Identity area
Reference code
Beaton/F/23
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 24 March 1939 (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
2p 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
Typescript letter to the writer, producer and impresario, Rudolf K. Kommer (1886-1943), in which Beaton writes that he has been sight-seeing in southern Morocco and has taken lots of pictures. He is currently staying in a lovely house in Tangier, which overlooks the Governor's Palace. Thanks Kommer for his advice on various matters and asks him for his opinion on how he believes Beaton should respond to Walter Winchell's most recent attack on him. Beaton understands how difficult it is to sue a newspaper, but the allegation that he sent a copy of his work to Goebbels is a complete lie and should be recognised as such.