1941- 46 The Frustrating Years
In November 1941, aged 15 years, Shirley started work as a secretary at R.K.O. Just over a year later, on 31 January 1943, she wrote in her diary:
Walked with Reggie [Regina Grant, her best friend] to the station. She says I ought to get on the production side. I have thought about it but I will wait until I am seventeen and also after my holidays.
On the 22nd October 1943 she started work at British National (B.N.). She wrote in her diary:
Left RKO to work at the BN Studios. Am not sure whether I am going to like it.
25th October
Started up at the Studios. The people seem quite nice but it is not actually on the flow which I want to do in due course.
She had to wait another 2 years before she got her chance.
On 24th May 1945 she wrote in her journal:
I went yesterday to M.G.M. for an interview. I saw Howard Boxall [his name was actually Harold Boxall, the eminent production manager] and he seemed to give the impression that I was more or less acceptable. (I am being vague because I don't want to commit myself|). He said he will let me know in a couple of days but if I don't hear by Monday I will ring through. Until then I am going to forget about the whole thing - not think about it.
The days when I go for interviews seem as long as a lifetime. I feel as though the morning is so far back that I can't remember it, as though I am seeing the day through myself - but not part of it. It is most peculiar and I always feel the same.
Shirley got the job, as Assistant Continuity, and started at M.G.M. in early June 1945. However it wasn't an inspiring start. The film she was going to work on had been cancelled and she spent time doing odd jobs, mainly at M.G.M's Belgrave Square offices in central London - which she disliked intensely.
Journal: 10th July 1945
I shall always remember Belgrave Square with a sense of active dislike. Up to now, whenever I am here, I sit in the basement (which was the kitchen and still has the huge stove in it) and nobody knows or cares whether I am dead or alive. I have visions of lying here for days on end (having been inadvertently locked in) and nobody coming till I was decomposed and people were complaining of the smell. I have come to the conclusion that it is my wounded pride that hurts.
A month later things had improved as she started working with Wolfgang Wilhelm, the German screenwriter who had worked in the German film industry before leaving for Britain after the Nazis took power in 1933. He worked for a number of Britain's leading film producers.
Journal: 7th August 1945
I started working with Wolfgang Wilhelm (which I am still doing) and consequently find life a good deal brighter. We get along well together. (My opinion).
Shirley and Wolfgang clearly got along well because, on September 5th she wrote in her journal:
Last night I saw the most wonderful film for a long time. It is banned in England and this was a private showing given by the director Billy Wilder (who is in England for a while) to a few people. He is a friend of Wilhelm's who asked me along.
In November 1946 Wilhelm was working on the screenplay for “Friday’s Child”, and driving Shirley mad.
22nd November 1945 – Letter to Hetty
As you probably guessed, I am writing this in the office. The time is three-thirty precisely, tea has just been brought in, Wolf has gone off to a movie, and the weather outside is terrible; foggy and murky, as it has been all week. Wolf was walking up and down all morning “thinking” out the story, but nothing happened so he has gone to drown his sorrows in mechanised American opium. He started off this morning in the office, but needing lieberstraum, started to include the landing, the open door giving the ‘right of way’. But as I was in the direct line of the draught (the window is always open, another habit of his but with which I concur) I delivered an ultimatum – the office OR the landing. As he said I was no ………… use to him anyway in that I didn’t write the story for him, to which I replied that if I did I’d expect the money for it, it was the landing. I did suggest he walk up and down the four flights of stairs, but this wasn’t received too kindly.
After nearly five months of writing, and still not finished, the story is beginning to tell on both of us. We both feel (I more than him) that we never want to see, hear, or read of “Friday’s Child” ever again. After Christmas I am going to try to get back to the Studio. I feel terribly homesick for the hurry, and bustle, and noise, and general ‘atmosphere’, which is aggravated by often seeing the folk from Elstree. This easy life of hardly any work does not agree with me at all. I am rather restless at the moment because I am very keen to go abroad on a job but this doesn’t materialize and meanwhile I am continually meeting people who are just going abroad, or who have just been, and I feel so envious.
…..At the moment the only film units going abroad are Documentaries but unfortunately they never require a continuity girl at all. I am very keen to do documentary films – and educational ones – as I think they will play a very great part in the education programme for the future. Happily the Government seems to take an interest in the industry, so perhaps something will be done. The main thing is these films must be well-made; no shoddy work merely because they will be shown to youngsters. And they must be interesting. Some of the documentaries I have seen lately make me scream! As they don’t need continuity I guess I’ll just have to direct some. And that’s not being Wellsian either! My particular ambition is to do educational films abut other countries, but we’ll have to wait a long time I think.
NEXT: The Frustrating Years continued...
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From front of 1945 diary.