Relationship With George Bernard Shaw
In the late 1890s Campbell first became aware of George Bernard Shaw - the famous and feared dramatic critic for "The Saturday Review" - who lavishly praised her better performances and thoroughly criticised her lesser efforts. Shaw had already used her as inspiration for some of his plays before their first meeting in 1897 when he unsuccessfully tried to persuade "Mrs Pat" to play the role of Judith Anderson in the first production of his play The Devil's Disciple. Not until 1912, when they began negotiations for the London production of Pygmalion, did Shaw develop an infatuation for "Mrs Pat" that resulted in a passionate, yet unconsummated, love affair of mutual fascination and a legendary exchange of letters. It was Campbell who broke off the relationship although Shaw was about to direct her in Pygmalion. They remained friends in spite of the breakup and her subsequent marriage to George Cornwallis-West, but Shaw never again allowed her to originate any of the roles he had written with her in mind (e.g. Hesione Hushabye (Heartbreak House), the Serpent (Back to Methuselah), etc.).
In later years, Shaw refused to allow the impoverished Campbell to publish or sell any of their letters except in heavily edited form, for fear of upsetting his wife Charlotte Payne-Townshend and the possible harm that the letters might cause to his public image. Most of the letters were not published until 1952, two years after Shaw's death. When Anthony Asquith was preparing to produce the 1938 film of Pygmalion, Shaw suggested Campbell for the role of Mrs Higgins but she declined.
Read more about this topic: Mrs. Patrick Campbell
Famous quotes containing the words george bernard shaw, bernard shaw, relationship with, relationship, george, bernard and/or shaw:
“Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the household.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Every man over forty is a scoundrel.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Every man is in a state of conflict, owing to his attempt to reconcile himself and his relationship with life to his conception of harmony. This conflict makes his soul a battlefield, where the forces that wish this reconciliation fight those that do not and reject the alternative solutions they offer. Works of art are attempts to fight out this conflict in the imaginative world.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any other relationship we can know because it is the bond least affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or of constancy.”
—Francine Du Plesssix Gray (20th century)
“Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.”
—Henry George (1839–1897)
“We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“A vegetarian is not a person who lives on vegetables, any more than a Catholic is a person who lives on cats.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)