Chris & Don
A May-December love for all seasons
Within a year of living with Isherwood, Mr. Bachardy, who grew up in Los Angeles, had assimilated so many of his British mentor’s mannerisms that he had assumed Isherwood’s British accent and dry, precise vocal tone. One talking head observes that Isherwood had “succeeded in cloning himself in some weird way.”
After Isherwood, an ever-attentive father figure, noticed Mr. Bachardy’s talent as a draftsman, he sent him to art school, where he flourished. Had Mr. Bachardy not developed a successful parallel career as a portrait artist (many drawings and paintings of celebrities are shown), the relationship might not have endured.
Chris and Don by David Hockney
Here is another portraits of them by David Hockney in colors/
This pen and ink drawing by Don Bachardy was on the paperbook cover of “Christopher and His Kind’.
More about Christopher Isherwood or his Berlin days..
Christopher and his Kind
(A book I read with much relish more than two decades ago.)
Don Bacardy and Christopher Isherwood in Santa Monica