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By Root 2161 0

affected hacks who made their living off the work of real writers. One night Duncan arrived at Oregon Street, having just come from the home of Thomas Parkinson, the noted Berkeley English professor with a keen interest in the avant-garde. When Duncan announced where he had been earlier in the evening, Pauline lit into him with a vengeance, asking him how he could possibly associate with people like Parkinson, whom she considered a mediocre academic. And many other times, she would snipe about Duncan as soon as he wasn’t around. “She started damning his poems,” said Gutierrez. “Here’s someone she seemed to approve of, and then as soon as he was out the door, she was slamming him. I thought, Well, if she said that about him, what would she do to me? It developed a distrust on my part.” It seemed much easier for her to extend generosity to her younger friends, the ones who were struggling to find their way.

Around this time, Pauline enjoyed some of the benefits of a widening reputation. In 1958 Ernest Callenbach was approached to become editor of a new, California-based magazine, Film Quarterly. He declined and suggested Pauline to the magazine’s founder, August Fruge. But when Pauline and Fruge spoke, it was clear that they didn’t agree on matters of editorial content. Pauline told Fruge that she would accept the post only if she could be guaranteed no editorial interference of any kind, an assurance Fruge refused to give. In the end, Callenbach did accept the job, which he held from 1958 to 1991.

Gina benefited from Pauline’s marriage to Edward Landberg in that there were now funds available for the heart surgery that had been put off for so many years. (Pauline’s niece Dana Salisbury, believed that getting the money for the operation was Pauline’s principal motive in marrying Landberg.) It was delicate surgery, but it was successful, and Gina proceeded through a long and difficult recovery period with Pauline looking after her every minute.

Even though she was still a young girl, Gina was usually not excluded from the parties. She was bright and precocious, although still remarkably small for her age. Guests got used to her coming downstairs in her pink bathrobe, watching the movies that Pauline was screening and taking in the heady conversation that was swirling around her. Gina was a student at Bentley, a reputable private school in Oakland. Pauline monitored her education carefully and, critical of teachers as always, decided that her daughter wasn’t being taught properly. After a tremendous row with one of Gina’s instructors, Pauline removed her from Bentley and home-schooled her until she was eighteen. She claimed that it was designed to give Gina a more substantial education, but Anne Wallach always believed that the break had come because Pauline loved to stay up late and didn’t want to be bothered getting Gina off to classes.

It was a dramatic move that shocked many of Pauline’s friends and relatives, and they worried that Gina was being deprived of a normal childhood. Gina herself had extremely conflicted feelings about being removed from school. While she was accustomed to having a close relationship with her mother, she missed the camaraderie of her classmates. Pauline’s involvement with her daughter could also be unpredictable. “Her attention to Gina would go on and off like a searchlight,” said Stephen Kresge. “There would be a boom, giving Gina an overwhelming amount of attention, and the next minute, Pauline was off on the next thing. This happened not just with Gina but with others, and they weren’t too thrilled. They loved it when the spotlight was on them and were miffed when it wasn’t. But that was Pauline. Whatever she was doing, she was doing with all of herself, and she wasn’t about to waste time.”

Landberg and Pauline had become increasingly incompatible, and neither one had much difficulty reaching the decision to separate. Since their working relationship had been mutually beneficial, they saw no reason not to continue it, and Pauline assumed management of the theater while Landberg, though