Just a Little Family Story - in the form of a Quiz

[Guest fountainhall]

Doing some research on the internet, I came across an interesting newspaper book review published in 2011.The topic about a famous actress was more than interesting. Had we been closer to Christmas, I thought some of this could serve as the basis of several questions for the Quiz. But as we are not, and as this is clearly overlong, I decided to post it now just for fun and to see if anyone can come up with the right answers. Actually, when you piece together the jigsaw, it’s really not difficult, especially as much is given away in the first paragraph. But even if you don’t get the answers, it’s quite an interesting read.


We are talking about a family of actors, all of whom were ‘famous’ (and so I won’t use the word ‘famous’ again when referring to them – just take it as a given) - and of one lady in particular whom I shall call ‘A’. A is a star of stage and screen, having worked with such personalities as Anthony Hopkins, Stephen Spielberg, Orson Welles, Richard Burton and Dustin Hoffman.

A’s actress mother had married an actor, a man who openly admitted to her that he was bisexual. Within a year of their marriage, he was having an affair with a legendary and much-loved playwright, composer and entertainer; yet he was to spend the night after A was born in bed with another actress who went on to become a Dame and one of Britain’s most cherished actresses! At one time he installed his male lover in the family home, a young man who was to take A and her sister to school in the mornings.

When acting in a play with her mother, A was seen by a famous producer-director who was in the stalls and who became infatuated with A. He said she was “like a sinuous golden flame”. Two evenings later, he saw A out on a date having dinner with a famous writer and critic for the London Times. He asked the head-waiter to hand A a short amorous note. Having forgotten to bring her spectacles, A handed the note to her companion to read. He became visibly agitated, the more so when it ended, “And tell Mr. ____ to go fuck himself.”

Still at that point a virgin, A and the producer-director entered into a steamy and passionate affair that ended in marriage. Yet, until that point, many of his friends in the film and theatre world in Hollywood and Britain had thought he was gay. Certainly he was bi-sexual. Even A’s mother, well aware of the complications in her own marriage, only gave the couple “five years at a guess.”

Eventually the mother herself had had enough of sleeping in separate beds. So she took a lover, yet another prominent actor and director. The affair continued for 20 years, despite the fact that this new man in her life was also – you guessed – bisexual. There were even allegations that he had slept with her estranged husband!

Back, though, to A. On trips to the South of France, did A ever wonder where her husband would drive off to in the evenings? Might A have had any inkling that he was attending all-male parties at the home of a famous gay playwright-scriptwriter which were also attended by her father and the gay novelist Christopher Isherwood? Indeed, could her husband have even slept with her father?

As A’s mother had predicted, the marriage lasted a mere 5 years. A’s own two daughters both became actresses and both went on to have successful marriages, one with yet another successful movie actor. Yet, A remained upset that her ex-husband had left her to live with a famous French actress. He was later to die of AIDS.

Many decades later, A married again, this time to another actor, the father of her son who had been born more than 35 years earlier. In the meantime, she had enjoyed a 15 year affair with an actor who was to become, albeit briefly, very famous. Surprisingly, both these actors were straight!

So, had this been a question in a quiz. I’d have asked –

Who is A?
Who are the names referred to with the underlinings? (There are 7 - if you can get 3 you are doing pretty well!)

[KhorTose]

A is Vanessa Redgraves daughter of Michael and Lady Redgrave or Rachael Kempson, and mother of the wonderful Lynn Redgraves.  I can look up the rest, but feeling lazy---let another answer.

[Rogie]

I think I know one of the 'underlines'.

If Lynn Redgrave was the one whose tragic death followed a skiing accident, then her husband was Liam Neeson: yet another successful movie actor

 

Other than that I am in the realm of pure guesswork:

 

My guess for the legendary and much-loved playwright, composer and entertainer is Noel Coward

 

another actress who went on to become a Dame and one of Britain’s most cherished actresses might be Peggy Ashcroft

 

I know Somerset Maugham lived in the south of France later on in his life, so he's my guess for a famous gay playwright-scriptwriter

 

a famous writer and critic for the London Times might be Kenneth Tynan, although he worked for the Observer, not the Times, so I guess it's not him.

 

This part . . . .

 

 

asked the head-waiter to hand A a short amorous note. Having forgotten
to bring her spectacles, A handed the note to her companion to read. He
became visibly agitated, the more so when it ended, “And tell Mr. ____
to go fuck himself.”

 

. . . reminds me that Tynan was the first person to say the f - - - word on British TV in 1965 - all of 47 years ago.

[Guest fountainhall]

Since the answer to the main question was relatively easy, there’s not much interest in the lesser questions. So here are the other answers.

As KhorTose correctly pointed out, the actress is Dame Vanessa Redgrave.

As for the underlinings –

* KhorTose is again correct. Her father was the handsome actor Sir Michael Redgrave; her mother the actress Rachel Kempson.

* Kudos to Rogie. The legendary playwright, composer and entertainer was Sir Noël Coward. He was gay, but never openly so.

* Dame Peggy Ashcroft was a very good guess. In fact, the other actress was one often called the greatest actress on the English stage in the 20th century, Dame Edith Evans, who is especially well-known worldwide for the “handbag?” line in her film performance as Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of Being Earnest”.

This anecdote about Dame Edith from the camp, gay comedian/raconteur Kenneth Williams is rather funny.

* The producer-director who became her first husband was Tony Richardson (“Look Back in Anger”, “Tom Jones”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”).

* The London Times writer and critic was Bernard Levin who for 8 years had an intense affair with Arianna Huffington, or Arianna Stassinopoulos as she then was. She wanted children; he did not. So she left for the USA where she married Michael Huffington’s multi-millions (one of many bisexuals in this tale). It is said Levin never got over the break-up. After his death from Alzheimer’s disease, she wrote: “"He wasn't just the big love of my life, he was a mentor as a writer and a role model as a thinker.”

Kenneth Tynan was a good guess, but as Rogie pointed out he never wrote for The Times. Funnily enough, after his f--- word outburst on the venerable BBC, a word that is now in use almost every minute somewhere on that organisation’s many channels, there was the most almighty uproar. 133 Members of Parliament signed a censure motion and a moral crusader wrote to the Queen suggesting Tynan be reprimanded by having his bottom spanked! The irony of that request only became clear some years later with the revelation of Tynan’s fetish for flagellation!

Tynan’s anti-establishment, break-down-the-barriers crusade extended to his mounting in 1969 the first all-nude review, titled “Oh, Calcutta!” The strange title was an anglicisation of the phase, “O quel cul tu as!”, French for “What a nice ass you have!” It became one of the most successful hits of its time, and included scenes written by some of the great writers of the day, including Samuel Beckett and Edna O’Brian. Even today it remains the 7th longest running show in Broadway history. A non-stop smoker, Tynan died of emphysema aged 53.

* The famous gay screenwriter-playwright was not Somerset Maugham. It was Sir Terence Rattigan (“The Prince and the Showgirl” which starred Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, “The Browning Version”)

* Rogie is almost correct. It was Vanessa’s daughter Natasha Richardson who died in the skiing accident in 2009 but she was indeed married to actor Liam Neeson. Lynn Redgrave was Vanessa’s sister who died a year later.

* Just for interest, the 15-year affair was with Timothy Dalton who played James Bond in two of the Bond movies!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1384460/Cursed-legacy-Vanessa-Redgrave.html

I thought the incestuous family relationships in Wagner’s Ring cycle were way over the top, but the sexual relationships in the Redgrave family history take some beating!