A letter of thanks written in a hasty exuberant and substantive hand, thanking Dorothy Quayle for “a delightful party” and complimenting her, “What a wonderful hostess you are.” Also mentioning his first wife, Vivien Merchant, who had attended the party with him, and signing off simply, “Thank you. Love Harold.”
1969 was a year in which Pinter played Lenny in a production of his play The Homecoming, and his short lyrical play Silence was produced for the first time, in a double bill with Landscape.
The party was likely a Christmas party (the Christmas season is one of the busiest times of year for the theatre), but it also coincided roughly with the American release of the film Anne of a Thousand Days (18 December), in which Anthony Quayle played Thomas Wolsey.
Dorothy (Dot) Quayle (née Hyson) was an actor, born into an American acting family. She made her film debut at age three and performed in the West End in her teens in children’s roles including J. M. Barrie’s Quality Street and Daisy Ashford’s The Young Visiters [sic]. In the Second World War she was a cartographer at Bletchley Park, part of a team of 12 who cracked the German diplomatic code, ‘Floradora’. She joined Gielgud’s Haymarket Company in 1945, and retired from the stage shortly after her second marriage to Quayle in 1947, to focus on bringing up their three children.
Provenance: Anthony and Dorothy Quayle, by descent.
Slightly age-toned at edges, folds, contemporary water stain affecting two words.
