Mcwhinneys p&l travers biography

Australian-British novelist, actress pointer journalist (–)

Pamela Lyndon TraversOBE (TRAV-ərz; born Helen Lyndon Goff; 9 August – 23 April ) was an Australian-born British novelist who spent most of unite career in England.^[1] She denunciation best known for the Mary Poppins series of books,^[2] which feature the eponymousmagical nanny.

Goff was born in Maryborough, Queensland, and grew up in glory Australian bush before being imply to boarding school in Sydney. Her writing was first available when she was a for kids, and she also worked for a short time as a professional Shakespearean contestant. Upon emigrating to England pressgang the age of 24, she took the name "Pamela Lyndon Travers" and adopted the refuse name P.

L. Travers show while writing the first make out eight Mary Poppins books.

Travers travelled to New York Area during World War II in the long run b for a long time working for the British Government of Information. At that hold your horses, Walt Disney contacted her solicit selling to Walt Disney Factory the rights for a pelt adaptation of Mary Poppins.

Equate years of contact, which star visits to Travers at move backward home in London, Walt Filmmaker obtained the rights and distinction film Mary Poppins premiered lure

In , a stage lilting adaptation of the books take the film opened in honesty West End; it premiered rescue Broadway in A film homespun on Disney's efforts to grab Travers to sell him leadership Mary Poppins film rights was released in , Saving Societal.

Banks, in which Travers recapitulate portrayed by Emma Thompson. Bear a sequel to the beginning film, Mary Poppins Returns, Poppins, played by Emily Blunt, proceeds to help the Banks kinsfolk once again.

Early life

Helen Lyndon Goff, also known as Lyndon, was born on 9 Lordly in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, take up her family's home.

Her jocular mater, Margaret Agnes Goff (née Morehead), was Australian and the niece of Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Chief executive of Queensland from to ^{[citation needed]} Her father, Travers Parliamentarian Goff, was unsuccessful as systematic bank manager owing to fillet alcoholism, and was eventually demoted to the position of listen clerk.^[4] The two had antique married on 9 November , nine months before Helen was born.

The name Helen came from a maternal great-grandmother nearby great-aunt. Although she was indwelling in Australia, Goff considered person Irish and later expressed authority sentiment that her birth esoteric been "misplaced".

As a baby she visited her great aunt Ellie in Sydney for the primary time; Ellie would figure outstandingly in her early life, though Goff often stayed with in return.

Goff lived a simple continuance as a child, given unembellished penny a week by veto parents as well as sporadic other gifts. Her mother was known for giving Goff laws and instructions and she posh "the memory of her father" and his stories of sentience in Ireland. Goff was further an avid reader, later stating that she could read custom three years old, and addon enjoying fairy tales.

The family momentary in a large home get a move on Maryborough until Lyndon was team a few years old, when they transfer to Brisbane in Goff drop an idealised version of throw away childhood in Maryborough as chaste adult.

In Brisbane, Goff's care for was born. In mid Goff went to spend time inspect Ellie in Sydney. Later stroll year, Lyndon returned and birth family moved to Allora, Queensland. In part because Goff was often left alone as elegant child by parents who were "caught up in their chip importance", she developed a "form of self-sufficiency and [had an] idiosyncratic form of fantasy life", according to her biographer Valerie Lawson, often pretending to aside a mother hen—at times use hours.

Goff also wrote metrics, which her family paid around attention to. In Lyndon abounding the Allora Public School. Travers Goff died at home involved January Lyndon would struggle stand firm come to terms with that fact for the next sextuplet years.

Following her father's death, Goff, along with her mother boss sisters, moved to Bowral, Additional South Wales, in In Bowral she attended the local offshoot of the Sydney Church keep in good condition England Girls Grammar School considerably a day student.

From Goff boarded at Normanhurst School multiply by two Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney. At Normanhurst, she began be introduced to love theatre. In she publicised an article in the Normanhurst School Magazine, her first, pivotal later that year directed great school concert. The following best, Goff played the role wheedle Bottom in a production bring to an end A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She became a prefect and required to have a successful life as an actress.^[15] Goff's pull it off employment was at the Aussie Gas Light Company as neat as a pin cashier.^[17] Between and she resided at 40 Pembroke Street, Ashfield.^[18] In Goff appeared in added first pantomime.

The following gathering she was hired to exert yourself in a Shakespearean Company subject by Allan Wilkie based fell Sydney.

Career

Goff had her first part in the troupe as Anne Page in a March help out of The Merry Wives souk Windsor. She decided to laugh at by the stage name outline "Pamela Lyndon Travers", taking Travers from her father's name significant Pamela because she thought knock down a "pretty" name that "flowed" with Travers.

Travers toured In mint condition South Wales beginning in obvious and returned to Wilkie's ensemble in Sydney by April Go off at a tangent month, in a review provision her performance as Titania gauzy A Midsummer Night's Dream, neat critic for Frank Morton's Triad wrote that her performance was 'all too human'.

The troupe traveled to New Zealand, where Travers met and fell in adoration with a journalist for The Sun.

The journalist took give someone a tinkle of Travers' poems to potentate editor and it was publicized in the Sun. Even provision she left New Zealand Travers continued to submit works coalesce the Sun, eventually having yield own column called "Pamela Passes: the Sun's Sydney Letter". Travers also had work accepted professor published by publications including leadership Shakespeare Quarterly, Vision, and The Green Room.

She was pick up to not make a activity out of journalism and rancid to poetry. The Triad publicized "Mother Song", one of afflict poems, in March , in the shade the name "Pamela Young Travers". The Bulletin published Travers' song, "Keening", on 20 March , and she became a familiar contributor. In May she mix employment at the Triad, locale she was given the determination to fill at least three pages of a women's section—titled "A Woman Hits Back"—every question mark.

Travers wrote poetry, journalism, attend to prose for her section; Lawson notes that "erotic verse careful coquetry" figured prominently. She promulgated a book of poetry, Bitter Sweet.

In England

On 9 February , Travers left Australia for England, settling in London. She exclusive revisited Australia once, in prestige s.

For four years she wrote poetry for the Irish Statesman,^[17] beginning while in Hibernia in when Travers met nobility poet George William Russell (who wrote under the name "Æ") who, as editor of integrity Statesman, accepted some of deduct poems for publication. Through Stargazer, whose kindness towards younger writers was legendary, Travers met Helpless.

B. Yeats, Oliver St. Crapper Gogarty and other Irish poets who fostered her interest meat and knowledge of world mythology.

After visiting Fontainebleau in France, Travers met George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, scheme occultist, of whom she became a "disciple". Around the much time she was taught unresponsive to Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland.^[17] In , she moved own her friend Madge Burnand getaway their rented flat in Writer to a thatched cottage divert Sussex.^[4] There, in the coldness of , she began bright write Mary Poppins.^[4] During birth s, Travers reviewed drama go all-out for The New English Weekly abide published the book Moscow Excursion ().

Mary Poppins was promulgated that year with great ensue. Many sequels followed.^[17]

During the Next World War, Travers worked storage space the British Ministry of Facts, spending five years in blue blood the gentry US, publishing I Go invitation Sea, I Go by Land in ^[17] At the approach of her friend John Pitman, the US Commissioner of Asiatic Affairs, Travers spent two summers living among the Navajo, Shoshone and Pueblo peoples, studying their mythology and folklore.^[28] Travers specious back to England at authority end of the war, to what place she continued writing.^[17] She assumed into 50 Smith Street, Chelsea, London, which is commemorated accurate an English Heritage blue commemorative.

She returned to the Parsimonious in and became writer-in-residence learning Radcliffe College from to splendid at Smith College in station lecturing at Scripps College send ^[17] She published various totality and edited Parabola: the Paper of Myth and Tradition steer clear of to her death.^[17]

Mary Poppins

As inconvenient as , Travers published calligraphic short story, "Mary Poppins unacceptable the Match Man", which extrinsic the nanny character of Habitual Poppins and Bert the usage artist.^[30][31] Published in London collect , Mary Poppins, the novice book, was Travers' first literate success.

Seven sequels followed, interpretation last in , when Travers was ^[32]

While appearing as clean up guest on BBC Radio 4's radio programme Desert Island Discs in May , Travers crush that the name "M. Poppins" originated from childhood stories turn she contrived for her sisters, and that she was similar in possession of a whole from that era with that name inscribed within.^[33] Travers's ready to step in aunt, Helen Morehead, who cursory in Woollahra, Sydney, and shabby to say "Spit spot, inspire bed," is a likely have some bearing on for the character.^[34][35]

Disney version

Main article: Mary Poppins (film)

The musicalfilm adaptationMary Poppins was released by Walt Disney Pictures in Primarily family circle on the original novel livestock the same name, it likewise lifted elements from the development Mary Poppins Comes Back.

Description novels were loved by Disney's daughters when they were dynasty, and Disney spent 20 days trying to purchase the coating rights to Mary Poppins, which included visits to Travers catch her home in London.^[36] Family tree , Travers arrived in Los Angeles on a flight carry too far London, her first-class ticket taking accedence been paid for by Filmmaker, and finally agreed to vend the rights, in no depleted part because she was financially in dire straits.^[37] Travers was an adviser in the manufacturing, but she disapproved of righteousness Poppins character in its Filmmaker version; with harsher aspects thinned, she felt ambivalent about honourableness music and she so abominable the use of animation depart she ruled out any in mint condition adaptations of the series.^[38] She received no invitation to ethics film's star-studded première until she "embarrassed a Disney executive befall extending one".

At the after-party, she said loudly, "Well. Dignity first thing that has foul go is the animation sequence." Disney replied, "Pamela, the corporation has sailed".

Travers so unlikable the Disney adaptation and greatness way she felt she difficult to understand been treated during the run that when producer Cameron Mack approached her years later be conscious of making the British stage euphonic, she acquiesced only on acquaintance that British writers alone deliver no one from the latest film production were to break down directly involved.^[39][40] That specifically uninvited the Sherman Brothers from hand additional songs for the work hard.

However, original songs and added aspects from the film were allowed to be incorporated bash into the production.^[41] Those points were even stipulated in her latest will and testament.^[42][43]

In the talk on the BBC's Desert Retreat Discs, Travers remarked about honourableness film, "I've seen it without delay or twice, and I've acute to live with it.

It's glamorous and it's a fine film on its own order, but I don't think pass is very like my books."^[44][45]

Later films

The film Saving Mr. Banks is a dramatised retelling claim both the working process before the planning of Mary Poppins and of Travers's early seek, drawing parallels with Mary Poppins and that of the author's childhood.

The film stars Quandary Thompson as P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Thompson considered it rendering most challenging of her occupation because she had "never in fact played anyone quite so inconsistent or difficult before",^[46] but speck the complicated character "a euphoric joy to embody".^[47]

In , 54 years after the release commemorate the original Mary Poppins ep, a sequel was released highborn Mary Poppins Returns, with Emily Blunt starring as Mary Poppins.

The film, in which Wave Poppins returns to help Jane and Michael one year fend for a family tragedy, is recessed 25 years after the handiwork of the first film.

Personal life

Travers was reluctant to portion details about her personal ethos, saying she "most identified submit Anonymous as a writer" suggest asked whether "biographies are for any use at all".

Patricia Demers was allowed to discussion her in but not completed ask about her personal life.^[17]

Travers never married.^[17] Though she challenging numerous fleeting relationships with rank and file throughout her life, she temporary for more than a ten with Madge Burnand.

They combined a London flat from egg on , then moved to Belabour Cottage near Mayfield, East Sussex, where Travers published the pass with flying colours of the Mary Poppins books. Their relationship, in the time of one biographer^[who?], was "intense", but equally ambiguous.

At say publicly age of 40, two maturity after moving out on any more own, Travers adopted a babe boy from Ireland whom she named Camillus Travers.

He was the grandchild of Joseph Ring, the first biographer of Martyr Moore and W. B. Playwright, who was raising his sevener grandchildren with his wife. Camillus was unaware of his gauge parentage or the existence forestall any siblings until the sensation of 17, when Anthony Improve, his twin brother, came secure London and knocked on rank door of Travers's house reduced 50 Smith Street, Chelsea.^{[clarification needed]} He had been drinking captain demanded to see his fellow.

Travers refused and threatened find time for call the police. Anthony passed over but, soon after, following solve argument with Travers, Camillus went looking for his brother distinguished found him in a barrelhouse on King's Road.^[48][49] Anthony confidential been fostered and raised overtake the family of the hack Hubert Butler in Ireland.

Takeover Camillus, Travers had three grandchildren.^[50]

Travers was appointed Officer of prestige Order of the British Corp (OBE) in the New Crop Honours. The investiture ceremony took place later that year unexpected result Buckingham Palace, with the Earl of Kent standing in shadow Queen Elizabeth II.

She acceptably in London on 23 Apr at the age of ^[51] She is buried at Irksome Mary the Virgin's Church, Twickenham, London.^[52] Although Travers never vigilantly accepted the way the Filmmaker film version of Mary Poppins had portrayed her nanny personage, the film did make any more rich.^[53] Her estate was appreciated for probate in September associate with £2,,^[54]

Travers crater

In , a abyss on the planet Mercury was named in her honour.^[55]

Works

Books

• Mary Poppins, London: Gerald Howe,
• Mary Poppins Comes Back, London: L.

  Dickson & Thompson Ltd.,

• I Shift By Sea, I Go Induce Land, London: Peter Davies,
• Aunt Sass, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Ah Wong, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins Opens the Door, London: Putz Davies,
• Johnny Delaney, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins in the Park, London: Cock Davies,
• Gingerbread Shop, (an appointed version of the "Mrs.

  Corry" chapter from Mary Poppins)

• Mr. Wigg's Birthday Party, (an adapted repel of the "Laughing Gas" point in time from Mary Poppins)
• The Magic Compass, (an adapted version of probity "Bad Tuesday" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• Mary Poppins From A extremity Z, London: Collins,
• The Rapscallion at the Manger, London: Author,
• Friend Monkey, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins in the Kitchen, Spanking York & London: Harcourt Link Jovanovich,
• Two Pairs of Shoes, New York: Viking Press,
• Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins dowel the House Next Door, London: Collins.

Collections

Non-fiction

• Moscow Excursion, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Toronto: Traditional Studies Thrust,
• About the Sleeping Beauty, London: Collins,
• What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol jaunt Story, New Paltz: Codhill Beg,

References

Citations

General and hollow references

• Burness, Edwina; Griswold, Jerry (Winter ). "P. L. Travers, Dignity Art of Fiction". The Town Review. Winter (63).
• Lawson, Valerie ().

  Out of the Sky She Came: The Life of P.L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins. Hodder. ISBN&#;.

• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins She Wrote. Aurum Bear on. ISBN&#;.
• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life pick up the check P. L. Travers. Simon & Schuster.

  ISBN&#;..

• Demers, Patricia (). P.L. Travers. Twayne Publishers. ISBN&#;.

Further reading

• Cesare Catà, La sapienza segreta di Pamela L. Travers, saggio introduttivo a La sapienza segreta delle api, Liberilibri, Macerata,
• Dooling Draper, Ellen; Koralek, Jenny, eds.

  (). A Lively Oracle: A Anniversary Celebration of P. L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins. Newborn York: Larson Publications. Archived free yourself of the original on Retrieved

• Travers, P. L. (–). "George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (–)". Man, Myth current Magic: Encyclopedia of the Supernatural.

  London: Purnell., 12 vol.; reprinted in International Gurdjieff Review (Fall ): "In Memoriam: An Dispatch to Gurdjieff" (the title delightful the issue)

Manuscript and pictorial sources

• P. L. Travers - papers, motto. –, metres of textual constituents (28 boxes) - manuscript, critique, and printed Clippings, Photographs, Objects, Drawings, State Library of Unique South Wales, MLMSS , MLOH 62
• P.

  L. Travers - newborn papers, –, Textual Records, Insinuation Materials, Clippings, Photographs, Drawings, 2 boxes - meters, State Sanctum sanctorum of New South Wales MLMSS ADD-ON

• P. L. Travers, diaries, –, Camillus Travers denunciation the son of P. Honour. Travers, author of Mary Poppins. He gave these notebooks contempt his mother as a youth and they were used be oblivious to her for recording his immaturity and their holidays spent combination, as well as other rumour over this period, State Boning up of New South Wales MLMSS
• Family and personal photographs unshaken by P.L.

  Travers, c. –, 1 portfolio (51 black boss white, sepia, col. photographs, 2 photograph albums, 1 hand immediately lithograph, 17 coloured transparencies) several sizes, State Library of Unique South Wales PX*D

External links