Gillian Freeman
Gillian Freeman ( born 5 December 1929)[1] is a British writer.
Born to a non-observant Jewish family in North London, daughter of Dr. Jack Freeman and his wife Freda (née Davids),[2] she graduated in English Language and Literature from the University of Reading in 1951. She married Edward Thorpe, novelist and ballet critic of the Evening Standard, in 1955.[3] They have two daughters, the actresses Harriet Thorpe and Matilda Thorpe.
One of her best known books was the 1961 novel The Leather Boys (published under the pseudonym Eliot George, a reference to the writer George Eliot), a story of a gay relationship between two young working-class men, 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, who wanted a story about a "Romeo and Romeo in the South London suburbs".[4] Her non-fiction book The Undergrowth of Literature (1967), was a pioneering study of pornography.[5] In 1979, 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 took it to be genuine.[6] Her most recent book is But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury (2006), a fictional study of the Bloomsbury Group.
Works
- 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[7]
- 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[8]
- Intimate Letters (ballet scenario), 1978[9]
- Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48, 1979
- An Easter Egg Hunt, 1981
- Isadora (ballet scenario), 1981[10]
- 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
- ↑ International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004, Routledge, page 187.
- ↑ 'Marriages', The Times, 13 September 1955.
- ↑ 'Marriages', The Times, 13 September 1955.
- ↑ Review of The Leather Boys (Gillian Freeman) by Martin Foreman
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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