[35A School St., Andover, Mass.]
I have not heard from you for so long that I have been getting rather worried. It is true that it is several weeks since I last wrote to you, but I deferred writing again in the hope of some news of you from yourself. I have heard nothing since your return, butPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);l8 I suppose that if your plane had disappeared among the Rocky Mountains I should have heard from Aunt Edith, if not from other people. I have a letter from her dated August 30th, which I am now about to answer.
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1952 rest cure in Switzerland;h9;a7 wrote to you reportingFabers, the1952 Minsted summer stay;i6 on my holiday in Switzerland and my subsequent week in Sussex. Nowtravels, trips and plansTSE's 1953 visit to St. Louis and America;i1;a2 I don’t expect to leave London again (certainly not England again) until I go to St. Louis. (WhatAlliance Française;b5 I mean is, that as I can’t get away until the very beginning of June, on account of the Alliance Française,1 I shall probably have to go straight to St. Louis, and then get a fortnight in Cambridge after the middle of June). IConfidential Clerk, Thewhich TSE rewrites;a6 have been able to make some progress with my play, favoured by a domestic rearrangement. OurMme Amery;a6 housekeeper used to take Wednesday and Sunday afternoons and evenings off: which meant that I had to make the journey from Chelsea on Sunday evening to dine at a club. Now, she takes Tuesday and Thursday off (the two nights when dinner engagements are most likely to occur); I now have lunch at home on Friday, as well as Saturday and Sunday; which means that I can have three days a week of undisturbed labour at home! <Exc. of course, Sunday mornings!> So I have re-written, and I believe considerably improved, my first act; and am about to re-write the second (the most difficult psychologically – the difficulties in the third are purely of machinery); so I hope to have enough in shape by the end of November, if not before, to submit for consideration to the Edinburgh people. IanHunter, Ian (impresario)wants three TSE plays in repertory;a2 HunterBrowne, Elliott Martinsuggests three-play TSE repertory;f8 (not the actor, but the man of the same name who runs the Edinburgh Festival drama) andSherek, Henrydesires three TSE plays in repertory;a8 Martin, and Henry Sherek (to whom I am not committed) wantCocktail Party, The;e5 toFamily Reunion, The;j8 put on a repertory of the Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party and my new play, a week of each. I do not favour this: it would be dangerously ambitious, and I think it would be a mistake to present the new play with the same actors who would be doing the other two. (AlecGuinness, Alecwouldn't work for Sherek;b7 Guinness, I understand, wouldn’t work for Sherek, butNesbitt, Cathleen (née Kathleen Mary Nesbitt);a5 SherekWorth, Irene;a8 suggestsPeel, Eileen;a2 Cathleen Nesbitt, Irene Worth and Eileen Peel). I think a repertory production of three plays by the same author is alright when none of them is new; but it seems to me that it would be disadvantageous to present a new play for the first time under such conditions. What do you think?
Otherwise, I have nothing to report of myself, and I am waiting for news from you. Do write and inform me.
1.TSE delivered two addresses at the meeting held on 23 May 1952: ‘Presidential Address to the Alliance française’ and ‘Response to the toast at the Annual Banquet of the Alliance française’: CProse 7, 786–91.
4.E. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, was to direct the first production of Murder in the Cathedral: see Biographical Register.
5.AlecGuinness, Alec Guinness (1914–2000), distinguished English actor: see Biographical Register.
2.IanHunter, Ian (impresario) Hunter, MBE (1919–2003), British festival director, impresario, talent manager, succeeded Rudolf Bing as artistic director of the Edinburgh Festival, 1950–5. He pursued his success in that capacity with others including the Bath Festival (from 1948), City of London Festival (from 1962), Brighton Festival (1967–83), Windsor Festival (1969–72), Hong Kong Festival (1973–5), and a one-off Commonwealth Arts Festival (1965). In addition, he was chairman of the artists’ agency Harold Holt Ltd, 1953–88. Knighted in 1983. As a guest on the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs, his choice of book was the complete works of T. S. Eliot.
1.MadameMme Amery Amery: housekeeper at 19 Carlyle Mansions, Chelsea.
1.CathleenNesbitt, Cathleen (née Kathleen Mary Nesbitt) Nesbitt, née Kathleen Mary Nesbitt (1888–1982), English actor of stage, screen and TV (she was encouraged to take up acting by Sarah Bernhardt, a friend of her father’s). Educated at Queen’s University, Belfast, and at the Sorbonne, she first acted in a revival of Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Cabinet Minister (1910). In 1912 she became the fiancée of the poet Rupert Brooke (who was to die in the war). She starred as the mischievously perceptive Julia Shuttlethwaite in The Cocktail Party. Later best known for her roles in film, she starred as Mrs Higgins in My Fair Lady (with Rex Harrison, 1956); as Cary Grant’s grandmother in An Affair to Remember (1957); as Lady Matheson in Separate Tables (1958), and in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film Family Plot (1976). Appointed CBE for her services to drama, 1978.
1.EileenPeel, Eileen Peel (1909–99), British stage and screen actor, was to play Lavinia Chamberlayne at Henry Miller’s Theatre in New York, 21 Jan. 1950–13 Jan. 1951; later in London. GreyBlake, Grey Blake (1902–71), British stage and film actor, was to be Peter Quilpe.
4.HenrySherek, Henry Sherek (1900–1967), theatre producer: see Biographical Register.
6.IreneWorth, Irene Worth (1916–2002), hugely talented American stage and screen actor, was to progress from TSE’s play to international stardom on stage and screen. She joined the Old Vic company in 1951, as a leading actor under Tyrone Guthrie; and in 1953 she appeared at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, where her appearances included a further partnership with Alec Guinness (Hotel Paradiso). In 1962 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, where her roles included a remorseless Goneril to Paul Scofield’s Lear in Peter Brook’s production of King Lear. In 1968 she played a dynamic Jocasta in Brook’s production of Seneca’s Oedipus (trans. Ted Hughes) – featuring a huge golden phallus – alongside John Gielgud. Numerous acting awards fell to her remarkable work: a BAFTA, and three Tony Awards including the award for Best Actress in a Play for Tiny Alice (1965), and yet another Tony for Best Featured Actress in Lost in Yonkers (1991).