Clemence Dane
Encyclopedia
Clemence Dane was the pseudonym
of Winifred Ashton (21 February 1888 in Blackheath
, England
, United Kingdom
– 28 March 1965 in London
), an English novelist and playwright.
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 A 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 Noel 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 Noel 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 March 28, 1965, Dane had written more than 30 plays and 16 novels.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of Winifred Ashton (21 February 1888 in Blackheath
Blackheath, London
Blackheath is a district of South London, England. It is named from the large open public grassland which separates it from Greenwich to the north and Lewisham to the west...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
– 28 March 1965 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
), an English novelist and playwright.
Life and career
After completing her education, she went to SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
to work as a French tutor, but returned home after a year. She studied art in London and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. 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
St Clement Danes
St Clement Danes is a church in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. The current building was completed in 1682 by Sir Christopher Wren and it now functions as the central church of the Royal Air Force.The church is sometimes claimed to...
on the Strand, London
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
.
Her first novel A 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
A Bill of Divorcement
A Bill of Divorcement is a 1932 American drama film, directed by George Cukor and starring John Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn in her movie debut. It is based on the British play of the same name, written by Clemence Dane as a reaction to a law passed in Britain in the early 1920s that allowed...
, 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
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
and John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
. Dane began writing screenplays as well as novels. She co-wrote the screenplay for Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina (1935 film)
Anna Karenina is a 1935 film directed by Clarence Brown. The film stars Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone and Maureen O'Sullivan. It is the most famous and critically acclaimed film adaptation of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. There are several other film adaptations of the novel.In New...
starring Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
. The pinnacle of Dane’s success was winning an Academy Award with Anthony Pelissier
Anthony Pelissier
Harry Anthony Compton Pelissier was an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Biography:Pelissier was born in Barnet and came from a theatrical family. His parents were the theatre producer H. G. Pelissier and the distinguished actress Fay Compton...
for Vacation from Marriage, released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as Perfect Strangers
Perfect Strangers (1945 film)
Perfect Strangers , is a 1945 British drama film made by London Films. It stars Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr as a married couple whose relationship is shaken by their service in the Second World War. The supporting cast includes Glynis Johns, Ann Todd, Roland Culver, and Roger Moore in his...
, starring Robert Donat
Robert Donat
Robert Donat was an English film and stage actor. He is best-known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Goodbye, Mr...
and Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
.
Dane and Helen de Guerry Simpson
Helen de Guerry Simpson
Helen de Guerry Simpson was an Australian novelist.-Life and career:Simpson was born in Sydney into a family that had been settled in New South Wales for over 100 years...
wrote three detective novels featuring their creation Sir John Saumarez. Both were members of the Detection Club
Detection Club
The Detection Club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, John Rhode, Jessie Rickard, Baroness Emma Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, G.D.H. Cole, Margaret Cole, E.C. Bentley, and H.C. Bailey. Anthony...
. The first, Enter Sir John, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
in 1930 as Murder!
Murder!
Murder! is a 1930 British drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Edward Chapman. It is based on a novel and play called Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson...
. Dane contributed to the Club's serials The Scoop
The Scoop and Behind The Screen
The Scoop & Behind The Screen are both collaborative detective serials written by members of the Detection Club which were broadcast weekly by their authors on the BBC National Programme in 1930 and 1931 with the scripts then being published in The Listener within a week after broadcast...
and The Floating Admiral
The Floating Admiral
The Floating Admiral is a collaborative detective novel written by fourteen members of the Detection Club in 1931. The twelve chapters of the story were each written by a different author, in the following sequence: Canon Victor Whitechurch, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha...
.
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 Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's play, Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
. 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
Frederic Yates
Frederic Yates was an English painter.He gave up a business career to study painting in the Paris ateliers of Léon Bonnat, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. In 1886, he moved to San Francisco where his family had settled a few years earlier. In San Francisco, he became a popular...
.
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 Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
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
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
(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 March 28, 1965, Dane had written more than 30 plays and 16 novels.
Novels and plays
- Regiment of Women (1917)
- First the Blade: A Comedy of Growth (1918)
- Legend (1919)
- A Bill of Divorcement (1921)
- William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
: An Invention (1921) - Naboth’s Vineyard: A Piece in Three Acts (1925)
- The Women’s Side (1926)
- The Babyons (1927)
- The Dearly Beloved of Benjamin Cobb (1927)
- Mariners (1927)
- Adam’s Opera: The Text of a Play (1928)
- Enter Sir JohnEnter Sir JohnEnter Sir John is a 1928 British crime novel by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. It concerns Martella Baring, a young actress, who is put on trial and convicted of murder and a fellow actor Sir John Saumarez who takes up her cause and tries to prove her innocence...
(1928) (with Helen Simpson) - Third Person Singular (1928)
- The King Waits (1929)
- Author Unknown (1930) (with Helen Simpson)
- Broome Stages (1931)
- Theater Royale (1931)
- Re-enter Sir John (1932) (with Helen Simpson)
- Julia Newberry's Diary (1933)
- Come of Age: The Text of a Play in Music and Words (1934) (with Richard AddinsellRichard AddinsellRichard Stewart Addinsell was a British composer, best known for film music, primarily his Warsaw Concerto, composed for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight .-Life:...
) - Moonlight is Silver: A Play in three acts (1934)
- Wild December: A Play in Three Acts (1934)
- Edmond Rostand's L'aiglon (1934)
- The Amateur Gentleman: From the Novel By Jeffery FarnolJeffery FarnolJohn Jeffery Farnol , was an English author, known for his many romantic novels, some formulaic and set in the English Regency period, and swashbucklers...
(1936) - The Moon Is Feminine (1938)
- Hebbel's Herod and Mariamne (1938)
- The Arrogant History of White Ben (1939)
- He Brings Great News (1946)
- Bonny Prince Charlie (1948) (with Dorothy Middleton)
- The Flower Girls (1954)
- Eighty in the Shade (1959)
- The Godson: A Fantasy (1964)
- Claude Houghton Appreciations (with Hugh WalpoleHugh WalpoleSir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...
)