DLA123-0104  Transcription

6, STRATTON HOUSE,

PICCADILLY⋅W⋅1.

Dear Mr de László,

I have seen Mrs May Duncan,[1] as you suggested and found her very “sympathique”.

I myself could not help her, because, as you know, I do not meet in my everyday life: many film people. However my manager, who is in constant touch with the film world has promised to help her and is going to interview her in a short time, when he has a little more time.

[Page 2]

I, unfortunately, have already started my film: Ashenden, by Somerset Maugham, and am going to Geneva on Monday to do exterior scenes.[2] So that I cant avail myself at the moment, of your kind and flattering invitation to sit for the sketches. I am so disappointed! And hope so much that you will let me sit for you at some other time.[3]

My Kindest regards to you and your wife | Yours sincerely

Madeleine Astley

Editorial Note:

Mrs Philip Astley, née Madeleine Carroll; other married names Mrs Sterling Hayden, Mrs Henri Lavorel and Mrs Andrew Heiskell (1906-1987); for biographical notes, see [3340].

Duplicate item, see also DLA123-0011.

LR

15/11/2018

[1] Likely Mary Duncan (1894-1993), American actress

[2] Madeleine Carroll starred as Elsa Carrington/Mrs Ashenden in Secret Agent, a 1936 British espionage film directed by Alfred Hitchcock adapted from the play by Campbell Dixon. The play itself was loosely based on two stories in W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 collection, Ashenden: Or the British Agent. Filming for Secret Agent began in October 1935, see “Hitchcock starts on ‘Secret Agent’”,  Kinematograph Weekly, 10 October 1935, p. 43.

[3] In January 1935, Captain Philip Astley, Madeleine Carroll’s first husband, commissioned de László to paint a portrait of his wife [3969]. A letter from Captain Astley to de László, dated 31 July 1935 suggests that de László asked the sitter to sit to him again, this time for his own pleasure: “I am so glad that the completion of the portrait will not mean the end of such a happy association, and she [Madeleine Carroll] is much looking forward to renewing her sittings for the sketches” (see DLA052-0026, letter from Captain Philip Astley to de László, 31 July 1935). [3340] is likely the result of those sittings.