June 11th, 1911– Terence Rattigan became a success at just 25 years old with a light farce French Without Tears (1936), but he wanted to be considered a serious writer. His next piece was a satirical drama After The Dance (1939), attacking the cynical generation of Bright Young Things for their failure to stop another war after the horrors of WW1. Success brought more success & his very well-received plays: The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1958), The Deep Blue Sea (1952), & Separate Tables (1954), were all made into even more popular films. He served as the writer of the screenplay adaptions of most of his plays & by the 1960s he was Hollywood’s best paid writer.
Rattigan was nominated for 2 Oscars. But by the end of the 1950s his works struck out with the younger generation. In 1956, John Osborne‘s Look Back In Anger kicked to the curb, the archetype of Rattigan’s generation: the collected, composed, chastened, creaky characters who always held back their emotions. Rattigan fell deeply out of favor with the critics who had once championed him, just as he was hitting his best notes.
In 1957, he wrote his first play that directly addressed his gayness, Variation On A Theme & it was not well received. Rattigan learned to keep his own relationships hidden, like a character in one of his own plays, keeping his secrets to the point of being emotionally cutting off even his closest associates.
Rattigan enjoyed plenty of lovers, but no long-term partners. His plays are essentially autobiographical, containing only coded references to his sexuality.
Rattigan alternated between comedies & dramas, all works of understated emotions & superb craftsmanship. When seemingly suddenly his sort of theatre fell into disfavor, Rattigan responded with bitterness. His churlish remarks only confirmed that he had no sympathy or understanding of the new, modern world. Yet, his later plays from this era: Ross, Man & Boy (1960), In Praise Of Love (1963), & Cause Célèbre (1973), showed no decline in his considerable talent.
Surprising then that in 1964 Rattigan championed the rather openly gay playwright Joe Orton after seeing Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane, with Vivien Leigh as his date, in the play’s first week. He then invested the money need to transfer the play to the West End. Rattigan, not at all Orton’s cup of tea, recognized the young playwright’s talent. Later Rattigan acknowledged:
“In a way, I was not Orton’s best sponsor. I’m a very unfashionable figure still, & I was then wildly unfashionable critically. My sponsorship rather put critics off, I think.”
Saving on taxes & no longer feeling at home in 1960s swinging mod London, Rattigan moved to Bermuda, where he continued to write. He lived off the proceeds from lucrative screenplays including The V.I.P.s (1963) & The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964).
Rattigan was knighted in 1971 for services to the theatre, being only the 3rd playwright to be knighted in the 20th century, after Arthur Wing Pinero in 1909 & Noël Coward in 1970, both also gay.
Rattigan’s plays have enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the 21st century. I love his work & I hold him as one of last century’s finest playwrights, an expert elicitor of emotion & human hidden pain. A string of successful stage revivals & films in the past decade include a West End production of The Winslow Boy, Ross, Man & Boy on Broadway with Frank Langella, In Praise Of Love, & Separate Tables at the Royal Shakespeare Company, A Bequest To The Nation (starring Janet McTeer & Kenneth Branagh), & After The Dance at London’s Royal National Theatre, & Cause Célèbre at The Old Vic in 2011. Not bad for a guy considered washed up in 1965.
If you think all this sounds much too fuddy-duddy for you kids, try one of my favorite films from 2011, the new version of The Deep Blue Sea starring Rachel Weisz & Tom Hiddleston (the original was in 1954 & starred Vivien Leigh).
I also highly recommend the 1958 film version of Separate Tables with Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, Windy Hiller, winner of the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her performance, Burt Lancaster & David Niven, who won the Oscar for Best Actor. I also very much enjoyed 2000’s version of The Winslow Boy with my boo Jeremy Northam, & The Browning Version (1994) with Albert Finney, & I think you would also.
“To see yourself as the world sees you may be very brave, but it can also be very foolish.”
All alone, Rattigan put down his pen for good, in his beloved Bermuda in 1977. He was 66 years old, gone of leukemia.
The post #BornThisDay: Playwright, Terence Rattigan appeared first on World of Wonder.
