Tag: writing

The 79-year-old former fashion editor of Harpers and Queen said: “There was something about me and my extreme youth that he thought may be pleasing to an actor’s eye.

“He’d lead me from the National Gallery and position me outside every stage door, week after week, before the start of the matinee.

“We’d await the arrival of the stars, the leading actors, hurrying into make-up and costume.”

But they were never summoned backstage.

“Nobody invited us around to their dressing rooms, or slipped a card into my father’s gloved hand, murmuring to get in touch and bring the lovely child along,” she said.

“Time was running out for my father. I was growing older every day. That was his failure, the inability to stop the march of time.

“The first violence began after the failure to find a paramour or protector, or frankly a paedophile, to share his daughter,” she said. “One who might change the family fortunes for the better.

Her dad, who died in 1956, even hoped to pimp his girl to movie legend Errol Flynn, she said.

“He’d read somewhere that Errol Flynn had a penchant for young girls, the younger the better, and began gambling a portion of his wages on a weekly basis to raise the fare to Hollywood for me and himself.”