Barbara Ewing – författare

Sometimes successful, often not, the life of an actress is never dull but what happens when you reach fifty? If you're an actor, the work pours in; if you're an actress, suddenly the wrinkles start showing, the boobs sag, that young sprite who's just left college last year is the tops. So it seems, anyhow, to this group of thespians, now all in their fifties, meeting for a drama school reunion. There's Juliet, beautiful, brittle star of the stage, all out for her big screen break; lovely Pauline, a good actress in her own right but often overshadowed by her ebullient actor husband Anthony; blowsy, breezy, sexy soap star Molly; the three wise monkeys Emmy Lou, Franny and dear old Harry; sweet Izzy and gorgeous Terence Blue, Hollywood superstar, heart throb extraordinaire. But age doesn't wipe out desire, ambition or memory. So when the celebrations culminate in an accusation of rape, the past comes flooding back and the present takes extraordinary and unexpected turns.

This vivid memoir by well-known New Zealand actor and novelist Barbara Ewing covers her tumultuous childhood, adolescence, and young-adulthood in Wellington and Auckland in the 1950s and early 1960s—a very different time—and ends in 1962, when she boards a ship for London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It draws heavily on the diaries she kept from the age of twelve, which lead her to some surprising conclusions about memory and truth. Ewing struggled with what would now be diagnosed as anxiety; she had a difficult relationship with her brilliant but frustrated and angry mother, and her decision to somehow learn Maori drew her into a world to which few Pakeha had access. A love affair with a young Maori man destined for greatness was complicated by society''s unease about such relationships, and changed them both. Evocative, candid, brave, bright, and darting, this entrancing book takes us to a long-ago New Zealand and to enduring truths about love.

The Victorian gossipmongers called them The Petticoat Men. But to young Mattie Stacey they are Freddie and Ernest, her gentlemen lodgers. She doesn't care that they dress up in sparkling gowns to attend society balls as 'Fanny and Stella'. She only cares that they are kind to her, make her laugh, and pay their rent on time. Then one fateful night, Fanny and Stella are arrested, and Mattie – outraged but staunch – is dragged into a shocking court trial, hailed in newspapers all over England as 'The Scandal of the Century'.

They all met again at the Drama School Reunion: the Hollywood celebrity, the out-of-work soap star, the understudy, the Shakespearian hero. Thirty-six years ago, they dreamed of the great parts awaiting them. What they did not know was that the parts would soon dry up, for the actresses. Because they had stopped being young. But: once an actress, always an actress and on this hot, summer''s day it becomes clear that age does not wipe out ambition. Or desire. Or memory. Or love. So when the Reunion culminates in an accusation of rape that dominates every newspaper in the country, the past – sweet, cruel, tragic – comes flooding back, and the actresses become the stars of the story. Perceptive, shocking, gripping and wise, this could only have been written by somebody who has been there.

Margaret Rose Bennett, like her elder sister, Elizabeth, was named after the two English princesses. But Elizabeth is dead, and Margaret Rose still living, searching and reaching out for life and its meaning. And against the frankly odd, strained and curiously English household she inhabits in a New Zealand city, it is hard to make out the truth. So Margaret abandons what her parents think is right: learning English history, the French language, listening to comedy shows on the World Service and returning home on the 9.30 tram and maps out a course of her own. She studies Maori at University, makes friends with the wayward Emily (daughter of the soon to be Prime Minister of New Zealand) and shy, independent Prudence. As a trio they study hard for their degrees, work by day at the local Government offices and by night sing, drink and laugh with the local Maori people - and fall in love. A new world, an enchanting world, and one with an underbelly of struggle, colour, passion and even violence. Far removed from the closed, ordered life of Margaret Rose's family, but perhaps not so detached from their own, secret history...Here is an extraordinary, poetic novel of a society trapped in a time of its own, undercut by a people that live and breathe with a vigour that bubbles and burst through the silent surface.

Wenn die Seele Trauer trägtLondon 1838: Cordelia Preston und ihre Freundin Rillie sind zwei so liebenswerte wie bettelarme Schauspielerinnen. Um nicht Hungers zu sterben, eröffnen die beiden ein Hypnosestudio – schauspielern können sie ja.Bald jedoch zeigt sich, dass Cordelia tatsächlich über die verblüffende Gabe verfügt, Menschen in Not von körperlichen wie seelischen Schmerzen zu befreien. Und das ist eigentlich nicht verwunderlich, hat sie doch selbst in ihrer Jugend Furchtbares erleben müssen. Cordelia wird zu einer Sensation, von der ganz London spricht. Doch mit dem Ruhm kehren die Gespenster aus dunkelster Vergangenheit zurück …