Subject
Audrey Young/Ada (fwd)
From
Date
Body
**Even though VN's own interview with Playboy did not appear till January
1964, he was interviewed for it by Alvin Toffler in mid-March of 1963, so
it is quite within the realm of possibilities, it seems to me, that
that particular year he would have been quite attentive to other
interviews with writers appearing in the same forum. GD***
From: Barbara Wyllie <bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk>
I've been looking at Ed Sikov's biography of Billy Wilder, and I was struck
by an intriguing Nabokov echo. In his chapter on "The Lost Weekend", Sikov
mentions a Playboy interview from 1963, which refers to a scene in which
Wilder's second wife, Audrey Young, appears as a hat-check girl:
"Wilder cut the scene so that only her forearm appeared, and both Wilders
agreed that the forearm gave a superb performance" (p. 224).
Compare:
"Having sat through a preliminary P.W. short, they finally go to The Young
and the Doomed only to discover that the barmaid scene of the barroom
sequence had been cut out - except for a perfectly distinct shadow of Ada's
elbow, as Van kindly maintained" (Ada, Pt 2, Ch. 9, p. 425).
Is it possible that Nabokov got the idea for this from the Wilder interview,
being a regular reader of Playboy? The image and the sentiment are so
similar... Perhaps Nabokov was even familiar with Wilder's film?
Barbara Wyllie
SSEES/UCL
bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk
1964, he was interviewed for it by Alvin Toffler in mid-March of 1963, so
it is quite within the realm of possibilities, it seems to me, that
that particular year he would have been quite attentive to other
interviews with writers appearing in the same forum. GD***
From: Barbara Wyllie <bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk>
I've been looking at Ed Sikov's biography of Billy Wilder, and I was struck
by an intriguing Nabokov echo. In his chapter on "The Lost Weekend", Sikov
mentions a Playboy interview from 1963, which refers to a scene in which
Wilder's second wife, Audrey Young, appears as a hat-check girl:
"Wilder cut the scene so that only her forearm appeared, and both Wilders
agreed that the forearm gave a superb performance" (p. 224).
Compare:
"Having sat through a preliminary P.W. short, they finally go to The Young
and the Doomed only to discover that the barmaid scene of the barroom
sequence had been cut out - except for a perfectly distinct shadow of Ada's
elbow, as Van kindly maintained" (Ada, Pt 2, Ch. 9, p. 425).
Is it possible that Nabokov got the idea for this from the Wilder interview,
being a regular reader of Playboy? The image and the sentiment are so
similar... Perhaps Nabokov was even familiar with Wilder's film?
Barbara Wyllie
SSEES/UCL
bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk