Gladys Malvern
Encyclopedia
Gladys Malvern was an American vaudeville
and Broadway
actress, radio
script writer, and author
. As a child actress, she famously appeared in the 1908 Broadway production of The Man Who Stood Still. Gladys often collaborated on stage with her younger sister Corinne Malvern
, who also illustrated her books. Gladys Malvern is perhaps best remembered for her prolific writing of historical and biographical novel
s for young adults, including The Foreigner, According to Thomas and Behold Your Queen!.
on July 17, 1897, the daughter of Edward Malvern and Cora Lillian Malvern, a theater company wardrobe mistress
. She was raised as a stage child by her mother in New York
, New Jersey, Virginia
, and California
.
in The Man Who Stood Still. By 1910, the two Malvern sisters were working regularly in traveling vaudeville productions, as well as in the burgeoning New York movie industry; Gladys as an ingenue
and Corinne as "fairies, babies, witches, and other funny little people." By the age of 14, Gladys began playing leading roles in traveling stock theater companies. Her fellow troupers called her "the youngest stock leading woman in the business." When interviewed about this period in her life, Malvern is quoted as saying:
, where Corinne worked as a fashion
artist
, and Gladys began working at a department store. Later, Gladys began writing copy
for advertising agencies, while her sister Corinne studied art under Theodore Lukits
. According to census records, at some point during this time period Gladys married, and subsequently divorced. After the publication and success of her first few novels, Gladys moved back to New York with her sister; both of them working from an apartment which overlooked the Hudson river
. Of this period in her life, Malvern was quoted as saying:
. The same year, Malvern won the Julia Ellsworth Ford Foundation Award for the historical novel, Valiant Minstrel: The Story of Sir Henry Lauder. Gladys Malvern continued writing biographies of other performers, including Joseph Jefferson
, Anna Pavlova and Rossini. She also occasionally wrote under the pseudonyms Vahrah von Klopp and Sabra Lee Corbin.
Malvern corresponded with actress Helen Hayes
in 1944 about a potential biographical story for American Girl
magazine, but never published her story. It is now available as a 12 page part of the Malvern Papers, currently held at the New York Public Library
in the "Performing Arts Research Collection".
In 1958, Malvern's Behold Your Queen!, a story of the Biblical character of Esther
, was a main selection of the Junior Literary Guild
. Malvern wrote several other Biblical stories, including The Foreigner - A Story of Ruth, According to Thomas, Tamar and Saul's Daughter.
Gladys Malvern never returned to the stage, but she would go on to write more than 40 successful historical novels, including Patriot's Daughter - The Story of Anastasia Lafayette and Dear Wife - A Story of the American Revolution
, many of them illustrated by her sister Corinne, who died in 1956. Gladys moved to Weston, Connecticut
, where she continued to write until her own death in November 1962.
in 1971, including The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The World of Lady Jane Grey
. However, by 1990, most of the books authored by Gladys Malvern had gone out of print, and could only be found in auctions and the rare book market. In 2011, several Malvern titles were re-issued by publisher Special Edition Books.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
actress, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
script writer, and author
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:...
. As a child actress, she famously appeared in the 1908 Broadway production of The Man Who Stood Still. Gladys often collaborated on stage with her younger sister Corinne Malvern
Corinne Malvern
Corinne Malvern was an American commercial artist, active as a fashion advertising artist and illustrator of children's books between the early 1930s and her death in 1956. She painted magazine covers and worked as Art Editor of Ladies Home Journal magazine...
, who also illustrated her books. Gladys Malvern is perhaps best remembered for her prolific writing of historical and biographical novel
Biographical novel
The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional and usually entertaining account of a person's life. This kind of novel concentrates on the experiences a person had during his lifetime, the people he met and the incidents which occurred are detailed and sometimes...
s for young adults, including The Foreigner, According to Thomas and Behold Your Queen!.
Biography
Gladys Malvern was born in Newark, New JerseyNewark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
on July 17, 1897, the daughter of Edward Malvern and Cora Lillian Malvern, a theater company wardrobe mistress
Wardrobe Supervisor
The wardrobe supervisor is responsible for supervising all wardrobe related activities during the course of a theatrical run. The modern title "wardrobe supervisor" has evolved from the more traditional titles of "wardrobe mistress/master" or "mistress/master of the wardrobe"...
. She was raised as a stage child by her mother in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, New Jersey, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Theater years (1900 - 1920)
Young Gladys Malvern won her first role on a New York stage at the age of three. In 1908, at age 11, Gladys appeared at the Circle Theater on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in The Man Who Stood Still. By 1910, the two Malvern sisters were working regularly in traveling vaudeville productions, as well as in the burgeoning New York movie industry; Gladys as an ingenue
Ingenue
Ingenue may refer to:*Ingenue , a stock character in literature, film and theatre*Ingénue , the second solo album by k.d. lang...
and Corinne as "fairies, babies, witches, and other funny little people." By the age of 14, Gladys began playing leading roles in traveling stock theater companies. Her fellow troupers called her "the youngest stock leading woman in the business." When interviewed about this period in her life, Malvern is quoted as saying:
…until I was twenty-one, home to me was anywhere—hotels, trains, boarding houses; for my sister, Corinne Malvern, and I were ‘stage children.’ When I stopped being a ‘stage child,’ I became what they called an ingenue, and then a leading ladyLeading ladyLeading lady is an informal term for the actress who plays a secondary lead or supporting role, usually a love interest, to the leading actor in a film or play. It is not usually applied to the leading actress in the performance if her character is the protagonist.A leading lady can also be an...
. But by this time I had decided I didn't like wandering about, and I began to think how nice it would be to have a home like other people.
Life in Los Angeles (1921 - 1933)
During the 1920s, the Malvern family moved to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, where Corinne worked as a fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, and Gladys began working at a department store. Later, Gladys began writing copy
Copy
Copy may refer to: to copy a word from a book to a paper or laptop or computer*Copying or the product of copying ; the duplication of information or an artifact....
for advertising agencies, while her sister Corinne studied art under Theodore Lukits
Theodore Lukits
Theodore Nikolai Lukits was a California portrait and landscape painter. His initial fame came from his portraits of some of the most glamorous actresses of the Silent Film era, but since his death, his Asian-inspired works, figures drawn from Hispanic California and his pastel landscapes have all...
. According to census records, at some point during this time period Gladys married, and subsequently divorced. After the publication and success of her first few novels, Gladys moved back to New York with her sister; both of them working from an apartment which overlooked the Hudson river
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. Of this period in her life, Malvern was quoted as saying:
Advertising is a very good business. I liked it immensely and stuck with it for about twelve years. But after work, being very stubborn in this matter, I continued to write. And I wrote. And I wrote. Finally—oh, after I'd torn up any number of manuscripts—I sold a book… And somehow or other I began to feel encouraged. In fact, after I'd sold three novels, I felt so brave I gave up my advertising job. We sold the lamps and the easy chairs and most of the books, and came blithely to New York.
Novels for young adults (1934 - 1962)
Having learned the discipline of writing from her 12 years as an advertising writer and copy editor, Malvern produced several successful novels for young adults in the first years following her return to New York. In 1943, Gladys Malvern penned Curtain Going Up, a widely-read biography of 20th century actress and legend, Katharine CornellKatharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.Cornell is known as the greatest American stage actress of the 20th century...
. The same year, Malvern won the Julia Ellsworth Ford Foundation Award for the historical novel, Valiant Minstrel: The Story of Sir Henry Lauder. Gladys Malvern continued writing biographies of other performers, including Joseph Jefferson
Joseph Jefferson
Joseph Jefferson, commonly known as Joe Jefferson , was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous of all American comedians....
, Anna Pavlova and Rossini. She also occasionally wrote under the pseudonyms Vahrah von Klopp and Sabra Lee Corbin.
Malvern corresponded with actress Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
in 1944 about a potential biographical story for American Girl
American Girl
American Girl is a line of dolls, books, and accessories.American Girl may also refer to:* American Girl , a magazine published by the American Girl company* American Girl , a 2002 American film...
magazine, but never published her story. It is now available as a 12 page part of the Malvern Papers, currently held at the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
in the "Performing Arts Research Collection".
In 1958, Malvern's Behold Your Queen!, a story of the Biblical character of Esther
Esther
Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
, was a main selection of the Junior Literary Guild
Junior Literary Guild
The Junior Literary Guild was the name of a commercial book club devoted to juvenile literature that has become the contemporary Junior Library Guild. It was created in 1929 as one of the enterprises of the Literary Guild, which was an adult book club created in 1927 by Samuel W. Craig and Harold...
. Malvern wrote several other Biblical stories, including The Foreigner - A Story of Ruth, According to Thomas, Tamar and Saul's Daughter.
Gladys Malvern never returned to the stage, but she would go on to write more than 40 successful historical novels, including Patriot's Daughter - The Story of Anastasia Lafayette and Dear Wife - A Story of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, many of them illustrated by her sister Corinne, who died in 1956. Gladys moved to Weston, Connecticut
Weston, Connecticut
Weston is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The population was 10,179 at the 2010 census. The town is served by Route 57 and Route 53, both of which run through the town center. About 19% of the town's workforce commutes to New York City, about to the southwest.Like many towns in...
, where she continued to write until her own death in November 1962.
Posthumous editions
Several novels were published posthumously by Vanguard PressVanguard Press
The Vanguard Press was a United States publishing house established with a $100,000 grant from the left wing American Fund for Public Service, better known as the Garland Fund. Throughout the 1920s, Vanguard Press issued an array of books on radical topics, including studies of the Soviet Union,...
in 1971, including The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The World of Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey , also known as The Nine Days' Queen, was an English noblewoman who was de facto monarch of England from 10 July until 19 July 1553 and was subsequently executed...
. However, by 1990, most of the books authored by Gladys Malvern had gone out of print, and could only be found in auctions and the rare book market. In 2011, several Malvern titles were re-issued by publisher Special Edition Books.
Selected bibliography
- According to Thomas. 1947. New York, R.M. McBride & Co.
- Ann Lawrence of Old New York. 1947. New York, Julian Messner.
- Behold Your Queen! 1951. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., New York.
- Blithe Genius; The Story of Rossini. 1959. New York, Longmans, Green.
- Dancing Star: the Story of Anna Pavlova. 1948. New York, J. Messner.
- Dear Wife. 1953. New York, Longmans, Green & Co.,
- Eric's Girls. 1949. New York, J. Messner.
- Gloria, Ballet Dancer. (A Romance for Young Moderns; also pub. in German as Gloria). 1946. New York, J. Messner, Inc.
- Heart's Conquest. 1962. Philadelphia, McRae Smith Company
- Hollywood Star. (A Romance for Young Moderns). 1953. New York, J. Messner.
- Jonica's Island. 1945. New York, Julian Messner, Inc.,
- Kin. 1931 New York, Dodd, Mead. (written as Vahrah von Klopp).
- Mamzelle. 1955. Philadelphia, McRae Smith.
- Patriot's Daughter. 1960. Philadelphia, McRae Smith Company,
- Prima Ballerina. (A Romance for Young Moderns.) 1951. New York, J. Messner.
- Rhoda of Cyprus. 1958. Philadelphia, McRae Smith Company,
- Rogues and Vagabonds. 1959. Philadelphia, McRae Smith Company,
- Saul's Daughter. 1956. New York, Longmans, Green & Co.,
- Stephanie. 1956. Philadelphia, McRae Smith.
- Tamar. 1952. New York, Longmans, Green & Co.,
- The Foreigner. 1954. New York, Longmans, Green & Co.,
- The Queen's Lady. 1963. McRae Smith Company, Philadelphia. (posthumous)
- The Secret Sign. 1961. Abelard-Schuman, New York.
- The Six Wives of Henry VIII. 1972. Vanguard Press, Inc., New York. (posthumous)
- The World of Lady Jane Grey. 1964. New York, Vanguard Press. (posthumous)
- There's Always Forever. 1957. New York, Longmans, Green.
- Valiant Minstrel, the Story of Sir Harry Lauder. 1943. New York, J. Messner, Inc.
See also
- Corinne MalvernCorinne MalvernCorinne Malvern was an American commercial artist, active as a fashion advertising artist and illustrator of children's books between the early 1930s and her death in 1956. She painted magazine covers and worked as Art Editor of Ladies Home Journal magazine...
- VaudevilleVaudevilleVaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
- Book of RuthBook of RuthThe Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
- EstherEstherEsther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
- Young adult fiction
Additional sources
- News of the Theaters, Chicago Daily Tribune, January 22, 1907
- Autobiographical Sketch of Gladys Malvern, The Junior Book of Authors, Second Edition, H.W. Wilson Publishers, 1951 ISBN 978-0824200282
- Barbara Sicherman, Carol Hurd Gree, Notable American Women: the Modern Period, Volume 4, Harvard University Press, 1986 ISBN 978-0674627338
- John T. Gillespie, Historical Fiction for Young Readers, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59158-621-0