SIR GERALD DU MAURIER

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 December 1934, Page 10

SIR GERALD DU MAURIER

AS SEEN BY HIS DAUGHTER Those who knew Sir Gerald du 1 Maurier will recognise the extraord- , inarily brilliant likeness in his daughter Daphne's “Portrait.” which is published to-day. It is one of the most revealing biographical studies in recent years (writes G. W. Bishop in the London “Daily Telegraph.”) Sir Gerald often complained that he did not understand his children; he certainly never realised how acutely one of hi.s daughters understood her father. Rarely has a man been so frankly, and at. the same time so lovingly, portrayed, as in “Gerald”. He stands out I of the pages as a “spoilt child" who | had been indulged by his mother and afterwards by his wife, who was “the gcrl and the flame of his little household of women.” Outside his family Sir Gerald's friends were chiefly women. At a very, early age his daughters referred to i their father’s "little gallery of favourites” as “the stable,” and there is <t; picture of the family at table discus- j sing the “form this week. 1 am not ; going to back much longer.” j One of the finest influences in his • life, however, was Gladys Cooper, who , gave him “what was probably the j only genuine platonic friendship of | his career.” She had no patience with | his weak and temperamental moods. I She met him on his own ground; her common-sense was a first-rate tonic, and made her a good companion for him. At the background of it all -was “Mo” (Lady du Maurier) aud the children, as in the earlier days there 1 had been his mother and his beloved 1 1

brothers and sisters. There was also Hampstead, which he adored, the birds in the garden, the long lunch parties on Sundays, and the inconsequent evenings that followed. Everything was fairly rosy so long as the weather was tine and the play was going well, and Sir Gerald had lime to indulge in his favourite habit of practical joking; but if the incometax collector came along or the theatre gave trouble he became bored and restless. - ■ I i GRACIE FIELDS INCIDENT Sir Gerald, according to his daugh-1 ter. possessed a warped sense of liu->’ mour, and was lucky that it never brought him any serious trouble. ‘'He even went to the trouble of '

i i I staging that well-known Chinese tor-1 | titre of the drip of water and made I scientific arrangements for a drop to ! fall periodically from above on to the [forehead of a wretched and innocent I performer, who was tied by his part to • sit. in a certain chair and conduct a ■'very ’serious conversation for many J minutes on end.” j ' . On another occasion he played one !of his jokes on Gracie Fields, who, ' says Miss du Maurier, “was not at all sure that, she approved of him, which was a great source of gratification to I the sadistic Gerald.” He bought a j fake diamond ring for 10/6. and I throwing it into Gracie Fields’ lap, [said: ‘Wear it for me, it only cost £700.’ Miss du Maurier adds: “Furious at his insulting manner ■ and his dark insinuations. Gracie I Fields walked up to him and gave him a ringing slap on the face. “Gerald burst into a shout of laughter, and explained to the bewildered Gracie that no was only trying out one of his peculiar forms of humour, (hat the ring cost 10/6, that, hers was | Hie easiest leg to pull of any woman I he had over met, and when was she : coming up to Cannon Hall (his home) [to meet the family?

| “Gracie gave one ringing mill-hand ! laugh: relapsed into broad Rochdale j [ tongue, and they were lifelong friends i i from, that moment.” | “Hus practical jokes did not only take place in the theatre,” continues his daughter. “Long and expensive wires containing cryptic messages only understood by himself would bo sent. with false signatures, and from faked post offices, to trembling and bewildered friends. “Ingenious and scandalous items of; news, presumably genuine Press cut-/ tings, but in reality privately printed 1

I with immense trouble, arrived in en- [ [velopes to cause consternation at the r , breakfast table.” j Miss du Maurier then refers to the' famous occasion when: "He found an old photograph of himself as a child, which he had touched up, renovated, and modernised, attached it to a whining and complaining letter, which he wrote himself in a disguised hand, a’nd then sent it through the post to ‘Mo’ (Lady du ■ iMaurier), pretending that it was a ' photograph of an illegitimate son.” 1 "As it turned out, this elaborate joke fell flat as a, pancake. ‘Mo’ was I not taken in for a moment; she mere- ( ly said, ‘How absurd you are, darling,’ 5 and stuck the photograph up on her * desk.” i Miss du Maurier makes no attempt 1 to globfi over her father’s shortcom- P

ings. “There was a definite feminine strain in Gerald’s nature,”, she writes, “and because of it he preferred the company of women to that of men. Feminine, but not effeminate, he laid too great a stress on a woman's values.” “SICK OF ACTING.”

At the end of the book. Daphne du ■ Maurier draws a picture of her father, i It is this: “Here he was, the head of his profession, nearly 60, and sick to death of acting: frittering away the days in doing nothing, in lunching with a pal,..' in having a yarn, in hanging about; wondering at the back of his mind why he was alive at all ... ■ And in spite, of everything, he had to go on acting, j because he could not afford to retire.”-! It is, of course, only one side of the | picture. The other is the gay, generous, debonair creature who was always' such good fun in the home and so thoughtful for the more unfortunate members of'his profession. He put his heart and soul into the actors’ r.hal’ities, and he could never refuse ]

anyone anything. Perhaps it was unfortunate that as ’the youngest son he left Harrow just lat the moment of a great increase in ■ the family fortunes, the publication of j his father's “Trilby.” Things . were made easy’ for him from the start; he was'uever taught how to face life. Coddled by his mother and spoiled ! by his family, he remained a charm- [ ing, careless, and over-indulged man Who could never stand up against the merest breath of misfortune. . The book is full of interesting sketches of characters. The opening chapters on the parents and the curiously haphazard household are firstrate,. and the studies of Edgar Wallace, Gladys Cooper, Viola Tree,- and the other people who crossed his path are altogether delightful.'