May 9, 1860- J.M.Barrie‘s Peter Pan has been a favorite story since my early childhood. The book & one of several musical versions have played an important role in my life. The annual TV viewing of the 1954 musical version starring Mary Martin was an event that I looked forward to as a child. I was mesmerized by this production.
While there was never an incident during the flying sequences, provided by the famous Foy Family, I was dropped, with the counter weights adding to the descent, during a picture taking session between the matinee & evening performance of Peter Pan, when I played John in the 1960s. I broke my nose during the fall, but & still went on that evening performance. 55 years later, the break is still evident as part of the character of my rather large proboscis.
I am a fan of the charming film Finding Neverland (2004) with Johnny Depp portraying the author J.M.Barrie as a charming hero, devoted to large dogs & small children. In the film, Barrie is seen a quirky little man who was celebrated by his contemporaries as a genius with a great heart. The film seems to have gotten the story right. This season it has been made into an unnecessary big Broadway musical starring Matthew Morrison & featuring Kelsey Grammer that received middling reviews, zero Tony Award nominations & boffo box-office.
The character of Peter Pan first appeared in the Barrie novel The Little White Bird in 1902. Peter Pan was first presented onstage in London in December 1904. A 37 year old female played Peter, a tradition that endured. The mother of the real Peter, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies‘ brother, matinee idol Gerald du Maurier, played both Captain Hook & Mr. Darling.
Fearing that the sophisticated London opening night audience would be unresponsive, Barrie told the orchestra in the pit to put down their instruments & clap their hands at the moment where Peter turns to the audience & says:
“If you believe in fairies, wave your handkerchiefs & clap your hands.”
When the woman playing Peter begged to save the life of Tinkerbell, the audience response was so overwhelming she burst into tears.
Arthur Llewelyn Davies, Sylvia’s husband, was very much alive when Barrie entered the lives of the Llewelyn Davies family shortly after moving to London. Barrie: “There never was a simpler & happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.” Arthur Llewelyn Davies died of cancer in 1907. Sylvia died 3 years later of lung cancer, leaving behind 5 children. Barrie unofficially adopted the boys.
Many rumors through the past century have suggested that Barrie had more than a fatherly interest in the Llewelyn Davies boys. But it now seems that Barrie was essentially asexual & impotent. He was a lover of children, but not a pedophile. Still, the more than 2,000 letters between Barrie & his favorite Llewelyn Davies boy, Michael, were burned by the real life Peter in 1952.
A writer in this century could never publish Peter Pan without accusations of pedophilia. Yet Barrie, in the manner of Lewis Carroll & his nude photographs of little girls, was consciously & curiously innocent. Barrie’s snapshots of the Llewelyn Davies boys frolicking naked on the beach & the cowboy & pirate games he made up for them were a way to enjoy the pleasures of fatherhood without having sex with a woman. The kids gave Barrie a way to deal with the frustrations that obsessed him.
This story on the background of Peter Pan does not end happily: George, the oldest Llewelyn Davies boy, died in Flanders in 1915, one of the millions of victims of WW1. Michael, Barrie’s favorite & the model for Peter Pan, drowned with his male lover while a student at Oxford in 1921. Their deaths are believed to have been the result of a suicide pact. The bodies were found clinging to each other in an embrace. Although Peter Pan was an amalgam of all the Llewelyn Davies brothers, Michael is supposed to have been the closest to Barrie’s vision of the boy who would never grow old.
Peter, who hated to have his name associated with “that terrible masterpiece,” became a publisher. He committed suicide by throwing himself under a train in a London subway station. He was 63 years old. Newspaper headlines read: “Peter Pan’s Death Leap” & “The Boy Who Never Grew Up Is Dead.”
In Barrie’s play at the end of Act III, Peter Pan says:
“To die would be an awfully big adventure.”
Barrie gave the rights to Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital For Orphaned Children, which continues to benefit from them, ensuring that the fairy dust of his writing would be sprinkled over kids in need. Barrie left this world for Neverland in 1937, gone from pneumonia. He was 77 years old.
Before I gave up acting as a profession, Captain Hook remained my most coveted role. I never got to play him. In the 1980s, I found an autographed copy of Peter Pan in a locked case at a used bookstore in Seattle. I couldn’t justify the $175 price tag, but I was not able shake off the feeling that it was meant to be mine. I would check on the book through the years, but when I finally & passionately decided to own it, it was gone from the case. The bookstore owner denied that it had ever been in the store.
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