Helene Marjorie Hanff (1916 - 1997)

Born 15 Apr 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Ancestors

Died 9 Apr 1997 at age 80 in New York City, New York, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Robynne Lozier [send private message]

Biography

Helene Hanff is Notable.

Helene Hanff was an American author of semi-biographical stories. She was born and raised in Philadelphia. The family regularly attended the theatre, and as a result, Helene grew up wanting to become a playwright. During the Great Depression, she was forced to drop out of college and attend business school. While at college and business school, Helene was acquiring a literary knowledge by reading the books of an Oxford Professor named Arthur Quiller-Couch.

She later won a play-writing competition and the prize was an internship to work for the Theatre Guild, which worked to bring scripts to the stage. The only successful play that Helene was involved with was Oklahoma, which began its celebrated lengthy Broadway run in 1943.

Helene continued writing plays during and after the war years while working, but none of these plays were ever considered good enough to be produced. After World War II ended, television took over as the main entertainment, and Helene became a script reader,^[1] a job she could do at home. She wrote a book about her life in the theatre, published in 1962, called Underfoot in Show Business.

In October 1949 Helene spotted an advert from a second-hand book shop in London, England, in the Saturday Review of Literature and wrote to them asking for books she could not find in New York City. if they had nice clean copies, could they consider this first letter as a purchase order and send them to her?

Thus began a literary relationship that continued for nineteen years (1949-1968) between Helene and the manager of Marks and Co, Frank Doel. Since England was still under rationing rule at that time, Helene arranged for hard-to-get food items to be sent to the shop from Denmark. This probably endeared her to the shop staff. She sent regular book orders as well.

During this time of her correspondence with Frank, Helene continued working as a script reader, but was also writing screen plays for TV shows and movies.

In 1969, Helene was told that Frank Doel had died suddenly, and she felt driven to write their story. She had kept copies of all her letters to Frank, as well as his letters to her. Eventually an editor at Harper's Magazine, Genevieve "Gene" Young, became her advocate and found an off-beat publisher for 84.^[2]

The most famous book was 84, Charing Cross Road, the epistolary book that tells the story of Helene and Frank. This book was turned into a stage play around 1975 and later a movie in 1987.

Helene never married and had no children.

Helene's family tree

The Hanff and Levy families are of course Jewish. Helene grew up with two older brothers; in her book, 84, Charing Cross Road, she makes a rather loud reference to having a Catholic sister-in-law, a Methodist sister-in-law, and a whole raft of Presbyterian cousins through her great uncle, Abraham Levy, who converted. Helene's brothers and sisters-in-law are on the tree, but I still cannot find Great Uncle Abraham!!

In Q's Legacy, Helene mentions her Uncle Al who lived with the family. This was Miriam's older half-brother Alfred, who used to run a timber business. He was married but apparently had no children.

My favourite books by Helene are 84, Charing Cross Road, Underfoot in Show Business, and Q's Legacy.

I have just found that Helene was counted twice in the 1940 census. She was clearly in New York city, staying at the [Allerton Hotel for women], see 1940 NYC census link below. Meanwhile her parents, Miriam and Arthur, also added her name to their home's census report back in Philadelphia. See 1940 Penn census link below; they still got her age wrong.

Helene's best friend Maxine Stuart is now finally on Wikitree - Shilivek-1

The 1950 census address shows the street address of East 95th street, which was the address Helene was living at when she first began writing to 84 Charing Cross Road. 1950 census Details added.

Sources

1. ↑ A script reader is the middleman between a script writer and the executive who decides whether to fund the production. Script readers are paid per script, which makes it a freelance position; Paramount would have been her client, not her employer. See https://www.productionbase.co.uk/blog/2019/04/05/become-script-reader/ for job description, which hasn't changed since the 1950s.
2. ↑ Hanff, Helene, 1985. Q's Legacy, ISBN 0140089365; Gene Young's first reference is on page 21 and thereafter passim.

• [1920 census]
• [1930 census]
• [1940 NYC census]
• [1940 PENN census]
• Fox, Margalit, 1997-Apr-11. ["Helene Hanff, Wry Epistler of '84 Charing,' Dies at 80."] The New York Times, Section B, Page 12.
• [Obituary - Independent UK]
• [IMDB]
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/84,_Charing_Cross_Road
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene_Hanff
• Oklahoma on Broadway - http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/05/no-legs-no-chance/#more-3431
• This WikiTree profile is referenced from Wikidata: Item Q297542, en:Wikipedia
• 1950 Census USA - "United States 1950 Census", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6XPZ-NB98 : Fri Oct 06 21:33:08 UTC 2023), Entry for Freda Bergland and Helene Hanff, 10 April 1950.