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In 1936. Kay Walsh met an ambitious young film editor.
David Lean, who had a burning desire to direct. Her professional and
private life quickly connected with his in an intense creative partnership
that lasted for more than a decade. In November 1940, she became the
second of his six wives.
By 1936 22-year-old Kay Walsh had appeared in eight films and was
dancing in the West End production, The Melody That Got Lost.
Producer Basil Dean’s wife was also in the show. He came
to see his wife, and ended up signing the young dancer to a year’s
contract at Ealing Film Studios.
In a 1991-interview with Brian McFarland, Kay Walsh described the
Ealing Formby films as ‘the aristocracy’ in comparison with
other British films of the time
"They were high-flying compared with the ‘fit up’ quickies,
but then Ealing Studios was a well-established concern. I remember
particularly Jack Kitchen, a film editor who really made those Formby
films move.
Her first Formby film Keep Fit, earned her
£400 which she cautiously asked to have paid out to her at £16 a week.
But her apparent good fortune at Ealing quickly turned sour. I never
suffered so much in my life as I did at that studio!" she told
film historian Kevin Brownlow. "They were absolute monsters and
everyone assumed I was Basil Dean’s girl friend." Kay made
eight more minor films in next four years before achieving her really
prestigious screen roles. One off-screen highlight of this period
was writing additional dialogue for the film version of Pygmalion
- so skillfully that autocratic author, George Bernard Shaw reportedly
never noticed!
In the early 1940s, Kay appeared in two classic Noel
Coward films, In Which We Serve (1942) and This Happy
Breed (1944), both directed by David Lean. "Working with
Noel Coward was a great honour," she says, although Coward privately
derided her liberal views. calling her ‘Red Emma’. Husband
David Lean was soon achieving success as a director. His trademark
was strong scenes without dialogue, and it was Kay Walsh who wrote
the haunting closing of his Great Expectations (1946) and the
powerful visual opening of Oliver Twist (1948).Of her screen
work in the post-war years, she strongly disliked her performance
as the long-suffering Nancy in Oliver Twist. "My favourite
role," she says, "was the old barmaid in The Horse’s
Mouth (1956) with Alec Guinness. I wore a horrible black wig!"
Kay continued in films and on TV until the 1980s. Between films, she
appeared regularly in plays and farces at the Strand and Aldwych Theatres,
directed by Basil Dean. In private life, she indulged her passions
for gardening, gourmet cooking (‘I often fixed dinner for Alec
Guinness and his family’), and renovating old properties. Now
84 and living in London, she is writing her memoirs which are sure
to be as rich and colourful as her extraordinary life.
To Formby fans, the pluck and vitality of this impressive
artist will always be epitomised by the final scene of I See Ice.
As Kay sits laughing on the ice in George’s arms, a dozen
burly, hockey players leap over them, their sharp metal, skate-blades
whizzing terrifyingly close to her head. Yet there is not a flinch.
Kay Walsh is a lady who has never flinched.
LEADING LADIES
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