Marcia Davenport - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Marcia Davenport was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

and music critic. She was born Marcia Glick in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

on June 9, 1903, the daughter of Bernard Glick and the opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

singer Alma Gluck

Alma Gluck

Alma Gluck was a Romanian-born American soprano, one of the world's most famous female singers at the peak of her career .-Life and career:...

, and she became the stepdaughter of violinist Efrem Zimbalist

Efrem Zimbalist

Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. was one of the world's most prominent concert violinists, as well as a composer, teacher, conductor and a long-time director of the Curtis Institute of Music.-Early life:...

when Alma Gluck remarried.

Davenport traveled extensively with her parents and was educated intermittently at the Friends School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, and the Shipley School at Bryn Mawr

Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

Bryn Mawr from Welsh for "big hill") is a census-designated place in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia along Lancaster Avenue and the border with Delaware County...

. She began at Wellesley College but eloped to Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

in April 1923 and married Frank D. Clarke. Eventually she earned her B.A. at the University of Grenoble

University of Grenoble

University of Grenoble or Grenoble University was a university in Grenoble, France until 1970, when it was split into several different institutions:...

. Her first child was born in 1924, but in 1925 she divorced Clarke.

She took an advertising copywriting job to support herself and her daughter. In 1928 she began her writing career on the editorial staff of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, where she worked until 1931. On May 13, 1929, she married Russell Davenport

Russell Davenport

Russell Wheeler Davenport was an American publisher and writer.Davenport was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the son of Russell W. Davenport, Sr., a vice president of Bethlehem Steel, and Cornelia Whipple Farnum....

, who soon after became editor of Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...

. Davenport's second daughter was born in 1934. That same year she began as the music critic of Stage magazine. Davenport had close ties through her mother and stepfather to the classical music world and particularly to the heady opera world of Europe and America in the first half of the 20th century. She was first celebrated as a writer for her first book, Mozart, the first published American biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

. Her marriage to Russell Davenport ended in 1944.

Novels and memoir

She also wrote several popular novels, notably The Valley of Decision
The Valley of Decision (novel)
The Valley of Decision is an historical novel by the American writer Marcia Davenport . It was a national bestseller in the 1940s and adapted into a film, The Valley of Decision, in 1945....

, a saga which traces the Scott family, prototypical owners of an iron works in Pittsburgh, from 1873 to the events of World War II. Davenport lived in Pittsburgh shortly after her first marriage, later using that background, along with further research on the steel industry, for the 788-page bestseller

Bestseller

A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...

.

Her memoir Too Strong for Fantasy (1967) describes the people, the music, the places and the political forces which shaped her life. Of particular interest is her telling of the events leading up to the death of the Czech

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

diplomat and foreign minister Jan Masaryk

Jan Masaryk

Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...

in the Czernin Palace in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

in 1948 and of her close relationship with Masaryk over many years.

Films

Two of Davenport's novels were made into films: The Valley of Decision
The Valley of Decision
The Valley of Decision is a film set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA in the late 19th century. It tells the story of a young Irish house maid who falls in love with the son of her employer, a local steel mill owner...

and East Side, West Side. The Valley of Decision starred Greer Garson

Greer Garson

Greer Garson, CBE was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award...

, Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck

Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...

, Donald Crisp

Donald Crisp

Donald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter...

, Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...

, Preston Foster

Preston Foster

Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...

, Marsha Hunt, Gladys Cooper

Gladys Cooper

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, DBE was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television....

, Reginald Owen

Reginald Owen

John Reginald Owen was a British character actor. He was known for his many roles in British and American movies and later in television programs.-Personal:...

, Dan Duryea

Dan Duryea

Dan Duryea was an American actor, known for roles in film, stage and television.-Early life:Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Duryea graduated from White Plains Senior High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the Sphinx Head Society...

and Jessica Tandy

Jessica Tandy

Jessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy was an English-American stage and film actress.She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films...

. The film was nominated for Academy Awards

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

for Best Actress in a Leading Role

Academy Award for Best Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

(Greer Garson

Greer Garson

) and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Academy Award for Original Music Score

The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

.

My Brother's Keeper
My Brother's Keeper (novel)
My Brother's Keeper is a novel by Marcia Davenport based on the true story of the Collyer brothers. Published in 1954 by Charles Scribner, it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and was later reprinted as a 1956 Cardinal paperback with a cover painting by Tom Dunn.Inspired by the 1947 New York...

(1954), based on the Collyer brothers

Collyer brothers

Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Wakeman Collyer , known as the Collyer brothers, were two American brothers who became famous because of their bizarre nature and compulsive hoarding...

, was optioned for films to various individuals over decades, but no film was ever produced.

Radio

In 1973, she was a commentator on the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

. During the 1940s, she was heard on various radio panel discussion shows, and she was a panelist with Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was an American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine and a member of the Algonquin Round Table....

and Rex Stout

Rex Stout

Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...

on The People's Platform program of January 23, 1943, when Woollcott had a heart attack during the broadcast and died before he arrived at Roosevelt Hospital.

Marcia Davenport died January 16, 1996, in Monterey, California

Monterey, California

The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...

, at the age of 92. She was survived by her youngest daughter Cornelia Davenport Schwartz, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Her eldest daughter Patricia Clarke Kaplow, who predeceased her, was the mother of four of Marcia Davenport's grandchildren.

There is a memorial plaque dedicated to Marcia Davenport in Golden Lane, Prague.

Works

Mozart, a biography (New York: Scribner, 1932)
Of Lena Geyer, a novel (New York: Scribner, 1936)
The Valley of Decision
The Valley of Decision (novel)
The Valley of Decision is an historical novel by the American writer Marcia Davenport . It was a national bestseller in the 1940s and adapted into a film, The Valley of Decision, in 1945....

, a novel (New York: Scribner, 1942)
East Side, West Side, a novel (New York: Scribner, 1947)
My Brother's Keeper
My Brother's Keeper (novel)
My Brother's Keeper is a novel by Marcia Davenport based on the true story of the Collyer brothers. Published in 1954 by Charles Scribner, it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and was later reprinted as a 1956 Cardinal paperback with a cover painting by Tom Dunn.Inspired by the 1947 New York...

, a novel (New York: Scribner, 1954)
Garibaldi: Father of Modern Italy, a juvenile biography (New York: Random House, 1956)
The Constant Image, a novel (New York: Scribner, 1960)
Too Strong for Fantasy, an autobiography (New York: Scribner, 1967)
Jan Masaryk: Posledni Portret, a memoir (Czechoslovakia: 1990)

Novels and memoir

Films

Radio

Works

See also