The Bradbury Chronicles by Sam Weller

Author:Sam Weller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-10-17T07:11:27+00:00

19. THE WHITE WHALE

I have been in awe of Ray Bradbury ever since my brother introduced me to his books when I was a young boy. I remember distinctly the joy of reading Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles at that time in my life. In 1973, I had the pleasure of doing one of his plays, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a production that turned out to be a major touchstone for my career. The circle completed itself when twenty-five years later I was able to reprise my role of Gomez in that piece for our filming of Ice Cream Suit for Disney. My idol as an author had now become a friend and an associate. Of all the joys my career has afforded me, my relation to Ray Bradbury will stand as one of the most shining aspects of it.

—JOE MANTEGNA, actor

ON SATURDAY, September 12, 1953, Ray, Maggie, and their two girls, Susan and Ramona, boarded a Union Pacific train bound for New York City. Joining them was a young woman, twenty-five-year-old Regina Ferguson, Susan’s preschool teacher in Los Angeles, whom Ray and Maggie had asked to be the girls’ nanny for the trip to Europe. Eager for change, Ferguson readily accepted. “It took me all of about an hour and a half to make the decision,” she recalled.

So the five set off on their European adventure. As the train cut through Utah, Ray wrote the opening scene of the film Moby Dick. He was exhilarated. After sending his books to John Huston over the last few years, and exchanging letters with him, they were at long last working on a motion picture together. Two days later, the train arrived at Chicago’s Union Station. Maggie took advantage of the Chicago stop-off to remedy a major packing faux pas. “We forgot to pack diapers for Ramona,” Maggie recalled with a laugh, “so we all walked to the Marshall Field’s department store on State Street to buy a fresh supply.” The Bradbury family also visited Ray’s favorite museum, the Art Institute of Chicago; Ray had always loved the 1884 Georges Seurat impressionistic piece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

With disaster narrowly averted and a quick afternoon visit to the art museum, the Bradburys returned to the train and continued the journey eastward. When they arrived in New York City, they checked into the Plaza Hotel. That evening, Ray and Maggie joined Ray’s publisher, Ian Ballantine, and his wife, Betty, along with editor Stanley Kauffmann, at Don Congdon’s Brooklyn apartment for a celebratory dinner to mark the completion of Fahrenheit 451 and to toast Ray’s new cinematic endeavor. While they were in New York, the family also did some sightseeing. Watching his girls’ excitement as they had their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, and knowing that he’d provided this trip for his family, Ray felt that his hard work was finally yielding dividends.

Two days later, they left for Europe. The Bradburys boarded the SS United States, a five-star, 990-foot

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