Gillian Freeman (5 December 1929[1] – 23 February 2019) was an English writer. Her first book, The Liberty Man, appeared while she was working as a secretary to the novelist Louis Golding. Her fictional diary, Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48, was assumed by many to be real.
Gillian Freeman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 5 December 1929 London, England |
| Died | 23 February 2019 (aged 89) London, England |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | University of Reading |
| Notable works | The Leather Boys |
| Spouse | Edward Thorpe |
| Children | Harriet Thorpe (daughter) Matilda Thorpe (daughter) |
Early life
editBorn in Maida Vale, London[2] to Jewish parents, Dr Jack Freeman, a dentist who had been a physician, and his wife Freda (née Davids),[3] she attended Francis Holland School in London and Lynton House school in Maidenhead during the Second World War.[4] She graduated in English and philosophy from the University of Reading in 1951.[5] She then taught at a school in the East End and worked as a copywriter and a newspaper reporter.[5]
Career
editThe Liberty Man (1955) was Freeman's first book, written while working as a literary secretary to the novelist Louis Golding; it was about a love affair between a schoolteacher and a sailor doomed by the class system.[5][6] Freeman's time with Golding was said to have inspired some of her later works.[4]
One of her best known books was the novel The Leather Boys (1961), published under the pseudonym Eliot George, after the novelist George Eliot, a story of a gay relationship between two young working-class men, one married and the other a biker,[6] which was later turned into a film for which she wrote the screenplay, this time under her own name. The novel was commissioned by the publisher Anthony Blond, her literary agent,[5] who wanted a story about a "Romeo and Romeo in the South London suburbs".[7][8] Her non-fiction book The Undergrowth of Literature (1967), was a pioneering study of pornography.[5][9]
The Alabaster Egg (1970) is a tragic romance about a Jewish woman set in Nazi Germany.[5] In 1978, on another commission from Blond, she wrote a fictional diary, Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48. Freeman's authorship was not at first revealed and many readers assumed it was genuine;[10] it was included in a 2004 anthology of war diaries.[5][11]
In addition to novels, Freeman wrote screenplays including That Cold Day in the Park, a 1969 film directed by Robert Altman, the scenarios for two ballets by Kenneth MacMillan, Isadora and Mayerling,[6] and with her husband, Ballet Genius (1988), portraits of 20 outstanding ballet dancers.[5] Her final book[citation needed] was But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury (2006), a fictional study of the Bloomsbury Group.[12]
Private life
editFreeman married Edward Thorpe, a novelist and the ballet critic of the Evening Standard, in 1955.[3] The couple had two daughters, the actresses Harriet Thorpe and Matilda Thorpe.[5]
She died in London at the Whittington Hospital[2] on 23 February 2019 from complications of dementia.[5][6]
Works
edit- The Liberty Man, 1955
- Fall of Innocence, 1956
- Jack Would be a Gentleman, 1959
- The Story of Albert Einstein, 1960
- The Leather Boys, 1961
- The Campaign, 1963
- The Leather Boys (screenplay), 1964
- Only Lovers Left Alive (screenplay), 1965
- The Leader, 1965
- The Undergrowth of Literature, 1967
- That Cold Day in the Park (screenplay), 1969
- An Evasion of Women (short play, alongside pieces by Shena Mackay, Margaret Drabble, and Maureen Duffy), 1969[13]
- The Alabaster Egg, 1970
- I Want What I Want (screenplay), 1972
- The Marriage Machine, 1975
- The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil, 1976
- Mayerling (ballet scenario), 1978[14]
- Intimate Letters (ballet scenario), 1978[15]
- Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48, 1979
- An Easter Egg Hunt, 1981
- Isadora (ballet scenario), 1981[16]
- Lovechild, 1984
- Life Before Man, 1986
- Ballet Genius: Twenty Great Dancers of the Twentieth Century (with Edward Thorpe), 1988
- Termination Rock, 1989
- His Mistress's Voice, 2000
- But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury, 2006
References
edit- ^ International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004, Routledge, p. 187.
- ^ a b Grove, Valerie (2023). "Freeman, Gillian (1929–2019)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000380869. ISBN 9780198614128. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b 'Marriages', The Times, 13 September 1955.
- ^ a b "Gillian Freeman obituary". The Times. 16 March 2019. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harrison Smith, "Gillian Freeman, whose novel 'Leather Boys' was a gay landmark, dies at 89", The Washington Post, 11 March 2019.
- ^ a b c d Neil Genzlinger, "Gillian Freeman, Groundbreaking Novelist on a Gay Theme, Dies at 89", The New York Times, 8 March 2019.
- ^ "Gillian Freeman, author whose flair for detail shone through in historical novels and in a 'Romeo and Romeo' love story – obituary", The Telegraph, 4 March 2019.
- ^ Martin Foreman, Review of The Leather Boys (Gillian Freeman) (1986), archived at the Wayback Machine on 2 February 1999.
- ^ Victor E. Neuburg, The Popular Press Companion to Popular Literature, Popular Press, 1983, ISBN 0-87972-233-9, p. 97.
- ^ Anthony Blond, 'Glory Boys', The Sunday Times, 13 June 2004.
- ^ Joel Rickett, "The Bookseller ", The Guardian, 11 December 2004.
- ^ Bethany Layne, "'They Leave out the Person to Whom Things Happened': Re-Reading the Biographical Subject in Sigrid Nunez's Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury (1998)", in: Bloomsbury Influences: Papers from the Bloomsbury Adaptations Conference, Bath Spa University, 5–6 May 2011, ed. E.H. Wright, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2014, ISBN 9781443854344, pp. 30–45, p. 41.
- ^ Irving Wardle, 'Experiment and Expansion', The Times, 1 March 1969.
- ^ Gillian Freeman, 'The making of Mayerling', The Times, 8 February 1978.
- ^ John Percival, 'Sadler's Wells: Intimate Letters', The Times, 11 October 1978.
- ^ John Percival, 'Isadora, Covent Garden', The Times, 1 May 1981.