Clemence Dane

Clemence Dane

Birth : 1888-02-21, Blackheath, London, England, UK

Death : 1965-03-28

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Clemence Dane was the pseudonym of Winifred Ashton (21 February 1888 – 28 March 1965), an English novelist and playwright. After completing her education, she went to Switzerland to work as a French tutor, but returned home after a year. She studied art in London and Germany. After the First World War, she taught at a girls' school, and began writing. She took the pseudonym "Clemence Dane" from the church, St Clement Danes on the Strand, London. Her first novel Regiment of Women was written in 1917, a study of life in a girls' school. In 1919 she wrote Legend, the story of a group of acquaintances who debate the meaning of a dead friend's life and work. Dane's 1921 play, A Bill of Divorcement, tells the story of a daughter who cares for her deranged father. In 1932 the smash hit play was adapted for film starring Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore. Dane began writing screenplays as well as novels. She co-wrote the screenplay for Anna Karenina starring Greta Garbo. The pinnacle of Dane's success was winning an Academy Award with Anthony Pelissier for Vacation from Marriage, released in the United Kingdom as Perfect Strangers, starring Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr. Dane and Helen de Guerry Simpson wrote three detective novels featuring their creation Sir John Saumarez. Both were members of the Detection Club. The first, Enter Sir John, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1930 as Murder!. Dane contributed to the Club's serials The Scoop and The Floating Admiral. Dane's last play Eighty in the Shade (1959) was written for and starred her friend, Dame Sybil Thorndike. She is believed to be the template of Madame Arcati, the eccentric medium in her friend Noël Coward's play, Blithe Spirit. The National Portrait Gallery contains two works by Dane, both of Coward. One is an oil painting and the other is a bronze bust. The gallery also contains a painting made of Dane by Frederic Yates. According to Arthur Marshall she was famous for her indecent, though entirely innocent, remarks. "The physical side of life had passed her by, together with the words, slang and otherwise, that accompany it. Time and again she settled for an unfortunate word or phrase. Inviting Noël Coward to lunch during the war, when food was difficult, she boomed encouragement down the telephone; 'Do come! I've got such a lovely cock.' ('I do wish you'd call it a hen', Noel answered). To use correctly, in a literary sense, the words 'erection', 'tool' and 'spunk' was second nature to her. When wishing to describe herself as being full of life and creative energy, she chose, not really very wisely, the word 'randy'." She also wrote a book on the history of Covent Garden (where she lived for a number of years), published in 1964, entitled London has a Garden. By the time of her death in London, on 28 March 1965, Dane had written more than 30 plays and 16 novels.

Profile

Clemence Dane

Movies

The Angel with the Trumpet
Writer
Sad tale of a woman who marries the man her family wishes her to wed, not Wooland, the man she truly loves. Years after her lover's suicide, Herlie joins him before the Gestapo can get to her because of her Jewish ancestry.
Bonnie Prince Charlie
Screenplay
The Pretender lands on Scottish shores and attempts to claim the crown.
Perfect Strangers
Screenplay
After World War II service changes them, a married couple dread their postwar reunion.
Perfect Strangers
Story
After World War II service changes them, a married couple dread their postwar reunion.
A Bill of Divorcement
Theatre Play
Father's return from the insane asylum spells calamity for the Fairfield family.
St. Martin's Lane
Writer
On the sidewalks of the London theater district the buskers (street performers) earn enough coins for a cheap room. Charles, who recites dramatic monologues, sees that a young pickpocket, Libby, also has a talent for dancing and adds her to his act. Harley, the theater patron who never knew Libby took his gold cigarette case, is impressed by Libby's dancing and invites her to bring Charles and the other buskers in his group to an after-the-play party. Libby comes alone. A theatrical career is launched.
Fire Over England
Screenplay
The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
Farewell Again
Writer
Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left. Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies (among them Robert Newton, Sebastian Shaw and Anthony Bushell) try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again. American expatriate Tim Whelan was the directorial hand who kept the various plot threads from entangling, while another Hollywood vet, James Wong Howe, manned the cameras. The film became instantly dated with the advent of World War II, but in its own time Farewell Again was a box-office smash. The film was issued in the US as Troopship.
The Amateur Gentleman
Adaptation
A former boxing champion, now an innkeeper, is accused of stealing a watch from a party of guests at his inn, who happen to be members of English royalty. The old man is arrested and thrown in prison. His son, knowing that his father didn't steal the watch and suspecting a frame-up, follows the royal party to London, where he poses as a wealthy "gentleman" and insinuates himself into the English court in an effort to find out who framed his father and why.
Anna Karenina
Screenplay
In 19th century Russia a woman in a respectable marriage to a senior statesman must grapple with her love for a dashing soldier.
A Bill of Divorcement
Theatre Play
Hilary Fairfield returns home after fifteen years in an asylum with his sanity restored. But he is disturbed to find that everything has changed: his daughter grown and about to marry; his wife divorced and also about to marry.
Murder!
Novel
When a woman is convicted of murder, one of the jurors selected to serve on the murder-trial jury believes the accused, an aspiring actress, is innocent of the crime and takes it upon himself to apprehend the real killer.
A Bill of Divorcement
Theatre Play
Meg Fairfield secures a divorce from her husband Hilary, and is about to marry Gray Meredith when Hilary returns cured. Sydney, daughter of Hilary and Meg, is engaged to Kit Pumphrey, son of the parish rector who refuses to permit his son to marry Sydney when he learns her mother is divorced....