72-784: Safe Custody is a 1932 novel by the English author Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer). It was serialised weekly in five parts in The Saturday Evening Post in October and November 1931 as "Your Castle of Hohenems", illustrated by F. R. Gruger. It was Yates's first adventure novel to not feature Richard Chandos, and introduced new heroes: John Ferrers (who narrates the story), and his cousin Hubert Constable. Two minor villains, Punter and Bunch, who featured in Perishable Goods , are
144-576: A Third in Law. At university, he was active in the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), becoming secretary in 1906 and president in 1907, his final year. He acted in the 1905 production of Aristophanes ’ The Clouds , of which the Times reviewer said: " Among individual actors the best was Mr. C. W. Mercer, whose 'Strepsiades' was full of fun, and who possesses real comic talent. " After
216-893: A difficult role but carried it off. He travelled to America to repeat the role on Broadway in 1902. Back in London, he joined Herbert Beerbohm Tree 's theatre company in 1902, and in 1903 he played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing opposite the Beatrice of Ellen Terry. Other parts were Bolingbroke in Richard II , Christopher Sly and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew , Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream , and Angelo in Measure for Measure . In 1904 Asche became co-manager with Otho Stuart of
288-754: A final story from the Windsor of June 1919 in which the male characters have their story lines resolved in Salonika , during the Great War. The Interlude has a story entitled "And The Other Left", from the November 1914 Windsor , which is set on the Western Front with a unique set of characters. Book II returns to the 'Berry' characters, with two pre-war stories from the August and September 1914 Windsor , and three post-war stories from
360-542: A home-coming it was! Nothing, nothing can ever deprive me of that." On Asche's return to London in 1911, Edward Knoblock wrote the play Kismet for him, with the understanding that Asche could revise it. He shortened and partly re-wrote it and produced it with much success, playing Hajj. The production ran for two years, and a successful tour in Australia followed in 1911–12, with Kismet , A Midsummer Night's Dream , and Antony and Cleopatra . Back in London, Kismet
432-512: A living as a dancer; this story never appeared in book form. Mercer decided not to return to the bar, and to concentrate on his writing. He and Bettine lived in Elm Tree Road, where their only child, Richard, was born on 20 July 1920. After the Great War, many ex-officers found that the rise in the cost of living in London precluded maintaining the style of life of a gentleman to which they had become accustomed; some looked beyond England. In 1922,
504-630: A mounted police officer and a storekeeper, Thomas Asche became a prosperous hotel-keeper and publican in Melbourne and Sydney . Asche's mother, Thomas Asche's second wife, Harriet Emma, née Trear, was born in England. Asche was educated at Laurel Lodge in Dandenong and the Melbourne Grammar School , which he left at 16. He then went on a holiday voyage to China, and after his return to Australia
576-459: A post as pupil to a prominent barrister, H. G. Muskett, whose practice often required his appearing in court on behalf of the police commissioner. As Muskett's pupil, Mercer saw much of the seedy side of London life, some of which is evident in his novels. In 1909, he was called to the Bar where he worked for several years. In his first memoirs, As Berry & I Were Saying , he recalls his involvement in
648-513: A series issued by J.M.Dent & Sons under the title Classic Thrillers . Further Yates' books in the series were Perishable Goods , with an introduction by Richard Usborne ; Blood Royal , with an introduction by A.J.Smithers; Fire Below ; She Fell Among Thieves , with an introduction by Ion Trewin ; Gale Warning ; Cost Price ; Red in the Morning ; An Eye For a Tooth ; and The Best of Berry , with an introduction by Jack Adrian. Following
720-451: A simple family tree, showing them to be first cousins descended from two brothers and a sister. "Berry & Co." capture the English upper classes of the Edwardian era , still self-assured, but affected by changing social attitudes and the decline of their fortunes. As in many of Yates' books, grand houses, powerful motor cars, and foreign travel feature prominently in the 'Berry' stories. In
792-543: A small part in the 1906 production of Measure for Measure , in his final year, he appeared as 'Demetrius' in A Midsummer Night's Dream , and as 'Pedant' in The Taming of the Shrew , a production which included the professional actresses Lily Brayton as 'Katherine', and her sister Agnes as 'Bianca'. Among the many useful friends Mercer made in the OUDS were Gervais Rentoul , who asked him to be his best man, and Lily Brayton's husband, actor Oscar Asche , later producer of
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#1732852153806864-422: Is a fantasy set in a lost realm, between Spain and France, where travellers encounter characters from nursery rhymes and fairy tales. A planned sequel, The Tempered Wind , is referred to in the quasi-autobiography, B-Berry and I Look Back , where Yates mentions abandoning the book as it failed to "take charge". This Publican features a scheming woman and her hen-pecked husband. Some critics have suggested that
936-455: Is a group of characters in the satirical novel who style themselves as the 'Dornford Yates' club and who try to emulate the 'Master' in avoiding reality and a changing world. Sharpe was later hired by the BBC to adapt She Fell Among Thieves for television, and used the same satirical approach. In 1983 Sharpe wrote an introduction to a reprint of Yates' first Chandos thriller Blind Corner , one of
1008-602: The Windsor Magazine , maintaining a relationship with this last until the end of the 1930s; after it closed he wrote for the Strand Magazine . He also assisted in the writing of What I Know (Mills & Boon, 1913) - US title King Edward As I Knew Him - the memoirs of C. W. Stamper, who had been motor engineer to King Edward VII . At the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Mercer was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in
1080-469: The 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) , although his stories continued to appear in the Windsor until March 1915. In 1915, his regiment left for Egypt and, in November 1915 as part of the 8th Mounted Brigade, he was sent to the Salonika/Macedonian front where the war was in stalemate. Suffering severe muscular rheumatism he was sent home in 1917 and, although he was still in uniform,
1152-643: The Adelphi Theatre on a three-year lease. Their productions included The Prayer of the Sword , A Midsummer Night's Dream , The Taming of the Shrew , Measure for Measure , Count Hannibal (which he wrote with F. Norreys Connell ) and Rudolf Besier 's The Virgin Goddess . In 1906 he played King Mark in J. Comyns Carr 's play Tristram and Iseult at the Adelphi Theatre , with Lily Brayton as Iseult and Matheson Lang as Tristram. In 1907 Asche and his wife took over
1224-967: The Duchess Theatre was a failure. In 1933 Asche made his last stage appearance in The Beggar’s Bowl at the Duke of York's Theatre . Asche also made appearances in seven films between 1932 and 1936, including in Two Hearts in Waltz Time (1934), as the Spirit of Christmas Present in the 1935 film Scrooge , and in The Private Secretary (1935). He also wrote several books, including his autobiography, but these ventures did not solve his financial troubles. In his final years, Asche became obese, poor, argumentative and violent. He and his wife separated, but, at
1296-642: The F R Benson Company , where he remained for eight years, playing more than a hundred roles including important Shakespearean parts. He married the actress Lily Brayton in 1898, and the two were often paired onstage for many years. He played Maldonado in Arthur Wing Pinero 's Iris in the West End in 1901, his first important part in modern comedy. He repeated the role on Broadway the following year, and then joined Herbert Beerbohm Tree 's theatre company in London in 1902, playing more Shakespearean roles over
1368-509: The George Edwardes Estate, which had an outstanding run of 1,352 performances. As a director, Asche was an innovator in stage lighting and one of the first to use it as a dramatic factor in productions rather than as mere illumination. He was also known for his use of colour and his sensitivity about the dividing line between opulence and vulgarity. Though Asche had been making a large income for many years, he also spent largely. He
1440-531: The Interwar Period . The pen name Dornford Yates , first in print in 1910, resulted from combining the maiden names of his grandmothers – the paternal Eliza Mary Dornford, and the maternal Harriet Yates. William (Bill) Mercer was born in Walmer , Kent, the son of Cecil John Mercer (1850–1921) and Helen Wall (1858–1918). His father was a solicitor whose sister, Mary Frances, married Charles Augustus Munro; their son
1512-658: The Opera Comique Theatre, London, as Roberts in Man and Woman . He then joined the F. R. Benson Company and for eight years gained experience an actor. Among other venues, they played at the summer Stratford festivals. He started with small parts and was eventually cast as Charles the Wrestler in As You Like It , being well suited because of his excellent physique. His other early roles included Biondello in The Taming of
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#17328521538061584-560: The War Office did not again post him. He eventually left the army in 1919. In June of that year the Windsor carried his first story since the end of the war. Since 1914, the Mercer family home had been Elm Tree Road, behind the north-west side of Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood , where his friends Oscar and Lily Asche were close neighbours. In autumn of 1919, he and Asche combined to write
1656-518: The post-war Labour government ; the title derives from a description of members of the Conservative Party given in a 1948 speech by Labour Party MP and government minister Aneurin Bevan . Ne'er-Do-Well is a murder story narrated by Richard Chandos, with whom the investigating detective is staying. Wife Apparent was Yates's last novel, set in 1956. The 1919 musical play Eastward Ho!
1728-620: The 1950s, C.W. Mercer wrote two books of fictionalized memoirs, As Berry and I Were Saying and B-Berry and I Look Back , written as conversations between Berry and his family. They contain many anecdotes about his experiences as a lawyer, but are, in the main, an elegy for a past upper-class way of life. The 'Chandos' books, starting with Blind Corner , in 1927, marked a change in style and content, being thrillers set mainly in Continental Europe (often in Carinthia , Austria), wherein
1800-813: The Benson Company at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Asche's biographer Richard Foulkes writes, "When Benson brought his itinerant troupe to the Lyceum Theatre in the spring of 1900 Asche appeared in six of the eight productions, most notably as Pistol, Claudius, and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, raising that smallish part to one of sinister grandeur." Asche had another success at the Garrick Theatre in 1901 when he played Maldonado in Arthur Wing Pinero 's Iris , his first important part in modern comedy. Both The Times and The Observer remarked that Asche had
1872-520: The County of Hampshire") and his family – his wife and cousin, Daphne, her brother, Boy Pleydell (the narrator), and their cousins Jonathan "Jonah" Mansel, and his sister, Jill. Collectively, they are "Berry & Co." Although all five appear in "Babes in the Wood", their precise relationships there are unstated, and Berry and Daphne are referred to as second cousins as late as Jonah & Co ; later stories feature
1944-562: The Mercers emigrated to France, where it was possible to live more cheaply, and where the climate was kinder to Mercer's muscular rheumatism . They chose the resort town Pau , in the western Pyrenees , in the Basses–Pyrénées département (now Pyrénées-Atlantiques ) – where lived a sizeable British expat colony, but when the Mercers moved in is unknown. In Dornford Yates – A Biography (1982), A.J. Smithers reports "exactly how he hit upon
2016-635: The Shrew . He was paid a salary of £2 10s. a week, but his father had been involved in a financial crisis and was unable to send him any allowance. At holiday times when he had no salary, Asche sometimes slept on the Thames Embankment and was glad to earn trifling tips for calling cabs. His salary was raised to £4 a week, and he was never in such straits again. Asche played more than a hundred roles with Benson's company including Brutus, Claudius and other important Shakespearian parts. His resonant voice and his dignified, formal bearing are often mentioned in
2088-629: The United States four of his novels were serialized in Woman's Home Companion between 1933 and 1939, while others appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and Blue Book . His first story for The Windsor Magazine was "Busy Bees", in September 1911, and this and fourteen subsequent stories from that publication up to the July 1914 issue were republished in book form as The Brother of Daphne , in 1914. Some of
2160-519: The Williamson company, his contract was abruptly terminated in June 1924. On his return to Britain, as a result of excessive gambling, tax debts and unwise investments, he was declared bankrupt in 1926. Further successes eluded Asche as he tried to mount musicals, including The Good Old Days of England (1928), financed by his wife. He continued to direct shows. His 1930 production of The Intimate Revue at
2232-414: The divorce was made absolute in September 1933. In the event, she returned to her family in the U.S. Less than a year later, on 10 February 1934, at Chertsey Register office, Mercer married Doreen Elizabeth Lucie Bowie, whom he met on a cruise in 1932. She was the daughter of London solicitor David Mather Bowie of Virginia Water . Elizabeth was twenty years younger than her new husband, who felt he had met
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2304-582: The end, he returned to her and died at the age of 65 in Bisham , Berkshire, of coronary thrombosis. He was buried in the riverside cemetery there. He had no children. Asche's autobiography, Oscar Asche: His Life (1929), must be read with caution whenever figures are mentioned. He also wrote two novels: the Saga of Hans Hansen (1930), an improbable but exciting story, and The Joss Sticks of Chung (1931). His play Chu Chin Chow
2376-530: The engagement of Mrs Perin’s oldest daughter Miss Bettine Stokes Edwards. . . ." suggesting that her father either was dead or divorced; her remarried mother then lived in New York City. Mercer and Bettine married at St James's, Spanish Place , in the Marylebone district of London, on 22 October 1919. The month of October also marked the appearance of a story in the Windsor called Valerie whose female lead made
2448-420: The existing record of 1,466 performances, set by Charley's Aunt in the 1890s. The new record stood for decades. The show drew some criticism for the ladies' scanty costumes, which Tree described as "more navel than millinery", but it was just what war-weary audiences wanted. Asche played the part of Abu Hassan and confessed that "it got terribly boring going down those stairs night after night to go through
2520-632: The following quotes - This article about a thriller novel of the 1930s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . Dornford Yates Cecil William Mercer (7 August 1885 – 5 March 1960), known by his pen name Dornford Yates , was an English writer and novelist whose novels and short stories, some humorous (the Berry books), some thrillers (the Chandos books), were best-sellers during
2592-508: The heroes. The author, living in France at the time, seems to have been homesick, as the dedication reads "To the finest city in the world incomparable LONDON TOWN". Mercer’s autobiographer AJ Smithers, writing in 1982, suggested that "his public ought to have become disenchanted by now with such well-worn stuff, but it cannot be denied that Safe Custody came as fresh as any of the others". It sold well, as usual. The original dustjacket included
2664-427: The hero–narrator, Richard Chandos, and colleagues, including George Hanbury and Jonathan Mansel (who also featured in the 'Berry' books), tackle criminals, protect the innocent, woo beautiful ladies, and hunt for treasure. These were originally published by Hodder and Stoughton although later they were re-issued by Ward Lock. It is the 'Chandos' novels to which Alan Bennett especially refers in naming Dornford Yates in
2736-478: The incarnation of his fictional "Jill Mansel", thus did he call her "Jill" for the rest of his life. For him, Villa Maryland had many memories of Bettine, so he and Elizabeth decided to build a new house, named "Cockade". They chose a spot twenty-seven miles south of Pau, a little north-west of Eaux-Bonnes , on the road to the hamlet of Aas; the project is related in The House That Berry Built , wherein
2808-650: The issues of July, August and September 1919. The book's final story, "Nemesis", was written for, but rejected by, Punch ; subsequently, it appeared in the Windsor in November 1919, with the main character named "Jeremy"; for the book he became "Berry". "Nemesis" was written to the Punch length, and so is much shorter than most of the other stories in The Courts of Idleness . The Berry books are semi-autobiographical, humorous romances, often in short story form, and, in particular, feature Bertram "Berry" Pleydell ("of White Ladies, in
2880-489: The leading role of Hajj. Asche most famously wrote and produced Chu Chin Chow , starring himself and his wife, which ran for an unprecedented 2,238 performances, from 31 August 1916 to 22 July 1921. During the run, among other projects, he directed the hit London production of The Maid of the Mountains . From 1922 to 1924 he toured in Australia with the J C Williamson company. As a result of his high-spending lifestyle, he
2952-464: The management of His Majesty's Theatre and produced Laurence Binyon ’s Attila , with Asche in the title role, and innovative productions of Shakespeare plays, such as As You Like It , with Asche as Jacques, and Othello , with Asche in the title role. They made their first tour in Australia in 1909–10, with Asche playing Petruchio, Othello and other roles. Asche was much touched by his reception at Melbourne. In his 1929 autobiography he said, "What
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3024-608: The monthly magazines. His first known published work, Temporary Insanity , appeared in Punch in May 1910 – this is the first known occasion of his use of his pen name – and his second, Like A Tale That is Told appeared in the Red Magazine in July 1910. The first known 'Berry' story to be published, Babes in the Wood , appeared in Pearson's Magazine in September 1910. None of these early stories
3096-604: The name of the house is "Gracedieu" (God's Grace). They did not enjoy long residence in Cockade. With France falling to the Wehrmacht in June 1940, the Mercers hurriedly arranged caretakers for Cockade, and then escaped the country – in company of visiting friends, Matheson Lang and wife – and traversed Spain en route to Portugal. They subsequently took ship for South Africa, arriving in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, in 1941. C.W. Mercer
3168-399: The next few years. Asche and his wife became managers of the Adelphi Theatre in 1904 and His Majesty's Theatre in 1907; he made his first tour of Australia in 1909–10, and was much moved by his reception in his native land. In 1911 Edward Knoblock wrote the play Kismet for him; Asche revised and shortened it, and the production enjoyed great success in London and on tour with Asche in
3240-724: The only characters from previous novels. The castle of Hohenems has the same name as a town in Vorarlberg , but in the book is located in Carinthia . Ferrers and Constable inherit the Castle of Hohenems in Austria and seek the priceless carved jewel collection of its former owner, the Borgia Pope Alexander VI , walled up within the dungeons. They team up with Andrew Palin to outwit the thief Harris and his ally Father Herman Haydn. Lady Olivia Haydn, Father Herman's niece, joins forces with
3312-412: The performance six times in succession. More study followed in London, where he worked to lose his Australian accent. He was fortunate in having an allowance of £10 a week from his father, but could not obtain work. In December 1892 he went to Norway again to give a Shakespeare recital, which was successful and brought him a little money. On 25 March 1893 Asche made his first appearance on the stage, at
3384-534: The place is not clear", but Pau figures several times in the memoirs he is presumed to have ghost-written for C.W. Stamper, and so that might be the answer – "anywhere good enough for King Edward VII was good enough for him". They rented the Villa Maryland, on Rue Forster, where Mercer proved an exacting husband, while Bettine was a social woman, and by 1929, the failure of their marriage was evident. Bettine had been indiscreet in her extra-marital romantic liaisons, and Mercer sued for divorce. Bettine did not defend, and
3456-429: The play Forty Years On (1972): "Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature." Yates also wrote other thrillers in the same style, but with different characters. Besides these two genres, some of Yates' novels do not easily fall into either the humorous or the thriller category. Anthony Lyveden
3528-434: The play Kismet , and writer of Chu Chin Chow . After university, Mercer took a caravanning holiday in Hampshire , with Asche, Lily, Agnes, and another theatrical couple, Matheson Lang and his wife, Hutin Britton ; both Asche and Lang recall that holiday in their memoirs. Mercer's third-class Oxford law degree was insufficient to gain him traditional access to the bar . However, in 1908 his father obtained his son
3600-403: The portrayal of the villainess represented a thinly-veiled attack on Mercer's first wife, although that could imply that the husband was a self-portrait, and as Smithers' states, "...he would hardly have held himself out in a character so feeble and flaccid." Lower than Vermin is a novel in which the author defends his views on social class, and criticises the path Britain was following under
3672-503: The publication of Dornford Yates - A Biography in 1982, Smithers went on to write Combined Forces in 1983, subtitled "Being the Latter-Day adventures of Maj-Gen Sir Richard Hannay, Captain Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond and Berry and Co", which has the heroes (and some villains) of Buchan, Sapper and Yates meeting up after World War Two and having further adventures together. In 2015, Kate Macdonald published Novelists Against Social Change: Conservative Popular Fiction, 1920–1960 , which examines
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#17328521538063744-477: The rest of his life. Mercer supervised the building of a replacement house for Cockade, another hillside venture, and, in 1948, they moved into "Sacradown", on Oak Avenue. The furniture in France was shipped to Rhodesia, as were the Waterloo Bridge balusters (see The House that Berry Built ), which had never reached Cockade, but had been stored in England during the Second World War . Cecil William Mercer died in March 1960. Mercer originally wrote short stories for
3816-438: The reviews of his performances. He was a good athlete and a fair cricketer . He said that he owed his place in Benson's company as much to his cricketing as to his acting abilities: the Benson company fielded a cricket team wherever it toured in the summer months. Asche married Lily Brayton , another member of the company, in 1898, and the two were often cast in the same productions for many years. In 1900 Asche appeared with
3888-412: The same old lines". But Asche was a perfectionist, and the performance was never allowed to get slack. Chu Chin Chow also played in New York City in 1917 and Australia in 1920. Asche collaborated in 1919 with Dornford Yates on a musical adaptation of Eastward Ho ! Also during the run of Chu Chin Chow , Asche directed the hit London production of The Maid of the Mountains for Robert Evett and
3960-536: The stage show Eastward Ho! , but the production was not a great success and he did not again attempt to write for the stage. A frequent social – and then romantic – Elm Tree Road visitor was Bettine (Athalia) Stokes Edwards, an American girl who danced in Chu Chin Chow (and daughter of Robert Ewing Edwards of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) who became Mercer's first wife. The New York Times announcement of their engagement (28 August 1919) states: "Mr & Mrs Glover Fitzhugh Perin of 57 West Fifty-eight street have announced
4032-405: The stories were edited for the book, to eliminate events, such as marriage, for the leading characters – which suggests that, originally, he had not planned on using the same characters for a story series. The narrator – later identified as "Boy Pleydell" – marries in "Babes in the Wood" and possibly in "Busy Bees", which became chapter VIII "The Busy Beers" in The Brother of Daphne , with the end of
4104-417: The story altered to remove the hint of marriage. His second book, The Courts of Idleness , was published in 1920, containing material written before, during, and after the Great War. It was divided into three sections. In Book I Yates introduced a new set of characters similar to, but separate from, Berry & Co , in four stories that had appeared in the Windsor between December 1914 and March 1915, and
4176-424: The trial of the poisoner Hawley Harvey Crippen , when he returned from acting with the Old Stagers , at Canterbury , to have first look at the legal brief. Mercer is in a photograph of the Bow Street Court committal proceedings, published in the Daily Mirror of 30 August 1910. In his spare time, he wrote short stories that were published in Punch , The Harmsworth RED Magazine , Pearson's Magazine , and
4248-546: The work of Buchan, Yates and Angela Thirkell . Oscar Asche John Stange(r) Heiss Oscar Asche (24 January 1871 – 23 March 1936), better known as Oscar Asche , was an Australian actor, director, and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical Chu Chin Chow , both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and successful musicals. After studying acting in Norway and London, Asche made his London stage debut in 1893 and soon joined
4320-457: The works of Dornford Yates in Volume 3, Number 11 of The Windmill , a literary magazine. Yates was not pleased by the article, but nevertheless Usborne went on to write Clubland Heroes (1953; reprinted 1974 and 1983) in which he examined the work of Yates and two contemporary thriller writers, John Buchan and Sapper . The 1973 novel Indecent Exposure by Tom Sharpe plays up the 'Englishman' that Dornford Yates created in his novels. There
4392-451: Was Hector Hugh Munro (the writer Saki ); Bill Mercer is said to have idolised his elder cousin. Mercer attended St Clare preparatory school in Walmer from 1894 to 1899. The family moved from Kent to London when he joined Harrow School as a day pupil in 1899, his father selling his solicitor's practice in Kent and setting up office in Carey Street . Leaving Harrow in 1903, he attended University College, Oxford in 1904, where he achieved
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#17328521538064464-412: Was Dornford Yates's first novel, telling the story of an impoverished ex-officer. Originally, it was published in monthly instalments in The Windsor Magazine , Valerie French , the sequel to Anthony Lyveden features mostly the same cast. At the start of the book Lyveden is suffering amnesia , and cannot recall the events of the previous book, leading to romantic complications. The Stolen March
4536-454: Was also used as the first episode of the US TV series Mystery! in 1980. An episode of the ITV Hannay series, "A Point of Honour", was based on the eponymous short story published in The Brother of Daphne , but the source was uncredited. An audiobook edition of Blind Corner , read by Alan Rickman , was produced by Chivers Audio Books . In 1948 Richard Usborne wrote an article entitled Ladies and Gentlemen v. Cads and Rotters about
4608-463: Was articled to an architect who died soon afterwards. A few months later, he ran away and lived in the bush for some weeks and then obtained a position as a jackaroo . He returned to his parents and obtained a position in an office, but he had now decided to become an actor and made a beginning by getting up private theatricals at his home. He travelled to Fiji and on his return his father agreed to send him to Norway to study acting. At Bergen , Asche
4680-402: Was declared bankrupt in 1926. Though his success as a producer waned, he continued to direct and act, including in several films, until the mid-1930s. Asche was born in Geelong , Victoria , Australia. His father, Thomas, born in Norway, studied law at Christiania University ; he did not pursue a legal career in Australia because he failed to master the English language. After being a digger,
4752-440: Was ever included in his books. Many of his works began as stories in The Windsor Magazine , before being collected in book form by the Windsor 's publishers, Ward Lock . Between September 1911 and September 1939 he had 123 stories published in the Windsor , and after it closed, the Strand Magazine carried three of his stories in 1940 and 1941. Four of his novels were serialised in Woman's Journal between 1933 and 1938. In
4824-403: Was instructed in deportment, voice production and theatre arts. He found the Norwegian acting technique to be easy and natural. Two months later, he went to Christiania to study acting. There he met Henrik Ibsen , who advised him to go to his own country and work in his own language. Asche then went to London and was so impressed by Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in Henry VIII , that he saw
4896-420: Was much interested in coursing , kept many greyhounds, and lost tens of thousands of pounds gambling on them. He bought a farm in Gloucestershire that was a constant expense, and he eventually had to sell it to pay his debts. After the success of Chu Chin Chow , Asche wrote another musical that opened on Broadway in 1920 under the name Mecca and then in London the following year under the name Cairo . It
4968-507: Was not a huge success on either side of the Atlantic; in London it ran for 267 performances at His Majestys's. In 1922, Asche visited Australia again, under contract to J. C. Williamson Ltd. , and made successful appearances as Hornblower in John Galsworthy 's The Skin Game , Maldonado in Pinero's Iris , his usual roles in Chu Chin Chow and Cairo , the title character in Julius Caesar , and in other Shakespeare plays. His wife declined to join him on this tour. After disagreements with
5040-447: Was re-commissioned, this time in the Royal Rhodesian Regiment, and attained the rank of major. As the war concluded, the couple realised their plan of returning to Cockade – but were disappointed in the decrepitude of the house and the socially conscious, post-war attitude of their one-time servants . After some months, the Mercers obtained exit visas and returned to Umtali , Southern Rhodesia , (now Mutare, Zimbabwe), where they lived for
5112-478: Was revived successfully, but in October 1914 Asche's own play Mameena based on H. Rider Haggard 's novel, A Child of the Storm , though at first well received, proved a financial failure, largely on account of the conditions in London at the beginning of World War I. In 1916, Asche produced his play Chu Chin Chow , music by Frederic Norton , starring himself and his wife, which ran for 2,238 performances, from 31 August 1916 to 22 July 1921. The run easily broke
5184-526: Was written by Oscar Asche (author) with lyrics by Dornford Yates and music by Grace Torrens and John Ansell . It was produced by Edward Laurillard and George Grossmith Jr. , and opened at the Alhambra Theatre in London on 9 September and ran for 124 performances. The BBC produced an adaptation of She Fell Among Thieves in 1977, featuring Malcolm McDowell as Chandos, Michael Jayston as Mansel, and Eileen Atkins as Vanity Fair. This adaptation
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