Description

[from dust jacket flap] Once in a generation, somewhere in the world, a young man emerges with all the talents of entertainment in high measure. Sandy Wilson is undoubtedly such a phenomenon. He wrote the book, the lyrics and the music of The Boy Friend, the most successful musical comedy London has known for many years. Now he has written, and drawn fifty-four illustrations for, a book which places him at once in the front rank of humorous authors and artists.

This is Sylvia is like no other book. Sylvia is Sandy Wilson's cat. Or is she? For Sylvia is all that was ever meant by the successful musical comedy star of the 30's and 40's, of doubtful parentage but undoubted talents, innocent of learning but womanly wise, simple of soul, popular, beautiful. Her memoirs flow easily through the life of fashionable London, of Hollywood and Monte Carlo, the gossip columns and marriage into the aristocracy. She has known everybody -- but everybody -- in the theatrical and literary world.

But Sylvia also has nine lives and a family of three kittens. Through her pages are scattered sketches of elegant cats which take on strangely the fashions and the personalities of each decade -- and immediately we are detached and laughing at the foibles of our age, entertained by delicious satire, enchanted by the brilliance of the new star -- Sandy Wilson.

Notes

As you might have already guessed, This is Sylvia is a whimsical little book, which owes its existence, according to at least one reviewer, to "three tolerations of the British personality: the British tolerate a theatrical Smart Set; cats; and bright young persons like Sandy Wilson." (Hartford Courant, 13 Feb 1955) We like cats, and bright young people, so we enjoyed "Sylvia", even though a lot of the satire was lost on us -- if you're steeped in literary and theater lore of the 20's and 30's, you might have better luck. I got, for instance, that Miriam Boot was Gertrude Stein, but, apparently, Pandora and Lucian Tickell were the Sitwells, Nellie Nipper is gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and Miaow Miaow Latouche with her eyepatch -- "after an incident at the Lobster Pot" -- is clearly someone this Amazon reviewer recognizes but I've no clue who!

The most fun part of Sylvia, aside from the author's appealing little line drawings, was learning about Sandy Wilson's long and accomplished life. His first and most abiding stage hit was "The Boyfriend", written before he was thirty and, no surprise, a "comic pastiche of 1920s shows" set on the French Riviera. It premiered in 1954, first in London, and then in New York starring Julie Andrews in her Broadway debut and breakout role. She was cast in "My Fair Lady" based on her strength as Polly Browne and the rest is Broadway -- and, when, passed over for the movie version, she was snapped up by Walt Disney, Hollywood -- history. Andrews, herself, retains an affection and gratitude for the role and "made her directorial debut with a production of The Boy Friend at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY" in 2003 (Wikipedia). Sylvia's stage career is not quite as storied, but it is wonderfully varied -- model/actress/social secretary/aristocrat/columnist/political hostess -- and, retired now, happily remarried, with one set of charming, talented kittens and another on the way, she can honestly reflect in the final chapter ("The Tails End") that "I have...lived my lives to the full." (113) And the limelight may yet call "either as an actress or else in some entirely new capacity." A delightfully versatile (half-)Persian to be sure!

Pro-representation and mixed ancestry -- feline, of course, but it still applies. :)

Tags

1910-1919, 1920s, 1930s, 1950s, Europe, England, LGBTQ+ friendly, United States, California, United States, Northeast, actor, beautiful/handsome, cheerful, comedy, coming of age, f/m, fashionable, first-person, journalist, male, memoir, model, noble/aristocrat, nonhuman narrator, romance, satire, secretary, social, singer, strong f/f friendship, theater, writer

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