Category: New York

Helene Hanff: Underfoot in Show Business

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

For every big star or even middling star there’s hundreds of people clinging to a slight handhold in show business. Underfoot in Show Business is the story of one of the faceless ones, a mousy little playwright from Philadelphia named Helene Hanff. Now if you’re a certain kind of reader (the spouse: “Angophile NERD! Like you!” Me: death stare from Mr Couch), Helene Hanff is the author of the charming 84, Charing Cross Road.

But between letters to Marks & Co., Helene lived in hall bedrooms and tiny studio apartments, writing plays that lurked in the depths of agents Dead Files, working as an outside studio reader and writing television scripts never quite living up to her initial Big Break.

And what was that pre-84, Charing Cross Road Big Break? A very young Helene Hanff entered the Bureau of New Plays contests. The prize? Two $1,500 fellowships and the guiding hand of the Theatre Guild. And at a stroke of fate, Helene went from passionate theater goer to being a member of the theater itself along the way collecting her lifelong friend/actress Maxine and the seeds of 84, Charing Cross Road.

Even though she never becomes a wild success like the previous fellowship winners Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, she manages to secure a foothold and never gives up her dreams of becoming a playwright.

This book isn’t targeted to readers like my spouse or brother. Trust me there are plenty of books out there for the pair of them. It’s a book for the theater geeks, the early television geeks and the Helene Hanff fanboys/fangirls. It is a charming look at the last great days of the theater and movies before television took over. If you’re that certain type of reader, then hunt down Underfoot in Show Business. The inter-library loan (my book budget is very modest) is worth it.

Helene Hanff: 84, Charing Cross Road

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Looking at the hardcover of Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road, it’s hard to believe such a slight book spawned a cult, film adaptations and a stage production in both London and New York. It’s just under 100 pages long and nothing but LETTERS, some no more than a few scrawled lines.

But it’s what’s in the letters that’s made of invisible steel. From New York, there’s the brash, bossy Helene Hanff desperate to read/own great works. From London there’s the secondhand bookshop on Charing Cross Road filled with inexpensive treasures. And more than books cross the Atlantic. Helene gets a glimpse into the narrowness of everyday life in post war Britain and decides to do something even if it’s as small and simple as order a package of tinned foods and real eggs to be shared amongst the bookshop staff. The bookstaff gets a glimpse into the exotic sounding life of a writer living in far off New York City even if the writer’s days and nights are filled with cigarettes, gin and babysitting verus nightclubs and champagne. A true friendship develops that not even financial misfortune and death can break.

There are writers who can spend their lives trying to craft something glorious and meaningful. In a few handfuls of letters dashed off at moment’s notice during her everyday life, letters that anyone else might have thrown in the trash Helene Hanff had her masterpiece. Now try and read 84, Charing Cross Road and NOT become part of the cult.