Three Costumes

1946–1950 · Vzdělání

Harvard University

1946–1950

Harvard: French and the poet Frank O’Hara as roommate

He enters Harvard University in 1946, studies French and graduates in the class of 1950. His roommate is the poet Frank O’Hara.

early 1950s

Co-founds the Poets’ Theatre with friends

With a group of recent Harvard and Radcliffe alumni, including Alison Lurie, John Ashbery, Donald Hall and Frank O’Hara, he founds the Poets’ Theatre in Cambridge. It was supported by the Harvard faculty members John Ciardi and Thornton Wilder.

1951–1953

Illustrates Merrill Moore’s poetry for Twayne

From 1951 he illustrates poetry books by Merrill Moore for Twayne Publishers, among them “Case Record from a Sonnetorium” (1951, with many illustrations by Gorey) and “More Clinical Sonnets” (1953).

1952

His father marries the singer Corinna Mura

Gorey’s father remarries when his son is 27; his stepmother is the cabaret singer Corinna Mura (1910–1965), who had a small role in “Casablanca” as the woman playing the guitar while singing “La Marseillaise”.