Star of SOUTH AMERICAN GEORGE She doesn't remember any bruises -- although Linden Travers is uniquely energetic among the routinely decorous and decorative Formby heroines. In SOUTH AMERICAN GEORGE, she is tossed in the air, tumbled to the floor, and landed on by George himself -- although, as an experienced horsewoman, she barely noticed. Ms. Travers plays Carol Dean, stylish and sophisticated press agent, business manager, and legal advisor to a temperamental Italian tenor. Sidewalk-busker George meets her when he is drafted to replace a missing spear carrier at the opera house. Soon "Miss Carol" drafts George and trains him to replace the missing tenor (also played by Formby) who has gone off for a romantic rendezvous in violation of his contract. George, of course, is smitten and happily complies. Although Ms. Travers must deliver the requisite "You were wonderful!" line to George, she is distinctive among Formby heroines in other ways besides athletic prowess: she plays a proactive career woman; her actions, not George's, control the plot; though she "talks posh" like all his leading ladies, she twice drops into Lancashire dialect to George's enormous delight; and, almost unheard of among his leading ladies, she gets to deliver a punchline. When Jacques Brown, as the unscrupulous impresario Riccardo, introduces shyster- lawyer Felix Aylmer as "one of my friends," she quips, "You must bring the OTHER one up sometime." SOUTH AMERICAN GEORGE was the fifteenth of Linden Traver's two dozen films (and George's first film for Columbia Studios after seven years with ATP/Ealing). Although the tradition of non-communication between Formby and his leading lady continued -- "I did not have any conversations with George, except in the make-up room", she recalls -- Beryl Formby was uncharacteristically cordial: "She was always helpful and charming to me. She helped me with my clothes during the film." (Since the script required George to kiss vamp Enid Stamp Taylor but not leading lady Travers, this may have aided Beryl's benevolent mood.) Linden Travers was born Florence Lindon [sic] Travers at Houghton-le-Spring, Durham on May 27, 1913, the daughter of William Halton Lindon-Travers and his wife Florence (Wheatley). It was a family brimming with talent. Her thespian relatives include her brother Bill Travers, her daughter Susan (Lucas) Travers, nephew Richard Morant, and Penelope Wilton, wife of Sir Ian Holm. Always multi-talented, she was engaged to teach younger classmates elocution, drama, painting, and sketching while still a student at the Convent de la Sagesse. Her first professional stage appearances were in repertory with the Playhouse, Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1933. The following year she played the ingenue lead in Ivor Novello's MURDER IN MAYFAIR at the Globe in London. There she met her future first husband, Guy Leon, whose sister was in the cast. Their daughter, Jennifer Susan, was born in 1939. Soon Ms. Travers was alternating between stage and screen and between femme fatale rôles (like Cecil Parker's mistress in THE LADY VANISHES) and light comedies. "I seem to have jumped out of being mistresses to playing with the comics -- Tommy Trinder, Arthur Askey, and then George Formby," she told interviewer Brian McFarland. "Beryl, his wife, controlled him. She was his manager, and she wasn't inclined to encourage any girls hanging around who were attractive. I wouldn't have been interested in George anyway, although he was nice to work with and very professional. She looked after him all the time. She and I eventually became good friends, and she helped me a lot with my clothes. She was very good for him, and I think she realized that she had helped to put him where he was and didn't feel that someone younger and prettier than she was should get hold of him. I think she was very sensible. In his time, he was terribly funny, and he played his ukulele so well." Although Linden Travers often portrayed errant or unstable characters, McFarland feels her innate grace and style may have hindered her career: "She was simply gorgeous, and a film industry less bedevilled by gentility would have made her a great star." During the war years, Ms. Travers starred in three major London stage productions including NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH. She would later repeat the title rôle in the cult-classic film version and recalls it as her favourite part. In the post-war film industry renaissance, she appeared in eight films in four years, including QUARTET, THE BAD LORD BYRON, and CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS in which poor Columbus (Frederic March) can't get an appointment because King Ferdinand (Francis Lister) is too busy chasing Ms. Travers. Quite believably, her charms nearly change the course of history. After Ms. Linden's marriage to James Holman in 1948, and the birth of their daughter, Sally Linden, the following year, she limited herself to occasional television appearances. She had never stopped painting and drawing, and, in 1969, she and her sisters, Alice and Pearl, opened the Travers Gallery in Kensington. It closed in 1972 after Alice died. Two years later, her husband died of a heart attack following 26 years of marriage. The couple had always enjoyed travelling, and Linden Travers spent the next few years visiting Thailand, Egypt, India, and Nepal. In the early 1980s, she became a credentialed and practising hypnotist and psychologist. Now living in Cornwall, she no longer performs. But on May 30, 1999, Linden Travers appeared on television sets throughout the United Kingdom in a BBC Alfred Hitchcock tribute, still strikingly beautiful, her exquisite bone structure instantly identifying her as the delicious star of SOUTH AMERICAN GEORGE. POSTSCRIPT: Following the above interview, Linden Travers died on October 23, 2001 in Cornwall at the age of 88. STAGE ROLES INCLUDE: 1933 - Cynara (Newcastle-on-Tyne) 1934 - Murder in Mayfair 1935-6 - repertory in Birmingham 1942 - No Orchids for Miss Blandish (Richmond) 1943 - Ten Little Niggers 1945 - Quality Street 1946 - Dear Murderer (tour) 1947 - My Friend Lester FILMS 1935 - Children of the Fog 1936 - Wednesday's Luck 1937 - Double Alibi 1937 - Against the Tide 1937 - Brief Ecstasy / Dangerous Secrets 1937 - The Last Adventurers / Down to the Sea in Ships 1938 - Bank Holiday / Three on a Weekend 1938 - Almost a Honeymoon 1938 - The Terror 1938 - The Lady Vanishes 1939 - Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday 1939 - The Stars Look Down 1941 - The Ghost Train 1941 - The Seventh Survivor 1941 - South American George 1942 - The Missing Million 1946 - Beware of Pity 1947 - The Master of Bankdam 1947 - Jassy 1948 - Quartet 1948 - No Orchids for Miss Blandish 1949 - The Bad Lord Byron 1949 - Don't Ever Leave Me 1949 - Christopher Columbus 1955 - The Schemer (TV series spinoff) TV ROLES INCLUDE: 1955 - The Big Show 1988 - Game, Set and Match 1999 - Hitch (BBC Hitchcock tribute) Eleanor Knowles Dugan 1999