Don Bachardy: An Artist's Life

by Michael Schreiber, Daniel Henning (Contribution by)

Overview

A figure as fascinating as any of his celebrated subjects, Don Bachardy has lived an extraordinary life at the heart of Hollywood, literary, and artistic circles. His drawings and paintings reside in museums throughout Europe and the United States, and include portraits of movie stars, writers, artists, and public and private figures of every background—from Bette Davis and Joan Crawford to Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote—all rendered in a candid, expressive style.

In this unique oral biography, Bachardy recounts his astonishing story, providing illuminating recollections of celebrity portrait sittings and revelations about his thirty-year relationship with Christopher Isherwood. From their meeting in the 1950s until Isherwood's death in 1986, theirs was a legendary love story, courageous and uncompromising for its time, and remarkable in any era for the creative collaborations and art it continues to inspire.

Drawn from one-on-one interviews and conversations conducted at the Santa Monica home Bachardy shared with Isherwood, Michael Schreiber has crafted a biography unlike any other, filled with tantalizing celebrity tales set against the backdrop of Bachardy's artistic and personal journey. Wise, warm, and unflinching, this is a fresh and revealing portrait of a life lived with boundless bravery, curiosity, and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798228643390
Publisher:	Tantor
Publication date:	10/28/2025
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael Schreiber is a writer, teacher, and art and film historian based in Chicago. He is the author of One-Man Show: The Life and Art of Bernard Perlin, a Stonewall Honor and Lambda Literary Award Finalist, This American House, written in collaboration with his husband Jason Loper, and Don Bachardy. A native of Fargo, North Dakota, Schreiber holds degrees from Minnesota State University-Moorhead and New York University. He was a 2021 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California in support of his work on Don Bachardy: A Hollywood Life.

James Ivory is an Academy Award winning director, producer, and screenwriter. His directorial work includes A Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day, for each of which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. In 2017, he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Call Me by Your Name. He has also won three BAFTA Awards, a Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award, among many other honors.

Daniel Henning is a director, producer, actor, and writer. His work has been seen on HBO, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, MTV, Comedy Central, and on stages throughout Southern California. He won a 2017 Telly Award for "Best Writer" for the film version of his play The Tragedy of JFK (as Told by Wm. Shakespeare). As director and writer, his TV and film work includes MTV's Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory and the film Critic's Choice. He won the NAACP Theatre Award for "Best Director of a Musical" for The Wild Party.

He is the Founding Artistic Director of Hollywood's The Blank Theatre, winning over 200 awards for his productions, including "Best Production," from LA Drama Critic Circle, LA Weekly, Ovations, NAACP, etc. Henning has been inspirational to thousands of young artists through his creation of The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival (the only professional nationwide competition for playwrights aged nine to nineteen). He directed the first play by 2016 Tony Award Winner for "Best Play" Stephen Karam when Stephen was seventeen and a winner in The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival.

Henning has also been an acting teacher and coach and is known for his ability to spot young talent. He has given opportunities to many young actors who later went on to success in Hollywood including Tessa Thompson, Noah Wyle, Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. He coached Sarah Michelle Gellar on her auditions for the landmark TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they shared a close personal friendship, even traveling to Australia together with family for New Year's Eve 2000, where the paparazzi photographed Henning and Gellar dancing. For several months, Henning was rumored to be dating Gellar in the Australian fan magazines (including Big Hit Magazine), which, of course, was inaccurate as Henning was traveling with his husband, Rick Baumgartner.
He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Theatre School, and American Conservatory Theatre. His work for LGBTQ Equality includes creating the fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the Black Cat Protests (the first major LGBTQ Demonstration in the US) and directing and hosting the 2017 LA City Council LGBTQ Pride Ceremony. He was recently honored by the CA State Legislature for his work in LGBTQ Equality and nurturing the future of the Arts.

He has also narrated dozens of audiobooks, both nonfiction and fiction.

Simon Callow is an actor, director, and writer. He has appeared in many films, including Four Weddings and a Funeral. He made his stage debut in 1973 and came to prominence in a critically acclaimed performance as Mozart in the original stage production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at the Royal National Theatre in 1979. He is well known for a series of one-man shows that have toured internationally and featured subjects including Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Jesus, and Richard Wagner. His books include, among others, a highly acclaimed biography of Charles Laughton, a biographical trilogy on Orson Welles, and My Life in Pieces, which won the Sheridan Morley Prize in 2011.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Don Bachardy: An Artist’s Life:

“Portrait artist Don Bachardy was the companion of British writer Christopher Isherwood. ‘America’s most famous gay couple,’ they inhabited a star-studded world. Bachardy found in his older lover a father figure and mentor who introduced him to literature, encouraged him to go to art school, and taught him ‘how... to be somebody with a vocation who could do something in the arts, not just devour them.’ Bachardy’s candid oral history ... is replete with vivid, sometimes dishy, reminiscences about the elite of 20th-century culture: E.M. Forster, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, W.H. Auden—and scores more. A zesty and entertaining self-portrait.” —Kirkus

“Oh, darling, Don Bachardy: An Artist’s Life is like a fizzy champagne (at least, that’s how I remember champagne, when I drank it!)—crisp, invigorating, and you’re hooked from the first pop! It’s like twirling under the Hollywood sign at night, each page a new star sparkling with tales of love and courage from the one-and-only Don Bachardy. Believe me, baby, this is not just a book, sugar, it’s a marvelous dance with words, enchanting, heady and daring!” —Liza Minnelli, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony-winning performer

“I was thrilled and very honored to be asked to sit for a portrait by Don Bachardy, and to experience that private moment with his enormous talent. I’m very proud of the drawing that he did of me. This book wonderfully captures the very special experience of being in Don’s intimate company, listening to his spellbinding stories about his extraordinary life with Christopher Isherwood and as a portrait artist in Hollywood.” —Robert Wagner, actor and author

“I’m a great fan of Don Bachardy's work. Of course I met him because of his close relationship with Christopher Isherwood, with whom I had a semi-close relationship from afar. But I was honored to be a part of his brilliant Berlin Stories, which were adapted into the film Cabaret and afforded me the opportunity to bring the character of the Emcee to the stage and screen, which would not have been possible without him. So I am forever grateful to both gentlemen.” —Joel Grey, Tony and Oscar-winning actor

“A captivating read. I have always been struck with how comfortable Don Bachardy is with himself. I think that this is perhaps one of the reasons that he and Christopher Isherwood were daring enough to live the open life that they did long before it was conventional or even safe to do so. Their love story is one of beauty and is an inspiration to all who have ever felt trapped by convention.” —Tom Ford, fashion designer and acclaimed filmmaker of A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals

“They became a legendary gay couple when all other gay celebrities were closeted. This book is a paean to Don’s love for Chris and his enthusiasm for life. Don calls himself an artist of personality, and he certainly met and drawn all the Hollywood stars of the day, from Charles Laughton to Natalie Wood—and all the literary personalities from Tennessee Williams to E. M. Forster.” —Edmund White, author of the landmark trilogy A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony

“Don Bachardy captures the outer likeness and the inner life of his subjects. He is genuinely interested in them and sometimes seems to actually love them.” —Sir Ian McKellen, Tony‑winning and multiple Academy Award and Emmy‑nominated actor

“This groundbreaking oral biography reveals its multi‑talented subject in multi‑faceted detail, providing fresh, intimate insight into the legendary Bachardy‑Isherwood partnership.” —Michael York, film and Emmy‑nominated television actor

“In his own words, Bachardy leads us through a thorough and compelling journey of his life, gently guided and provoked by Michael Schreiber’s spontaneous, well-researched questions. This is an intimate autobiography that unfolds seamlessly, revealing a complex personality, riveting and deep.” —Tina Mascara, award-winning filmmaker of Chris & Don: A Love Story and Face to Face: Don Bachardy

From the Publisher

2025-07-16
Life, love, and movies.

Portrait artist Don Bachardy (b. 1934) was the companion of British writer Christopher Isherwood (1904-86) for more than 50 years. “America’s most famous gay couple” in the 1970s, they inhabited a star-studded world, counting among their friends actor Simon Callow and director James Ivory, each of whom contributes an affectionate foreword to Bachardy’s candid oral history. In conversations with Schreiber, Bachardy recounts growing up in Los Angeles, enraptured by movies. He and his older brother snuck into previews, taking photographs of themselves with stars and collecting autographs from warmhearted actors like Marilyn Monroe and Debbie Reynolds. Over the years, many stars—Leslie Caron, who became a dear friend; Jane Powell (a “wounded creature”); and Natalie Wood (“stunningly beautiful”) sat for portraits. Bachardy met Isherwood in 1953, when he was 18 and Isherwood 30 years older. A student at UCLA at the time, Bachardy found in his older lover a father figure and mentor who introduced him to literature, encouraged him to go to art school, and taught him “how to be grown up and responsible and to be somebody with a vocation who could do something in the arts, not just devour them.” Besides studying art in the U.S., he enrolled at the Slade School in London, living with Isherwood in Richard and Sybil Burton’s Hampstead house. It was at Slade, he says, that he began to hone his craft intensively. In their early years together, Bachardy reveals, they were the only openly queer couple at Hollywood parties, shocking some guests. Bachardy’s memoir is replete with vivid, sometimes dishy, reminiscences about the elite of 20th-century culture: E.M. Forster, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, W.H. Auden—and scores more.

A zesty and entertaining self-portrait.

Kirkus Reviews