Identity area
Reference code
Beaton/A/A2/14a/38
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 3 Aug. 1948 (Circa. Letter dated 'Tuesday August?'.) (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
3 p. paper
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Photographer, artist, writer, and designer of scenery and costumes. Educated at Harrow and St John's College, Cambridge, 1922-5. Made his name as a photographer through portraits of the Sitwells. Employed by Vogue in London and New York. Published 'The Book of Beauty' (1930). Photographed the Duke of Windsor's wedding, 1937. War photographer, 1939-45. Designed 'Lady Windermere's Fan', 1945. Designed costumes for 'An Ideal Husband' and 'Anna Karenina', 1948. Worked on 'The School for Scandal', 1949, 'Quadrille' for Noel Coward, 1952, 'Turandot', 1961, and 'La Traviata', 1966. Designed costumes for 'My Fair Lady', 1956, and for the film version in Hollywood, 1963. His play 'The Gainsborough Girls', 1951 and 1959, was unsuccessful. Published 'The Glass of Fashion' (1954), and six volumes of diaries. Exhibited photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, 1968. Knighted 1972.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Misses Garbo. Details his activities during a week working on photography in London, including attending a performance of 'Glass Menagerie' starring Helen Hayes. Reports that Tennessee Williams brought his family to London for the occasion but then returned to Paris himself. Describes his stay at an Elizabethan, grey stone house in Bradford-upon-Avon, including a trip into the countryside with Clarissa Churchill. Rejects a treatment of George Sand as 'phoney'. Hopes that Garbo will not make a film with George Cukor whilst Beaton is engaged to work for Alexander Korda. Plans to travel to Paris the following day, but has not yet decided whether or not to go to Morroco.