Draft:Panna Grady

Philip O'Connor and Panna Grady in Wimereux (1970)

Philip O'Connor, Panna Grady and Maxim in Paris (1972)

Panna Grady O'Connor is an US-american literature patron.

Panna Grady O'Connor was born Louise Marie de Cholnoky in 1936. Her parents were the heiress and poet Louise Marie St. John, who died at the age of 38, and the Hungarian doctor Tibor de Cholnoky. The family lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. Panna, a Hungarian pet name used to distinguish herself from her mother, attended Abbot Academy (now Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts) from 1951 to 1954. She then enrolled at the girls' college in Wellesley, Massachusetts for a year and studied there with the poet and educator Philip Booth, who aroused an interest in literature in her, whereupon she moved to the University of California, Berkeley.

In Berkeley she came into contact with the Beat Generation from neighboring San Francisco. In her house on the posh Mosswood Lane she threw the first parties for the local literary and artistic scene. Andrew Barrow notes in Quentin and Philip: A Double Portrait that their first party, organized by one William Stine, was also attended by Allen Ginsberg and, as guest of honor, Stephen Spender. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1959 with a degree in psychology and also studied literature.

Panna had already spent her junior year at the School of General Studies at Columbia University in New York - and now returned to this city to study acting at the renowned Berkhof School. Panna later said, looking back, that so many girls there wanted to become actresses that she decided to pursue a job behind the camera in sound engineering instead, which brought her into contact with writers, artists and producers from the New York underground. She married the poet and screenwriter Jim Grady and gave birth to their daughter Ella in 1963. The marriage didn't last long, after which Panna moved with Ella into a spacious apartment in the Dakota building, where she subsequently hosted her famous parties and where Andy Warhol filmed the film Poor Little Rich Girl with Edie Sedgwick. From the early to mid-1960s, Panna made numerous friends with writers in New York. Through Robert Lowell she met William S. Burroughs, with whom she fell in love and with whom she felt a special bond because of their similar social background. The two never went to bed together, but remained friends. Panna had a relationship with John Wieners which, although brief, appears to have had a strong influence on him. It ended abruptly in 1966, when Wieners was working in Buffalo while Panna had moved to London with Charles Olson and Ella, where they settled in Covent Garden. Panna also hosted writers and artists there, including Allen Ginsberg. Her partnership with Olson ended shortly after moving to London. In 1967, Panna met the poet and painter Philip O'Connor, with whom she lived for more than 30 years until his death in 1998. They soon moved to France, where they had two children – Maxim and Felix – and where Panna still lives today.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Panna was known not only for her parties but also for her generosity towards writers and especially poets. She financed publications and made loans because, in her opinion, writers were not paid as if what they were doing was a profession. For example, she paid for the publication of Herbert Huncke's Huncke's journal and helped finance Ed Sanders' avant-garde magazine Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. She remarked in retrospect: "I had as much as Peggy Guggenheim at the beginning, but Peggy Guggenheim bought paintings and I paid to publish books."

Literatur

• Andrew Barrow: Quentin and Philip: A Double Portrait, Macmillan, New York City, 2002, ISBN 978-0333780510

Weblinks

• Grady, Panna (1936), buffalo.edu, abgerufen am 16. Januar 2024

Category:1936 births Category:Year of death missing Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:American patrons of literature