August 9, 1899 – Pamela Lyndon Travers
“Don’t you know that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?”
P.L. Travers was the Australian creator of the quintessentially English nanny Mary Poppins. The story of Travers is more familiar now because of the film Saving Mr. Banks (2013), which looks her early years and her deal with Walt Disney to make the film based on her creation. In the film, Tom Hanks is convincing enough as Disney with his squinty eyes and authentic moustache, and Emma Thompson, who is good in everything, is really good as Travers.
Not in the film (it is a Disney production after all) are all the juicy details about Travers’ rather colorful love life. Her teenage years were so miserable that, in her 20s, she used her considerable imagination and reinvented herself; even her name was made up. She enjoyed several rather inappropriate relationships, especially considering the era. Her first affair was when she was just 17 years old, with a middle-aged actor, Lawrence Campbell. Next, there was a fling with playwright George William Russell (1867 – 1935), an Irish poet, painter, pacifist and Irish Nationalist who wrote using the pseudonym Æ. He was also into mysticism, an amazing guy who deserves his own #BornThisDay post. He was in his late 50s when he hooked-up with 25-year-old Travers.
Then there was the time when Travers decided she might like to adopt a baby. At 40 years old, Travers chose a bouncy baby boy from Ireland; well, she viewed twin baby boys, but couldn’t make up her mind. She finally decided to take just one of the boys. He was the grandchild of writer Joseph Hone, who was raising his seven grandchildren. Hone asked Travers: ”Why not take two, they are so small?”. She was an independent woman, but leaving Australia when she was young, alone with virtually no money, she might have thought that one baby was enough.
Travers named her son “Camillus”. He was not told about his grandfather or siblings until he was 17 years old, when his twin, Anthony Hone, traveled to London, knocked on the front door of Travers’s house in Chelsea, drunk and demanding to see his twin. Travers refused and threatened to call the police. Anthony left, but Camillus went looking for his brother and found him in a pub.
Travers was born Helen Lyndon Goff. Her mother was Australian, and her father was of Irish heritage, but born in England. He was a bank manager who eventually lost his job because of alcoholism and died at 43 years old. He is nicely played by Colin Farrell in Saving Mr. Banks. Following her father’s death, Travers was sent to a boarding school in Sydney until World War I ended.
She moved to England when she was 25 years old. She took the name “Pamela Lyndon Travers” and chose her pen name in 1933, while writing the first of her eight Mary Poppins books. It was published in 1934 and became a big bestseller. The novels were loved by Disney’s daughters when they were kids.
Travers travelled to New York City during World War II as part of her job with the British Ministry of Information. At that time, Disney contacted her about selling the rights for a film adaptation of Mary Poppins. After years of trying, including several visits to Travers at her London digs, Disney finally did obtain the rights.
In 1961, Travers traveled to Los Angeles. Her first-class ticket was paid for by Disney. She was hired as an adviser on the production, but she disapproved of the cleaned-up Disney version of the main character, and she was ambivalent about the music. She really hated the use of animation so much that she ruled out any further adaptations of the series. Mary Poppins opened in theatres in 1964. Travers was not invited to the film’s star-studded gala until she embarrassed a Disney executive into getting her in to it. At the after-party, she announced:
”Well. The first thing that has to go is the animation sequence.”
Disney replied: “Pamela, the ship has sailed”, and walked away.
While she was still in Los Angeles, her son was sent to prison back in Britain for drunk driving. Before Travers died in 1996 at 96 years old, she feared her son would booze away her estate, so she left everything to her grandchildren. Camillus Travers died of liver failure in 2006.
Travers thought that there was an agreement between her and Disney for a sequel to Mary Poppins, so she was very cautious about what she said to the press. In a telegram to Disney after the film’s premier:
”… from my point of view keeps contact with the spirit of Mary Poppins … and for your faithfulness my thanks and affection. Pamela Travers.”
But privately, and even more so as she got older, she claimed she really hated it; 20 years after the movie was first shown, she didn’t bother keeping quiet. She wrote that she didn’t like the way it was “all smiles”, and that Julie Andrews was too sweet, and that Dick Van Dyke was atrocious. She thought all the real magic had been taken out and that it had been just too “Disneyfied”.
Travers had wanted Maggie Smith or Vanessa Redgrave to play Mary Poppins. Redgrave wrote to Travers saying that the Mary Poppins books were favorites when she was a child, but she couldn’t take the role because of her schedule. Travers felt she had been treated so badly during production that when gay producer Cameron Mackintosh approached her years later about making in into a stage musical, she acquiesced only on the condition that no one from the original film would be directly involved. This specifically excluded the Sherman Brothers (played by Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak in Saving Mr. Banks), who did the film’s score, from writing additional songs for the production. In 2004, the stage opened in the West End; it played on Broadway in 2006.
In a 1977 BBC interview, Travers remarked:
“I’ve seen it once or twice, and I’ve learned to live with it. It’s glamorous and it’s a good film on its own level, but I don’t think it is very like my books.”
In Saving Mr. Banks, Travers is shown as doing an old maid thing. But in real life, she enjoyed some rather robust romantic action. She was noted for being flirtatious, charming, smart, and big on doing the pub scene. She was also happy to give a little something with anyone who might help her with her career, if you get by drift.
In 1925, she had submitted some poems to the Irish Statesman, which was when Russell encouraged Travers to come to Dublin to see him. His connections were extensive and reached to major literary figures in Dublin, London, New York City, and Hollywood. He offered them all to Travers. He urged her to study mysticism, which became her lifelong passionate preoccupation.
Russell introduced Travers to Madge Burnand, a family friend, and Travers and Burnand soon moved in together. Burnand was one of the first to read any of the Mary Poppins books. The two ladies were a couple from from 1927 to 1934. Burnand photographed Travers topless on the beach, a shockingly daring act in those days. When Travers became a member of The Rope, a group of lesbian writers who studied with a guru, she had tempestuous relationship with The Rope member, Jessie Orage, known for wearing men’s trousers and smoking in public!
None of what I have imparted to you is in Saving Mr. Banks of course. It concentrates on Travers’ troubled childhood in Australia and her battle to maintain her artistic vision during her time at Walt Disney Studios. I have to say, I was surprised that the film is so charming, and Thompson makes a delightful misanthrope. Too bad that the filmmakers couldn’t have at least hinted at her queerness. I mean, it seems Travers was nothing if not queer, and in the film her story becomes a spoonful of sugared bullshit.
