Amaryllis Garnett

Amaryllis Virginia Garnett (17 October 1943 – 6 May 1973) was an English actress and diarist.

Amaryllis Garnett
Born(1943-10-17)17 October 1943
St Pancras, London, England
Died6 May 1973(1973-05-06) (aged 29)[1]
River Thames at Chelsea, London, England
Parent(s)David Garnett (1892–1981)
Angelica Bell (1918–2012)

Born in St Pancras, London,[2] Garnett was the eldest of the four daughters of David and Angelica Garnett. Her father was a writer, while her mother, an artist, was the daughter of Vanessa Bell and the painter Duncan Grant and also a niece of the writer Virginia Woolf. Her other grandfather was Edward Garnett, a publisher and writer, while her great-grandparents included Constance Garnett, a prolific translator of Russian literature, Richard Garnett, author and librarian, Leslie Stephen, biographer, and Julia Duckworth, a pre-Raphaelite artists' model and niece of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.[3]

In 1946 T. H. White, a friend of Amaryllis Garnett's parents, wrote his book Mistress Masham's Repose for her,[4] which for White became the beginning of a new career as a children's writer. A biographer of White notes that in the book "Children are never told that their elders are better than they are or taught Algebra, just Oeconomy, Natural History, and other subjects dealing with life, a situation which would doubtless have delighted Amaryllis Garnett."[5]

Cranborne Chase School, main building

The Garnetts had four daughters, who called their parents "Angelica" and "Bunny" and had an unconventional childhood. While the family was living at Hilton Hall, near St Ives, Amaryllis, Henrietta, Nerissa, and Fanny were all sent, to the surprise of some, to the co-educational Huntingdon Grammar School, where Amaryllis arrived at the age of eleven. They made few friends there, but took leading parts in school plays and were the most creative pupils. Meanwhile, at home there was a farm, with a herd of Jersey cows, an orchard, a swimming pool, sculptures, and a dovehouse. At the age of sixteen, Garnett went as a boarder to Cranborne Chase School, then trained for an acting career at a drama school in London.[6] In 1962, she appeared in a production of Medea, when a reviewer commented “Amaryllis Garnett, as the Leader of the Chorus, made one listen to what sounded uncannily like Eliot-inspired reflection, not to admire its sonority but to unravel its philosophical implications.”[7]

In 1966, Garnett had her first screen role in an ITV Play of the Week written by John Mortimer called A Choice of Kings.[8] In 1967, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company.[9] As an actress, she was taken up by Harold Pinter, who found her a part in his film The Go-Between (1971).[10][11] Spotlight 1973 gave her height as 5 feet 8 inches and her eye colour as blue.[12] Her mother described her as "very beautiful and deeply intelligent".[13] In 1969, according to Frances Spalding, she was much admired by Cyril Connolly.[14]

Houseboats at Chelsea

In her late twenties, Garnett was living on a houseboat on the River Thames, moored by Battersea Bridge at Chelsea, which had been bought for her by her parents.[15] However, her life was turbulent, the result of combining a high-spending lifestyle with having no income at all. She decided to give up acting and move to Morocco with a boyfriend, causing her father to complain "Surely she ought to get a job and get on with her profession!"[16] At the age of 29, her life was falling apart.[17]

On an afternoon in May 1973, David Plante and Mark Lancaster took Garnett and her two sisters, all in long dresses, out to a club, where they danced together, while the men watched.[18] A few days later, while suffering from deep depression, Garnett drowned in the river at Chelsea.[17] It was possible that the death was accidental,[19][13] but the Garnett family believed in suicide, and Angelica told Plante that she had “not been a good mother”.[18] Garnett left behind a diary, which remains unpublished.[20]

In her biography of Duncan Grant of 1997, Frances Spalding gives the view that “Amaryllis was a rare combination of character, imagination and friendliness.”[21]

Notes
  1. Register of Deaths for Westminster Registration District, vol. 5E (April/June 1973), p. 1,908: GARNETT, Amaryllis Virginia
  2. "Garnett, Amaryllis V." in Register of Births for St Pancras Registration District, Oct–Dec quarter of 1943, vol. 1B, p. 11a
  3. Frances Spalding, "Angelica Garnett obituary" in The Guardian, 7 May 2012
  4. Martin Kellman, T. H. White and the Matter of Britain: A Literary Overview (London: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), p. 769
  5. Kellman (1989), pp. 769–777
  6. Frances Spalding, Duncan Grant (Chatto & Windus, 1997), pp. 210-215
  7. Encore: The Review of World Theatre, Vols. 9-11 (Encore Publishing Company, 1962), p. 52
  8. A Choice of Kings at bfi.org.uk/films, accessed 25 April 2020
  9. Russell Jackson, Romeo and Juliet: Shakespeare at Stratford Series (2003), p. 203
  10. Spalding (1997), p. 270
  11. "Go-Between, The", in James Monaco, ed., The Movie Guide (1992), p. 294
  12. Spotlight, Issue 131, Part 3 (1973), p. 1,946
  13. Angelica Garnett (obituary) dated 7 May 2012 in The Daily Telegraph online, accessed 2 February 2017
  14. Spalding (1997), p. 447
  15. Spalding (1997), p. 420
  16. Spalding (1997), p. 440
  17. Spalding (1997), p. 458
  18. David Plante, Becoming a Londoner: A Diary (A. & C. Black, 2013), pp. 136–137
  19. Anne Chisholm, Frances Partridge: the Biography (Hachette UK, 2009), p. 200
  20. Spalding (1997), pp. viii, 536
  21. António Bivar, Bivar na corte de Bloomsbury (A Girafa, 2005), p. 298
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