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Elinor Glyn

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Elinor Glyn (Template:Née Sutherland; 17 October 1864 – 23 September 1943) was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction, which was considered scandalous for its time, although her works are relatively tame by modern standards. She popularized the concept of the "it girl", and had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and, possibly, on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and, especially, Clara Bow.

Early life and family backgroundEdit

Elinor Sutherland was born on 17 October 1864 in Saint Helier, Jersey, in the Channel Islands.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/> She was the younger daughter of Douglas Sutherland (1838–1865), a civil engineer of Scottish descent, and his wife Elinor Saunders (1841–1937), of an Anglo-French family that had settled in Canada.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/> Her father was said to be related to the Lords Duffus.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=anthony>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Page needed Anthony Glyn was her grandson.</ref>Template:Efn

Her father died when she was two months old; her mother returned to the parental home in Guelph, in what was then Upper Canada, British North America (now Ontario) with her two daughters.<ref name="therecord.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Here, young Elinor was taught by her grandmother, Lucy Anne Saunders (née Willcocks), daughter of Sir Richard Willcocks, a magistrate in the early Irish police force, who helped to suppress the Emmet Rising in 1803.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Richard's brother Joseph also settled in Upper Canada, publishing one of the first opposition papers there, pursuing liberty, and dying a rebel in 1814. The Anglo-Irish grandmother instructed young Elinor in the ways of upper-class society. This training not only gave her an entrée into aristocratic circles on her return to Europe, it also led to her reputation as an authority on style and breeding when she worked in Hollywood in the 1920s. Her grandfather on her mother's side, Thomas Saunders (1795–1873) was a direct descendant of the Saunders family who had possessed Pitchcott Manor in Buckinghamshire for several centuries.<ref>https://wcma.pastperfectonline.com/archive/45847070-1DE7-4124-896E-577334953500 Wellington County Archives: Saunders Family Papers</ref>

The family lived in Guelph for seven years at a stone home that still stands near the University of Guelph.<ref name="therecord.com"/> Glyn's mother remarried in 1871 to David Kennedy, and the family returned to Jersey when Glyn was about eight years old.<ref>Glyn, Anthony, Elinor Glyn: A Biography (Hutchinson, London, 1955), p. 35.</ref> Her subsequent education at her stepfather's house was by governesses.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/> Glyn's elder sister grew up to be Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, famous as a fashion designer under the name Lucile.

Life and careerEdit

Elinor married on 27 April 1892, at the age of 28. Her husband was Clayton Louis Glyn (13 July 1857 – 10 November 1915), a wealthy but spendthrift barrister and Essex landowner who was descended from Sir Richard Carr Glyn, an 18th-century Lord Mayor of London.<ref name=burkes>Template:Cite bookFamily history of Glyn Baronets. His wife is simply described as: "Elinor (d[ied] 23 Sep[tember] 1943), y[ounge]r dau[ghter] of Douglas Sutherland, of Toronto."</ref> The couple had two daughters, Margot and Juliet, but the marriage foundered on mutual incompatibility.Template:Citation needed

Glyn began writing in 1900, starting with Visits of Elizabeth, serialised in The World,<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/> a book based on letters to her mother, although Lady Angela Forbes claimed, in her memoirs, that Glyn used her as the prototype of Elizabeth.<ref>Lady Angela Forbes, Memories and Base Details (1921), p. 79</ref> As Glyn's husband fell into debt from around 1908, she wrote at least one novel a year to keep up her standard of living.Template:Citation needed

Her marriage was troubled, and Glyn began having affairs with various British aristocrats. Her novel Three Weeks, about a Balkan queen who seduces a young British aristocrat, was allegedly inspired by her affair with Lord Alistair Innes Ker, brother of the Duke of Roxburghe, sixteen years her junior, which scandalized Edwardian society.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/>

Around 1907, Glyn toured the United States, resulting in her book Elizabeth visits America (1909).<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/><ref name="google/books=LpI6AQAAMAAJ">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="gutenberg.org/11900">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Glyn had a long affair between circa 1907 and 1916 with Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India.<ref name=tigress>"Historic People: Montacute's Tigress: Elinor Glyn" BBC, 11 February 2009. Retrieved 15 March 2009.</ref>Template:Efn Society painter Philip de László painted her in 1912, when she was 48. Curzon is presumed to have commissioned it and had given Glyn the sapphires she wears in the portrait.<ref name=laszlo>Jssgallery.org Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 15 March 2008.</ref>Template:Efn In 1915, Curzon leased Montacute House, in South Somerset, for him and Glyn, now a widow as her husband had died that autumn at the age of 58 after several years of illness. Curzon asked Glyn to decorate Montacute House and with Glyn away from London, Curzon courted heiress Grace Duggan. Glyn learned of Curzon and Duggan's engagement from the morning papers and burnt 500 love letters in the bedroom fireplace, never speaking to Curzon again.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Glyn pioneered risqué, and sometimes erotic, romantic fiction aimed at a female readership, a radical idea for its time. In her novel The Man and the Moment (1914),<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn" /> she coined the use of the word it to mean a characteristic that "draws all others with magnetic force. With 'IT' you win all men if you are a woman–and all women if you are a man. 'IT' can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction."<ref>Elinor Glyn (1927) "It", Paramount Pictures</ref> Her use of the word is often erroneously taken to simply be a euphemism for sexuality or sex appeal.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

During World War I, Glyn became a war correspondent, working in France.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/> At the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, 28 June 1919, Glyn was one of only two women present.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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After the war, Glyn went to Hollywood, for the filming of her novel The Great Moment.<ref name="online-literature/elinor-glyn"/><ref name="Elinor Glyn Biography"/> In 1919, she signed a contract with William Randolph Hearst's International Magazine Company to write stories and articles that included a clause for the motion picture rights.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She was brought over from England to write screenplays by the Famous Players–Lasky production company.<ref name="Elinor Glynn Facts">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She wrote for Cosmopolitan and other Hearst press titles, advising women on how to keep their men and imparting health and beauty tips. The Elinor Glyn System of Writing (1922) gives insights into writing for Hollywood studios and magazine editors of the time.<ref name="Weedon">Weedon, Alexis, "Elinor Glyn's System of Writing", Publishing History, vol. 60, pp. 31–50, 2006.</ref>

Glyn was one of the most famous women screenwriters in the 1920s. She has 28 story or screenwriting credits, three producing credits, and two credits for directing.<ref name="Elinor Glyn Biography">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Her first script was called The Great Moment and starred Gloria Swanson.

Glyn was responsible for many screenplays in the 1920s, including Six Hours (1923) and the film version of her novel Three Weeks (1924).<ref name="Elinor Glyn Biography"/> Other films she wrote were His Hour (1924), directed by King Vidor; Love's Blindness (1926), about a marriage that is done strictly for financial reasons; Man and Maid (1925), about a man who must choose between two women; The Only Thing (1925); and Ritzy (1927). Three screenplays based on Glyn's novels and a story in the mid to late twenties, Man and Maid, The Only Thing, and Ritzy, did not do well at the box office, despite the success Glyn gained with her first project, The Great Moment, which was in the same genre.<ref name="Elinor Glyn Biography"/> In 1929 she wrote her first non-silent film, Such Men Are Dangerous, her last film writing in the United States.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Apart from being a scriptwriter for the silent movie industry, working for both MGM and Paramount Pictures in Hollywood in the mid-1920s, she had a brief career as one of the earliest female directors.<ref name="Barnett">Barnett, Vincent L., "Picturization partners: Elinor Glyn and the Thalberg contract affair", Film History, vol. 19, no. 3, 2007.</ref> In addition to being credited as an author, adapter, and co-producer on the 1927 film adaptation of It, she also made a cameo appearance.<ref name="Elinor Glynn Facts" />

File:Sam Woods anf Elinor Glyn titling “Beyond the Rocks”.jpg
Publicity photo of Sam Woods and Elinor Glyn writing the titles for the film “Beyond the Rocks”

Glyn is credited with the re-styling of Gloria Swanson from giggly starlet to elegant star. The duo connected again when Beyond the Rocks was made into a silent film that was released in 1922. The Sam Wood–directed film stars Swanson and Rudolph Valentino as a romantic pair. In 1927, Glyn helped to make a star of actress Clara Bow, for whom she coined the sobriquet "the It girl." In 1928, Bow also starred in Red Hair, which was based on Glyn's 1905 novel of the same name.<ref name="gutenberg/17821">Template:Cite book</ref> The film was a comedy vehicle to demonstrate the supposed passion of red-haired people.<ref>source?</ref>

Glyn returned home to England in 1929 in part because of tax demands. With her return she set out to form her own production company, Elinor Glyn Ltd. Her family had established a company in 1924, Elinor Glyn Ltd, to which she signed her copyrights, receiving an income from the firm and an annuity in later life. The firm was an early pioneer of cross-media branding.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After she started the company, she began working as a film director as well. Paying out of her own pocket, she directed Knowing Men in 1930, which showed a more traditionalist view of men as sexual harassers. The project was a disaster, and the screenwriter Edward Knoblock sued Glyn so that the work could not be released. Elinor Glyn Ltd produced a second film in 1930, The Price of Things, which was also unsuccessful and was never released in the US. As her company failed and she exhausted her finances, Glyn decided to retire from film work and instead focus on her first passion, writing novels.<ref name="Elinor Glynn Facts"/>

DeathEdit

After a short illness, Glyn died on 23 September 1943, at 39 Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London, aged 78,<ref name=odnb>Template:Cite book</ref> and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. Her ashes lie above the door to the Jewish Shrine at the west end of the columbarium.

DescendantsEdit

References in popular cultureEdit

Template:In popular culture

Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err with her
On some other fur?
  • In his autobiography, Mark Twain describes the time he met Glyn, when they had a wide-ranging and frank discussion of "nature's laws" and other matters not "to be repeated," which Glyn published.<ref name="twainquotes/ElinorGlynInterview">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • She occasionally cited herself in the third person in her own books, as in Man and Maid (1922), when she has a character refer to "that 'ItTemplate:'" as something "Elinor Glyn writes of in her books".<ref>Glyn, Elinor (1922), Man and Maid, Philadelphia: Lippincott, p. 125 Template:Worldcat.</ref>
  • In the 1923 film The Ten Commandments, one title card says: "Nobody believes in these Commandment things nowadays—and I think Elinor Glyn's a lot more interesting."
  • In the 1925 film Stella Dallas, at around 1 hour and 2 minutes into the film, the following title appears: "For a woman with all her money she's got rotten taste in books. And me dying for Elinor Glyn's latest!"
  • In S. J. Perelman's series of pieces Cloudland Revisited, as a middle-aged man, he re-reads and describes the risqué novels that had thrilled him as a youth. The essay "Tuberoses and Tigers" deals with Glyn's Three Weeks. Perelman described it as "servant-girl literature", and called Glyn's style "marshmallow". He also mentions a film version of the book made by Samuel Goldwyn in 1924, in which Aileen Pringle starred. Perelman recalled Goldwyn's "seductive" image of Pringle "lolling on a tiger skin."<ref>Perelman, S. J. (1949), Listen to the Mocking Bird, pp. 70–78, London: Reinhardt and Evans Template:Worldcat.</ref>
  • The Sigmund Romberg comic song "It" with lyrics by Edward Smith is featured in his popular operetta The Desert Song (1926).
  • Glyn is also mentioned in a 1927 Lorenz Hart song "My Heart Stood Still," from One Damn Thing After Another:
I read my Plato
Love, I thought a sin
But since your kiss
I'm reading missus Glyn!
  • In Evelyn Waugh's 1952 novel Men at Arms (the first of the Sword of Honour trilogy), an (RAF) Air Marshal recites the poem (above) upon spotting a polar bear rug by the fire in a London club, of which he has just wangled membership (p. 125). To this, another member responds, "Who the hell is Elinor Glyn?" The Air Marshal replies, "Oh, just a name, you know, put in to make it rhyme." This was both a snub to the Air Marshal and a literary snubbing of Glyn by Waugh.
  • In Stanley Donen's 1954 biopic about Romberg, Deep in My Heart, the musical number "It" from the Artists and Models (revue) segment features dancer Ann Miller singing about Elinor Glyn and Sigmund Freud.
  • In the 1962 film version of Meredith Willson's musical The Music Man, Marian Paroo the librarian asks the prudish Mrs. Shinn, the mayor's wife, if she would not rather have her daughter reading the classic Persian poetry of Omar Khayyam than Elinor Glyn, to which Mrs Shinn replies: "What Elinor Glyn reads is her mother's problem!"
  • In Upstairs, Downstairs, after Elizabeth Bellamy's disastrous marriage, she meets a new lover, the social-climber Julius Karekin. After a passionate night, he sleeps while she reads part of Chapter XI of Three Weeks aloud.
  • In the 2001 film The Cat's Meow, Elinor Glyn, played by Joanna Lumley, is one of the guests aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht on the fateful weekend Thomas Ince died. Lumley, as Glyn, provides voice-over narration at the beginning and end of the film.
  • In season five, episode three of Downton Abbey (set in 1924), the character Tom Branson refers to the scandalous nature of Elinor Glyn's novels.
  • In Chapter 2 of The Women by Hilton Als (1996), which discusses Dorothy Dean, Als juxtaposes Dean with Glyn. Als writes, "This perceived antagonism with heterosexual men provided Dean with the resistance she needed to argue against her conventional fantasy of being someone's girlfriend, someone's Lady Glyn."

Selected writingsEdit

File:Three Thing by Elinor Glyn - book cover.jpg
Cover of the 1915 edition of Three Things
Elizabeth series
  1. The Visits of Elizabeth (1900)
  2. Elizabeth Visits America (1909)<ref name="google/books=LpI6AQAAMAAJ"/><ref name="gutenberg.org/11900"/>
Three Weeks series
  1. Three Weeks (1907)
  2. One Day (1909) (unauthorized sequel by an anonymous author)
  3. High Noon (1910) (unauthorized sequel by an anonymous author)
The Price of Things series
  1. The Price of Things (1919), a.k.a. Family
  2. Glorious Flames (1932)
Single novels
  • The Reflections of Ambrosine (1902), a.k.a. The Seventh Commandment
  • The Damsel and the Sage (1903)
  • The Vicissitudes of Evangeline (1905), a.k.a. Red Hair
  • Beyond the Rocks (1906)
  • When the Hour Came (1910), a.k.a. His Hour, a.k.a. When His Hour Came
  • The Reason Why (1911)
  • Halcyone (1912) a.k.a. Love Itself
  • The Sequence (1913) a.k.a. Guinevere's Lover
  • The Point of View (1913)<ref name="gutenberg/5310">Template:Cite book</ref>
  • The Man and the Moment (1914)
  • Letters to Caroline (1914) a.k.a. Your Affectionate Godmother
  • The Career of Katherine Bush (1916)
  • Man and Maid (1922)
  • The Great Moment (1923)
  • Six Days (1924)
  • Love's Blindness (1926)
  • Knowing Men (1930)
  • The Flirt and the Flapper (1930)
  • Love's Hour (1932)
  • Sooner or Later (1933)
  • Did She? (1934)
  • The Third Eye (1940)
Story collections
  • The Contrast and Other Stories (1913)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • "It" and Other Stories (1927)<ref name="google/books=cksuAAAAIAAJ">Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Saint or Satyr? and Other Stories (1933) as Such Men Are Dangerous
Non-fiction
  • The Sayings of Grandmamma and Others (1908)
  • Three Things (1915)
  • Destruction (1918)
  • The Elinor Glyn System of Writing volumes 1,2,3,4 (1922)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • The Philosophy of Love (1923), a.k.a. Love – what I think of It
  • Letters from Spain (1924)
  • This Passion Called Love (1925)
  • The Wrinkle Book, Or, How to Keep Looking Young (1927), a.k.a. Eternal Youth
  • The Flirt and the Flapper (1930)
  • Romantic Adventure. Being the Autobiography of Elinor Glyn (1936)

FilmographyEdit

ScreenwriterEdit

DirectorEdit

NotesEdit

Template:Notelist

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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Portraits

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