How novelist Daphne du Maurier wrote off ‘banal’ film version of book - George Cukor letter set for auction
Published: 23 June 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY
HER imagination helped director Alfred Hitchcock create one of film’s most subtly chilling scenes in The Birds – a flock of menacing crows gathering slowly in a playground behind an unwitting Tippi Hedren.
A master of suspense, she also inspired the agonies suffered by Donald Sutherland playing a father haunted by his dead daughter (and her famous red coat) in Venice in Don’t Look Now.
But Gothic novelist Daphne du Maurier was not always happy with the way her words were translated to the big screen. A letter she wrote in 1952 – sold by auction specialists Bonhams last night (Wednesday) in New York – shows how she guarded against her work being ruined by “banal” movie scripts.
In a handwritten note to George Cukor, the legendary Hollywood film-maker who wanted to turn her book My Cousin Rachel into a movie, du Maurier spelled out her concerns – albeit apologising for her tone while doing so.
“I am so sorry to be harsh about the finished script,” said du Maurier, who lived in Cannon Hill, Hampstead – a plaque marks the house – before moving to Cornwall. “But it seemed to me banal and missing in every point the atmosphere of the book.”
Disappointed with the script, she sent her own version of how it could work as a film. My Cousin Rachel is a story of jealousy, mysterious relationships and envy at the inheritance of a large Cornish estate.
“There is no establishment of the great affection between Ambrose and Phillip,” moaned du Maurier in the letter to Cukor, “and Louise is dragged unnecessarily into the story.”
Cukor, who directed Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, later walked away from the project. The note was expected to be auctioned for at least $1,000.
Andrew Currie, from Bonhams, said: “This fascinating letter shows Daphne du Maurier on fine, robust form to George Cukor, as she politely but firmly dismisses the adaptation of her novel, My Cousin Rachel, and supplies a treatment of her own.
“In the event, Cukor did not direct the film, which appeared in 1952 with a cast including Richard Burton and Olivia de Havilland.”
Du Maurier was honoured by the Heath and Hampstead Society with a plaque marking her years at Providence Corner. Her son, Kits Browning, said: “It’s a good idea to recognise the history there.”