He Called Me Puddin’
My friendship with John Henry Faulk, the feisty Texas humorist, survived a little jealousy and a lot of pain.
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I was not restricted, but I paid a price. There were telephone calls to my children: “Your daddy is a Commie like his Faulk friend.” There was the well-known Austin doctor who circulated a letter questioning my loyalty to America. And the prominent Austin attorney who unsuccessfully tried to convince Lyndon Johnson that I should be dropped from the staff of his wife’s broadcast stations for associating with Faulk. It was small-time stuff, but it demonstrated vividly to me the spread of the McCarthy poison.
The Faulks began trying to pick up the pieces. They organized a two-person advertising agency. It never really clicked. Lynne was a buzz saw of activity who did not have the temperament for a low-pressure town. Johnny, as a businessman, was like a Palestinian at a bar mitzvah.
But there were good times during the bad times. There were almost daily outings to Lake Austin in my small boat The Thermerstrockimortimer (more name than boat), loaded down with Pryor and Faulk children. There were frequent visits to Dobie’s ranch for good conversation and mind expansion. We would venture out into the Gulf of Mexico off Port Aransas, where we found king mackerel and serenity. I reveled in the trips to Port Aransas over the years, not just for the fishing, but because it gave my children the opportunity to experience Johnny. It was like bringing Mark Twain home for supper.
We were not always one big happy family. Johnny and Lynne’s marriage was feeling the pressure of no income. Johnny was devoid of self-pity, but he was deeply angry at those who had taken away his career and hurt by the number of “dear friends” who had deserted him.
Only once did he share the darkness with me. It was at the Menger Hotel, next to the Alamo in San Antonio. I had arranged for him to speak to the Southwest Association of Program Directors for Television, of which I was a member. I think we paid him $50. Afterward, I found him in my room, his head buried in his hands. “Cactus, boy, I just don’t know how we are going to make it. I can’t find a job doing what I do. I don’t even know where my family’s next meal is coming from.”
After six years and a bizarre number of delays, Johnny’s case finally came to trial. The perfect lawyer and client had found each other: Louis Nizer and John Henry Faulk. It was like playing doubles against Laver and Rosewall. Nizer and Johnny won the case, $3.5 million to love, but Johnny lost the fortune. It was not there to collect. He received $175,000, with most of it going to defray legal fees and other expenses. He had lost a career that never really resumed.
He also lost his family. Lynne ended up in New York with their three children. The pressures of unemployment and exile had taken their toll. There was a nasty divorce. Lynne called a press conference, where she accused Johnny of having had affairs with a large number of Austin’s desirable women, plus a few more who were not so desirable. Down-home and uptown split.
Not long after the divorce, Simon and Schuster gave Johnny an advance to write Fear on Trial, his account of the blacklisting. It brought better reviews than income. His friend and supporter Norman Lear bought the movie rights. Johnny also got a small role in a movie called The Best Man.
But his career wouldn’t take off. And without his wife and children, the phoenix remained covered in McCarthy’s ashes.
Then came Liz. Elizabeth Peake from Markyate, England. They met at a party in New York. She was as British as he was Texan. “Honey child, being with you is as fine as wine in the summertime. Let’s ride double.” Taking it as the usual Texas male bovine manure, she went back to England. He flooded her with letters and then special-delivered himself to the Peakes’ country estate. In 1965 they set up housekeeping as Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Faulk in New York City.
Johnny was a lost pup found. Liz nurtured him. She organized him. She made him a home. She protected him for the rest of his life from those he chose not to suffer and smilingly indulged his childlike joy at being idolized by the masses.
I leaned on Liz too and continued to lean on Johnny. There were problems in the Pryor household. I would take them to Johnny and Liz’s apartment in Manhattan. They gave me love, peace, and wonderful home cooking. They took me to England to heal an ulcer. We drove to Stratford-upon-Avon on a rare sunny May day, with John Henry quoting Shakespeare sonnets in a South Austin, Texas, accent. We walked through Piccadilly Circus, Johnny in a bowler and me in a Stetson talkin’ Texas. We thought we were a trio. We were a quartet. Seven months later their son, Yohan, was born on Christmas Eve. His father was 55 years old. I told Johnny it was the first child born under Medicare.
God, Johnny was proud! “It was a wonderful Christmas present Liz gave me, but it was also embarrassing. That bright star shining down on the hospital and all those fellers riding up with camels shitting all over the lawn.”
Throughout the years, Johnny and Liz remained my bulwark. After they moved back to Austin in 1968, I was twice stricken with cancer. It was Johnny who, both times, took me to the hospital the Sunday evening before the Monday surgery. It was Johnny who gave me hope, reminding me that he had survived cancer of the lymph glands years before. He gave me the optimism that I would try to give back to him years later.
So many times I turned to Johnny and Liz. When my wife died, the first person I called was John Henry, to ask him to speak at her memorial service. He and our maverick Baptist preacher friend Gerald Mann recalled the bright side of this West Texas ranch woman who had loved her family more than herself.
Johnny and Liz still wrestled with how to feed the family. CBS brought him some needed publicity by making a TV movie about the story of the man who had been dismissed by CBS because he was blacklisted. It was shelved after its original network airing because of a lawsuit filed by Lynne, who had been changed to a fictional character in the screenplay. But it did help with the speaking engagements, which I also steered his way. His victory over the blacklisters had made him what we laughingly called a professional martyr. He was a passionate champion of the Constitution. He could not recite the Lord’s Prayer without adding a plug for the First Amendment.
He played mostly the college circuit. High applause, low pay. Finally he got a break when he was hired as a regular on Hee Haw, the country music variety show, in 1975. He loved the cast. It was fast money, which he and Liz badly needed, and it was easy. He taped twice a year in Nashville. It brought him national recognition, which he loved. But his appearances on Hee Haw were like hitching up Native Dancer to a milk wagon.
Johnny had strong political opinions. He was an old-fashioned yellow dog Democrat liberal, and he loved to howl. He marched in protests. He stood up to be counted. He could be devastating when he used his biting satire to make a point. We talked about whether it was wise to make our political opinions so public. I argued that he could more effectively influence people if he didn’t telegraph his political philosophy. But he was bred to be a political iconoclast. With such a beautiful lance, how could he possibly ignore all those windmills?
He tilted at Phil Gramm, whom he regarded as “having the intelligence of an adolescent pissant.” In 1983 Johnny ran against Gramm for Congress. Gramm had been elected to Congress as a Democrat but resigned his seat, switched parties, and ran again. Johnny was not organized. He naively expected the support of his good friends, state treasurer Ann Richards and Senator Ralph Yarborough. But they were committed to support the Democratic party’s chosen candidate, a state legislator named Dan Kubiak. We had some fun. Johnny and I did a series of radio commercials in which I was the inquiring reporter and Johnny played a Gramm supporter. “Why do I favor Phil Gramm? Because he’s got compassion. He don’t believe in nuking people like we did at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Phil Gramm knows that now we got limited nuclear weapons that allows you to bomb a church, killing everybody inside without harming a brick of the building. Phil Gramm believes in killing in a Christian way.” Johnny lost, but he was counted.
One morning several years after the election, I drove to Barton Springs, our old natural swimmin’ hole, only to find a barrier reading, “Pool closed … Fecal Bacteria Infestation.”
Hurt and angry, I chose to write my daily radio commentary on the subject. Knowing his love of the place, I decided to speak for the late J. Frank Dobie on the situation—in his twangy South Texas voice. It was a tirade against those who would dare contaminate the town’s swimming hole. The response to my broadcast was unparalleled, and the first caller was John Henry.
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