Patrick White’s people and pets

• A girl when PW was 17 on holiday in Dieppe; she was Swedish, “We embraced in doorways and on the sea-wall”, as quoted in David Marr.
• “R”, PW’s Cambridge boyfriend, whose identity is not publicly known. This was PW’s first serious relationship, at age 21, which enhanced his early – mostly unpublished – writings, and ended when the pair realised that “R” was not truly homosexual. “R” offers his insight to Marr for his biography, but chose to remain anonymous to the broader public.
• Roy de Maistre: Australian artist twenty years older than PW from a prominent Sydney family. After establishing himself as a major painter, de Maistre moved permanently to London in 1930. Their friendship developed in the mid-1930s, possibly very briefly a love affair, and they retained respect for each other until de Maistre’s death in 1968. The original cover of The Aunt’s Story featured a de Maistre painting, and PW drew on his memories of the artist when he wrote The Vivisector.
• Pepe Mamblas (Jose Ruiz de Arana y Bauer, Viscount Mamblas): a minor Spanish noble who met PW in 1937, and they commenced an affair. Twenty years older than PW, and staunchly conservative, Mamblas was heavily invested in the ongoing Spanish Civil War. He became an ambassador to The Hague in later life, and lost contact with PW for many years, although they corresponded politely in the years before Mamblas’ death in 1985.
• Sam Walsh: an American piano player who met PW in London in 1938; PW travelled to the US in part to see him, but ended up having other affairs while in the country.
• Spud (Walter) Johnson, writer and newspaper editor, also older than our hero, with whom PW fell in love during a trip to the USA in 1939. They broke up by letter the following year, with PW choosing Joe Rankin, but remained on corresponding terms for some time.
• Joe Rankin, a doctor from the state of Georgia, whom PW fell for in the final weeks of his 1939 US trip. Rankin was PW’s own age. PW returned to the USA to visit him in 1940. Their relationship ended when PW realised he needed to return to England and join the War. Rankin subsequently set up a practice in Atlanta, and the pair never spoke again.
• Baron Charles de Menasce (1898-1945), a member of a prominent Jewish family in Alexandria. He and PW became lovers while the latter was on war service in Egypt in 1941. In July of that year, de Menasce hosted a party at which he introduced PW to his friend Manoly Lascaris, and a 49-year relationship began.
• Emmanuel George “Manoly” Lascaris (5 August 1912 – 13 November 2003).

Son of a storied Greek family, whose tentacles swirled throughout Eurasia since the era of the Byzantines. In the 1922 chaos, the family lost most of their fortune (although little of their prestige). When he was still a boy, both of Lascaris’ parents left the family – his mother emigrating to the US – and, with his sisters sent to French boarding schools, Lascaris grew up with aunts and other family members. After meeting PW during the war, Lascaris joined him in Australia at the end of 1946. They set up house in Castle Hill outside Sydney, and subsequently at inner-city Centennial Park. The relationship was not always easy, with Lascaris at times threatening to leave, but ultimately the pair knew they could not live without the other. They divided household tasks between them, managing a farm for the first two decades of their time in Australia while raising consecutive litters of dogs. As PW’s fame increased, Lascaris became a pillar of the Australian literary community, playing host at countless dinners.

Newspapers and acquaintances often struggled to describe Lascaris, having to use euphemisms in the early years, when Greeks of any stripe – let alone gay ones – were unusual in the country. David Marr notes that Lascaris is described in media articles as PW’s “wartime friend”, “partner on the land”, and “a Greek friend whom he met during the War”.

For PW, however, there was no doubt in his mind. To him, Lascaris was “a small Greek of immense moral strength” and “my sweet reason”. PW once commented that “my success in life is my discovery of Manoly. Nothing is of importance beside that… Thanks to him, I am as happy as one who is not made for happiness can be”. Greek culture features in several of PW’s short stories, some of which were based on incidents in Manoly’s life. During the writing process, tensions were often high in the house, with Lascaris learning to avoid his partner much of the time. Once a novel was finished, however, the shoe was on the other foot; Lascaris would read each manuscript slowly and painstakingly, sometimes taking weeks, without saying a word, during which time PW had to wait patiently before he could learn what the love of his life felt about the new work. Whereas PW was celebrated for his theatre in the final years of his life, Lascaris was always doubtful about these works. Plays seemed to be a frivolous distraction from the great work of PW’s writing, and indeed may have deprived the world of at least one completed novel, the never-completed Hanging Garden.

After PW’s death in 1990, Lascaris inherited the house in Centennial Park in a trust until the end of his life. (The intention behind this was to ensure that he did not turn it into a permanent PW museum, which the author knew was a possibility!) A naturally quiet and retiring soul, Lascaris was evidently uncomfortable by the media interest in PW during his final years and posthumously, especially with the penetrating publication of David Marr’s biography and subsequent collection of PW’s letters. But, as many have reported, he saw his purpose in life as aiding PW’s legacy, and so supported these intrusions into his peaceful world. In 2002, having developed Parkinson’s disease, Lascaris moved into a nursing home where he died in 2003. In a twist of fate, the nursing home was Lulworth, Patrick White’s childhood home.

In 2008, PW’s Greek translator Vrasidas Karalis published his Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris, based on a series of monthly conversations in the final years of the latter’s life. Here, we learn Lascaris was– to quote reviewer Bruce Elder – “a widely read intellectual, a sharp and provocative critic, a man who at times is aloof, arrogant, overtly snobbish and who always felt he was superior to those around him”. Lascaris said he lived a life ‘‘a life of sheltered insignificance’’. On PW: ‘‘I was his frustration and his inspiration, his confusion and his serenity; his character and his nothingness. I lost myself as he was trying to discover me.’’ Another reviewer refers to Lascaris’ “his old-world melancholia”. And he was indeed unhappy with being left only custodian in the will, partly because it felt like a sting after 50 years and partly because he believed that the house and the estate should have gone permanently to commemorating PW’s legacy. Marr notes that Lascaris rarely left his immediate surrounds in his remaining 13 years, and would complain vocally to those around him that “Patrick left me nothing”.

• Suzanne White – PW’s sister, an extrovert like their father. Widowed in the 1950s, Suzanne raised three daughters while caring for their ageing mother in England. Finally, with her children growing up and their mother passed on, Suzanne returned to Australia in 1966 to embark on a new life of her own. This allowed PW and Suzanne to grow closer, but sadly she died in 1969 from a bad case of influenza on a trip back to the UK. Her death seems to have haunted PW, who wrote all of his remaining novels with a sense that death was not far off.
• Ronald Waters (born Ronald Waterall) – a couple of years older than PW, and one of his friends at Cheltenham, the flamboyant Waters shared a love of theatre with PW, and they would routinely attend opening nights. He became a leading theatre agent, and remained friends with PW for the duration of their lives.
• Eleanor Arrighi (née Cox), one of PW’s cousins from the Central West NSW town of Mudgee. Became a model; her daughter Luciana would become an important figure in PW’s life, including designing the film The Night The Prowler.
• The Withycombe Sisters (Betty, Peggy, and Joyce) – Ruth’s cousin’s children, whom PW met for the first time in England in 1928. Their mother, Ellen, would be reflected in characters in PW’s fiction. Betty worked at Oxford University Press, becoming a writer and publisher. Her relationship with PW disintegrated in the 1950s, due to a combination of her dislike of his work and dismissive comments made about Manoly. Peggy, an artist, moved to New Zealand with her husband after the war, returning to London after the marriage failed in the 1960s. The sisters were gradually reunited in the 1980s, when all three ended up living in Oxfordshire.
• Geoffrey and Ninette Dutton – The Duttons were Adelaide literary royalty, and became friends with PW after publication of The Prodigal Son in 1958. They visited him in Sydney when Dutton was commissioned to write the first monograph on PW’s works. Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, the couples were close. Patrick and Manoly found some peaceful times visiting the Duttons on Kangaroo Island especially. (At one point, David Marr reports, Nin saved PW’s life when he fell into a rocky part of the surf.) All the same, PW would be frankly cruel about Dutton’s own fiction and poems, even though he fiercely defended his friend against the criticism of others. In response, Dutton praised PW all the more fiercely, including a rave review of The Twyborn Affair in the Bulletin in 1979. PW gave Dutton an exclusive excerpt of Flaws in the Glass in 1980 for the Bulletin. The friendship began to wobble in 1981 when PW took umbrage at Dutton’s view of him, in light of the publication of Flaws, as a wealthy aristocrat. Dutton tried to ignore PW’s attitude, intending to continue the friendship. In 1982, Dutton published an extensive 70^th birthday tribute to PW in the Bulletin. PW’s dislike of this flattery, and his annoyance at Dutton’s poor creative output, made him write to Dutton with stinging criticism. The pair exchanged letters in increasingly baroque prose, with PW ended his final outburst by saying “I’ve had enough of Duttonry”. Dutton responded to say: “I intend never to write or speak to you again, and as for telephoning, I wouldn’t waste the ten cents on you.” (Marr 614)

• John Green, PW’s first agent at Curtis Brown, London, from 1937 to 1941.
• Ben Huebsch (1876 – 1964), the gentle publisher of Viking (US), who had championed Joyce, Lawrence, and other major modern novelists. Huebsch’s appreciation of the young PW was crucial in securing his reputation on the international stage. PW was fond of Huebsch and never quite felt the same for any other editor thereafter.   
• Naomi Burton, PW’s American agent at Curtis Brown, from 1939 to 1959.
• Penny Knowlton and John Cushman, PW’s American agents at Curtis Brown. Knowlton represented PW from 1959 to 1965, and again from 1978 to 1986, with Cushman during the period in-between.
• Juliet O’Hea, PW’s agent at Curtis Brown, London, from 1941 to 1975, and one of his most trusted figures.
• Marshall Best, Huebsch’s apprentice at Viking from 1947 onward, Best worked on The Aunt’s Story and The Tree of Man before taking over as senior editor on Voss, and all work up until The Vivisector.
• Alan Williams, Best’s apprentice at Viking, who replaced him in 1971. He worked on all of PW’s remaining novels, but it was never the same kind of relationship.
• Frank Morley and Maurice Temple Smith, PW’s editors at Eyre & Spottiswoode, where he remained from the great success of The Tree of Man until the relationship fell apart upon his refusal to accept awards and recognition for The Solid Mandala.
• Ingmar Björksten, Swedish critic and journalist who read Voss on a trip to Australia in 1962 and became a fierce advocate of PW’s work. His contribution would be instrumental in drawing the attention of the Nobel Prize committee to the Australian.
• Graham C. Greene, Managing Director of Jonathan Cape, who bid for PW’s UK rights in the late 1960s after the author left Eyre & Spottiswoode. He would work with PW on all of his remaining novels, from The Vivisector to Memoirs of Many in One.
• Barbara Mobbs, became PW’s Australian representative at his agency, Curtis Brown, in 1975. Being based in Sydney made things easier. In 1986, Curtis Brown dismissed Mobbs as part of a larger restructure. White was incensed, and abandoned the agency after fifty years to choose Mobbs. She became his literary executor upon the author’s death in 1990. Despite PW’s wishes, Mobbs chose not to destroy the many boxes of his papers, instead holding on to them for 16 years, until Lascaris died, and then selling them to the National Library of Australia. This became one of the most treasured literary finds in Australia’s history, and led to the publication of The Hanging Garden. Alongside biographer David Marr, and of course Manoly Lascaris, Mobbs is one of the key figures in the posthumous phase of PW’s legacy.

Nita Pannell (1904 – 1994): actress. One of the founders of professional theatre in Western Australia during the 1950s, Pannell rose to theatre fame a decade later, and was cast in the professional première of Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year in Sydney in 1961. (The play was, along with Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, perhaps one of only two respected Australian plays by the time PW came along with his Ham Funeral in the same year). PW saw the Seymour play and determined to cast Pannell as Mrs Lusty in the première of Ham Funeral but she was unavailable due to the London run of her existing play. However he wrote A Cheery Soul for her, and she premièred the lead role of Miss Docker. In his next play, Night on Bald Mountain, he again had a role for her as Miss Quodling; in both productions, Pannell was singled out by the critics for her performance. Pannell continued a remarkable although underappreciated career until her death in 1994.

Alexander Archdale (1905 – 1986): actor. Appeared in the original cast of Night on Bald Mountain and had a small role in The Night the Prowler.

Hedley Cullen (1915 – 1994): actor. Cullen was in the original cast of The Ham Funeral and The Season at Sarsaparilla

John Sumner (1924 – 2013) – director. Born and raised in the UK, John Sumner founded the Union Theatre Repertory Company in Melbourne in 1953, remaining in a major role through until 1987, by which time the company had become the renowned Melbourne Theatre Company. (The main theatre in the company’s modern building, which opened in 2009, is named the Sumner Theatre). Sumner’s importance to contemporary Australian theatre cannot be overstated, as many of the other state theatres are indebted to MTC for their operating model. Sumner directed the professional première of The Season at Sarsaparilla and the first ever production of A Cheery Soul, both in Melbourne.

Joan Bruce (1928 – 2014): actress. English-born, Bruce was in the original cast of The Ham Funeral and Night on Bald Mountain.

Doreen Warburton (1930 – 2017) – actress. Appeared in the Sydney première of The Season at Sarsaparilla and the première production of A Cheery Soul.

John Fraley (1920s – 1999) – actor. Appeared in the Sydney revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla and as Humphrey Banister in The Night the Prowler.

Peter Cummins (b. 1931) – actor. Appeared in the original cast of Signal Driver and Netherwood.

John Tasker (1933 – 1988): theatre director. After studying abroad in London, Tasker returned to Australia in his mid-20s to commence a homegrown career. Initially beloved by PW as a director and a young man, Tasker directed The Ham Funeral to the writer’s satisfaction, but their relationship showed its tensions when they disagreed about key aspects of The Season at Sarsaparilla. Tasker openly disliked the next play, A Cheery Soul, which he ultimately did not direct. Nevertheless, Tasker was given the chance to direct PW’s fourth Australian play, Night on Bald Mountain, during which time the relationship fell apart unequivocally over different views and a lack of trust on both sides. Tasker was reportedly annoyed he wasn’t mentioned in PW’s memoirs. He would remain gainfully employed as a director through to his untimely death from cancer in 1988.

Desmond Digby (1933 – 2015) – artist. Born and raised in New Zealand, Digby studed in London before moving to Australia in 1959, just as Patrick PW was awakening to the possibility of being a playwright in Australia. For a time, he shared a studio with PW’s cousin’s daughter Luciana Arrighi. Digby had a strong partnership with PW during the 1960s, designing the sets for the first productions of Season at Sarsaparilla and A Cheery Soul and the covers of the first editions of The Solid Mandala, Four Plays, and The Cockatoos. A Fringe of Leaves was dedicated to him. Digby also became known for the illustrations for the classic children’s series Bottersnikes and Gumbles and his work for a number of companies including Opera Australia.

Zoe Caldwell (1933 – 2020): actress. A regular Melbourne performer in her youth, Caldwell began dividing her time between the UK and Australia in the late 1950s, appearing in the Sydney premières of both The Ham Funeral and The Season at Sarsaparilla (even though she was unlike how PW envisioned the character of Nola in the latter). PW was enamoured of Caldwell’s talent and imagined her in other roles he wrote, including in the unrealised film Triple Sec. A transition to Broadway saw Caldwell win a Tony Award in 1966 (the first of four she would win) and she became a theatre luminary, based in the US for the remainder of her long life. This deprived PW of any more Caldwell performances, but he would see her on the occasional trips he made to the USA.

Carole Skinner (b. 1944) – actor. Appeared as Miss Docker in the 1992 revival of A Cheery Soul, as well as Miss Quodling in the 1996 revival of Night on Bald Mountain, and in the original cast of Shepherd on the Rocks.

Max Cullen (b. 1940) – actor. Cullen was in the original cast of Big Toys (and the ABC taped version), in the cast for the first major revivals of The Ham Funeral and The Season at Sarsaparilla, as well as the 1994 QTC production of A Cheery Soul.

Maggie Kirkpatrick (b. 1941) – actress. Appeared in the first major revival of The Ham Funeral and A Cheery Soul. Appears as Madge Hopkirk in The Night The Prowler.

John Gaden (b. 1941) – actor. Appeared in the ABC TV recording of Big Toys, the 1985 production of Signal Driver, and the original cast of Shepherd on the Rocks. Gaden also featured as Arnold Wyburd in the film of The Eye of the Storm.

Robyn Nevin (b. 1942) – actress. Appeared in the first major revival of The Ham Funeral and The Season at Sarsaparilla, as well as the major 1979 revival of A Cheery Soul. Her performance as Miss Docker in the latter has been regarded as one of the iconic performances in Australian theatre, and was resurrected in two future productions. Nevin also appeared as Lal in the film of The Eye of the Storm.

Jim Sharman (b. 1945) – director. Sydney-born, Sharman’s career started early, with notable productions for Opera Australia, and original Australian productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, leading to him directing the original production of The Rocky Horror Show and the subsequent film. PW had been supportive of Sharman since viewing his production, Terror Australis, at the Jane Street Theatre in 1968.

Sharman directed the Sydney revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla (1976) which reignited PW’s theatrical fortunes. He subsequently directed the première of Big Toys (1977), PW’s film The Night the Prowler (1978), the Sydney revival of A Cheery Soul (1979) and the première of Netherwood (1983), as well as the first production of the operatic adaptation of Voss. Artistic Director of the 1982 Adelaide Festival, Sharman also commissioned Signal Driver (1982), and was offered the screenplay Monkey Puzzle (1977), which was never filmed. PW dedicated The Twyborn Affair to him.

John Wood (b. 1946) – actor. Appeared in the original cast of Signal Driver and Netherwood.

Gillian Jones (b. 1947) – actress. Appeared in the original cast of Netherwood and the 1996 revival of Night on Bald Mountain.

Kate Fitzpatrick (b. 1947) – actress. Star of the revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla in 1976, Fitzpatrick became a favourite of PW’s, and he wrote the lead female role in Big Toys for her.

Kerry Walker (b. 1948) – actress. Appeared in the first major revival of The Ham Funeral as well as the 2000 revival of A Cheery Soul and the première cast of Signal Driver, Netherwood, and Shepherd on the Rocks. Walker also played the lead role in The Night the Prowler, and PW wrote the unperformed Four Love Songs for her.

Geoffrey Rush (b. 1951) – actor. Appeared in the original cast of Netherwood and Signal Driver. Rush played the leading role of Basil Hunter in the film of The Eye of the Storm.

Elizabeth Alexander (b. 1952) – actress. Appeared in the first major revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla and the Brisbane première of Signal Driver.

Carl Vine AO (b. 1954) – composer and pianist. Vine’s collaboration with White began in the late 1970s when they collaborated on the never-produced opera Births, Deaths and Marriages. Subsequently Vine would première an excerpt from the text, Aria, with his Flederman ensemble. Vine became a key element of Neil Armfield’s productions of White’s work, composing the music for the première production of Signal Driver (1982) and Shepherd on the Rocks (1987) as well as the revivals of The Ham Funeral (1989) and Night on Bald Mountain (1996). In 2012, he premièred his Tree of Man cantata. Vine has since served as the longtime Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia.

Neil Armfield (b. 1955) – director. Directed the 1989 revival of The Ham Funeral, 1984 revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla, the 1992 and 1996 revivals of A Cheery Soul, 1996 revival of Night on Bald Mountain, and the original productions of Signal Driver and Shepherd on the Rocks.

Pamela Rabe (b. 1959) – actress. Appeared in the first major revival of The Ham Funeral, and more recently in the Sydney revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla.

Melita Jurisic (b. ?) – actress. Appeared in the original cast of Netherwood and the 2014 revival of Night on Bald Mountain.

It may be odd to include a section on an author’s pets, but the dogs and cats who inhabited PW’s two Australian homes were crucial parts of his life. They perpetuated the bond between Patrick and Manoly; they gave the men a sense of purpose – important for PW during the often lonely process of writing his dense novels, but also as companions and entertainment during the downtime between works. Indeed the “Grauvolk” schnauzers the couple bred became very popular in Sydney dog circles during the 1950s. PW often wrote about his dogs in his letters, treating their ailments and personalities very seriously.

This list is inherently non-exhaustive, and owes its information primarily to PW’s letters and Marr’s biography, with some secondary sources.

• Franz, a schnauzer Manoly bought in 1944, and the original inspiration for the family of dogs. Died in the 1950s.
• Lottie, a schnauzer PW bought in Greece in 1946. Lottie had babies in mid-1947 while waiting to be shipped via England to Australia. She died sometime between 1957 and 1962.
• Solomon and Sheba, schnauzers PW bought in 1947 to keep him company while Franz and Lottie were going through the lengthy quarantine process from Greece to Australia. Solomon was put down in 1959: “He was not a spectacular temperament, just a perfect character.” Sheba died a bit earlier.
• Evchen, schnauzer born in the 1950s; died in 1958 while the humans were in Greece.
• Agapanthus (m), Cammelia (f) and Osmanthus (m), three cats who lived at the farm in the 1950s; all three had died or left the family by 1960.
• Tom Jones, a cat with whom PW posed for a photograph by Axel Poignant; unclear if it was his cat.
• Maggy and Monkey, two bitches of the next generation of schnauzers. Both born in the early 1950s. Monkey died by 1962. Maggy was the last surviving of the schnauzers, as her humans had stopped breeding the dogs due to their plans to move away from the farm. (They sold or put down many of the dogs from 1955 onward.)
• Pearl and Dixson, two new cats who had arrived by 1961, the final years that the humans lived at the Dogwoods farm. They moved with the family to Centennial Park in 1964 but ultimate fate unknown.
• Lucy, a miniature pinscher who arrived around 1961.
• Fanny, a pug who joined the family in 1962 – the first in what would become 20 years’ worth of pugs. Fanny had a litter in 1963.
• Ethel,  one of Fanny’s first litter, born in 1963 (the rest were sold) and so the last dog to live at Dogwoods, before the family moved to Centennial Park. Ethel was the progenitor of the remaining pugs that PW and ML had, although she once sat on a litter and reportedly killed them (one baby, Grace, survived for a short while, but sadly died). Ethel contracted cancer in 1974, and had to be put down.
• Nellie – a Jack Russell who was especially close to Manoly. She joined the family in the late 1970s, and was killed when hit by a car in 1988.
• Daisy – one of the last of the pugs, she died of a heart attack in 1980.
• One final pug survived into the early 1980s, by which point PW and ML opted not to keep getting new pets due to their advancing ages.
• Eureka – a Labrador cross whom PW found abandoned in Centennial Park in 1981. Eureka outlived all of the other dogs and cats, and was one of the two dogs surviving when PW died in 1991; ultimate fate unknown.
• Millie – a Jack Russell, the last animal to join the family. The pair had sworn off getting any more pets due to their age but, in 1988, Jack Russell Nellie died. PW bought Millie as a present for the heartbroken Manoly. She was to comfort him in his later years, after PW’s death.