Kenneth Tynan

Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 - 26 July 1980) was an influential and often controversial British theatre critic and writer well known for being the first person to say "fuck" on the BBC.

Biography

Early life

He was born in Birmingham to Peter Tynan and Letitia Rose Tynan. As a child, he stammered but possessed early on a high degree of articulate intelligence. By the age of six, he was already keeping a diary. At King Edward's School, Birmingham, he was a brilliant student of whom one of his masters said, "He was the only boy I could never teach anything." Always clothed foppishly in that all-boy public school, he played the lead as Doctor Parpalaid in an English translation of Jules Romains' farce Knock. While at school he began smoking, which became a lifelong habit.

Tynan was 12 when World War II broke out. By the time the war ended, he had earned a scholarship to Oxford. Well before then he had adopted a fairly colourful set of views (and wardrobe items). During school debates he advocated repealing laws against homosexuality and abortion. During a school debate on the motion, "This House Thinks The Present Generation Has Lost The Ability To Entertain Itself" Tynan gave a speech on the pleasures of masturbation.

At Oxford he lived flamboyantly but was already beginning to suffer from the effects of his heavy smoking. He did not discover till much too late that he had been born with a rare lung condition, which increased the damage done by smoking by a factor of 300.

The writer Paul Johnson, who was "an awestruck freshman-witness to his arrival at the Magdalen lodge" described Tynan as a "tall, beautiful, epicene youth, with pale yellow locks, Beardsley cheekbones, fashionable stammer, plum-coloured suit, lavender tie and ruby signet-ring." Unlike Johnson and Tynan, most undergraduates at the university had been through World War II, but were nevertheless "struck speechless" by Tynan's extravagant style.

Hated by some, Tynan was nevertheless an intellectual and social leader among Oxford undergraduates, often made a splash ("during the whole of his time there he was easily the most talked-of person in the city") and had groupies ("a court of young women and admiring dons"), and gave sensational parties sometimes attended by London entertainment celebrities, Johnson wrote.

More seriously, he produced and acted in plays, spoke "brilliantly" at the Oxford Union, wrote for and edited college magazines. He retained a life-long admiration for his tutor at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, in spite of their marked differences in outlook.

In 1948, upon the death of Tynan's father, Tynan was startled to discover some facts about the former's true identity: he was Sir Peter Peacock, who had once been mayor of Warrington and had been successfully leading a double life for more than 20 years. Sir Peter's body was returned to Warrington for burial. Thereafter it would be long before Tynan was able to trust anyone again.

Early adulthood

Three years later, on 25 January 1951, he married the author Elaine Dundy after a three-month romance. In the following year they had a daughter, Tracy (born 12 May 1952, Westminster, London), after Spencer Tracy, and asked Katharine Hepburn to be godmother, which she accepted. (Tracy is currently a costume designer for the film industry.)

Tynan's career took off in 1952 when he was hired as a theatre critic for the London Evening Standard. According to Johnson, Tynan "quickly established himself as the most audacious literary journalist in London. His motto was: 'Write heresy, pure heresy.' He pinned to his desk the exhilarating slogan: 'Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds.'" Two years later he left for The Observer, and it was there that he rose to prominence.

The timing for a witty, eloquent theatre critic was perfect. Tynan was highly critical of what he called 'the Loamshire play', a genre of English middle-class country-house drama which he felt dominated the early 1950s British stage, and was wasting the talents of playwrights and actors. But there was a significant development in the 1955-1956 British theatre season during which John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot premiered. Tynan championed Osbourne's play, turning it into a hit, according to Johnson. Tynan espoused a new theatrical realism, best exemplified in the works of the playwrights who became known as the "Angry Young Men".

"He became a power in the London theatre, which regarded him with awe, fear and hatred", Johnson wrote. The reviewer "seemed to know all world literature" and studded his articles with such words as "esurient", "cateran", "cisisbeism" and "eretheism". From 1958 to 1960 he became known in the United States by contributing "some superb reviews" to The New Yorker. Following this, he returned to The Observer where he remained its theatre critic until mid-1963 when he joined the National Theatre.

His marriage had become increasingly difficult in spite of his success (and Elaine's: she had published her first novel in 1958). Both had extramarital affairs (though his were much more blatant than hers) and he had developed a dependence on alcohol. His sexual tastes had always favored sadomasochism, which strained the marriage as well. Dundy wrote "To cane a woman on her bare buttocks, to hurt and humiliate her, was what gave him his greatest sexual satisfaction." Johnson wrote that "women seem to have objected less to his sadism, which took only a mild form, than to his vanity and authoritarianism. [...] He treated women as possessions. [...] Tynan, while reserving the unqualified right to be unfaithful himself, expected loyalty from his spouse." On one occasion, he returned from a meeting with his mistress to find a naked man in the kitchen with his wife. He threw the man's clothes down an elevator shaft.

Francis Bacon, a painter renowned for his grotesque (and often gory) works, once smiled warmly at Tracy and declared her to be "as pretty as a picture". This was one of the few times Kenneth Tynan was ever shocked into silence.

Kenneth Tynan co-wrote with Harold Lang, the actor, a radio play "The Quest for Corbett" (1956), which was broadcast at least twice in The BBC Third Programme in the mid-fifties. From 1956 -1958, Tynan was the script editor for Ealing Studios, and co-wrote with Seth Holt the film "Nowhere to Go".

At the National Theatre

In 1963 Laurence Olivier became the British Royal National Theatre's first artistic director. Tynan had been highly dismissive of Olivier’s achievements as artistic director of The Chichester festival theatre in 1963, but he still recommended himself for the role. Olivier was initially outraged by Tynan’s presumption but Olivier’s wife, Joan Plowright, convinced him that Tynan would be an asset at the National Theatre. When he came the National Theatre's Literary Manager, Tynan finished as the The Observer theatre critic but would stay for several more years as its film reviewer. Tynan would eventually convince Olivier to play the title role in Shakespeare's Othello, something he had always been reluctant to do. Tynan's marriage ended in divorce the following year, the same year that the Olivier Othello opened at the National Theatre to glowing reviews. It was filmed in 1965. (See Othello (1965 film).)

At the National Theatre Tynan established for himself a global reputation, Johnson wrote: "Indeed at times in the 1960s he probably had more influence than anyone else in world theatre."

On 13 November 1965, he participated in a live TV debate, broadcast as part of the BBC's late-night satirical show BBC3. He was asked whether he would allow a play to be staged in which sexual intercourse was represented on the stage, and replied: “Well, I think so, certainly. I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word 'fuck' would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden. I think that anything which can be printed or said can also be seen." No recording survives of the programme, but “Private Eye” always maintained that Tynan’s stammer made it the first 13 syllable 4 letter word. This was the first time the word "fuck" had been spoken on British television. Johnson later called Tynan's use of the word "his masterpiece of calculated self-publicity", adding "for a time it made him the most notorious man in the country".

In response to public outcry, the BBC was forced to issue a formal apology. The House of Commons signed four separate censuring motions signed by 133 Labour Party and Tory backbenchers. Mary Whitehouse, a frequent critic of the BBC over issues of "morals and decency", wrote a letter to the Queen, suggesting that Tynan should be reprimanded by having "his bottom spanked". The irony of Whitehouse's comment has been noted, given the later revelations of Tynan's fetish for flagellation[1]. The episode further encouraged Whitehouse in her campaign against the BBC; it also cut short Tynan's television career. Comedian Billy Connolly would later commemorate this event in his song "A Four-Letter Word".

The controversy was part of a larger, longstanding aim of Tynan's "of breaking down linguistic inhibitions on the stage and in print. No one in Britain played a bigger role in destroying the old system of censorship, formal and informal." In 1960 "after much maneuvering", Tynan got the four-letter word into The Observer in an article about the Lady Chatterley Trial. His organization of Oh! Calcutta! in 1969 was another important victory in that campaign. Tynan was fiercely against censorship and was determined to break taboos that he considered arbitrary.

By 1967 his career had suffered further. His left-wing politics, his lifestyle, and his failing health made him something of a poster boy for Sixties Radical Chic/Champagne Socialism in London. He also suffered a defeat in the National's internal battles over his support for the Rolf Hochhuth play Soldiers. 79 plays were performed during Tynan’s period at the National Theate; 32 were his idea, and another 20 chosen with his collaboration.

After Tynan's divorce he met Kathleen Halton in December 1962. She was the daughter of famed wartime CBC correspondent Matthew Halton and sister of contemporary CBC journalist David Halton. Tynan convinced her to leave her husband and live with him. On June 30, 1967, before a New York Justice of the Peace, he married a 6 month pregnant Halton, with Marlene Dietrich as witness. During the ceremony, Dietrich backed towards some doors to close them; the judge interrupted his oration, and without change in tone or pace said: "And do you, Kenneth, take Kathleen for your lawful-wedded--I wouldn't stand with your ass to an open door in this office lady--wife to have and to hold?"

Halton gave up her career to support Tynan politically and socially. Her writing fell by the wayside during these years as the Tynan home became something of a focus for left-wing personalities in London.

The erotic revue he wrote called Oh! Calcutta! debuted in 1969 and became one of the most successful theatre hits of all time. It consisted of scenes written by various authors, including Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, and Edna O'Brien as well as music, and featured frequent nudity. Tynan was a poor businessman, however, and the contracts he signed for the show only brought him in a total of $250,000 out of the many millions it earned.

Tynan also co-wrote with Roman Polanski the script of an unusually grim and violent screen adaptation of Macbeth in 1971. In that same year he returned to his childhood habit of keeping a journal, detailing his last few months at the Royal National Theatre, which he finally left at the end of 1973 after being out-manoeuvred by the incoming Peter Hall.

Later career

In the mid-1970s he made various failed efforts to explore serious sexual themes. He researched and wrote half a book on Wilhelm Reich. His attempts to compile an anthology of masturbation fantasies foundered after being rebuffed by Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, Samuel Beckett and others, and he couldn't raise enough money to finance a film about a sexual triangle. Sexual obsession and physical debility marked his last years, according to Johnson.

His diaries, which he continued until the end of his life, are a mixture of self-examination and gossip; frequently hilarious and passionate, filled with wisdom and occasional folly, they reflect a growing sense of disappointment. Tynan moved with his family to California in 1976, in hopes of easing his emphysema and to write a series of lengthy articles for the “The New Yorker”.

As Kathleen found success as a screenwriter and author), they had an uneasy relationship for the last few years. This marriage produced two children: Matthew, named for Kathleen's father, and Roxana. His second marriage began falling apart, largely because of "Tynan's insistence on total sexual latitude for himself, fidelity for his wife." He formed a relationship with a woman to enact sado-masochistic fantasies, sometimes involving both of them cross-dressing, sometimes hiring prostitutes as "extras" in elaborate scenes. He told his wife he intended to continue with the sessions weekly "although all common sense and reason and kindness and even camaraderie are against it. ... It is my choice, my thing, my need ... It is fairly comic and slightly nasty. But it is shaking me like an infection and I cannot do anything but be shaken until the fit has passed."

Death

Tynan died in Santa Monica, California, of pulmonary emphysema, aged 53. He was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.

Influence

Tynan's influence on the theatre scene (particularly in London) was great, though his criticisms were often controversial and stinging. Many actors were scared of incurring his wrath. Nevertheless, he deserves part of the credit for the theatrical revolution of the mid-1950s and the continued popularity of such playwrights as Beckett.

Selected quotes of Kenneth Tynan

• "Citizen Coon" (Tynan's description of Orson Welles' performance as Othello).

• "A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car."

• "The greatest films are those which show how society shapes man. The greatest plays are those which show how man shapes society."

• [Upon moving to a house in California well above his means] "What have I done — more ominously, what am I going to have to do to deserve all this?"

• [About Vivien Leigh's performance in Titus Andronicus:] "She receives the news that she is about to be ravished on her husband's corpse with little more than the mild annoyance of one who would have preferred foam rubber."

• "What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober."

• [On Roman Polanski:] "The five-foot Pole you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole."

• "Western man, especially the Western critic, still finds it very hard to go into print and say: 'I recommend you to go and see this because it gave me an erection.'"

• [Upon encountering Alec Guinness in a bar in Havana, Cuba, Tynan made the following offer:] "I have t-two t-tickets for the fort tonight. . . They are shooting a couple of 16-year-olds. A boy and a girl. I thought you might like to see it. One should see everything, if one's an actor." [Guinness declined the offer]

Selected bibliography and other works

BOOKS BY KENNETH TYNAN

• He That Plays The King, 1950
• Persona Grata (photographs by Cecil Beaton), 1953
• Alec Guinness, 1953
• Bull Fever, Longmans, 1955
• Quest for Corbett, Gaberbocchus, 1960
• Curtains, 1961
• Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events. Kenneth Tynan. 1967. ISBN 0-689-10271-2.
• The Sound of Two Hands Clapping, 1975
• Show People: Profiles in Entertainment. 1980. ISBN 0-671-25012-4.
• Kenneth Tynan: Letters. Kathleen Tynan [ed]. ISBN 0-517-39926-1.
• The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan. Kenneth Tynan (ed. John Lahr). 2001. ISBN 0-7475-5418-8, ISBN 1-58234-160-5.

SELECTIONS:

• A View of the English Stage, dramatic criticism selected by Kenneth Tynan, 1975
• Profiles. Edited by Kathleen Tynan and Ernie Eban. 1990. Various editions: ISBN 0-06-039123-5.
• Kenneth Tynan: Theatre Writings, selected by Dominic Shellard, 2007

BIOGRAPHIES:

• The Life of Kenneth Tynan. Kathleen Tynan. 1987, called by Paul Johnson "a tender and sorrowing biography, a model of its kind" (Intellectuals, page 325) ISBN 0-688-05080-8, ISBN 0-688-08906-2, ISBN 0-413-18590-7.
• Man They Loved to Hate. William Triplett. 1995. A biography of Kenneth Tynan. ISBN 0-340-59240-0.
• Life Itself!. Elaine Dundy. 2001. Contains a definitive autobiographical account of Tynan's first marriage as written by his first wife. ISBN 1-86049-513-3.
• Kenneth Tynan, A Life. Dominic Shellard. 2003. ISBN 0-300-09919-3.

External links

• Obituary in The Guardian
• "When Kenneth met Lulu", The Guardian, "Saturday Review", p. 4 (November 21, 1998). Discusses the story (told by Kathleen Tynan) of Kenneth Tynan's obsession with Louise Brooks. Kathleen produced a screenplay, the rights to which were bought by Martin Scorsese in 1998.
• Tynan's biography on the National Theatre's website
• The Girl With the Black Helmet, Tynan's article from a 1979 issue of The New Yorker about silent film star Louise Brooks
• Some Plays—a List Compiled for The National Theatre. Kenneth Tynan. Referred to in the National Theatre biography mentioned above, his list is available from the National Theatre website as a Microsoft Word 97 document. Google also has a cached version of the text.
• The History of the National Theatre. John Elsom and Nicholas Tomalin. 1978. ISBN 0-224-01340-8
• 1956 and All That: The Making of Modern British Drama. Dan Rebellato. 1999. ISBN 0-415-18939-X
• "Tynan the vulgarian should be a lesson to us all", in The Observer by Peter Conrad. October 14, 2001. Review of The Diaries, and a critical synopsis of Tynan's life
• Review of The Diaries and a critical synopsis of Tynan's life
• archive of reviews and essays about Kenneth Tynan and journalism by Tynan himself for The New York Times