OK, I just got a contract (from my Anna Held publisher, I’m happy to say!) for my next book, a bio of 1950s British comedienne Kay Kendall (1927–59). I’m working with her family, so I do have a lot of contacts, but there are a few people I can’t locate. Does anyone know where I can find:
• John Saxon, who costarred with Kay in The Reluctant Debutante?
• Sydney Chaplin (Charlie’s son), who dated Kay in the 1950s? I have a Palm Springs address for him, but no reply to my letters.
And do any of you have friends or relatives who remember post-War London? As a Yank, it is very difficult for me to write about day-to-day life in England in the late 1940s and 1950s. I need to chat with someone who remembers all the little piddling facts of everyday life that don’t make it into the history books.
Also: anyone know a starving college kid or film fan in London who’d be willing to do some photcopying for me? I have a lot of articles on Kay, but need her early (pre-1953) interviews, as well as reviews and clips on her earlier stage and TV shows and her 1945–53 “Quota Quickie” movies that never made it to the U.S.
If you are in London, I’d try going to a Senior Citizens group or home or art group or ??? The few older people I’ve talked to from that time just LOVE to talk about it over tea. You don’t need a reference, just walk in and start asking. Especially in group homes- they are sometimes quite lonely and having someone to talk to would really brighten their day.
Problem is, I’m working for a University Press–no money, no advance. Can’t afford to go to London. Happily, I’ve been in England enough to be able to write about it without making TOO many mistakes, but I will have to rely on second-hand help for things that must be done in the UK for this book.
Eve, hi, saw your book at Barnes&Noble here on 6th Ave. in NYC. London has “LOOT”, a free ads newspaper that does really well. LOOT in london has it’s own website as well, perhaps you can place an ad in there somewhere and get the help you need??? just offering up ideas. you can place any type of ad in LOOT.
Soul, it seems you need a British phone number to register onto Loot, but I think I will put an ad in a British show-biz paper. I’ll ask my London friends to scour a newsstand for one and send me the address.
Omni, I e’d John Saxon c/o that Web site—I’ll let you know if he replies. Thanks! Sandra Dee was in that movie, too, but she is too ill to give interviews . . .
My wife’s grandmother is British. Her family owned one of the metalworks factories in Sheffield before (during?) WWII. She and her daughter (my wife’s mother) moved to the U.S. in the late 1950’s or 1960’s, I believe. They currently live in Virginia, so you wouldn’t have to go overseas. I’d have to check with them to see if they wouldn’t mind being interviewed, but first, are you interested?
Cervaise–Did your in-laws ever live in London during that time? If so, yes, I would like to talk to them! Kay spent most of her life in and around London, which, I suspect, is a different kettle of fish than Sheffield.
Omni–Already tried that guy, and all of Chaplin’s other biographers, to no avail. I suspect Syd is avoiding me and doesn’t want to talk about Kay, dammit. When I sent a letter to his Palm Springs address it didn’t come back, so I fear he must have gotten it and tossed it away.
I’ll check with my in-laws. I know they stayed away from London during the war, like a lot of other people, but maybe they were there before or after. I’ll let you know what they say.
I was going to offer some help Eve (my mother is from and almost all my maternal relatives live in Manchester), but I just went back and read that you need people in London. Sorry! But good luck anyway!
do you have war brides associations in the U.S.? Up here, you can get in contact with the war brides associations through the Canadian Legion.
I know that most of them came over shortly after the war, but depending on the vagaries of trans-Atlantic shipping, some had to wait a few years after the ending of hostilities. As well, some of the war brides (like one of my aunts) travelled back to Britain now and then, and stayed in touch with their British relatives. Might give you a few leads.
London has “LOOT”, a free ads newspaper that does really well.