Helene Hanff
Encyclopedia
Helene Hanff was an American writer. Born 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...

, she is best known as the author of the book 84, Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a stage play, television play, and film
84 Charing Cross Road (film)
84 Charing Cross Road is a 1987 British/American drama film directed by David Hugh Jones. The screenplay by Hugh Whitemore is based on a play by James Roose-Evans, which itself was an adaptation of the 1970 epistolary memoir of the same name by Helene Hanff, a compilation of letters between herself...

 of the same name.

Career

Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1962 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

, writing plays that were admired by some of 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...

's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.

She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try to move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who didn't become Moss Hart
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

." Later editions of the book changed this reference to Noel Coward, perhaps supposing modern readers might not be familiar with Moss Hart but when "Underfoot" was originally published, it was only a few years after Hart's memoir "Act One" had been a best seller. When the bulk of television production moved to 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...

, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.

84, Charing Cross Road

First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84, Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel
Frank Doel
Frank Percy Doel was an antiquarian bookseller for Marks & Co in London, England, who achieved posthumous fame as the recipient of a series of humorous letters from the American author Helene Hanff; to which he scrupulously, and at first very formally, replied...

, the chief buyer for Marks & Co
Marks & Co
Marks & Co, also incorrectly referred to as "Marks & Company" or colloquially as "84", was a well-known antiquarian bookseller located at Cambridge Circus - 84, Charing Cross Road, London....

, a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.

Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis
Peritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...

 from a burst appendix
Vermiform appendix
The appendix is a blind-ended tube connected to the cecum , from which it develops embryologically. The cecum is a pouchlike structure of the colon...

, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...

 and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. In "Duchess", Hanff describes her visits with friends and fans to various locations and places of literary and historical interest in London and Southern England. This trip was a highlight of her life - her modesty and sense of humor are evident as she talks about the friends, including Frank Doel's wife, Nora, and daughter, Sheila, who were so devoted to her because of 84 Charing Cross Road, and her love of London.

In the 1987 film adaptation of 84, Charing Cross Road, Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....

, while Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...

 took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson
Anne Jackson
Anne Jackson is an American actress of television, stage, and screen.-Life and career:Jackson, the youngest of three sisters, was born in Millvale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Stella Germaine and John Ivan Jackson, a barber who ran a beauty parlor...

 had earlier played Hanff and Frank Finlay
Frank Finlay
Francis Finlay, CBE is an English stage, film and television actor.-Personal life:Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St...

 Doel in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...

 recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City. Elaine Stritch also played Helene Hanff in a television adaptation of 84 Charing Cross Road.

Hanff never married. In the 1987 movie, a photo of a US serviceman is shown in her apartment during the period of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, a portrait at which she smiles fondly, suggesting to the viewer that Hanff remained unmarried due to this naval officer's death. No such person is mentioned in her autobiographical Underfoot and none of her writings suggests that she ever had any lasting, or even short-term, romantic relationship with any person. In Duchess she confides to her diary that she was irritated by 'a lot of togetherness' with one of her male English fans who had taken her to Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...

 and Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 on a two-day driving trip. This implies that Hanff preferred her own company and had no need of a life partner
Life partner
A life partner is a romantic or otherwise very close friend for life. The partners can be of the same or opposite sexes, married or unmarried, and monogamous or polyamorous....

. Her relationship with Frank Doel, warm as it was, was entirely literary.

One interesting facet of Hanff's career is that she was asked by editor Genevieve (Gene) Young of Harper & Row to write her autobiography as a failed playwright-cum-successful television writer before she became notable as an author, publication of Underfoot In Showbusiness preceding 84 Charing Cross Road by eight years.

Additional books

Hanff later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name of Q. He is primarily remembered for the monumental Oxford Book Of English Verse 1250–1900 , and for his literary criticism...

 to use in a book called Q's Legacy (1985). Other books include "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street" (1973), Apple of My Eye (1977 and updated in 1988), an idiosyncratic guide to 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...

, and Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted the five-minute talks she gave each month on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's Woman's Hour
Woman's Hour
Woman's Hour is a radio magazine programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom.-History:Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by Alan Ivimey the programme was first broadcast on 7 October 1946 on the BBC's Light Programme . It was transferred to its current home in 1973...

radio broadcasts between 1978 and 1984, and "Underfoot in Show Business" (1989). "Underfoot in Show Business" was adapted as a stage play by Charles Leipart
Charles Leipart
Charles Leipart is an award-winning American musical theatre bookwriter-lyricist and playwright. He was born in Chicago and graduated from Northwestern University.-Works include:Mr...

 and premiered in 2008 at the Devonshire Theatre in Eastbourne, UK, directed by David Giles.

Biography

Stephen R. Pastore published a biography of Hanff, based on interviews he had conducted with her, in 2011.

Legacy

Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 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...

. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book. In England, a bronze plaque commemorates the bookstore featured in 84, Charing Cross Road, although the building now houses a restaurant.

External links

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