>However, it's notable that Breton was able to have a long term working
>relationship with Bataille, despite his exploration of transgression and
>sexuality. The difference once again tends to come down to the fact that
>Bataille never used his name to endorse fascist regimes.
But the William Tell episode was in early 1934, when Franco was still unknown outside the military.
>Bunuel was in the states after the collapse of the Spanish republic, and
>was broke. He wrote to Dali to borrow some cash to pay the rent. Dali's
>response was to say that he never lent money to friends, and in addition,
>he was glad that Franco won. This was stated after Lorca was murdered.
I can understand that. There are similar stories about Warhol completely shutting people out when he grew weary of them. Alan Ginsberg had to hold Gregory Corso off Warhol once when Corso was berating Warhol for using people and looked like he might get violent.
Then there's Dean Martin talking to Jerry Lewis after their breakup. In the Martin biography by Nick Tosches he says the two were on a pier in Atlantic City and Lewis says to Martin that he thought what they had together was something like love. Martin told him, "to me you're nothing but a fucking dollar sign."
Funny thing is while your Dali story and the ones about Warhol leave me kind of cold, the Dean Martin story makes me like him even more.