door opened again, and he came out on the porch, waved again, and called out, “Come back any time.”

 

Saturday night a person from the ticket office breathlessly rushed into the dressing room.  “There is a man out there who looks just as you described Robinson Jeffers, and he is with a younger woman.  What should I do?” 

 

“Ask him if he is Jeffers,” seemed the only thing I could say.

 

At intermission he came back to tell me, “He said he was not Jeffers, but was a friend of his.  They have just left.”

 

I have always chosen to believe that Jeffers himself did come to the theatre that night with his daughter-in-law.

 

It is with deep regret that the Tor House Foundation announces the passing, on March 4, 2008, of Foundation Member, extraordinary Carmelite, and contributor to Tor House Howard Skidmore.  A journalist, businessman and philanthropist, Mr. Skidmore was, as well, a skilled writer, editor, and poet.  Scholars, students and admirers of Jeffers are grateful for his most generous gift that provided the initial impetus to move the Library and Collections at Tor House from a dream to a reality.  Mr. Skidmore is survived by his wife, Zaza, a lifetime member of the Foundation.

 

A Message from the National Endowment for the Arts Concerning the "Big Read"

 

Tor House Foundation will coordinate The Big Read: The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers from October 10 through November 9.  Funded by a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a matching grant from the Lannan Foundation of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a generous donation from Elisabeth Sherif of Sonoma, CA, The Big Read kick off will coincide with the annual Sunset Celebration at Tor House and the Fall Festival lectures and seminars on October 11. 

 

Other planned events include: a tour and poetry reading at Point Sur Lighthouse; a program for MPC’s Gentrain Society; a poetry walk at Point Lobos State Reserve; an  exhibit of paintings by David Ligare—“A Sense of Place:  An Homage to Robinson Jeffers”—at Carmel’s Winfield Gallery; a photography workshop with Kim Weston followed by a dinner and a reading from Edward Weston’s Daybooks, all at Weston’s Wildcat Canyon home and studio; various programs at city and county libraries, CSU-Monterey Bay, Monterey Peninsula College, Hartnell Community College and high schools throughout Monterey County.   

 

The NEA will provide educational and promotional materials—underwritten by the Poetry Foundation—similar to those created for the national Big Read program. These materials, which will also be distributed to local schools, include reader's and teacher's guides to Jeffers’s works and a poster. Attendees to all events will be given a Reader’s Guide.  In addition, books of Jeffers’s poetry will be distributed to the schools and passed out free at selected events.

 

The complete calendar of events will be posted on the Foundation’s web site by September.  For more information, contact The Jeffers Big Read Coordinator, Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts, at (831) 624-1180.

 

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.  The Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, the National Steinbeck Center, and the University of California, Santa Cruz will each receive a grant to host a range of activities centering on Jeffers's life and work. A component of the NEA’s national reading program The Big Read, these grants are part of a pilot initiative in partnership with the Poetry Foundation to celebrate the nation's historic poetry sites.