Speaker 1: Why media productions. It's October. Louise Bryant stands at the
Speaker 1: head of a solemn procession that winds through the streets
Speaker 1: of Moscow to Red Square. She's racked with fatigue and grief.
Speaker 1: Her husband, her partner, and art, journalism and revolution is gone.
Speaker 1: Bryant spent the past three weeks nursing Jack Read day
Speaker 1: and night in an overcrowded Soviet hospital until he died
Speaker 1: from typhus at thirty two. The Russian leaders revered Read,
Speaker 1: and now they give him a hero's funeral in Moscow
Speaker 1: with all the pomp and circumstance the young socialist nation
Speaker 1: can muster. So it was there was a big funeral, Cortes,
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was a big deal. Jack Read.
Speaker 1: Biographer Robert Rosenstone would have seen, you know, all the
Speaker 1: leaders there, with Lennon and Trotsky and the other members
Speaker 1: of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and um
Speaker 1: lots of Red Guard. They take Read's casket to the
Speaker 1: Kremlin Wall to bury him next to other Soviet revolutionary heroes.
Speaker 1: It's perhaps the most honored spot in Russia. Only a
Speaker 1: handful of Americans are buried there, and Jack Reid is
Speaker 1: the first. Louise Brian is too grief stricken to process
Speaker 1: any of this at the funeral, says her biographer Mary Dearborn.
Speaker 1: That was a terrible moment for her because there she
Speaker 1: is alone in Moscow and he's dead. Louise basically collapsed
Speaker 1: while she was standing there. It was a terrible shock
Speaker 1: and it took her a while to recover. It's more
Speaker 1: than Bryant and her weary heart can take. She recounts
Speaker 1: the traumatic events surrounding Reid's death, and I let her
Speaker 1: home a few weeks later. All that I write now
Speaker 1: seems part of a dream. Jack's death and my strenuous
Speaker 1: underground trip to Russia and the weeks of terror and
Speaker 1: the Typhus hospital have quite broken me. At the funeral,
Speaker 1: I suffered a very of your heart attack. Specialists have
Speaker 1: agreed that I have strained my heart because of the
Speaker 1: long days and nights I watched besides Jack's bed, and
Speaker 1: that is enlarged and may not get ever well again.
Speaker 1: I'm Sean Braswell and This is the Threat a podcast
Speaker 1: from Ozzie Media where we examine the interlocking lives and
Speaker 1: events of history. We turned back the clock one story
Speaker 1: at a time to reveal how various strands get woven
Speaker 1: together to create a historic figure, big idea, or an
Speaker 1: unthinkable tragedy. Our season started with the murder of John
Speaker 1: Lennon and how his killer, Mark David Chapman, was obsessed
Speaker 1: with a novel, The Catcher and the RYE. J. D.
Speaker 1: Salinger might not have written that novel if he had
Speaker 1: never met the dazzling Una O'Neill, and Una might not
Speaker 1: have existed if her father, their Eugene O'Neil, hadn't lost
Speaker 1: the love of his life. If you take away one connection,
Speaker 1: history changes. John Lennon might be celebrating his seventy seventh
Speaker 1: birthday this month if just one of these links had
Speaker 1: been different, we'll never really know. This episode, we continue
Speaker 1: our thread with Louise Bryant, the woman who captured the
Speaker 1: heart of Eugene O'Neill and could have changed it all.
Speaker 1: If you're joining us for the first time, please go
Speaker 1: back to episode one and start our interconnected story from
Speaker 1: the beginning. It's very hard to tell it in linear fashion.
Speaker 1: Her life wasn't very linear. Mary dearborn again, We'll take
Speaker 1: her queue and start at the end of Bryant's life.
Speaker 1: Imagine the streets of Paris three. It's thirteen years after
Speaker 1: the death of her husband, journalist Jack Read. Bryant is
Speaker 1: forty seven, so she says she's thirty nine. In some ways,
Speaker 1: she's still living in the past. But I've been looking
Speaker 1: at this photo of her on the back of my
Speaker 1: book jacket while we're talking. She's wearing these clothes that
Speaker 1: she brought back from Russia that are just amazing. These boots,
Speaker 1: she has a Russian fur cap, and she's wearing this
Speaker 1: sort of tunic. Bryant married again in Paris. This husband
Speaker 1: was a controlling diplomat named William Bullet. He convinced her
Speaker 1: to stop writing and give up her career to become
Speaker 1: a mother. Things started to spiral from there. Bryant was
Speaker 1: overcome by a rare and excruciatingly painful illness that caused
Speaker 1: tumors to grow all over her body. Her only relief
Speaker 1: was alcohol. She drank more and more, and before long
Speaker 1: her alcoholism is battling with this terrible disease, and she
Speaker 1: went into the tailspin. Meanwhile, Bullet started gathering his forces.
Speaker 1: He divorced Bryant and took her only child, Anne. There
Speaker 1: was an ugly custody battle. Bullet took their six year
Speaker 1: old and swept her away on his diplomatic missions. Bryant
Speaker 1: was left behind in Paris, desperate and miserable. Louise was
Speaker 1: really living a chaotic life in Paris, drinking too much,
Speaker 1: and her daughter Anne was sort of the the last
Speaker 1: dream she had left to hold onto. One day, Bryant
Speaker 1: read in the newspaper that Bullet would be passing through
Speaker 1: Paris by train. She suspected that he would have their
Speaker 1: daughter with him. She went to the train station. She
Speaker 1: had a bottle of red wine with her and was
Speaker 1: reviewing her life as she's waiting for the train and
Speaker 1: just hoping that she can get a glimpse of Anne.
Speaker 1: It's the only thing that makes sense to her anymore.
Speaker 1: And the train thundered by without even slowing. Bryant died
Speaker 1: penniless on the stairs of a seed Paris hotel three
Speaker 1: years later. No fancy funeral, no processions, no marching bands.
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant may have died without fanfare, but her life
Speaker 1: was a series of remarkable adventures. She was really amazingly beautiful.
Speaker 1: She was incredibly bold and ready to take risks again. Bryant.
Speaker 1: Biographer Mary Dearborn, she really came from nowhere, and she
Speaker 1: wanted to be kind of an actor on a world stage,
Speaker 1: and so Bryant struck out for Oregon, where she graduated
Speaker 1: from college. She had a penchant for reinventing herself and
Speaker 1: had total confidence she could attract any man she wanted
Speaker 1: an acquaintance. Once lamented she had no right to have
Speaker 1: brains and be so pretty, so she pushed, you know,
Speaker 1: and um, she was so beautiful and slipped me that
Speaker 1: whatever she wanted she tended to get. And what she
Speaker 1: wanted first was a comfortable middle class life in Portland,
Speaker 1: married to a handsome dentist. But soon that wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: She felt like she was living in a provincial backwater.
Speaker 1: She wanted someone to open the door to the bustling
Speaker 1: cities of the world, a true adventurer, and that someone
Speaker 1: soon arrived at her doorstep. Jack Read was a six foot,
Speaker 1: curly haired, green eyed giant of American journalism. In nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty six, he made a name
Speaker 1: for himself as a brave and fearless reporter. It was
Speaker 1: his revolution brewing in Mexico and all the American reporters
Speaker 1: were gathered in El Paso when nobody was going over.
Speaker 1: They were kind of reporting the stories from the tales
Speaker 1: of people who were fleeing Mexico. Read biographer Robert Rosenstone. Again.
Speaker 1: He advised actor and director Warren Beatty on the film
Speaker 1: Reads about reading Bryant, and read was the only American
Speaker 1: who got himself on a donkey and rode off into
Speaker 1: Mexico and found Pancho Villa, who was one of the
Speaker 1: great revolutionary leaders, and rode with his troops for six
Speaker 1: or eight weeks. Reid's reporting from Mexico made him a
Speaker 1: rock star, so he became at that point the highest
Speaker 1: paid journalist in America. Portland, Oregon, was Jack Reid's hometown,
Speaker 1: and in December nineteen fifteen, the acclaimed reporter returned to
Speaker 1: Portland to give a series of lectures railing against the
Speaker 1: American class system. Bryant attended one of those speeches, she
Speaker 1: was entranced. The two met on the street a few
Speaker 1: days later, and Bryant invited him up to her loft
Speaker 1: to read poetry. She kept a studio in downtown Portland,
Speaker 1: and she asked him back to her studio. You know
Speaker 1: and and she wrote about how they just sat there
Speaker 1: in the glow of the stove, and you know, the
Speaker 1: rest is left here imagination. Read returned to New York
Speaker 1: and made arrangements for Bryant to follow, and so on
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve nineteen fifteen, Bryant said goodbye to her husband,
Speaker 1: got on a train, and went to New York to
Speaker 1: join Read in Greenwich Village to start a new adventure.
Speaker 1: Greenwich Village was paradise for Louise. Like minded artists and
Speaker 1: writers talked about social change all the time. It was
Speaker 1: a period of experimentation, indulgence, and cheap food and drink.
Speaker 1: Bryant told a friend that her relationship with Read was
Speaker 1: so beautiful and so free. We don't interfere with each
Speaker 1: other at all. We feel like children who will never
Speaker 1: grow up. They carried that spirit to Provincetown on Cape
Speaker 1: Cod in the summer of nineteen six. Louise was there
Speaker 1: with John Reid. They shared a house with Reed's friends
Speaker 1: from Harvard and a lot of local sort of artists.
Speaker 1: Of course, Louise was living with him, but they were
Speaker 1: committed to the idea of free love, so nothing was
Speaker 1: holding them back. The same romantic impulse that had led
Speaker 1: Bryant to Read also drew her to other men, including
Speaker 1: Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill was a genius, a playwright, was striking
Speaker 1: good looks in a brooding disposition. Bryan and O'Neill had
Speaker 1: a passionate affair that would impact O'Neill for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. The magical summer on the beaches of
Speaker 1: Cape Cod came to an end. Louise Bryant and Jack
Speaker 1: Read got married in New York that fall, but Bryant's
Speaker 1: romance with O'Neill continued to smolder. She felt that she
Speaker 1: had carte blanche to sleep with whoever she wanted, and
Speaker 1: of course, to be consistent, she said Jack Reid did too,
Speaker 1: but in fact he had all kinds of affairs, and
Speaker 1: that really heard her. So whenever Jack we went out
Speaker 1: of almost out of her sight, she'd take up with
Speaker 1: somebody who is nearby. As soon as Red left town,
Speaker 1: Bryant reignited her affair with O'Neil, But Bryant felt stifled
Speaker 1: in New York. She wanted to travel the world and
Speaker 1: report on the biggest stories of their generation. Up next,
Speaker 1: Bryant takes on a new challenge, one that will lead
Speaker 1: her to ground zero of one of the greatest revolutions
Speaker 1: in history. Louise Bryant had lived in the shadow of
Speaker 1: Jack Read ever since she arrived in Greenwich Village. She
Speaker 1: was determined to forge her own career to make her
Speaker 1: own name as a journalist. World War One was raging
Speaker 1: across Europe, so Bryant left behind her new husband and
Speaker 1: her playwright lover to cover the war. Bryant was the
Speaker 1: only reporter on the front line. American soldiers greeted her
Speaker 1: with delight, but she had trouble getting published back home.
Speaker 1: Bryant returned from France by ship to New York, and
Speaker 1: Jack Reid was waiting for her on the docks. He
Speaker 1: had a very exciting proposal for her. Four days later,
Speaker 1: they returned aboard another ship, and Louise was headed back
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic with her husband, headed toward another brewing war.
Speaker 1: These four days are essential to our thread. If the
Speaker 1: timing had been different, if Bryant had stayed in New
Speaker 1: York for weeks instead of days after returning from France,
Speaker 1: then everything would have been different. But more on this later.
Speaker 1: Just keep these four days in mind. Read and Bryant
Speaker 1: sailed for Russia because Russia was falling apart. The czar
Speaker 1: had abdicated his throne, ending the nation's monarchy. Those in
Speaker 1: power vowed to hold elections once World War One had finished,
Speaker 1: but one radical political faction, known as the bulsh Shoviks,
Speaker 1: did not want to wait for elections. The Bolsheviks had
Speaker 1: a secret weapon, a stocky bald man with a powerful promise, peace,
Speaker 1: land and bread. His name was Vladimir Ilyich Ullanov, but
Speaker 1: everyone knew him as Lenin. Read and Bryant followed the
Speaker 1: events in Russia very closely. They knew that revolution was coming,
Speaker 1: and they made sure that they were there when it happened.
Speaker 1: They arrived in Petrograd modern day St. Petersburg after a
Speaker 1: long journey. John Reid had a real capacity for kind
Speaker 1: of ecstasy, and he was just a real fountain of energy.
Speaker 1: Mary dearborn again, and he was so overcome with joy
Speaker 1: when they got into Petrograd and found that it was
Speaker 1: all happening. Bryant and Reid met with workers unions, They
Speaker 1: attended political gatherings, they heard speeches by revolutionary leaders. They
Speaker 1: were in the middle of it, and they were writing
Speaker 1: about it. And you have it at the time that
Speaker 1: it seemed like this was going to trigger a world revolution.
Speaker 1: They were devoted socialists, and the noble experiment in Russia
Speaker 1: really drew them in. They thought this was wonderful. Everywhere
Speaker 1: they went. There was a question crackling in the air
Speaker 1: who would lead the new Russia. The tension grew and
Speaker 1: the system burst in late October. The Bolsheviks quickly swept
Speaker 1: into power. In the end, there was very little violence.
Speaker 1: Most people didn't know what had happened until they read
Speaker 1: leaflets announcing the news From a platform in Petrograd. Lenin proclaimed,
Speaker 1: now begins a new era in the history of Russia,
Speaker 1: and Briant and Reid were on the ground to record
Speaker 1: the whole thing. So Jack was writing away and Louise
Speaker 1: was writing away, and they each wrote a book about
Speaker 1: their time in Russia. Bryant's book Six Red Months in
Speaker 1: Russia paints a vibrant picture of daily life during the revolution.
Speaker 1: And went along always looking for the happy youngsters to
Speaker 1: whom the bright toys and the shop windows now dust covered,
Speaker 1: should belong. I came to realize with horror that everybody
Speaker 1: in Russia has grown up those young in years whom
Speaker 1: we still called children, had old and sad faces, large
Speaker 1: hungry eyes burned forth from pale countenances, wretched, worn out shoes,
Speaker 1: sagging a raggy little garments accentuated they're so apparent misery.
Speaker 1: But Russia was changing rapidly. The new government nationalized the
Speaker 1: banks and declared men and women equal. To Bryant, it
Speaker 1: felt more free than the United States, where women didn't
Speaker 1: yet have the right to vote. Everyone began addressing each
Speaker 1: other as comrade. In the streets. Brant and Red met
Speaker 1: and befriended Vladimir Lenin himself. In the weeks and months
Speaker 1: after the revolution. The two Americans were spell bound by Linen.
Speaker 1: Reid described Lenin as a strange, popular leader, a leader
Speaker 1: purely by virtue of intellect, colorless, humorless, uncompromising and detached,
Speaker 1: but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms.
Speaker 1: Bryant and Reid were convinced that Lenin was going to
Speaker 1: change the world. The Soviet experiment felt like the next
Speaker 1: chapter in human civilization. In Russia, the socialist state is
Speaker 1: an accomplished fact, Louise wrote in her book, we can
Speaker 1: never again call it an idle dream of long haired
Speaker 1: philosophers Louise Bryant and Jack Reid returned home from Russia
Speaker 1: in the spring of nineteen eighteen. Bryant was high on
Speaker 1: revolution and filled with a new sense of possibility. She
Speaker 1: was determined to rekindle her affair with Eugene O'Neill. Louise
Speaker 1: got in touch with the O'Neill, who was in Province
Speaker 1: Town bryant biographer Mary dear worn. And he said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm married now, I've married this woman, Agnes Bolton. And
Speaker 1: she said, oh, please meet me in Fall River, which
Speaker 1: was midway between Provincen and New York. And he was
Speaker 1: very tempted too. For months, the love sick playwright had
Speaker 1: drunk himself silly while Bryant was overseas, turning back clocks
Speaker 1: and proclaiming his despair across Greenwich Village. This is where
Speaker 1: those four days come, in the four days between Bryant's
Speaker 1: journey home from France and her departure for Russia. If
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant had stayed in New York just a little
Speaker 1: longer before leaving to report on the revolution, she would
Speaker 1: have almost certainly resumed her romance with O'Neill, and he
Speaker 1: would have never met Agnes Bolton at the hell whole bar.
Speaker 1: No Bolton, no Una, no threat. But by the time
Speaker 1: Louise returned from Russia the following year, it was too late.
Speaker 1: He was fully involved with Bolton. Bryant demanded to know
Speaker 1: if he still loved her. O'Neil was torn, but ultimately
Speaker 1: stayed with Bolton. His wife, Agnes Bolt laid down the law. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Jack Reid moved from intrepid reporter to full fledged communist.
Speaker 1: He traveled the country to foster the growing American communist movement.
Speaker 1: Reid returned to Russia in the fall of nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: to visit Lenin and other Russian leaders and enlist their help.
Speaker 1: He promised Bryant he would only be gone for a
Speaker 1: few months, but Read's second trip to Russia was not
Speaker 1: as magical as the first, and when he tried to
Speaker 1: return to America, u S authorities blocked him, so he
Speaker 1: sent for Bryant to join him in Russia, and after
Speaker 1: a long and harrowing journey, Bryant finally arrived in Russia
Speaker 1: for a second time, and she and Reid reunited in Moscow.
Speaker 1: Jack ran into Louise's hotel room when he heard where
Speaker 1: she was, and they were. It was a very romantic
Speaker 1: time for him. But Louise asked Jack about his experiences,
Speaker 1: and she said she found him older and sadder and
Speaker 1: grown strangely gentle. Reid told Bryant about the famines, epidemics,
Speaker 1: and chaos that plagued Russia. The glowing socialist dream had
Speaker 1: turned into a nightmare. He grew increasingly disillusioned. His health faltered.
Speaker 1: Not long after his reunion with Bryant, he was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with the deadly typhus fever and rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Louise nursed him around the clock. People were sick in
Speaker 1: the whole city and there was no room in the hospitals.
Speaker 1: Jack was on a cot in a hallway and Louise
Speaker 1: was nursing him because they were nurses had no time,
Speaker 1: or barely any time to even stop, and Louise um
Speaker 1: sort of watched the life drain out of John Reid.
Speaker 1: Reid died one month after their reunion, just five days
Speaker 1: shy of his thirty third birthday. Russian workers carried his
Speaker 1: body on their shoulders from the hospital to the Temple
Speaker 1: of Labor. Lenin and the other Soviet leaders honored their
Speaker 1: friend and comrade, with an elaborate funeral that filled the
Speaker 1: streets of Moscow. Bryant had a heart attack at Read's funeral,
Speaker 1: but she recovered. She went on many more reporting adventures
Speaker 1: in Russia and elsewhere. Bryant took up flying near the
Speaker 1: end of her life before she succumbed to illness and despair.
Speaker 1: She liked to wear her flight suit in Parisian cafes,
Speaker 1: but her life never again reached the height of those
Speaker 1: five extraordinary years with Jack Read. Her heart may have
Speaker 1: recovered after Red Square, but in many ways it remained
Speaker 1: in Russia with Read. Now we've reached the end of
Speaker 1: our thread. We're done traveling back in time, so let's
Speaker 1: trace it beat by beat from Lenin to Lenin. Here
Speaker 1: we go. Vladimir Lenin starts a revel Ouian in Russia.
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant will miss the window to rekindle her affair
Speaker 1: with Eugene O'Neill in order to report on that revolution.
Speaker 1: Her absence from O'Neill's life will overshadow his marriage and
Speaker 1: family for years. He will abandon that family and devastate
Speaker 1: his young daughter Una. UNA's marriage to Charlie Chaplin will
Speaker 1: in turn rock JD. Salinger's world before the trauma of
Speaker 1: combat destroys it. The fruits of Salinger's suffering, the Catcher
Speaker 1: in the Rye will influence millions, including the sociopath Mark
Speaker 1: David Chapman, all culminating sixty three years later when Chapman
Speaker 1: murders John Lennon at the Gates of the Dakota. This
Speaker 1: episode marks the end of our Thread, but it's not
Speaker 1: the end of our season. Next week, in our final episode,
Speaker 1: we tie together some loose ends and discover a few
Speaker 1: more surprising connections between our characters. The Thread is produced
Speaker 1: by Meredith Hotnut, Libby Coleman, and me Sean braswell. Our
Speaker 1: editors are Carlos Watson and samir Raw. Meredith Hottnot engineered
Speaker 1: our show with mixing and sound design from James Rowland's
Speaker 1: special Thanks to Cindy Carpian, David Boyer, Tracy Moran, Sean Colligan, Sun,
Speaker 1: Jeeve Tandon, Alexa Bolton, Cameo, George, and k A. L. W.
Speaker 1: Check us out at ausy dot com, that's o z
Speaker 1: y dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. To learn
Speaker 1: more about The Thread, visit ausi dot com Slash the
Speaker 1: thread all one word, and make sure to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the thread on Apple podcasts. If you love surprising, engaging
Speaker 1: stories from history like this one, look no further than
Speaker 1: the flashback section of AZZI. Thanks for listening. One