Long before it was hip, way before it was tolerated in Tinseltown, author Christopher Isherwood and portrait artist Don Bachardy lived as an openly gay couple in Hollywood. In many ways, it was an odd match. Thirty-one years Bachardy’s senior, the upper-class Isherwood was a famous British author who was now writing in Hollywood. Bachardy was eighteen and came from a middle-class Los Angeles family. Yet their relationship flourished, survived difficulties, and ultimately succeeded until Isherwood’s death in 1986.
Directors Guido Santi and Tina Mascara’s documentary, Chris & Don: A Love Story, traces the events in the couple’s life through interviews with filmmakers, scholars and Bachardy himself, offering the viewer a quick and thorough look at a love that has not died. This interview with Don Bachardy was conducted in person, in Los Angeles, last June.
