Rebecca...and the Curious life of Daphne du Maurier

the opening line of rebecca is how a friend repeating the famous words encouraged me to read the book last night i dreamt i went to mandalay again published in 1938 rebecca was an instant success the initial print run of twenty thousand was quickly sold out this was daphne du maurier's fifth novel and made her a household name agedjust31 although some would say her family's fame may have influenced this outcome the du mauriers were a famous and wealthy family of actors and writers daphne's grandfather george demoria's gothic novel trilby introduced the now legendary character svengali to the canon her father gerald was a stage actor so well known that dumorius cigarettes are named after him last night i dreamt i went to mandalay again it seemed to me i stood by the iron gate leading to the drive and for a while i could not enter for the way was barred [Music] born in 1907 in regent's park london to actress muriel demoria nee beaumont and the highly successful actor manager sir gerald dumoria she was the second of three sisters and had a privileged upbringing in hampstead the family bought a holiday home in cornwall in the 1920s and that house ferry side at bottenic became daphne's favorite haunt and a place of solitude and inspiration that enabled her head start early in her writing career mainly home educated by governances daphne and her two sisters were extremely close bound together in a world of the imagination stories and fantasy she had a close relationship with her volatile father and her feelings were uneasy around her mother it was during family holidays at the dumoria country home in bodnik by that she developed a lifelong passion for cornwall an area which provided the backdrop for many of her stories [Music] [Music] daphne's father was devoted and affectionate but more so to daphne his longing for her son prompted her to dress like a boy cut her hair short and adopt an alter ego she named eric avon friends noticed that gerald was constantly tactile with his second daughter he couldn't keep his hands off her observed one of the neighbors the tennis star bunny austin it was quite embarrassing at times she found that such imaginative flights of fancy were met with encouragement from her theatrical family rather than being frowned upon upon reaching puberty however dumoria put eric aside she later referred to this repressed side of herself as the boy in the box [Music] [Music] when stage plays were performed daphne always played the male lead she embodied her masculine ego eric so much that by the age of 10 she decided she preferred life as eric she always played male dominated sports like cricket and rugby and dressed in male clothing what her father did not realize and this was much more serious was that daphne was convinced she was a boy wrote margaret forster in 1993. sometimes when she was alone she opened the lid of the boy in the box up and let the phantom who was neither boy or girl but disembodied spirit dance in the evening when there was no one to see this was a darker more violent side which she was determined to suppress part of this suppression was her sexuality she believed she was really a boy but had come into the world in the wrong body in public as an adult she did her best to keep this masculine side of herself [Music] hidden [Music] [Music] if only she'd been born a boy her father once lamented in a poem he wrote for her my very slender one so feminine and fair so fresh and sweet so full of fun and womanly deceit as she aged daphne told her friend michael thornton that she began to encourage inappropriate intimacies between her father and herself we crossed the line she admitted to him in 1965 and i allowed it he treated me like all the others as if i was an actress playing his love interest in one of his plays she didn't specify what she meant exactly by crossed the line explains michael but everyone thought there was something deeply odd about their relationship and incest became a recurrent theme in daphne's thoughts and conversation for the rest of her life [Music] in her teenage years daphne's attitude to her father changed dramatically when she became aware of his numerous affairs with young actresses her reaction was a mixture of jealousy and deep resentment at the portrayal of her mother one of gerald's many mistresses was the stage star gertrude lawrence to whom daphne was intensely hostile she hated her said bunny austin calling her that bloody [ __ ] in 1925 just before her 18th birthday she left england to attend finishing school at camposena a village outside of paris france in stark contrast to her comfortable family home her rooms at the school had no heat and no hot water but these inconveniences were bearable because she was a stone's throw from paris which allowed her to make frequent trips into the ancient city to soak up the history [Music] young daphne fell in love often and intensely aged 18 she began fantasizing in her diary about mademoiselle yvonne her dark-haired green-eyed 30-year-old unmarried headmistress she loved ferdi and was loved by her wrote foster that summer yvonne invited her young student with her on a weeks-long spa getaway in the south of france by august foster deducers they were lovers in every conceivable way by the school year's end mademoiselle yvonne was quietly fired and long gone clearly though dumoria's memory of her did not fade daphne doted on her sister angela who didn't share daphne's fine boned and slender frame she was curvaceous in a way that was unfashionable in the 1920s she had brown hair and brown eyes whereas daphne had blonde wavy hair and was blue eyed angela was three years older and at the age of 27 was quite desperate to get married one day she called daphne over to the window to look through her binoculars at the most attractive man going up and down the harbour daphne would later remember in myself when young [Music] [Music] the man was frederick browning it was daphne he proposed to three months later angela never married angela du maurier would eventually publish a dozen books though her work was widely panned by the critics she was so often unfavorably compared to daphne that she cheekily titled her memoir it's only the sister in 1932 when daphne was 25 frederick came sailing into fovi harbor in his boat igrazil to claim her as his bride meanwhile her father's doting attention had turned oppressive he was suspicious of any young man in whom she expressed an interest when he became aware how serious the couple were he broke down and wept it's not fair it's not fair he cried over and over [Music] two years later he died at the age of 61 from cancer of the colon afterwards daphne wrote an astonishingly candid biography of him revealing personal aspects of her father's character detailing his drinking and his frequent and extreme mood swings in which his veneer of charm quickly peeled away to nastiness and violence at menebili a life-size portrait of gerald dominated the staircase daphne sometimes stood in front of it gazing up at the likeness and murmuring gently to herself o d o d [Music] all three sisters had affairs with women throughout their lifetimes but while angela and jean the younger sister accepted their sexualities and lived their lives accordingly daphne could not she shared her father's oft expressed repugnance for homosexuals notes de rosnay still daphne was very often attracted to women which could become quite obsessive the hidden boy in the box was allowed out to see the light of day in 1947 when dumoria met and fell in love with ellen doubleday the wife of her u.s publisher her feelings however were not reciprocated but they opened up the gates for a later affair with gertrude lawrence the actress with whom her father had been involved and whom daphne had previously detested [Music] an avid reader from early childhood dimorio was especially fond of the works of walter scott w.m thackeray the bronte sisters and oscar wilde in america the book was and often still is considered to be a crude knockoff of jane eyre luckily the brontes were not around to sue but there were contemporary novelists who also saw uncanny similarities between their work and rebecca first was carolina nabuku the brazilian writer of a successor in 1941 she publicly accused demoria of stealing her story which centered on a dead first wife this time named alice the new york times book review wrote a lengthy scathing piece headlined the long arm of literary coincidence excoriating demoria so numerous other parallels it declared that one may find them on almost each page she knew everyone that mattered everyone loved her then like all dreamers i was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me another novel was titled blind windows by edwina macdonald who filed charges and daphne had to travel by ship to america to face legal action much like a successor and jane eyre ii the work features a young narrator who hastily marries a wealthy older man moves into his manner filled with servants and becomes increasingly jealous of his first wife here della but since no one could prove demoria ever read blind windows the case was thrown out by a new york [Music] court [Music] the drive wound away in front of me twisting and turning as it had always done but as i advanced i was aware that a change had come upon it nature had come into her own again and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers [Music] daphne's sexuality was complicated even for herself to understand the word transgender was not known until 1971 she didn't think her desire for women made her a lesbian and tried to resist her venetian tendencies heterosexual sex was known in the family even more exotically as going to cairo although she felt very much she should have been a male she was nevertheless determined to be a woman committed to staying married to her husband a little over a year into her marriage she gave birth to her first child a daughter named tessa daphne had hoped for a boy so the arrival of a girl was a source of disappointment in march 1936 dumoria sailed to alexandria egypt to join her husband at his new post this was a deeply unhappy period in her life she was not a typical army wife being very anti-social and she absolutely loathed egypt this coupled with profound homesickness hastened her decision to return to england in january 1937 the following year she wrote rebecca [Music] on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive and finally there was mandarin mandalay secretive and silent time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls one day as daphne was rummaging through some drawers in tommy's desk she found a bundle of letters tied up with ribbon after reading them she discovered he had been besotted with his former fiance jan ricardo who was later to become the model for rebecca the writing was flowing and confident unlike daphne's own spidery scrawl the letters gave her a sense of two people who had clearly been deeply in love but tommy's relationship with jan real name jeanette louisa ricardo was broken off by jan herself according to daphne in 1929 two announcements appeared in the times the first stated that the wedding of major f a m browning and miss jan ricardo will be postponed the second and final publication stated that the marriage ceremony had been cancelled [Music] it's a lovely room isn't it loveless room you've ever seen everything is kept just as mrs winter liked it nothing has been altered since that last night jan was dark head and beautiful with a reputation for wit and elegance after pouring over the entire bundle daphne became obsessed with the idea that her husband had been left devastated by the cancellation of their wedding why else would he have kept her letters for years afterwards jan's bold sloping handwriting caught daphne's imagination especially the curving capital letter r which hitchcock used to such effect to identify rebecca's personal possessions in his film on august the 4th 1944 jan ricardo committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a train she was only 39 and her baby daughter was only 2 years old six years earlier she had actually read rebecca and came to the realization that she was the model for maxime de winter's alluring and rather wicked first wife [Music] he was always giving her expensive gifts the whole year round i keep her underwear on this side she knew everyone that mattered everyone loved her rebecca made daphne internationally famous and also a very wealthy woman in 1943 she had last persuaded the rashlays an aristocratic cornish family to grant her a long lease on menebili an historic estate on the south coast of cornwall england at that stage the house was virtually derelict in whose ground she had trespassed for years having fallen in love with it she then proceeded to spend a great deal of money restoring the property an expense many considered frivolous given the wartime shortage of manpower and materials as well as the fact that she was only renting daphne ignored such comments and carried on with the restoration she remained at menebili for more than 25 years until she was forced to leave in 1969 when her landlord decided he wanted to live there instead demoria then settled nearby at kilmarth a seaside home in the village of par [Music] [Music] oh after the war when her husband returned home he and daphne were virtually strangers during his absence daphne had an affair with a heartfelt landowner henry christopher puxley while browning brought back from his travels a beautiful 23 year old staff officer maureen luschvitz whom daphne instantly believed and went on believing was her husband's mistress they remained married at least on paper back at menebili his alcoholism and erratic driving became a local scandal and he had both a mistress in fovea right under daphne's nose and two other girlfriends in london in 1965 he died suddenly collapsing in front of her from a blood clot that entered his heart [Music] [Music] oh at the age of 74 she suddenly found herself unable to write anymore i think the imagination gene in my brain must have died she told friend and confidante michael thornton a black depression followed for the first time in her life she wrote despairing letters that alarmed her friends because this was so unlike her her severe depressive illness grew worse in her final years and she began refusing food on sunday april the 16th 1989 after six weeks of virtually no food daphne by then a skeletal figure weighing just six stone insisted on braving the elements and travelled to pridemouth beach in lashing rain and wind to where rebecca's cottage had stood in her book [Music] [Music] [Applause] then daphne made a final visit to her beloved mena billy still mourning the loss of her house of secrets there could no longer be any doubt that she was willing and preparing herself for death the next morning on the 19th of april 1989 her nurse margaret robertson took in her breakfast at 8 30 am she found the light still on and daphne's eye shade still in place across her eyes she had died peacefully in her sleep she was cremated and her ashes were scattered at kill marth moonlight can play hard tricks upon the fancy and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows [Music] and then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face the illusion went with it i looked upon a desolate shell with no whisper of the past about its staring walls we can never go back to mandalay again her novels are left to us as storehouses in which he deposited emotions memories and fantasies their function was like a personal catharsis but also here for us to feel what she felt she left us emotional landscapes that can be entered at will if you've read rebecca you have no doubt in your mind wandered alongside daphne through the haunted rooms of mandalay do you think the dead come back and watch the living i don't believe it sometimes i wonder if she doesn't come back here to mandalay watch you and mr winter together you look tired why don't you stay here a while and rest listen to the sea so soothing listen to it well my friends i hope you enjoyed that presentation and i hope it was a great introduction for those who are not familiar with rebecca or daphne demoria and for those who are familiar i hope there was some information revealed that you didn't know about by the way the image on the screen is actually the image that i animated for the intro and the ending some of you may not know some of you might be just about to ask where is mandalay well mandalay doesn't exist this image i'm not sure whether it's milton hall and we'll get to that in a minute where rebecca visited as a childhood and this is probably the inspiration for mandalay or whether this image is from the set of rebecca it could be it could be even a wooden model i'm not really sure yes the the scenes that i included from rebecca of the ruined mandalay after the fire that looks very much like a wooden model uh perhaps somebody out there knows a little bit more so this is from a website called opera daily oprah daily however you would pronounce that and here we see that mandalay was inspired by dumoria's childhood visits to milton hall as a girl dumoria visited milton hall a georgian style mansion in cambridge and was struck by its stateliness according to her son dumario first conceived of rebecca's severe miss danvers while visiting mrs danvers i should say while visiting milton hall she saw this tall dark housekeeper woman they were always called missus even if they weren't married like mrs hudson and sherlock holmes anyway said da da da and that's where she first saw this terribly sinister looking lady i don't think she ever spoke to her it was just a look that sunk in yes i like that rebecca was also inspired by dumoria's own house in cornwall called many billiards we've already talked about and you've seen the images and now we'll have a look at milton hall and so here we have milton hall as explained on wikipedia and here we have the horde see we can enlarge that not by very much now but anyway there you go no higher resolution available all right well there you go that's what daphne du maurier that is the house that inspired mandalay well after that disappointing wikipedia image i didn't want you to feel cheated so i found a better image of milton hall on the internet and here it is a truly splendid house isn't that lovely oh i'd like to live there i couldn't imagine doing the the housework though i wouldn't mind doing the ride on mower bit that would be quite fun and here we have a sneak peek at the interior at least one of the rooms and here i still have rebecca actually this edition had already been out a few decades before i bought it this is the 1962 edition and i got this in the late 80s i'm not sure whether the friend that uh told me about it gave me this book or whether i got it from the local book shop it was called t's bookshop run by a lovely lady it was open for many decades i did hear some years ago that it had finally closed uh she was getting on in years but it was like a a crooked rickety rabbit warren of shelves and full of all these fantastic books i bought many books from that place over the years and i still have my rebecca so i definitely encourage you to read rebecca if you haven't already read it it's a fantastic book um yeah i can't praise it enough before i go i just thought i'd share with you this old photo from the 1800s showing my local haunt so here we see this building here on the left is the coach and horses hotel named back then the coach norses and is still the coaching horses today and across the road there where the where the trees are that's where t's bookshop was of course it's totally different back then there's hardly anything there it was quite built up in the 1980s so after i'd finished being a bookworm i would saunter across the road into the pub and have some drinks and get into brawls that was about my life that was the fun things happening in my life back then no no fond memories fond memories of those days some fond memories let's put it that way anyway my dear friends i'm going to head off now having a bit of a heat wave here oh my brain is tired didn't sleep well you know when it gets really hot had the air conditioning running but the unit's not big enough to to really infiltrate the whole apartment so i'm feeling a bit foggy today maybe better next time anyway i do hope you enjoyed my presentation about daphne demoria's life um yeah and until next time take care and god bless bye bye you

Channel: ObsoleteOddity

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Id: GWtXu3y2FYI

Length: 35min 17sec (2117 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023