BY G. CONNOR SALTER

William “Bill” Lindsay Gresham (1909-1962) has often been seen as a strange figure in Inklings studies. First husband to Joy Davidman, he is the offstage husband mentioned in the movie Shadowlands, which mentions little more than the fact he was an alcoholic. Most viewers are probably unaware that he was also author of the iconic crime novel Nightmare Alley, a variety of short stories (including speculative fiction works “The Star Gypsies” and “The Dream Dust Factory”),[1] and one of the most iconic Harry Houdini biographies.

While Gresham continues to be under-read and under-discussed, fans have kept his memory alive. Diego Domingo is especially involved, connecting fans and researchers interested in his work.

He was kind enough to answer a few questions about Gresham’s life, writing, and connection to the Inklings.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

How did you become introduced to William Lindsay Gresham’s work?

Not sure, but it was probably through reading his biography of Harry Houdini. I was very interested in magic and mentalism, especially anything about Houdini, whose name has stayed in the public imagination a hundred years later. Maybe then I read his novel Nightmare Alley, which a magician friend suggested I might find interesting.

What is your favorite piece of his writing?

Different dialogues and narrations in Nightmare Alley. A standout scene is Stanton Carlisle bamboozling a small-town sheriff and his realization-triumph afterward of what he is capable of.

At what point did you become interested in his life as well as his writings?

I am not the first who wondered, after reading Nightmare Alley, “Who wrote this?! What kind of mind, what kind of experiences, did this person have to put this unrelenting cynicism on paper?”

His other books, Monster Midway and Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls, did offer some of his memories. They made me wonder how much of his work was his experience and how much he inserted himself into his creative writing.

Reading other articles by him and about him in different magic publications stirred my interest further.

What led you to connect with other fans of his work?

Continued interest in Gresham prompted me to either seek out other fans or (when I could access those who knew him) ask questions about him. I collect things about Gresham and his work and often connect to people through bidding at auctions or on eBay. I found others who shared my fascination and found it interesting to see what point of interest/reference each of us had.

Connecting with others who are into and get Gresham is always great and sometimes scary.

When two strangers can by their memory, recite some of the dark, cynical dialogue and narration from Nightmare Alley to each other, it would be unnerving if we weren’t in our right minds.

The staff at Wheaton College’s Marion E. Wade Center have been especially helpful in making their resources available.

Magic shows up a lot in Gresham’s stories. Do we know if he knew many professional magicians?

Well, keep in mind Gresham had performed magic, mentalism and psychic readings for the public, which is evident in his writings, describing what it’s like to be doing readings, and knowing that the marks are buying it.[2] So, Gresham had an inside view of magic or mentalism, and a kinship with others who did.

He knew many pro and amateur magicians and related entertainers—including Jay Marshall, Robert Lund, James Randi, and Ricki Dunn. I was fortunate to speak to all of them before they passed away. Lund carefully preserved a number of Gresham’s writings and notes in his collection, which became the American Museum of Magic.

Two of his closest friends—Clayton Rawson and John Dickson Carr—were also professional writers who had been amateur, if not professional, magicians for much of their lives.[3]

If you explore his papers kept at the Wade Center,[4] you see he is often pitching magazine articles about Houdini, as well as magic- and carnival-related themes.

We know that Nightmare Alley was a big success for Gresham, but he seems to have struggled with that success. He makes a lot of money from it, then struggles to keep it, and makes a telling observation in his Houdini biography that making a lot of money after years of struggling can be a writer’s worst experience.[5] Any thoughts on why the success proved to be a struggle?

You see the same thing when a singer has their first hit record, or an actor has a hit movie. They buy things they couldn’t afford before, and if they stopped and thought about it, they would realize they can’t afford to buy it now.

With the book sales and getting $50,000 in movie rights, Gresham had the “I ain’t poor no more” syndrome. He bought stuff to tell the world and himself that he wasn’t poor no more. For example, he bought a large, expensive house for his family before he paid the income taxes on his movie rights payment.

Through the years, he spent a good deal of time and money trying to catch up and keep up with the IRS.

One thing I was struck by in reading about Gresham’s later years was his friendship with John Dickson Carr—who we usually think of as a puzzle mystery writer. What do we know about their friendship?

As noted before, they both shared a lifetime interest in magic, magicians, and deception of all kinds.

At the then-Dixie Hotel in Manhattan, the restaurant had a table specified for magicians. Gresham, Carr, and Rawson gathered with others for lunch.

In his final letter to his wife Renee, Gresham gave instructions for Carr and Rawson to take the books they wanted out of his library and send the rest to Jay Marshall for his ever-growing collection.

Abigail Santamaria observed that Gresham’s time serving in the Spanish Civil War deeply affected him mentally and physically.[6] Any thoughts on that?

If a person is willing to go to a foreign country to fight for their cause, that shows a serious (to others, misguided) commitment.[7] The fallout from that can affect a person in many ways: reliving or thinking about what he saw and experienced. He may ask himself, did the cause accomplish its goals—and at what cost? Besides his physical health, this could have contributed to his alcoholism as well.

There’s a tendency to talk about Gresham’s alcohol issues in the 1940s-1950s, far less about the fact he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. How involved was he?

He had periods of sobriety and AA attendance, followed by relapses, in the past. But upon advice from Renee, he went to meetings again.[8] This time, he was ready, and the program took. He attained and kept sobriety, working the program, which included having a sponsor (volunteer member) to share with and keep working the program. He also wrote numerous articles for The Grapevine, an AA publication.

He also worked the program’s twelfth step, which was to encourage or help others into the program so they could also achieve sobriety. In a letter to his friend Robert Lund, he wrote how he was trying to 12-step their mutual friend, magician/actor Fred Keating, into the program.

Unfortunately, most of what is written about Gresham leaves readers thinking he spent his life in and died from alcoholism, not showing his later years of sobriety and serenity he had maintained for himself and others through the end.

Some time ago, you asked a group of Inklings fans an interesting question: “Do you see Gresham just as a third wheel in the Davidman-Lewis story, or is there more to explore?” What is your take on that?

 I see it can be both ways. In the Shadowlands treatment, Gresham is an annoying distraction for Lewis and Davidman that they want to distance themselves from—and do.

If you read letters by Gresham and his relatives giving their take of his divorce from Joy, you can say several things. You can either say that each person has their version of what happened when they divorce or you can say that Joy’s claims against Gresham would benefit from additional validation.[9]

There are others, including myself, who find Gresham’s life and writings to be worthy of study—with and without Lewis in the picture. There are also those who have read Gresham’s works for years but have no knowledge of the connection to Lewis. Likewise, I know some people who knew and appreciated both Lewis and Gresham’s writings but had no idea it was that Bill Gresham—the man who was supposed to be shooting his shotgun in the ceiling and being admonished by Lewis.[10]

But I agree with others that regardless, it doesn’t take away from the loving marriage that Joy and Lewis had, their feelings/regard for each other.

A lot has been said about Gresham’s marriage to Davidman, but very little about his subsequent marriage to Renee. What do we know about their relationship?

His marriage to Renee was a good, positive relationship that lasted till the end. Her two children spoke well of him to many people, including biographers.[11]

One positive factor was that Renee was not a writer. She had regular jobs in retail or factories and more. I know a number of writers and entertainers who said a key part of their success was having a spouse with a day job with benefits! Even if they made more than the spouse with the day job, that consistent stability in income, the character of the person doing that every day, those things become an important force.

You’ve spoken earlier about the 1947 Nightmare Alley movie

Nightmare Alley has been adapted into different media—so far, print, film, and stage. Now, as Crystal Downing has pointed out, elements of a story are always “betrayed” when transferring it from one media to another.[12]

I often first focus on how close each is to the novel, then on the individual merits. Each writer/director/actor shows their interpretation and vision of what that story has to say.

I learned it is unfair and unrealistic to hold writers/producers to treat Gresham’s novel like a Red Letter edition of the King James Bible, which one deviates from at their peril. As they say, sometimes the book got the Hollywood Treatment.

The novel itself had the language cleaned up in some future editions. Not generally known is the Postal Inspection Service labeled the book as pornographic and banned foreign distribution of the original text. It was also condensed/cleaned up for general public reading in an abridged version for a 1947 issue of Liberty magazine.[13]

What were your feelings on the 1947 movie directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power?

The 1947 film follows the story as closely as a 1947 studio film could be allowed. It followed much of the spirit and focus of the novel, sometimes using word-for-word dialog from the novel. It was going to end like the novel with a grim/bleak ending, but the studio (correctly) did not believe the audience would want their handsome leading man to end up so badly. Nor did the studio want Power, losing his box office appeal, to be seen in such a sad, sordid manner, so they added on a more hopeful, moral-of-the-story ending. You can almost hear studio boss Darryl Zanuck yelling at them, “We do Betty Grable musicals here, we need a happy ending!”

After the movie came out, The Jack Benny Show did a satire of the film, having fun using the cast in various sideshow roles.[14] But the film had such a dismal box office, you wondered if enough radio listeners actually knew what they were satirizing.

When I went to the annual memorial service in a Hollywood cemetery for Mr. Power, it was clear that a number of the women there did not want or like their Tyrone Power remembered in Nightmare Alley, but rather his romantic, swashbuckling leading man roles that were his bread and butter, but that Power had grown weary of.

However, in time, it has become a well-regarded classic, film noir or otherwise. Power said it was his best acting work, which many agree to as well.

What were your thoughts on the graphic novel Nightmare Alley?

Artist Spain Rodriguez made the novel into a graphic novel in 2003, which was fairly faithful in following the book. The images he draws are sometimes rather stark, quite different from reading a book that leaves it up to your own mind to picture a scene. Some of the images of Stan and Lilith together are the most accurate, if graphic, in showing Lilith’s relationship/control over Stan. These images, such as a scene of Stan painting Lilith’s toenails, sometimes look like 1950s “Dominatrix” drawings. While pushing it, that is probably the closest portrayal of Lilith’s power over Stan.[15]

The illustrations of many other characters may been better without the sex being so stark. But a punster might say that’s why it’s called a graphic novel. I believe Rodriguez could have done without it.

What happened to the stage version a few years later?

In 2010 it was adapted as a musical, brought to Los Angeles with hopes of taking it to Broadway. But the reviews were lukewarm to critical, some noting how this story and characters differed from the novel. The musical closed its 4-week run in Los Angeles, went back for some reworking in New York, but ended there. Some reviewers felt it took a darkly, cynical story and made it into a simple morality tale instead. Composer Jonathan Brielle had visited Renee and was fortunate to discuss Gresham and his writing firsthand with her. It is hoped he will tell more of his time with her in the future.

What were your feelings on the latest movie, directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Bradley Cooper?

Guillermo del Toro said it wouldn’t be a remake of the 1947 film, but a closer adaption of the novel. But he introduced storylines and scenes that weren’t in the book. Much of it followed the story format of the 1947 film, regardless of not having the 1947-era restrictions others worked under.

The main difference in the carnival settings was del Toro presented his surreal vision/recreation of a 1940s American carnival, while the 1947 film was done in real-time, showing a 1947 American carnival as a 1947 carnival. It also contained language and sexual and violent scenes that were not in the book or 1947 film.

A key factor in both films was Ezra, the powerful industrialist wanting to see his college girlfriend whose death he caused, to receive her forgiveness. But in Gresham’s dark novel, Ezra doesn’t want forgiveness; he has more carnal desires if he has a chance to be with her again.

Many critics praised the visuals—camera work, lighting, colors, setting, etc.—while others felt it distracted from the Depression/wartime period setting. Del Toro noted that his film was unlike past film noir films, which were characterized by their spartan/bare settings and low budgets.

While the del Toro movie rejuvenated interest in the book, it wasn’t a big success either.

Both films lost money due in part to the studios meddling. The 1947 film received minimal marketing— Darryl Zanuck was not enthused with much of the public seeing it. He then pulled it from the theaters quickly afterward, losing a reported $500,000.

Del Toro said against his wishes, the studio put his film in theaters the same week that the latest Spiderman movie was playing. He also noted his film could have attracted older audience members who were staying away from theaters during a pandemic.

Because theaters saw Spiderman playing packed houses and Nightmare Alley playing near-empty ones, many theaters that opened the film on Friday took it down by Sunday to use the theater for more screenings of Spiderman. Ironically, the 2021 film was given less of a chance to build an audience, than the 1947 film was. 1947 film: pulled after 2 weeks. 2021 film: pulled after 2 days.

Obviously, a lot about Gresham hasn’t been researched or explored yet. What are some things you would especially like more people to learn about?

Certainly, his later sobriety and peace he had in his later years for himself, his family, and friends. Some narratives suggest his taking his own life is an example of the thinking/alcoholism mirrored by the Carlisle character in Nightmare Alley—a sad, defeating end.[16] Not generally known is that the primary reason Gresham chose to end his own life was that he had a terminal cancer diagnosis and didn’t want to put himself or his wife through a debilitating death.[17]

Some see him as a searcher of the truth in different religions and “isms” of the world, while others see him as more of a lurker in those worlds. It could be a combination of both. I lean toward seeing him as wondering if the current thing he is in will disappoint him as others did before, and not giving people involved the right to be human, then moving on to whatever might be out there next.

What is currently the best book or article for learning about Gresham?

Gresham’s own writings give selective info and clues about himself.

Two authors who were independently researching Gresham for a biography died before their work made it into print.[18] Another biographer has written a good biography that I hope will be published soon.

Very good essays and commentary can be found in the writings of Bret Wood and the late Nick Tosches, in the Centipede Press editions of Nightmare Alley and Grindshow (a collection of some of Gresham’s work).

Of course, the Marion E. Wade Center’s archives are immensely helpful for finding hard-to-find research on Gresham.

The William Lindsay Gresham Facebook page is an excellent resource for learning more about his life and work.

Works Cited

Downing, Crystal. “‘An Honest Adaptation is a Betrayal’—The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien—Podcast Episode.” January 4, 2020. Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College. youtube.com/watch?v=UdYe-2GB9TA.

Gresham, William Lindsay. “Dream Dust Factory.” Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Douglas A. Anderson. Del Rey, 2008. Kindle.

 Houdini: The Man Who Walked through Walls. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1959.

—. “Book Condensation: Nightmare Alley.” Liberty Magazine vol 42, no. 1, January 4, 1947, pp. 29-43.

Hooper, Walter (editor). The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Beyond. HarperCollins, 2004.

“Nightmare Alley.” The Jack Benny Show, hosted by Jack Benny, NBC, February 2, 1948. youtube.com/watch?v=fB_6EYQmMsg.

“Notes about the marriages of Bill Gresham, from emails by Abby Santamaria.” William Lindsay Gresham Papers, Box 2, Folder 123. Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. archives.wheaton.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/84429.

Pronzini, Bill. “Forgotten Writers: Gil Brewer.” The Big Book of Noir edited by Lee Server, Ed Gorman, and Martin H. Greenberg. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998, pp. 191-200.

Salter, G. Connor. “Remembering William Lindsay Gresham: Interview with Rosemary Simmons.” Fellowship & Fairydust, October 30, 2023. Wayback Machine, web.archive.org/web/20231030160049/https://fellowshipandfairydust.com/2023/10/30/remembering-william-lindsay-gresham-interview-with-rosemary-simmons/.

Santamaria, Abigail. Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C.S. Lewis. SPCK Publishing, 2016.

—. “David Gresham (1944-2014).” VII, vol. 32 (2015, pp. 11-13. jstor.org/stable/48600470.

Tobin, Neil. “The Secret Society of Golden Age Magical Mystery Writers.” Genii, March 2023, 38-43.

Van Maren, Jonathon. “C.S. Lewis and His Stepsons: A Conversation with Douglas Gresham.” First Things, September 3, 2020. firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/c-s-lewis-and-his-stepsons.

Wood, Bret (editor). Grindshow: The Selected Writings of William Lindsay Gresham. Centipede Press, 2013.

[1] This short story is the most easily accessible of Gresham’s short stories, available through The Atlantic online archives and reprinted in the anthology Tales Before Narnia (Anderson, ch. 20).

[2] For example, Gresham discusses playing at being a psychic at parties and nightclub events in his chapter on mentalism, “The Romany Trade,” in Monster Midway.

[3] Neil Tobin discusses Gresham’s friendship with Carr and their amateur magic performances in the March 2023 issue of Genii (42).

[4] See the William Lindsay Gresham Papers, listed online.

[5] Gresham writes, “One of the most destructive experiences a writer can have is to sell a novel to the movies after years of a grinding, hand-to-mouth existence… Like a deep-sea fish, accustomed to the pressure of the deep, when brought to the surface suddenly by a net, he often explodes when the pressure is removed” (288).

[6] I am quoting from Santamaria’s notes on Gresham’s marriages, included in the Wade Center archives (see works cited).

[7] Gresham served in what became known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of American soldiers fighting on behalf of the Republican forces opposing General Franco. Franco successfully defeated the Republican side in 1939.

[8] Renee’s daughter, Rosemary, discusses this period in a recent interview (Salter 1).

[9] Santamaria deals with this topic when discussing her conversations with Gresham’s oldest son, David, who reported that Joy was often dishonest (“David Gresham (1944-2014)” 11) and dismissed her claims about his father being abusive: “my mother told innumerable lies about my father” (Joy 250). It’s worth noting that after David Gresham passed away in 2014, his younger brother, Douglas questioned David’s credibility. Douglas claimed that their uncle, psychiatrist Howard Davidman, diagnosed David as “a dangerous paranoid schizophrenic” when David was a child (Van Maren 1). The search for additional testimony and validation becomes complex.

[10] Lewis wrote a firm letter to Gresham dated June 4, 1957, where he listed various reasons why David and Douglas would not return to America if Joy passed away, including that “the boys remember you as a man who fired rifles thro’ the ceiling to relieve his temper” (Hooper, 843). Santamaria describes the incident as a rifle going off accidentally (250). Bret Wood reports Gresham told Renee it was a suicide attempt (22).

[11] For an interview with Renee’s daughter, see “Remembering William Lindsay Gresham: Interview with Rosemary Simmons” in Works Cited.

[12] Downing explores what an “honest betrayal” may look like in a conversation with Laura Schmidt and David C. Downing on the Marion E. Wade Center’s podcast.

[13] See the January 4, 1947 issue.

[14] The episode aired on February 8, 1948 (see works cited).

[15] I’ve explored this graphic novel and its portrayal of sex in “.”

[16] It’s worth noting here that this may be a broad tendency when people discuss crime writers. For example, see Bill Pronzini’s discussion of Gresham’s contemporary, Gil Brewer, and the cliché that writers ruin their lives with alcohol (191).

[17] Wood emphasizes that Gresham’s finances (including inability to get life insurance because he’d once had tuberculosis) would not have allowed for expensive cancer treatments and that he had watched a friend, Rufus Bush, die slowly from cancer (37).

[18] The two authors were Perry C. Bramlett (1945-2013) and Nick Tosches (1949-2019). Tosches contributed an introduction to the New York Review of Books 2010 reprint of Nightmare Alley, which can also be read on CrimeReads.com. Bramlett’s Inklings scholarship is archived in the Rev. Perry C. Bramlett Collection at Mercer University Library.