Early Life
Meltzer was born in London, and attracted to anarchism at the age of fifteen as a direct result of taking boxing lessons . The Labour MP for Edmonton, Edith Summerskill was virulently anti-boxing and his school governors at The Latymer School considered it "common". At his first anarchist meeting in 1935, he contradicted Emma Goldman's comments on boxing. As the Spanish Revolution turned into the Spanish Civil War Meltzer became active organising solidarity appeals. He involved himself with smuggling arms from Hamburg to the CNT in Spain and acted as a contact for the Spanish anarchist intelligence services in Britain. At this time he had a part as an extra in Leslie Howard's film Pimpernel Smith, as Howard wanted more authentic actors playing the anarchists.
Read more about this topic: Albert Meltzer
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Whenever [Leonard Bernstein] entered or exited a country he would fill in on his passport form not composer or conductor, but musician. Of course people in the press spent a lot of Lenny’s life telling him what he should have done; he should have been a concert pianist, he should have composed more.... And people wouldn’t let him live his own life. But he created his own career, in his own image.”
—John Mauceri (b. 1945)