Joyce Grenfell: A Biography

(Paperback, New edition)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Joyce Grenfell (1910-1979) was a British institution and one of the country's best-loved entertainers. She achieved success as a writer and performer of songs and monologues on stage and radio at a time when it was unusual for a woman of her background to work at all. Janie Hampton grew up knowing Joyce as a family friend and has access to unpublished letters and diaries, and to the memories of her surviving friends, relations and colleagues for this biography. Joyce revealed little about her life in her two autobiographies and after her death her image was fiercely guarded by her husband and friends, so that she came to be remembered as almost unnaturally perfect. Now, at last it is possible to show her human failings as well as her humour, kindness and generosity. Janie Hampton explores Joyce's intense relationship with her brother and mother; her childlessness; her love affair with Prince Aly Khan; her mixed feelings about the theatre; her moving acts of philanthropy and her faith in Christian Science which enabled her to endure the pain of cancer without medical treatment. The result is an affectionate portrait of a unique, complex and lovable person.

Reviews

Using Joyce's journals and her extensive output of letters, this is an extremely well-written and detailed account which reveals the real and wonderful Joyce - This England

Hampton has produced a winner - The Sunday Telegraph

This is undoubtedly the definitive life of Grenfell - The Literary Review

Hampton has turned her lesson plans into a popular book - The Independent Review - Jane Matthews

This full and surely definitive biography - Mail on Sunday

Like her subject, Hampton is well organised, with an excellent eye for detail - The Sunday Times

Author Bio

Janie Hampton is the author of a dozen books and the editor of 'Joyce and Ginnie', the letters of Joyce Grenfell and Virginia Graham, and 'Hats Off', a volume of Joyce Grenfell's poetry and drawings. She has been a BBC World Service producer and a planner of health projects in Africa. She and her husband have four grown-up children and live in Oxford.