Historical Meet-Ups

Oscar Wilde
Playwright, wit, and gay icon

meets

Jefferson Davis
Politician, traitor, and Confederate icon

While on his tour of the United States in 1882, there was one man Wilde wanted to meet above all others. No, not Walt Whitman (although the two did meet—and share a kiss—at Whitman’s New Jersey home that January). It was Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy. Wilde finally got his chance on June 27, 1882, when he blew through Beauvoir, Mississippi on his way to Montgomery, Alabama to deliver a lecture on “Decorative Art” at the local opera house. The seemingly mismatched pair actually found they had a lot in common. Wilde remarked on the similarities between the American South and his native Ireland: both had fought to attain self-rule and both had lost. He went on to declare that “The principles for which Jefferson Davis and the South went to war cannot suffer defeat.”

As for the ensuing lecture, that proved to be something of a letdown. “An immense assemblage of the morbidly curious will greet him,” declared the Selma Times in an article previewing the event. The Montgomery Advertiser was also eager to hear what the famous wit had to offer.  “No lady has heard of Mr. Wilde that is not anxious to see and hear him; and, ‘tis said, he ‘adores the fair sex.’” But the Irishman’s observations on aesthetics, delivered in such a strange and exotic accent, were wasted on the Southern audience. “The lecture was one of the peculiar nature that should be heard to be appreciated,” the Advertiser summed up afterwards, “and a synopsis or even a brief sketch will not be attempted.

Peter Wolf
1980s pop hitmaker

meets

David Lynch
Indie cinema auteur

The director of Eraserhead and the lead singer for the J. Geils Band didn’t just meet—they were college roomates. The unlikely pair first made acquaintance in the late summer of 1964, as they gathered around the “roommates wanted” bulletin board on their first day of classes at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. Wolf (real name: Peter W. Blankfield) had been crashing at the local YMCA and was looking for someone to share an apartment with him. Lynch had a place, but there was a catch: they’d have to sleep in a bunkbed. (For the record, Wolf took the top, with Lynch on the bottom.) It didn’t take long for the unusual arrangement to unravel. Lynch’s crib was infested with cockroaches, and both he and Wolf were clinically depressed at the time. They spent all their time together arguing about art. (Lynch was a fan of abstract expressionism, while Wolf preferred the German variety.) Wolf also annoyed by being constantly late with his rent and playing Thelonious Monk records day and night.  “David was a very mellow, very kind guy,” Wolf later recalled. “But the days we spent together, we were all in a deep shadow of gloom. It was a very nihilistic period.” Eventually Lynch kicked Wolf out, claiming he was “too weird” to live with.

Federico Fellini
Visionary Italian filmmaker

meets

Stan Lee
Visionary American comic book publisher

In many ways, Federico Fellini’s life was a comic book, so it’s no surprise he drew inspiration from that medium. In the mid-1960s, the Italian auteur became a huge fan of Marvel Comics—particularly their superhero stalwarts Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk. Fellini first sampled Marvel’s wares while on a visit to New York City in November of 1965. He was holed up with a virus in the Hotel Pierre when someone gave him some comics to read on his sickbed. Fellini became so enthralled with the superhero exploits that he immediately called up the Marvel offices and arranged a visit with the company’s editor-in-chief, Stan Lee. During an appearance at ComicCon in 2007, Lee recalled how his receptionist informed him, “Stan, there’s a Fred Felony to see you.” Fellini then swooped in the door with a four-man entourage, all wearing black raincoats, in descending order by height. Through a translator, the two creative geniuses had a long chat, during which Fellini peppered Lee with comics-related questions. The pair also worked out an “exchange program” whereby “Smilin’ Stan” would stay at Fellini’s villa the next time he was in Rome and Fellini would accompany Lee to a Broadway show the next time he came to New York “He’s my buddy now,” Lee said afterward.

Ingmar Bergman
Death-obsessed Swedish filmmaker

meets

Charles Bronson
Death-dealing Hollywood antihero

The meeting between Bergman and Bronson was facilitated by the Swedish auteur’s unlikely connection to the coriaceous action star. The two men shared the same agent and publicist. They met once, during Bergman’s first visit to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. Bronson was filming one of his trademark shoot ‘em ups at the time. Bergman visited him at the studio at their agent’s behest. After they exchanged pleasantries, Bergman became entranced by the squibs that were placed on Bronson’s body to simulate blood-spattering gunshot wounds. “Fascinating,” Bergman marveled. “I never knew how they did that!”  “You mean you don’t use machine guns in your movies?” Bronson replied.

T.S. Eliot
Poet, playwright, and literary critic

meets

Groucho Marx
Comedian and quiz show host

J. Alfred Prufrock met Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding on the evening of June 3, 1964, as Eliot and Groucho Marx finally broke bread after a long period of pen friendship. The unlikely pals had begun their correspondence a couple of years earlier after Eliot wrote Groucho a fan letter. They exchanged photographs—Groucho had to send him a second picture after Eliot demanded one with his trademark cigar—and soon progressed to the “Dear Tom,” “Dear Groucho” level of familiarity. They made plans to have dinner and, in Groucho’s phrase “get drunk together,” but never got around to it until one magical spring night in London.

A few days before the chowdown, Eliot wrote Groucho to confirm that a car was being sent to the comedian’s hotel to bring “you and Mrs. Groucho” over for dinner. The starstruck poet also gushed about how Groucho’s impending visit had “greatly enhanced my credit in the neighbourhood, and particularly with the green grocer across the street.” For his part, Groucho boned up on Eliot’s poetry in anticipation of an evening of pretentious literary banter. In case that proved a dry well, he also re-acquainted himself with King Lear.

After getting over the shock of the 75-year-old Eliot’s physical condition (he described him as “tall, lean and rather stooped over … from age, illness, or both”), Groucho settled in with his wife for what he hoped would be an evening of intellectually stimulating conversation. He was wrong. All Eliot wanted to talk about was Marx Brothers movies. He even quoted lines from Groucho’s films that Groucho himself had long since forgotten. When Groucho tried to steer the conversation to “The Waste Land,” Eliot just smiled wearily. His observations on Shakespeare proved similarly silence-inducing. Almost before the dessert course was served, Groucho and “Mrs. Groucho” were looking for the door. “We didn’t stay late,” the comedy legend later recalled, “for we both felt that he wasn’t up to a long evening of conversation—especially mine.”

George Allen
Future Hall of Fame football coach

meets

Albert Einstein
Famed mathematician and physicist

The year was 1944 and Allen—then a young U.S. Navy midshipman studying at Princeton—was immersed in a competitive checkers-playing phase. One Sunday morning, seized by the urge to challenge Einstein to a game of checkers, Allen rounded up a few of his dorm buddies and headed over to the 64-year-old professor’s tastefully decorated home. After his wife graciously let the boys in, Einstein himself appeared, pipe in hand. He was cordial enough, but utterly uninterested in Allen’s checkers challenge. “I don’t play much checkers,” Einstein told Allen. “I don’t like it much.” When Allen persisted, Einstein was forced to admit he did not own a checker board—at which point Allen and his buds agreed to leave the premises. Before they did, however, the man some called the father of the A-bomb left them with one important piece of information. World War Two, he informed them, would soon be over. “A great boom,” Einstein intoned, spreading his hands out wide to pantomime a mushroom cloud. And with that the jubilant young sailors returned home