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The Movers and Shakers: Young Activists of the Sixties
Discusses the philosophies and activities of the various youth movements in the sixties and their efforts to bring about reforms in the American establishment.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
190 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1982
96 people want to read
About the author
Helene Hanff
24 books741 followersHelene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road, Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road, Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 11, 2021
Helene Hanff was an extraordinary woman, her writing will always lovingly be remembered for 84 Charing Cross Road. It certainly deserves the praise as her letter writing was indeed second to none. However, this account of the bravest of the young activists in the 1960's USA is an outstanding piece of history writing, from the point of view of the underdog, not the victor.
The following passage will stay with me for a long time. Discussing yellow fever and how a US army Major in the late 1800s had helped to irradicate the disease, then goes on to describe an experience she had.
In 1964, the same United States Army offered this author $1000 to write a TV training film designed to teach American airmen to fly over enemy cities at night and release capsules containing 3,000, 000 yellow fever germs, which would infect entire populations with the disease in a matter of minutes.
''Colonel,'' said the author to the man who had offered the assignment, ''I couldn't inject one child with yellow fever germs. Not for all the money on earth.''
The Colonel looked surprised.
''You mustn't think of it that way,'' he said. ''To me, it's just Project 217-A.''
It was pointed out to him that the Nazis had given the same excuse at the Nuremberg war-crime trials. They had arranged not to think of a crematorium as an oven in which children were gassed and roasted to death. To them, a crematorium was just ''Project 217-A''
''If you don't write it, somebody else will,'' said the Colonel. And presumably, somebody else did.
Hanff was the author discussed above, she had written training manuals for the forces in the past but this was for her unacceptable. Quite rightly, I might add!
The majority of the book discussed the brave men and, women who fought for their rights as people of colour, women, and those in Vietnam. The brutality of the Government and, police described in horrific detail by Hanff, was largely unreported by the main news reports of the time. Those that were reported, were twisted into the all too familiar versions that serve those in charge.
This book was concluded and, released in 1970, so it is of its time and, would have been raw when published, no doubt ruffling some feathers in the upper echelons of society.
Hanff as a white woman was aware of her privilege over those people of colour, who were so less privileged. However, her writing of their story was honest and, empathetic without at any point condescending, or dismissive. A true ally.
I have said this in reviews before, I say it again, I would have loved to have met this awesome woman.
The following passage will stay with me for a long time. Discussing yellow fever and how a US army Major in the late 1800s had helped to irradicate the disease, then goes on to describe an experience she had.
In 1964, the same United States Army offered this author $1000 to write a TV training film designed to teach American airmen to fly over enemy cities at night and release capsules containing 3,000, 000 yellow fever germs, which would infect entire populations with the disease in a matter of minutes.
''Colonel,'' said the author to the man who had offered the assignment, ''I couldn't inject one child with yellow fever germs. Not for all the money on earth.''
The Colonel looked surprised.
''You mustn't think of it that way,'' he said. ''To me, it's just Project 217-A.''
It was pointed out to him that the Nazis had given the same excuse at the Nuremberg war-crime trials. They had arranged not to think of a crematorium as an oven in which children were gassed and roasted to death. To them, a crematorium was just ''Project 217-A''
''If you don't write it, somebody else will,'' said the Colonel. And presumably, somebody else did.
Hanff was the author discussed above, she had written training manuals for the forces in the past but this was for her unacceptable. Quite rightly, I might add!
The majority of the book discussed the brave men and, women who fought for their rights as people of colour, women, and those in Vietnam. The brutality of the Government and, police described in horrific detail by Hanff, was largely unreported by the main news reports of the time. Those that were reported, were twisted into the all too familiar versions that serve those in charge.
This book was concluded and, released in 1970, so it is of its time and, would have been raw when published, no doubt ruffling some feathers in the upper echelons of society.
Hanff as a white woman was aware of her privilege over those people of colour, who were so less privileged. However, her writing of their story was honest and, empathetic without at any point condescending, or dismissive. A true ally.
I have said this in reviews before, I say it again, I would have loved to have met this awesome woman.
Displaying 1 of 1 review