Mrs. Bridges is Born
Actress of stage and screen, Madeline Angela Clinton-Baddeley was born in London 4 July 1904, the daughter of a well-to-do family with servants. She based the character of Mrs. Bridges on one of the cooks her family had when she was a child. Her younger sister was the actress Hermione Baddeley. I am indebted to WG of Mummy Get Your Purse for this association with 1904 -- a year which does not resonate with him as much as the year 1976, when Angela Baddeley passed away, after the final season of UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS had aired. 1976 was the year, WG writes, "in which I had my first cornetto and I also bought a walking stick in an eagle park in the Black Forest -- it became a real friend that stick."
Cornetto. It's ice-cream and nuts in a cone. In America we call it a Drumstick. 1976 was the "Year of the Tall Ships" in this country, part of the 4th of July (Angela's birthday -- note!) Bicentennial celebrations. New York's harbor was filled with vessels large and small and the streets of Manhattan were teeming with sailors from around the world all looking to make new friends. Or so I seem to recall, somewhat dimly from this vantage point I admit.
How often in the World of the Theatre -- and Life -- do we play a character from another class? In fact, I believe Angela was not the only member of the cast to play a servant and then go home to a house full of them (she and her husband had four), but such is the magic of acting. I played a sailor once on stage. "H.M.S. Pinafore." That counts, doesn't it?
Speaking of the stage, I've been told that in the late Victorian era and into the Edwardian period which followed (and which encompasses 1904) the word "earnest" was code for "gay" -- in the modern sense. So that "Are you earnest?" or "Are you being earnest?" was another way of asking,
"Do you have a Light?"
"Do you have the Time?"
"Are you a Friend of Dorothy's?"
"Do you ride the Short Bus?"
"Have you drunk from the Well of Loneliness?"
or the rather more direct
"Do You Wanna Funk?"
Which of course gives new meaning to the title of Oscar's play, "The Importance of Being Earnest." I read this recently and have not confirmed the authenticity of the connotation, [Do you think Conrad would know? Ed. note.] so those who have expertise in these matters, please advise. It certainly sounds reasonable and right up there with "Prick Up Your Ears." Those English playwrights.
By the way, the Worst Pick-Up Line Ever: "Is that a mirror in your pocket because I can really see myself in your pants." Nearly as bad as "I like your dress. I'd like it better in a ball at the end of my bed."
It practically never works. But when it does, you'll know the person you're dealing with is very earnest.
"Have you drunk from the Well of Loneliness?" HA! You know I finally got around to reading it. When I worked for that NYC department store I found a first American edition in amongst the prop books we used in the home furnishing windows. Needless to say it came home with me. Not exactly a feel good book. (Well none of them were then, were they.) I ended up giving it to a academic friend of mine who specialized in Queer Theory.
If the idea of veiled pick-up lines is not to make heterosexuals suspicious, there's a slight flaw in "Have you drunk from the Well of Loneliness?" Aside from, you know, sounding like a character from Douglas Sirk.
George, you'll be happy to know you're riding the crest of a trend. Yesterday I went to the first annual Low Life, a drag/burlesque performance art thing in turn-of-the-century spirit. It was wonderfully, hysterically authentic, with a (drag) washerwoman hosting and scrubbing down the stage between performances, and a drag queen Evelyn Nesbit singing "The Girl On the Swing" to females playing Harry Thaw and Stanford White.
[1904 replies: Even if you want to sound like a character from Douglas Sirk? No, of course you're right. And I am wildly envious of your evening of theatre, it sounds like heaven. You don't know how much I've wished the whole business with Evelyn, Harry and Stanford had happened in the right year -- so very close but no cigar!]
I never knew that about Earnest and do like to collect obscure facts so thanks for that!