A New Door Opening...

U & Me & Tennessee

- an American romance.....

The story of how we made the movie

On the evening I met Konrad Hopkins at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre, he handed me a couple of business cards - one for his publishing enterprise WILFION Books, and one for the International Korngold Society, with which he was associated. THIS was intriguing....

My brother Bob out in L.A. had been a big fan of Korngold's music for years. He'd even introduced me to one of the composer's sons one evening back in the 1970's. Konrad was also a great devotee of Korngold, he'd met BOTH of Korngold's sons! He launched into a summary of the Korngold Sociey's work - helping to get the biography of Korngold published, the establishment of the Korngold Study Centre and Museum in Brno in the Czech republic.


A few days later I received via e-mail a scan of a letter from Konrad written on an old typewriter - very hip, to the point, letting me know he would be coming to come see BABY DOLL one more time. I think I responded with a post card, asking him if he had a copy of one of Tennessee Williams's late plays (a rather good one, I think) called SOMETHING CLOUDY, SOMETHING CLEAR. I brought my copy to the theatre on the day and left it at the box office for Mr. Hopkins.


When we talked that evening after the show, it was lively and exciting. As we spoke about the writers, actors, movies and composers who mattered to us, many new connections revealed themselves. These artists and their work were linked to each other and to Konrad and me in ways that surprised both of us. There was synchronicity.


He mentioned again that he had a lot of letters from Tennessee Williams, together with all his own letters to the playwright. None of this correspondence had ever been published. He spoke a little more about how well he had known Tennessee. I surmised that there had probably been "a deeper relation" between them, but this didn't surprise me, given the roving eye that Tennessee wrote about so openly in his MEMOIRS...


Konrad wrote again a few days later, thanking me for SOMETHING CLOUDY, SOMETHING CLEAR, and again his lively personality shone through, illuminating the graceful serifs of the old uneven Courier typescript that had been scanned and sent as an e-mail. We spoke once or twice on the phone over the ensuing weeks and then one morning as I was writing a journal entry, it just struck me that here might be fascinating material for a documentary movie.

I didn't know what the story was between Konrad and Tennessee, and I realized that it might well be a story that had recurred many times in Tenn's life over the years with many other people.

But there were the letters.....

I phoned Konrad then and there and put the idea to him. Would he be interested in making a documentary about his time with Tennessee, using the letters as background and as proof of events?


Konrad didn't hesitate. It was as if he'd been expecting this call. He agreed at once, and I started to outline how I thought we should approach the project.

Copyright Paul Birchard 2006 All Rights Reserved.