This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life was an American reality documentary series broadcast on NBC radio from 1948 to 1952, on NBC television from 1952 to 1961. It was hosted by its creator and producer Ralph Edwards. In the program, the host would surprise guests and take them through a retrospective of their lives in front of an audience, including appearances by colleagues and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971–1972, Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005; the idea for This Is Your Life arose while Edwards was working on Consequences. He had been asked by the U. S. Army to "do something" for paraplegic soldiers at Birmingham General Hospital, a California Army rehabilitation hospital in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. Edwards chose a "particularly despondent young soldier and hit on the idea of presenting his life on the air, in order to integrate the wreckage of the present with his happier past and the promise of a hopeful future."
Edwards received such positive public feedback from the "capsule narrative" of the soldier he gave on Truth or Consequences that he developed This Is Your Life as a new radio show. In the show, Edwards would surprise each guest by narrating a biography of the subject; the show "alternated in presenting the life stories of entertainment personalities and'ordinary' people who had contributed in some way to their communities." The host, consulting his "red book", would narrate while presenting the subject with family members and others who had affected his or her life. By the 1950s, the show was aired live before a theater audience; the guests were confronted by the microphone and cameras. Planning for the broadcast meant. For example, Eddie Cantor had a heart condition, so the show's producers made sure that he was not surprised; some celebrities were unpleasantly surprised. Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy was angered by being "tricked" into what would be the team's only American television appearance, on December 1, 1954.
Laurel said, "Oliver Hardy and I were always planning to do something on TV. But we never dreamed that we would make our television debut on an unrehearsed network program... I was damned if I was going to put on a free show for them." In 1993, Angie Dickinson refused to appear on a retrospective show. One of the show's subjects was a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. During the episode Edwards introduced Tanimoto to Robert A. Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Hanna Bloch Kohner, a Holocaust survivor, was a subject on May 27, 1953. In February 1953, Lillian Roth, a "topflight torch singer of the Prohibition era" was the subject of the show, "cheerfully admit that she had been a hopeless drunk for 16 years before being rescued by Alcoholics Anonymous." Edwards described Roth's condition as "impending blindness, an inflamed sinus and a form of alcoholic insanity" and brought on a psychiatrist who had treated her, a brother-in-law "who had paid her bills" and several "glamorous foul-weather friends" such as Lita Grey Chaplin and Ruby Keeler.
Roth's story became the basis of her 1954 autobiography and 1955 film adaption, I'll Cry Tomorrow, with Edwards appearing as himself. Kate Newcomb, a doctor who practiced in a "70-mile circle" around Woodruff, was the subject of a 1954 episode, bringing attention to her "million pennies" drive to raise funds for a small community hospital; the New York Times reported on September 1, 1955 that the Sixth United States Army requested a kinescope of the April 27 episode which honored World War II and Korean War General Mark Clark. The request stated, "We believe that showing of such a program would contribute materially toward the objectives of troop information, since it would create appreciation of the career of an outstanding military leader and further better understanding of certain highlights in the recent history of the Army."According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946–Present, one celebrity, forbidden was Edwards himself, who threatened to fire every member of his staff if they tried to turn the tables on him and publicly present Edwards' own life.
This Is Your Life was nominated three times for as "Best Audience Participation, Quiz or Panel Program" at the Emmy Awards, losing in 1953 at the 5th Emmy Awards to What's My Line? and sharing the category's award with What's My Line? at the Emmys in 1954 and 1955. It fared well in the ratings during the 1950s, finishing at #11 in 1953–1954, #12 in 1954–1955, #26 in 1955–1956, #19 in 1957–1958 and #29 in 1958–1959. By October 1960, Time magazine was calling This Is Your Life "the most sickeningly sentimental show on the air"; the episode on Hahn was cited as an example of the limited research that the show was doing on its guests. The show had presented Hahn as "devoted to her husband and so dedicated to her children that she had worked as a chambermaid and cook to further their education and keep them off the streets", ignoring details such as that Hahn, on the advice of her rabbi, had brought her daughter into a magistrate's court as a delinquent, that before the episode was broadcast, Hahn's husband had sued her for divorce.
Virginia Graham, in her autobiography, noted that the show had
Helen Shapiro
Helen Kate Shapiro is an English pop singer, jazz singer and actress. She is best known for her two 1961 UK chart toppers, "You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness" both recorded when she was just fourteen years old. Shapiro was born at Bethnal Green Hospital in the East End district of London, her early childhood was spent in a Clapton council flat in the London borough of Hackney, where she attended Northwold Primary School and Clapton Park Comprehensive School until Christmas 1961. She is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants; the family moved from Clapton to the Victoria Park area of Hackney, on the Parkside Estate, when she was nine. "It was, remains, a beautiful place," she said in a 2006 interview. Although too poor to own a record player, Shapiro's parents encouraged music in their home. Shapiro played banjolele as a child and sang with her brother Ron in his youth club skiffle group, she had a deep timbre to her voice, unusual in a girl not yet in her teens: school friends gave her the nickname "Foghorn".
Aged ten, Shapiro was a singer with "Susie and the Hula Hoops," a school band which included Marc Bolan as guitarist. At 13 she started singing lessons at The Maurice Burman School of Modern Pop Singing, based in London's Baker Street, after the school produced singing star Alma Cogan. "I had always wanted to be a singer. I had no desire to slavishly follow Alma's style, but chose the school because of Alma's success", she said in a 1962 interview. Burman's connections led her to a young Columbia Records A&R man named John Schroeder, who recorded a demo of Shapiro singing "Birth of the Blues". In 1961, aged fourteen, she had a UK No. 3 hit with her first single, "Don't Treat Me Like a Child" and two number one hits in the UK, "You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness". The latter did not top the UK chart until 19 October 1961, by which time Shapiro had reached 15. Both singles sold over a million copies, her next single release, "Tell Me What He Said", peaked at No. 2, achieving her first four single releases in the top three of the UK Singles Chart.
Most of her recording sessions were at EMI's studios at Abbey Road in north west London. Her mature voice made her an overnight sensation, as well as the youngest female chart topper in the UK. Shapiro's final UK Top Ten hit single was with the ballad "Little Miss Lonely", which peaked at No. 8 for two weeks in 1962. Shapiro's recording manager at the time was Norrie Paramor. Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britain's "Top Female Singer"; the Beatles first national tour of Britain, in the late winter/early spring of 1963, was as one of her supporting acts. During the course of the tour, the Beatles had their first hit single and John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the song "Misery" for her, but Shapiro did not record the composition. In 1995, during a This Is Your Life highlighting her life and career, Shapiro revealed, "It was turned down on my behalf before I heard it, actually. I never got to give an opinion. It's a shame, really." Shapiro lip-synched her then-current single, "Look Who It Is", on the British television programme Ready Steady Go! with three of the Beatles.
In 1962, Shapiro appeared as herself in the Billy Fury film Play It Cool, played the lead female role in Richard Lester's movie, It's Trad, Dad!, which co-starred another early 60s hitmaker, Craig Douglas. On 31 December 1969, Shapiro appeared on the BBC/ZDF co-production Pop Go The Sixties, singing "Walkin' Back to Happiness". By the time she was in her late teens, her career as a pop singer was on the wane. With the new wave of beat music and newer female singers such as Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Lulu, Shapiro appeared old-fashioned and emblematic of the pre-Beatles, 50s era; as her pop career declined, Shapiro turned to cabaret appearances, touring the workingmen's clubs of the North East of England. Her final cabaret show took place at Peterlee's Senate Club on 6 May 1972, where she announced she was giving up touring as she was "travel-weary" and had had enough of "living out of a suitcase". After a change of mind, she branched out as a performer in stage musicals, jazz.
She played the role of Nancy in Lionel Bart's musical, Oliver! in London's West End and appeared in a British television soap opera, Albion Market, where she played one of the main characters until it was taken off air in August 1986. Shapiro played the part of Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" and starred in "Seesaw" to great critical acclaim. Between 1984 and 2001, she toured extensively with legendary British jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band, whilst still performing her own jazz and pop concerts, her one-woman show "Simply Shapiro" ran from 1999 to the end of 2002, when she bade farewell to show business. Her autobiography, published in 1993, was entitled Walking Back to Happiness, she appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's'The Reunion' in August 2012. In March 2013 she appeared on BBC Radio 3's'Good Morning Sunday' Helen Shapiro has been married since 31 August 1988 to John Judd, an actor with numerous roles in British television and cinema, she is a convert from Judaism to Christianity and is associated with the evangelical Jews for Jesus group.
UK Helen 1961 Helen's Hit Parade 1962 More Hits from Helen 1962 A Teenager Sings the Blues 1962 Even More Hits from
Play It Cool (film)
Play it Cool is a 1962 British musical film directed by Michael Winner and starring Billy Fury, Michael Anderson Jr. Helen Shapiro, Bobby Vee, Shane Fenton, Danny Williams, Dennis Price, Richard Wattis, Maurice Kaufmann and Anna Palk; the film tells the story of a struggling singer, Billy Universe, his band, who befriend an heiress who, against the wishes of her father, is searching for her lover who she has been forbidden to see and who she is hoping to elope with. The plot takes the main characters to a succession of nightclubs where the other stars are performing. There are guest appearances by Lionel Blair and Bernie Winters as well as Norrie Paramor, the Sir George Martin of his day; the only hit from the songs featured in the film was Fury's rendition of "Once Upon a Dream". Billy Fury - Billy Universe Michael Anderson, Jr. - Alvin Helen Shapiro - Herself Bobby Vee - Himself Dennis Price - Sir Charles Bryant Richard Wattis - Nervous Man Danny Williams - Himself Shane Fenton - Himself Jimmy Crawford - Himself Lionel Blair - Himself Anna Palk - Ann Bryant Ray Brooks - Freddy Jeremy Bulloch - Joey Maurice Kaufmann - Larry Granger Peter Barkworth - Skinner Bernie Winters - Sydney Norman Play It Cool on IMDb
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer. He gained worldwide fame as the bass guitarist and singer for the rock band the Beatles considered the most popular and influential group in the history of popular music, his songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history. After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife and Denny Laine. McCartney is one of performers of all time. More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song "Yesterday", making it one of the most covered songs in popular music history. Wings' 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre" is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK. A two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an 18-time Grammy Award winner, McCartney has written, or co-written, 32 songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, as of 2009 he had 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all received appointment as Members of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and, in 1997, McCartney was knighted for services to music.
McCartney is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$1.2 billion. McCartney has released an extensive catalogue of songs as a solo artist and has composed classical and electronic music, he has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to such subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism and music education. He is the father of five children. James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 in Walton Hospital, England, where his mother, Mary Patricia, had qualified to practise as a nurse, his father, James McCartney, was absent from his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II. McCartney has one younger brother named a stepsister, Ruth; the children were baptised in their mother's Catholic faith though their father was a former Protestant, who had turned agnostic. Religion was not emphasised in the household. McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton.
In 1953, with only three others out of ninety examinees, he passed the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school. In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his suburban home in Speke; the two became friends. McCartney's mother, was a midwife and the family's primary wage earner, she rode a bicycle to her patients. On 31 October 1956, when McCartney was 14, his mother died of an embolism. McCartney's loss became a point of connection with John Lennon, whose mother, had died when he was 17. McCartney's father was a trumpet pianist, who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s, he kept an upright piano in the front room, encouraged his sons to be musical and advised McCartney to take piano lessons. However, McCartney preferred to learn by ear; when McCartney was 11, his father encouraged him to audition for the Liverpool Cathedral choir, but he was not accepted. McCartney joined the choir at St Barnabas' Church, Mossley Hill.
McCartney received a nickel-plated trumpet from his father for his fourteenth birthday, but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, McCartney traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith acoustic guitar, since he wanted to be able to sing while playing. He found it difficult to play guitar right-handed, but after noticing a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert and realising that Whitman played left-handed, he reversed the order of the strings. McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on the Zenith, composed another early tune that would become "When I'm Sixty-Four" on the piano. American rhythm and blues influenced him, Little Richard was his schoolboy idol. At the age of fifteen on 6 July 1957, McCartney met John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton; the Quarrymen played a mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music with jazz and folk influences. Soon afterwards, the members of the band invited McCartney to join as a rhythm guitarist, he formed a close working relationship with Lennon.
Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, in 1960. By May 1960 the band had tried several names, including Johnny and the Moondogs and the Silver Beetles, they adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best shortly before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg. The Beatles were informally represented by Allan Williams. In 1961, Sutcliffe left McCartney reluctantly became their bass player. While in Hamburg, they recorded professionally for the first time and were credited as the Beat Brothers, who were the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie"; this resulted in attention from Brian Epstein, w
Peterlee
Peterlee is a small town in County Durham, founded in 1948, built under the auspices of the New Towns Act 1946. It has economic and community ties with Sunderland and Durham; the case for Peterlee was put forth in Farewell Squalor by Easington Rural District Council Surveyor C. W. Clarke, who proposed that the town was named after the celebrated Durham miners' leader Peter Lee. Peterlee is one of the few places in the British Isles to be directly named after an individual, is unique among the new towns which came into being after the Second World War, in that it was the only new town requested by the people through their MP. A deputation if not all working miners, met with the Minister of Town and Country Planning after the Second World War to put the case for a new town in the district; the Minister, Lewis Silkin, responded by offering a half-size new town of 30,000 residents. The subsequent new residents came from the surrounding villages in the District of Easington; the Peterlee Development Corporation was established in 1948, first under the direction of A V Williams under Dr. Monica Felton.
The original master-plan for towering blocks of flats by Berthold Lubetkin was rejected as unsuitable for the geology of the area, weakened by mining works, he resigned in 1950. George Grenfell Baines replaced Lubetkin and began to build resulting in buildings of poor-quality construction. Williams invited an artist Victor Pasmore to be head of the design team for the landscaping. Peterlee Town Council Durham County Council The Apollo Pavilion, designed by Victor Pasmore, was completed in 1970, it provided a focal point for the Sunny Blunts estate as well as a bridge across a water-course. It was named after the Apollo moon missions. From the late 1970s, the Pavilion became a target for anti-social behaviour. Original murals on the building faded, to discourage anti-social behaviour, staircases were removed in the 1980s. In 1996, there was a failed attempt to list the Pavilion. English Heritage described it as "an internationally important masterpiece". However, some local residents and councillors saw Pavilion as an eyesore and campaigned to have it demolished.
The campaign appeared to have been successful when demolition was proposed in 2000. However, in July 2009, a six-month revamp programme was completed at a cost of £400,000; as part of this, original features such as the murals and stairs were reinstated. In December 2011, English Heritage gave the pavilion a Grade-II* listing. Peterlee is served by two main roads, The A19 runs to the west of the town leading to Sunderland in the north and Teesside in the south, the A1086 runs to the east of the town leading to Easington in the north and Hartlepool to the south; the B1320 runs through the town centre linking the town to Horden and the A1086 in the east and Shotton Colliery and the A19 in the west. The B1432 to the north from the town centre leads to Easington Village and Seaham on the route of the old A19; the A181 runs to the south west of the town at the Castle Eden and Wingate junction on the A19 leading to Wheatley Hill and Durham. In 2008 the A688 road was extended to the A181 at Running Waters from the A1 junction at Bowburn.
This created a new trunk road from Peterlee to the A1 via the A19, A181 and A688. Peterlee is served by Arriva North East and Go North East, which provide services in the local area, to Dalton Park, to the towns and cities of Newcastle, Sunderland, Houghton-le-Spring, Hartlepool, Newton Aycliffe, Stockton and Darlington. Peterlee was served by Horden railway station on the Durham Coast Line until it closed in 1964. However, in 2017, Durham County Council announced that a new station for Horden will be built after a successful bid for funding. Dene Community School The Academy at Shotton Hall St. Bede's Catholic Comprehensive School Castle Eden Dene most of it within the boundaries of Peterlee, is a national nature reserve. Nordenham, Germany In alphabetical order: Jan Graveson – actress and singer Courtney Hadwin – award-winning teenage singer Mark Hoban – politician, former Conservative MP for Fareham Salena Jones – American Singer lived in 109, Westmorland Rise 1966/7 with Dennis Stafford one of the accused murderers of Angus Sibbet.
See One Armed Bandit Murder Gina McKee – actress Crissy Rock – actress
Pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-1950s. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music, popular and includes many diverse styles. "Pop" and "rock" were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they became differentiated from each other. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Pop music is eclectic, borrows elements from other styles such as urban, rock and country. Identifying factors include short to medium-length songs written in a basic format, as well as common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, hooks. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music, distinguishable from popular and folk musics". According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music". Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music.
The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to develop separately. Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s, most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country and hillbilly music. According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience since the late 1950s, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc." Grove Music Online states that " in the early 1960s,'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music, while in the US its coverage overlapped with that of'rock and roll'". From about 1967, the term “pop music” was used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward and, in musical terms, it is conservative".
It is, "provided from on high rather than being made from below... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Music scholar Timothy Warner said it has an emphasis on recording and technology, rather than live performance; the main medium of pop music is the song between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure. Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, a chorus that contrasts melodically and harmonically with the verse; the beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs focus on simple themes – love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded." Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style blues scale-influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function. Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, spoken passages from rap. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar and bass groups or singers
Sally Bowles
Sally Bowles is a fictional cabaret singer created by English-American novelist Christopher Isherwood. She appeared in Isherwood's 1937 novella Sally Bowles published by Hogarth Press; the story was republished in the novel Goodbye to Berlin. Sally is a central character in the 1951 John Van Druten stage play I Am a Camera, the 1955 film of the same name, the 1966 musical stage adaptation Cabaret and the 1972 film adaptation of the musical. In 1979, critic Howard Moss of The New Yorker noted the peculiar resiliency of the character: "It is fifty years since Sally Bowles shared the recipe for a Prairie oyster with Herr Issyvoo in a vain attempt to cure a hangover" and yet the character in "subsequent transformations" lives on "from story to play to movie to musical to movie-musical." Sally Bowles is based on Jean Ross, a British actress and staunch Marxist, whom Isherwood knew during the years he lived in Weimar Berlin between the World Wars. Belying her humble circumstances in Berlin, Ross was the offspring of a wealthy Scottish cotton merchant and came from a privileged background.
She had "aristocratic nose, glossy dark hair" with large brown eyes. Isherwood noted that Ross was "more British than Sally, and she was tougher. She never struck the least bit sorry for herself. Like Sally, she boasted continually about her lovers." According to Isherwood, Ross was a sexually liberated young woman who once claimed to have had sex with another performer in view of the audience during Max Reinhardt's production of Tales of Hoffman circa Winter 1931: In the course of the ball scene at the Venetian palace of the courtesan Giulietta, several pairs of lovers were carried onto the stage. Each pair reclined on a litter, locked in each other's arms; these lovers were extras and few members of the audience can have paid any attention to their embraces, once they had made their entrance, for a dazzling corps de ballet was performing in the middle of the stage. But Christopher watched one pair of lovers intently, through opera glasses, until the end of the scene. So, he couldn't be sure if what Jean had told him was true — that she had sex with her partner in full view of the audience.
When crafting the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles as a literary character, Isherwood purloined the surname "Bowles" from American writer Paul Bowles whom he had met in Berlin in 1931 and to whom he was sexually attracted. Explaining his choice, he wrote, " liked the sound of it and the looks of its owner." Isherwood famously introduces Sally in his 1937 novella by writing: A few minutes Sally herself arrived. "Am I late, Fritz darling?".... Sally laughed, she was dressed in black silk, with a small cape over her shoulders and a little cap like a page-boy's stuck jauntily on one side of her head.... I noticed that her finger-nails were painted emerald green, a colour chosen, for it called attention to her hands, which were much stained by cigarette smoking and as dirty as a little girl's, she was dark.... Her face was thin, powdered dead white, she had large brown eyes which should have been darker, to match her hair and the pencil she used for her eyebrows. In the novel Sally is British, purporting to be the daughter of a Lancashire mill-owner and an heiress.
She is a "self-indulgent upper-middle-class British tourist who could escape Berlin whenever she chose." By day, she is an aspiring film actress hoping to work for the UFA GmbH, the German film production company. By night, she is a chanteuse at an underground club called The Lady Windermere located near the Tauentzienstraße. Isherwood describes her singing as poor but effective "because of her startling appearance and her air of not caring a curse what people thought of her", she aspires as an alternative, to ensnare a wealthy man to keep her. Unsuccessful at both, Sally departs Berlin and is last heard from in the form of a postcard sent from Rome with no return address. Isherwood began drafting the story that would become Sally Bowles in 1933, writing to Ross' friend Olive Mangeot in July of that year that he had written it, he continued to revise the manuscript over the next three years, completing his final draft on June 21, 1936. In a letter to poet and editor John Lehmann dated January 16, 1936, Isherwood outlined the piece, envisioning it as part of his novel The Lost.
He describes it as akin to the work of Anthony Hope and as "an attempt to satirize the romance-of-prostitution racket". In 1936 Isherwood submitted the piece to Lehmann for possible publication in his literary magazine, New Writing. Lehmann felt that it was too lengthy for his magazine, he was concerned about the inclusion in the manuscript of Sally's abortion, fearing that his printers might refuse to typeset it, about the possibility that Jean Ross might file a libel action. In a January 1937 letter, Isherwood explained his belief that without the abortion incident Sally would be reduced to "a silly little capricious bitch" and that the omission would leave the story without a climax. Isherwood feared a libel suit by Jean Ross and sought her permission to publish the story. Ross hesitated in giving her consent as she feared the story's abortion episode —, factual and a painful memory — would strain her relations with her powerful family. Ross relented and gave her permission, Hogarth published the volume that year.
Following the tremendous success of the story and the character, Ross ostensibly regretted this decision. For the remainder of
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