Osborne

JOHN OSBORNE (1929 - 1994)

The playwright remarks in his first volume of autobiography that he began writing his first play in the dressing-room of the Sunderland Empire. The play was originally entitled Resting Deep and was, in Osborne's words, a melodrama about a poetical Welsh loon. It was later re-named The Devil Inside Him and was produced (in the provinces only) in 1949. Osborne says that he was in digs at 21 Turnstile Lane, with a Mrs Ellis. There is no such address, and research into the various Tunstall thoroughfares (there is no Tunstall Lane) has failed to reveal any Mrs Ellis at that period.

Osborne also acted in Middlesbrough and Newcastle where, on receiving a phone-call from his then wife Penelope Gilliatt (q.v.) he said that he was giving his all 'for the burghers of Geordieland, your compatriots.' Osborne does not mention performing in either Gateshead or West Hartlepool, but in The Entertainer (1957) he uses the names of these towns (and 7 Claypit Lane, unlocated) as shorthand for dismal places unlikely to be familiar to a London audience. The horror of houses whose front doors open directly into the living-room is not disguised.

The notorious rancour of John Osborne's four broken marriages followed him around, he said, like previous convictions. His marriage to Helen Osborne, however - the only wife to take his name - lasted for 17 happy years until his death in l994. Among other things, he called her 'The Geordie Tyke'. She was born Helen Dawson in Newcastle, and read history at Durham. There she wrote for the student newspaper Palatinate, then edited by Hunter Davies. Both volumes of Osborne's autobiography, A Better Class of Person and Almost a Gentleman are dedicated to her.

When she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl, she won a literary prize and chose Look Back in Anger. She gave the copy to John Osborne just before they married. 'And back to you,' she inscribed it, 'with all my love, ever and ever.' Helen was the Observer's waspishly brilliant arts editor in the late Sixties, coincidentally editing the drama reviews of the mighty Kenneth Tynan - Osborne's first champion - as well as the film reviews of Osborne's third wife, Penelope Gilliatt (q.v.)

The Osbornes moved to remote Clun, Shropshire, in the Eighties, far from London - and the West End. The inscription on Osborne's headstone reads: 'Let me know where you're working tomorrow night - and I'll come and see YOU.' The quotation, was, of course, the parting shot of Archie Rice in The Entertainer. When Helen visited Osborne's grave, she would talk to him: 'I'm sorry to tell you this, John, but Andrew Lloyd-Webber's been made a lord.' She was buried alongside John Osborne in Clun churchyard in 2004.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
JOHN OSBORNE (1929 - 1994) The playwright remarks in his first volume of autobiography that he began writing his first play in the dressing-room of the Sunderland Empire. The play was originally entitled Resting Deep and was, in Osborne's words, a melodrama about a poetical Welsh loon. It was later re-named The Devil Inside Him and was produced (in the provinces only) in 1949. Osborne says that he was in digs at 21 Turnstile Lane, with a Mrs Ellis. There is no such address, and research into the various Tunstall thoroughfares (there is no Tunstall Lane) has failed to reveal any Mrs Ellis at that period. Osborne also acted in Middlesbrough and Newcastle where, on receiving a phone-call from his then wife Penelope Gilliatt (q.v.) he said that he was giving his all 'for the burghers of Geordieland, your compatriots.' Osborne does not mention performing in either Gateshead or West Hartlepool, but in The Entertainer (1957) he uses the names of these towns (and 7 Claypit Lane, unlocated) as shorthand for dismal places unlikely to be familiar to a London audience. The horror of houses whose front doors open directly into the living-room is not disguised. The notorious rancour of John Osborne's four broken marriages followed him around, he said, like previous convictions. His marriage to Helen Osborne, however - the only wife to take his name - lasted for 17 happy years until his death in l994. Among other things, he called her 'The Geordie Tyke'. She was born Helen Dawson in Newcastle, and read history at Durham. There she wrote for the student newspaper Palatinate, then edited by Hunter Davies. Both volumes of Osborne's autobiography, A Better Class of Person and Almost a Gentleman are dedicated to her. When she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl, she won a literary prize and chose Look Back in Anger. She gave the copy to John Osborne just before they married. 'And back to you,' she inscribed it, 'with all my love, ever and ever.' Helen was the Observer's waspishly brilliant arts editor in the late Sixties, coincidentally editing the drama reviews of the mighty Kenneth Tynan - Osborne's first champion - as well as the film reviews of Osborne's third wife, Penelope Gilliatt (q.v.) The Osbornes moved to remote Clun, Shropshire, in the Eighties, far from London - and the West End. The inscription on Osborne's headstone reads: 'Let me know where you're working tomorrow night - and I'll come and see YOU.' The quotation, was, of course, the parting shot of Archie Rice in The Entertainer. When Helen visited Osborne's grave, she would talk to him: 'I'm sorry to tell you this, John, but Andrew Lloyd-Webber's been made a lord.' She was buried alongside John Osborne in Clun churchyard in 2004.
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