Memorial service 5.ix.91
Coral Browne was ill during the filming of "An Englishman Abroad." She lived to receive awards for her remarkable role both in the creation of the story and her performance. At a memorial service held for her at the Farmers Church in London, a letter written by her husband, Vincent Price, was read by John Schlesinger and is printed here, along with a remembrance written and delivered by Alan Bates.
Dear John:
WHEN I WAS courting Coral, the first gift she gave me was
a photo of herself simply signed: "Remember Coral"
-- not really a challenge as the problem was: how could you forget
her? I've come to believe remembering someone is not the highest
compliment -- it is missing them. I find I miss every hour of
Coral's life -- I miss her morning cloudiness, noon mellowness,
evening brightness. I miss her in every corner of our house,
every crevice of my life. In missing her, I feel I'm missing
much of life itself. Over her long illness, as I held her hand
or stroked her brow, or just lay still beside her, it was not
the affectionate contact we'd known as we wandered down the glamorous
paths we'd been privileged to share in our few years together;
we were marching towards the end of our time and we both knew
it. But, in our looks, our smiles, the private, few, soft-spoken
words, there was hope of other places, other ways, perhaps, to
meet again.
One fact of Coral I'll always miss: her many,
many devoted friends -- many here, today, in this beautiful church,
celebrating her life more than mourning her death, and missing
the liveliness of her wit, her personal beauty, her outgoing
self. I love them all for loving her. Many of you have shared
more of her life than I have, but that very private and intense
passion for her is mine alone.
She survived that last long year on the love
of her friends, their caring and concern -- and very especially
yours, dear John. I miss you all, and though we may not meet
as often, nor in the great good company of my wife, you are in
my memory locked.
All my love,
Vincent
I can hear Coral now saying, "So you got stuck with the
address, did you, darling, good luck; and don't think I won't
be listening."
To sum up the life and spirit of Coral Browne
in a short address is pretty impossible, but here goes. Her beloved,
and much loved, husband, Vincent Price, has asked me not to tell
a lot of legendary Coral Browne stories. And indeed most people
here know them, and quite a few people here are the subject of
them, so I couldn't tell them anyway; some of them were magnificently
retold in her last notices (they were not obituaries, they were
the best notices I have ever read for anyone, and rightly so).
We all knew Coral Browne the superb actress,
witty, stylish, powerful, classical, and of course beautiful.
We all knew the Coral Browne
that she presented to us socially, a great personality, mischievous,
alarming, unpredictable, outrageous. It could be said that this
"Coral Browne" was one of her great performances, one
she certainly relished, and reveled in. I think there is another
less well known Coral Browne. I was invited to present her Evening
Standard Award for that superb performance in Dennis Potter's
"Dreamchild." I made a rather extravagant announcement
as one does on these occasions, and she came to the stage, suddenly
a Coral I had not reckoned with before. The supremely confident
Coral Browne was nervous, she forgot the name of someone she
thought highly of and very much wanted to thank, and was, in
short, suddenly vulnerable. I think the reason why we all loved
her was perhaps because we all sensed that underneath her wicked
sense of humour was this vulnerability, and it made all her outrageousness
wonderfully acceptable. She was kind, she was generous, she was
loyal, she was extremely sensitive to other people's condition,
their bereavements, and their vulnerability. She loved
people -- she could see right through us all, of course, and
we loved her because she dared to say what she saw.Above all,
she was brave, fearless in her defense of those she loved and
cared for, and totally courageous in the period of her illness.
A great example of these various qualities was evident in her
encounter with Guy Burgess in Moscow -- courage, compassion and
understanding. It was a great privilege to share with her the
retelling of this story, brilliantly presented by Alan Bennett
and John Schlesinger.
If we have not had as much of
Coral Browne the actress as we could, and would have liked to
have had, it is for a very particular reason. She worked at her
life; her relationships, her friendships and her marriages
were successful. She was not only ambitious as
an actress -- she was a superb one and did quite enough work
to establish that -- Ardele, "Waltz of the Toreadors,"
"Hedda Gabler," Regan, Goneril, Lady Macbeth, Mrs Warren,
Gertrude, "Dreamchild," "The Sea," "An
Englishman Abroad," "What the Butler Saw," Emilia,
Mrs Erlynne -- but living her life was important too. She loved
travel, art, fashion, people and was totally curious about the
world around her. I first knew her as the wife of my first agent,
a lovely man, Phillip Pearman, who she adored and nursed with
great devotion when he was fatally ill. In later life she met
and married Vincent Price; this is one of the great love affairs
that we have witnessed, two witty, compassionate, intelligent,
handsome people in late life showing us all how to do it, how
to share a life. The eloquence with which Vincent expressed his
love for Coral in the letter to John we've just heard is unforgettable.
If I cannot tell Coral Browne
stories then I will tell two Vincent Price ones. Coral and Vincent
came to see me in "A Patriot for Me" in Los Angeles.
They took a few of us out for dinner. A woman came up to Vincent
at the end of the meal and said, "Can I have your autograph,"
and he said "Certainly" and signed it "Dolores
Del Rio" (the legendary silent film actress). I said, "Vincent,
you cannot do that -- she'll be back in a rage in a minute. She'll
pour a bowl of soup over your head." He turned to me solemnly
and said, "Before she died, Dolores said to me, 'Don't ever
let them forget me'; so now I always sign Dolores Del Rio."
Perhaps we should always now sign our autographs "Coral
Browne." Don't let us ever let them forget her.
Before she was confined to bed, I rang up
to speak to Coral; Vincent picked up the phone: "She's gone
to confession," he said, "and she's going to be an
awful long time." Just two stories which, when you
know Coral and her stories, show you what fun they must have
had together.
When I think of the alarm one always felt
when leaving a party before Coral, at what she might be saying
about oneself, it make me wonder now that she has left
the party first, what she is saying to the powers that be; if
she's true to form, we'll never get in! Or perhaps it is simply
that we will have no need for confession ourselves -- we will
just have to say, "Anything you wish to know about me, please
refer my case to Coral Browne."
What a woman, what a character, what an actress,
what pleasure we have had in her company, our very own Australian,
English-Woman-Abroad.
God bless you, Coral. |||