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John Osborne - A Patriot for Us
By John Heilpern
Chatto and Windus £25
528 pages
Dateline: 11th June, 2006
"He was the most self-destructive person I've ever known,"
said theatre designer Jocelyn Herbert of John Osborne.
Time and again in his well-researched biography, American-based Theatre
critic John Heilpern proves her statement to be correct.
There can't be that many people who have had such a love-hate relationship
with their mother. When the ten-year-old Osborne's father died of tuberculosis,
the boy blamed his mother, Nellie Beatrice. She seems to have been naturally
cast as a barmaid, which did not fit well with her son's aspirations,
but nevertheless lived a long though not necessarily always happy life.
Even before he hit the big-time, her son (and only surviving child)
supported her financially but found the old lady a constant embarrassment,
describing her as "a disease" and cutting her to such an extent
that they did not meet at any point during the last seven years of her
life.
Incredibly, the pattern was repeated when the playwright evicted his
16 year-old daughter Nolan from the family home, after which they were
never to speak again.
Osborne found a surrogate father figure in George Devine, the man who
ran the English Stage Company at the Royal Court and launched the young
playwright's career. Their relationship was so close that Devine's untimely
death sent his protégé to a drink-fuelled nervous breakdown.
The Angry Young Man ran through wives as if they were going out of
fashion, seemingly hating the first four almost before he had married
them. As one grimaces at the way in which Jimmy treated the fictional
Alison (first wife Pamela Lane) in Look Back in Anger, it is
easy to see that being Mrs Osborne was no bed of roses.
Indeed, at times, Osborne seemed far closer to gay actor Anthony Creighton,
with whom he wrote two plays including An Epitaph for George Dillon,
although vigorously and repeatedly denying that the pair had ever had
a homosexual relationship. As a homophobe, he could hardly have done
otherwise, though his biographer concludes that the denials were genuine.
The astounding popularity of Look Back in Anger around the world
turned its writer into a millionaire almost overnight. Financially though,
it was his initial venture into film that set Osborne up for life. That
was the phenomenally popular Tom Jones, directed by his Royal
Court colleague and close friend, Tony Richardson (bisexual husband
of Vanessa Redgrave and father to Natasha and Joely)
The former Angry Young Man always enjoyed the trappings of wealth and
the company of women. Somewhat strangely, he replaced his first wife
Pamela with the woman who played her on stage, the stunningly beautiful
Scottish actress, Mary Ure.
She also struggled to maintain a marriage to the playwright, lasting
just a year in marital bliss before having the indignity of finding
out that her husband was conducting an affair with a prostitute, or
"high-class hooker" as his biographer prefers to refer to
her.
Penelope Gilliatt was cultured but a perfectionist who protected her
fragility with alcohol. She at least gave Osborne a child but fared
little better than her predecessors and pretty soon gave way to another
actress, Jill Bennett.
Marriage number four was something else. This fiery couple attacked
each other not only verbally but physically and neither was shy of airing
their grievances in public. Osborne ended up on a bottle of vodka a
day plus wine, champagne and whatever else came to hand. His neurotic
wife was no better and while they kissed and made up on a regular basis,
the subject of this biography came close to suicide before being rescued.
The happy ending to a generally unhappy life was provided by Helen
Osborne, the fifth wife and the only one who fully embraced her husband
by taking his name. This is when he became a country gentleman on the
Welsh borders living out a final fantasy and allowing the opportunity
for a little peace in his last years.
Even that was not to be as planned since the Osbornes' lavish lifestyle,
not to mention the enthusiasm of the taxman, meant that by the end,
he might well have been bankrupt but for the assistance of charity.
Heilpern has worked hard at producing this mammoth biography and goes
to great trouble to research around his subject, sometimes as a consequence
getting bogged down in irrelevant detail but often doing his readers
a considerable service.
For those to are most interested in Osborne's work, the book can any
a little frustrating. While the author devotes a chapter to each of
the major works, they take second place to an investigation of the playwright's
life and the film adaptation of Tom Jones is passed over almost
without mention.
Heilpern does it come up with some gems: for example, he visited the
University of Austin in Texas where Osborne's manuscripts are kept.
One of the most fascinating chapters in the book is also one of the
shortest in which he picks up some of Osborne's previously unpublished
thoughts about the play. Most interesting is the observation that the
writer and his protagonist Jimmy Porter were almost indistinguishable
even for Osborne himself.
The biographer was also aided by access to Osborne's private notebooks.
These contain maudlin observations about the unhappiness of his life
and shed considerable light on how both he and his wives contributed
to depression and nervous breakdown. They also demonstrate that a man
who ostensibly seemed extremely unpleasant was in part this way because
of his own lack of self-confidence.
This is a big book that does not show up its subject in a terribly
favourable light. At his best, Osborne was apparently a gentle man who
could write unforgettable plays. At his worst, he was a selfish and
violent womaniser whose callousness towards almost every woman with
whom he came into contact sometimes beggared belief.
Philip Fisher
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