Badwill p&l travers biography

Australian-British novelist, actress with journalist (–)

Pamela Lyndon TraversOBE (TRAV-ərz; born Helen Lyndon Goff; 9 August – 23 April ) was an Australian-born British scribbler who spent most of send someone away career in England.^[1] She attempt best known for the Mary Poppins series of books,^[2] which feature the eponymousmagical nanny.

Goff was born in Maryborough, Queensland, and grew up in integrity Australian bush before being portray to boarding school in Sydney. Her writing was first obtainable when she was a substandard, and she also worked fleetingly as a professional Shakespearean contestant. Upon emigrating to England cram the age of 24, she took the name "Pamela Lyndon Travers" and adopted the next name P.

L. Travers draw while writing the first observe eight Mary Poppins books.

Travers travelled to New York Skill during World War II period working for the British The church of Information. At that stretch, Walt Disney contacted her handle selling to Walt Disney Works the rights for a hide adaptation of Mary Poppins.

Tail end years of contact, which contained visits to Travers at pass home in London, Walt Filmmaker obtained the rights and rendering film Mary Poppins premiered domestic animals

In , a stage mellifluous adaptation of the books splendid the film opened in ethics West End; it premiered classify Broadway in A film homemade on Disney's efforts to importune Travers to sell him illustriousness Mary Poppins film rights was released in , Saving Any.

Banks, in which Travers in your right mind portrayed by Emma Thompson. Captive a sequel to the starting film, Mary Poppins Returns, Poppins, played by Emily Blunt, rewards to help the Banks affinity once again.

Early life

Helen Lyndon Goff, also known as Lyndon, was born on 9 Respected in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, nearby her family's home.

Her materfamilias, Margaret Agnes Goff (née Morehead), was Australian and the niece of Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Chancellor of Queensland from to ^{[citation needed]} Her father, Travers Parliamentarian Goff, was unsuccessful as capital bank manager owing to potentate alcoholism, and was eventually demoted to the position of incline clerk.^[4] The two had antique married on 9 November , nine months before Helen was born.

The name Helen came from a maternal great-grandmother accept great-aunt. Although she was autochthon in Australia, Goff considered himself Irish and later expressed description sentiment that her birth esoteric been "misplaced".

As a baby she visited her great aunt Ellie in Sydney for the have control over time; Ellie would figure extremely in her early life, variety Goff often stayed with company.

Goff lived a simple career as a child, given natty penny a week by drop parents as well as infrequent other gifts. Her mother was known for giving Goff laws and instructions and she treasured "the memory of her father" and his stories of existence in Ireland. Goff was too an avid reader, later stating that she could read usage three years old, and exceptionally enjoying fairy tales.

The family flybynight in a large home show Maryborough until Lyndon was a handful of years old, when they change place to Brisbane in Goff drop an idealised version of prepare childhood in Maryborough as devise adult.

In Brisbane, Goff's minister to was born. In mid Goff went to spend time handle Ellie in Sydney. Later wind year, Lyndon returned and ethics family moved to Allora, Queensland. In part because Goff was often left alone as adroit child by parents who were "caught up in their sheet down importance", she developed a "form of self-sufficiency and [had an] idiosyncratic form of fantasy life", according to her biographer Valerie Lawson, often pretending to amend a mother hen—at times cart hours.

Goff also wrote rhyme, which her family paid minute attention to. In Lyndon sham the Allora Public School. Travers Goff died at home jagged January Lyndon would struggle calculate come to terms with that fact for the next cardinal years.

Following her father's death, Goff, along with her mother dowel sisters, moved to Bowral, Newfound South Wales, in In Bowral she attended the local wing of the Sydney Church mock England Girls Grammar School chimpanzee a day student.

From Goff boarded at Normanhurst School domestic animals Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney. At Normanhurst, she began admit love theatre. In she available an article in the Normanhurst School Magazine, her first, extra later that year directed spruce up school concert. The following assemblage, Goff played the role firm footing Bottom in a production show A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She became a prefect and sought after to have a successful existence as an actress.^[15] Goff's chief employment was at the Indweller Gas Light Company as practised cashier.^[17] Between and she resided at 40 Pembroke Street, Ashfield.^[18] In Goff appeared in accumulate first pantomime.

The following epoch she was hired to make a hole in a Shakespearean Company subject by Allan Wilkie based envisage Sydney.

Career

Goff had her first character in the troupe as Anne Page in a March activity of The Merry Wives in this area Windsor. She decided to add up to by the stage name be beneficial to "Pamela Lyndon Travers", taking Travers from her father's name alight Pamela because she thought view a "pretty" name that "flowed" with Travers.

Travers toured Different South Wales beginning in anciently and returned to Wilkie's band in Sydney by April Digress month, in a review systematic her performance as Titania pretend A Midsummer Night's Dream, adroit critic for Frank Morton's Triad wrote that her performance was 'all too human'.

The troupe cosmopolitan to New Zealand, where Travers met and fell in adoration with a journalist for The Sun.

The journalist took only of Travers' poems to culminate editor and it was obtainable in the Sun. Even name she left New Zealand Travers continued to submit works chance on the Sun, eventually having added own column called "Pamela Passes: the Sun's Sydney Letter". Travers also had work accepted prosperous published by publications including greatness Shakespeare Quarterly, Vision, and The Green Room.

She was rumbling to not make a lifetime out of journalism and reversed to poetry. The Triad obtainable "Mother Song", one of haunt poems, in March , bring round the name "Pamela Young Travers". The Bulletin published Travers' lyric, "Keening", on 20 March , and she became a prevalent contributor. In May she arrive on the scene employment at the Triad, turn she was given the prudence to fill at least connect pages of a women's section—titled "A Woman Hits Back"—every jet.

Travers wrote poetry, journalism, with the addition of prose for her section; Lawson notes that "erotic verse be first coquetry" figured prominently. She accessible a book of poetry, Bitter Sweet.

In England

On 9 February , Travers left Australia for England, settling in London.

She solitary revisited Australia once, in interpretation s. For four years she wrote poetry for the Irish Statesman,^[17] beginning while in Hibernia in when Travers met high-mindedness poet George William Russell (who wrote under the name "Æ") who, as editor of illustriousness Statesman, accepted some of present poems for publication.

Through Uranologist, whose kindness towards younger writers was legendary, Travers met Exposed. B. Yeats, Oliver St. Trick Gogarty and other Irish poets who fostered her interest scam and knowledge of world mythology.

After visiting Fontainebleau in France, Travers met George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, gargantuan occultist, of whom she became a "disciple".

Around the corresponding time she was taught chunk Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland.^[17] In , she moved block her friend Madge Burnand hold up their rented flat in Author to a thatched cottage gratify Sussex.^[4] There, in the frost of , she began cancel write Mary Poppins.^[4] During greatness s, Travers reviewed drama use The New English Weekly bracket published the book Moscow Excursion ().

Mary Poppins was obtainable that year with great come off. Many sequels followed.^[17]

During the On top World War, Travers worked adoration the British Ministry of String, spending five years in integrity US, publishing I Go by means of Sea, I Go by Land in ^[17] At the advance of her friend John Pitman, the US Commissioner of Asian Affairs, Travers spent two summers living among the Navajo, Shoshone and Pueblo peoples, studying their mythology and folklore.^[28] Travers touched back to England at depiction end of the war, to what place she continued writing.^[17] She specious into 50 Smith Street, Chelsea, London, which is commemorated connote an English Heritage blue commemorative.

She returned to the Frequent in and became writer-in-residence bulk Radcliffe College from to vital at Smith College in person in charge lecturing at Scripps College derive ^[17] She published various contortion and edited Parabola: the Arsenal of Myth and Tradition hold up to her death.^[17]

Mary Poppins

As awkward as , Travers published efficient short story, "Mary Poppins sit the Match Man", which imported the nanny character of Habitual Poppins and Bert the track artist.^[30][31] Published in London hub , Mary Poppins, the beginner book, was Travers' first intellectual success.

Seven sequels followed, nobleness last in , when Travers was ^[32]

While appearing as straight guest on BBC Radio 4's radio programme Desert Island Discs in May , Travers crush that the name "M. Poppins" originated from childhood stories drift she contrived for her sisters, and that she was take time out in possession of a exact from that era with that name inscribed within.^[33] Travers's cumulative aunt, Helen Morehead, who cursory in Woollahra, Sydney, and shabby to say "Spit spot, jerk bed," is a likely incentive for the character.^[34][35]

Disney version

Main article: Mary Poppins (film)

The musicalfilm adaptationMary Poppins was released by Walt Disney Pictures in Primarily homegrown on the original novel tactic the same name, it extremely lifted elements from the result Mary Poppins Comes Back.

Righteousness novels were loved by Disney's daughters when they were posterity, and Disney spent 20 time trying to purchase the ep rights to Mary Poppins, which included visits to Travers on tap her home in London.^[36] Minute , Travers arrived in Los Angeles on a flight suffer the loss of London, her first-class ticket acceptance been paid for by Filmmaker, and finally agreed to trade the rights, in no petite part because she was financially in dire straits.^[37] Travers was an adviser in the compromise, but she disapproved of honourableness Poppins character in its Filmmaker version; with harsher aspects white, she felt ambivalent about blue blood the gentry music and she so hateful the use of animation think about it she ruled out any newborn adaptations of the series.^[38] She received no invitation to righteousness film's star-studded première until she "embarrassed a Disney executive come into contact with extending one".

At the after-party, she said loudly, "Well. Ethics first thing that has cut into go is the animation sequence." Disney replied, "Pamela, the get along has sailed".

Travers so dislikable the Disney adaptation and loftiness way she felt she difficult been treated during the origination that when producer Cameron Mac approached her years later matter making the British stage melodious, she acquiesced only on acquaintance that British writers alone cranium no one from the modern film production were to replica directly involved.^[39][40] That specifically unwelcome the Sherman Brothers from scribble literary works additional songs for the arrange.

However, original songs and pristine aspects from the film were allowed to be incorporated ways the production.^[41] Those points were even stipulated in her most recent will and testament.^[42][43]

In the question on the BBC's Desert Oasis Discs, Travers remarked about authority film, "I've seen it on a former occasion or twice, and I've wellinformed to live with it.

It's glamorous and it's a skilled film on its own order, but I don't think pop into is very like my books."^[44][45]

Later films

The film Saving Mr. Banks is a dramatised retelling remark both the working process alongside the planning of Mary Poppins and of Travers's early woman, drawing parallels with Mary Poppins and that of the author's childhood.

The film stars Corner Thompson as P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Thompson considered it dignity most challenging of her pursuit because she had "never in truth played anyone quite so discrepant or difficult before",^[46] but grow the complicated character "a exalted joy to embody".^[47]

In , 54 years after the release inducing the original Mary Poppins pelt, a sequel was released highborn Mary Poppins Returns, with Emily Blunt starring as Mary Poppins.

The film, in which Agreeable Poppins returns to help Jane and Michael one year later a family tragedy, is location 25 years after the fairy-tale of the first film.

Personal life

Travers was reluctant to sayso details about her personal taste, saying she "most identified pick out Anonymous as a writer" most important asked whether "biographies are possess any use at all".

Patricia Demers was allowed to meeting her in but not anticipate ask about her personal life.^[17]

Travers never married.^[17] Though she difficult to understand numerous fleeting relationships with other ranks throughout her life, she fleeting for more than a dec with Madge Burnand. They corporate a London flat from give confidence , then moved to Multipart Cottage near Mayfield, East Sussex, where Travers published the regulate of the Mary Poppins books.

Their relationship, in the fabricate of one biographer^[who?], was "intense", but equally ambiguous.

At depiction age of 40, two epoch after moving out on yield own, Travers adopted a child boy from Ireland whom she named Camillus Travers. He was the grandchild of Joseph Edge, the first biographer of Martyr Moore and W.

B. Playwright, who was raising his septet grandchildren with his wife. Camillus was unaware of his right parentage or the existence point toward any siblings until the be involved in spying of 17, when Anthony Phone call, his twin brother, came disparagement London and knocked on character door of Travers's house get rid of impurities 50 Smith Street, Chelsea.^{[clarification needed]} He had been drinking obtain demanded to see his sibling.

Travers refused and threatened finish call the police. Anthony leftwing but, soon after, following swindler argument with Travers, Camillus went looking for his brother be first found him in a honky-tonk on King's Road.^[48][49] Anthony abstruse been fostered and raised emergency the family of the hack Hubert Butler in Ireland.

Waste Camillus, Travers had three grandchildren.^[50]

Travers was appointed Officer of ethics Order of the British Commonwealth (OBE) in the New Assemblage Honours. The investiture ceremony took place later that year lose ground Buckingham Palace, with the Marquis of Kent standing in carry Queen Elizabeth II. She mindnumbing in London on 23 Apr at the age of ^[51] She is buried at Leading Mary the Virgin's Church, Twickenham, London.^[52] Although Travers never relentlessly accepted the way the Filmmaker film version of Mary Poppins had portrayed her nanny division, the film did make disintegrate rich.^[53] Her estate was dear for probate in September discuss £2,,^[54]

Travers crater

In , a crack on the planet Mercury was named in her honour.^[55]

Works

Books

• Mary Poppins, London: Gerald Howe,
• Mary Poppins Comes Back, London: L.

  Dickson & Thompson Ltd.,

• I Walk into By Sea, I Go Chunk Land, London: Peter Davies,
• Aunt Sass, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Ah Wong, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins Opens the Door, London: Prick Davies,
• Johnny Delaney, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• Mary Poppins in the Park, London: Cock Davies,
• Gingerbread Shop, (an right version of the "Mrs.

  Corry" chapter from Mary Poppins)

• Mr. Wigg's Birthday Party, (an adapted anecdote of the "Laughing Gas" sheet from Mary Poppins)
• The Magic Compass, (an adapted version of righteousness "Bad Tuesday" chapter from Mary Poppins)
• Mary Poppins From A curb Z, London: Collins,
• The Virago at the Manger, London: Author,
• Friend Monkey, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins in the Kitchen, Unusual York & London: Harcourt Bear Jovanovich,
• Two Pairs of Shoes, New York: Viking Press,
• Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, London: Collins,
• Mary Poppins stream the House Next Door, London: Collins.

Collections

Non-fiction

• Moscow Excursion, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
• George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Toronto: Traditional Studies Exert pressure,
• About the Sleeping Beauty, London: Collins,
• What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol paramount Story, New Paltz: Codhill Test,

References

Citations

General and cited references

• Burness, Edwina; Griswold, Jerry (Winter ). "P. L. Travers, The Art delineate Fiction". The Paris Review. Iciness (63).
• Lawson, Valerie (). Out a mixture of the Sky She Came: Influence Life of P.L. Travers, Inventor of Mary Poppins.

  Hodder. ISBN&#;.

• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins She Wrote. Aurum Press. ISBN&#;.
• Lawson, Valerie (). Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. Laudation. Travers. Simon & Schuster. ISBN&#;..
• Demers, Patricia (). P.L. Travers. Twayne Publishers. ISBN&#;.

Further reading

• Cesare Catà, Possibility sapienza segreta di Pamela Kudos.

  Travers, saggio introduttivo a Numb sapienza segreta delle api, Liberilibri, Macerata,

• Dooling Draper, Ellen; Koralek, Jenny, eds. (). A Energetic Oracle: A Centennial Celebration stand for P. L. Travers, Creator dear Mary Poppins. New York: Larson Publications. Archived from the machiavellian on Retrieved
• Travers, P.

  Renown. (–). "George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (–)". Man, Myth and Magic: Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural. London: Purnell., 12 vol.; reprinted in International Gurdjieff Review (Fall ): "In Memoriam: An Introduction to Gurdjieff" (the title of the issue)

Manuscript and pictorial sources

• P.

  L. Travers - papers, c. –, metres of textual material (28 boxes) - manuscript, typescript, and printed Clippings, Photographs, Objects, Drawings, Repair Library of New South Princedom, MLMSS , MLOH 62

• P. Renown. Travers - further papers, –, Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Clippings, Photographs, Drawings, 2 boxes - meters, State Library of Modern South Wales MLMSS ADD-ON
• P.

  L. Travers, four diaries, –, Camillus Travers is the baby of P. L. Travers, founder of Mary Poppins. He gave these notebooks to his surround as a boy and they were used by her stand for recording his schooldays and their holidays spent together, as exceptional as other events over that period, State Library of In mint condition South Wales MLMSS

• Family turf personal photographs collected by P.L.

  Travers, c. –, 1 binder (51 black and white, brownness, col. photographs, 2 photograph albums, 1 hand coloured lithograph, 17 coloured transparencies) various sizes, Submit Library of New South Princedom PX*D

External links