A Night at the theatre July 1960

A Night at the theatre July 1960

It’s strange how a single photo can sometimes open up an entire story which may have otherwise been completely lost to time. 

We recently discovered a couple of rare slides on the internet, a couple of which had been written and dated on the card mounts – a smart move on the photographer’s part as it does help to secure a sense of accuracy – and in turn often lead to certain other pieces that also tie-in to an event. 

We usually refer to this as ‘detective work’. Sometimes, these events simply get overlooked and forgotten and as a result often get missed from any number of books and biographies. In a lot of instances, it just requires an extra level of research and ‘joining the dots’ to form a picture. A lot of facts, times and places are often overlooked – simply because the information has become lost. On the Archive we like to try and gather the facts in order to try and complete and present a picture.  

In this example, these couple of slides – dated July 1960, revealed quite a bit – one slide actually had a title penned in ‘Duel of Angels’ – which also became a huge help. In 1960 the Giraudoux play Duel of Angels was playing at the Helen Hayes theatre and as part of the East coast leg of the U.S. tour. It’s hard to determine exactly which theatre Clint and his wife Maggie attended to see the play. Personally, I think it was more likely taken at the Huntington Hartford Theatre in Los Angeles where the play opened on July 12, 1960. By July 1960, Clint was becoming well established  as a TV star, Rawhide had just finished airing Season 2 of the show and continued to gain high ratings. 

In addition to these two very rare colour transparencies, I’ve also had a couple of pictures on file which I also believe are from the same event. The only information attributed to these bw photos are that they were taken circa 1960. But looking at these photos carefully I believe reveals some clues. On the first slide – to the left of Clint, it looks as if there is a small section of Maggie’s top which is clearly seen in the bw pictures. Also, Clint is wearing what appears to be the same style of shirt with the button-down collar. 

Duel of Angels was one of Vivien Leigh’s most successful theatre performances and one that she would recreate many times in many different venues. The Los Angeles performances ran for four weeks that summer. Leigh was visited backstage by many friends including actor Stewart Granger and George Cukor, who had directed her through part of Gone With the Wind.

Another strange ‘Clint connection’ - Duel of Angels opened on 24th April 1958 at the Apollo Theatre in London, a production directed by Jean-Louis Barrault, and starring Vivien Leigh, Claire Bloom, Derek Nimmo and Peter Wyngarde. For the American tour, Leigh again played the role of Paola in the production directed by Robert Helpmann. The U.S. tour also featured Peter Wyngarde, Jack Merivale and a young actress, Mary Ure! Yes, the very same Mary Ure who would later star alongside Clint in Where Eagles Dare! 

We do like connectivity…