The Papers of Pancho Rodriguez y Gonzales, originally in the possession of Mr. Gonzales’s sister, were also acquired from Faulkner House Books. The papers include a large number of photographs, with both snapshots and studio shots of Williams and Mr. Gonzales dating from the mid-1940s through the 1970s. Among the photographs is an image of Pancho and Tennessee at Pat O’ Brien’s in New Orleans during Mardi Gras 1962 and a series of snapshots taken in 1946 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The papers also include correspondence between Mr. Gonzales and Andreas Brown and Lyle Leverich, as well as manuscript drafts of Pancho’s own literary efforts. Of particular interest is a diary that Pancho kept during one of Tennessee’s visits to New Orleans in 1973. Topics described include a dinner party at Tennessee’s apartment, a benefit he attended for the preservation of the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, a visit with local preservationist Clay Shaw, and Tennessee’s reaction upon hearing the news of actress Anna Magnani’s death: “She was such a lonely woman,” he remarked.
MSS 562, Fred W. Todd Tennessee Williams Collection, Additions, accession number 2003.0228.1