Sad to say, though I have eked them out for years, I’ve now read my final book by Helene Hanff. I bought my copy of Underfoot in Show Business in 2012, but I’ve pictured the lovely new edition from Manderley Press.
Hanff is, of course, best known for the delightful 84, Charing Cross Road, and aficiandos of that book will recognise some of the people and incidents in Underfoot in Show Business – you might recall, for instance, that Hanff made money writing for American detective dramas. Or perhaps you think fondly of Maxine, who snuck nylons onto the desk of No.84 – she figures large in this book. This book actually came first, and it is a bold, brash, delightful announcement of her arrival on the literary scene.
What role did Hanff play in showbusiness? Well, she wanted to make it as a playwright. The book charts her attempts to succeed in this select sphere – and very funny it is too. While she is something of a ball-buster (if I may be permitted some American lingo) in her most famous book, here her humour is very self-deprecating. From the way she frames her stories, we can be pretty confident that she will not make it as a playwright – even though there is definitely early promise. She wins various scholarships and awards, she gets phone calls and meetings with some of the most important people in the theatrical world, and she seems to write and re-write plays at the drop of a hat.
We never get a sense of what her writing for the stage is actually like – Underfoot in Show Business is not that sort of memoir. It’s really just an excuse for Hanff to laugh at herself – and, for good measure, everyone else involved in this strange world. The cheerful insincerity of producers and agents, the breathless optimism of everyone, and that colossal waste of time that dogs everyone’s attempt to ‘make it’. (The book may be 65 years old, and about a time even earlier, but I suspect a lot of things have not changed.)
Producer No.3 was elderly and semiretired but he’d had a legendary career in his day.
“Yours is the first play he’s been interested in in five years,” said my agent, impressed. “He wants to take you to lunch.”
I met the legendary producer for lunch at the Algonquin, where for two hours he talked of his producing days, the great stars and playwrights he’d discovered and the contrasting sorry state of the contemporary theatre. When we parted, he wished me every success and certainly hoped one of these younger fellows would have the sense to produce my play. (Agent’s translation: “I guess he’s broke.”)
Maxine only hovers around the peripheraries of 84, Charing Cross Road, but here she is a star. Flame-haired, vibrant, an excellent actress and totally tone-deaf, Hanff basks in her star-quality and her friendship – while sharing similar levels of disappointment and picking-yourself-up-again. Maxine is not a pseudonym – you can look up Maxine Stuart, to see her successful, if not world-grabbing, acting career. She is such a whirlwind and a breath of fresh air, from using pilfered stamps to pay bills to getting a role in a musical without revealing her inability to sing. You certainly can’t help but love her. Maxine and Helene have the sort of friendship we all long for.
Hanff does eventually get regular writing work for TV, for which she is grateful while still finding and delighting in the ridiculous elements of it. Particularly tricky are the unspoken restrictions of TV detective dramas – the tiny cast meaning the list of suspects is often down to two, and the sponsorship by a cigar company meaning they have to scotch a plot point involving cigarette ash. It’s fascinating.
And when she isn’t working directly in writing, she gets a job reading for a studio – making her way through recent novels, and writing up reports about whether or not they had potential for adaptation. It sounds an other-worldly job, but I do have a friend who did the same thing until she retired a few years ago. While it is only tangentially related to the main thrust of her memoir, I think it was the part I found most interesting and entertaining. And I’m going to leave you with her hot-take on one of the books she had to read…
Well, on the blackest Friday I ever want to see, I was summoned to Monograph and handed three outsized paperback volumes of an English book which was about to be published here I was to read all three volumes over the weekend, and since each volume was double the length of the usual novel I was invited to charge double money for each. I hurried home with the three volumes and after dinner began to read Volume I. And if Monograph’s office had been open at that hour, I’d have phoned and quit my job.
What I had to read, during that nightmare weekend — taking notes on all place names, characters’ names and events therein — was fifteen hundred stupefying pages of the sticky mythology of J. R. R. Tolkein. (I hope I’m spelling his name wrong.) I remember opening one volume to a first line which read: “Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday…” and phoning several friends to say good-bye because suicide seemed so obviously preferable to five hundred more pages of that.
I also remember the bill I turned in:
For Reading and Summarizing:
TITLE: Lord of the Rings
AUTHOR: J. R. R. Tolkien
Volume I: $20.00
Volume II: $20.00
Volume III: $20.00
Mental Torture: $40.00
TOTAL: $100
They paid it.
Ha! I’d recommend absolutely anything by Hanff, and Underfoot in Show Business is no exception. What an irrepressible, witty, vital writer. What fun to be able to spend more time with her.
That sounds wonderful Simon. I did laugh at the Tolkien reference. I am a professional reader for a literary scout and that is exactly what I do. I am tempted to begin adding a Mental Torture element to my invoices!
In other matters, I finished reading the marvellous Business As Usual yesterday, on your recommendation. Absolutely exquisite. What a find. I’m hoping to squeeze in Barbara Pym’s No Fond Return of Love, in amongst the manuscripts this week, for your 1961 club.
Oh that’s amazing, I love that it is still something that people are doing! I’m sure there’s plenty of Mental Torture at times (my friend who did it for a movie studio was VERY sick of vampires at one point).
So glad you enjoyed Business As Usual! What a gem.
I can imagine. It was locked room murder mysteries that did it for me in 2023!
This sounds a total delight! I’ve only read 84, Charing Cross Road, I will have to grab a copy of this too.
It is so fun, and really fills in some 84CC background gaps too
Thanks for this! I bought a copy before I had even finished reading your review. I love Helene Hanff and I now have a copy winging its way to me. It’s always good to have something to look forward to
1961 is by birth year, and I’m looking forward to discover books from this date. It’s always fascinating to discover what the world looked like in 1961.
Amazing! I have definitely been there too, grabbing a copy before I’ve finished the review. And happy Club birthday!!
I’m off to search for this too! I’m not sure how I feel about Hanff’s destruction of Tolkien though; that sounds a little harsh. However, I would be daunted by reading all three volumes of TLOTR in a weekend sitting so perhaps I will forgive her. And it did make cracking adaptations!
She definitely has a brash humour at times, and things tend to be black or white, but it works in the persona. (I didn’t enjoy the adaptations, so maybe I’m predisposed to agree with her :D)
I didn’t enjoy TLOTR adaptations either very much; they were too scary for me! With the books, I admire Tolkien’s writing rather than love to read it. I prefer Narnia!
Ohh I didn’t realise that this was one of the books published in 1961…and I have an omnibus book on my TBR with all her stories on it….now I’m wondering if I can sneak this into my week somehow. Thanks for the nudge and the delightful review :-)
It’s pretty short… tempt, tempt
What a find! Sounds right up my street. Like a lot of readers of Hanff, I imagine, I read 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and assumed that was all that was worth bothering with. Clearly an error.
Yes, there’s not masses of other books, but all of them are gems
I knew this was going to be a dangerous week for my TBR stack and it’s already started!
Ha, yes, it’s always the way!
Ooh, I have a copy of this! Goodreads lists it as 1962, but the copyright page gives several years, the first of which is 1961, and her potted biography on Goodreads specifically mentions Underfoot in Show Business as being published in 1961. I’m not sure if I’ve read it before, but your review definitely makes me want to read it. Imagine being an early reader for LOTR!
Yes, I had some confusion over that, but replied on the publication info in my edition!
This is hilarious and very timely as the other day my nephew tried to borrow my copies of LOTR and two were missing!
This is not a Hanff I have read but having encountered her several times in NYC, I try to pick them up whenever I see one . . .
Ohhh, that Tolkean (misspelled just for HH’s enjoyment) sitch is such good fun. I didn’t enjoy the second of hers I read as much as I’d enjoyed 84, which was entirely my fault, because I simply wanted another 84 and I knew that was the problem (and it probably still is the case). You do make it sound so delightful though.
Oh, this sounds marvellous Simon, and a beautiful Manderley edition too! I’m pretty sure this is the only one of Hanff’s books I’ve not read, but I suspect I have a copy somewhere. I should have picked it up for our Club!!
Thank you so much for that excerpt; I too find Tolkein unreadable.
I just finished reading her Apple of My Eye, which was lovely, but sadly dated. This sounds like it wears better. Thanks. I’ll put it on my wish list!
Thanks for reminding me how much I love Hanff’s writing. I’ve read them all multiple times and they never disappoint when I need a laugh.
Oh, I love this book! I’m so glad Manderly has republished it. It’s such a fabulous window into that time and place.
Hilarious!
I have loved 84, Charing Cross Road and its sequel, but didn’t realize she had written much more than that!!
Until last week, I only knew of Helene Hanff’s Charing Cross Road and Bloomsbury Street books. I will definitely have to get her other books, even though they are out of print.
https://momobookblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/hanff-helene-84-charing-cross-road-and_8.html
Thank you for this post! I read 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury recently. I have to read her other books now.
Sad it was your last one! I’ve got that five-in-one omnibus so read them all in one go years ago. I had some jarring news in the week and it makes me more determined to get the TBR down then do some re-reading.