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Michael Arlen | |
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 Arlen on the cover ofTime in 1927 | |
| Born | Dikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian (1895-11-16)16 November 1895 Ruse, Bulgaria |
| Died | 23 June 1956(1956-06-23) (aged 60) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Citizenship |
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| Education | Malvern College |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, includingMichael |
Michael Arlen (bornDikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian,[a]Armenian:Տիգրան Գոյումճեան, 16 November 1895 – 23 June 1956) was an essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter. He had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England, publishing the best-selling novelThe Green Hat in 1924. Arlen is most famous for his satirical romances set in English smart society, but he also wrotegothic horror and psychological thrillers, for instance "The Gentleman from America", which was filmed in 1948 asThe Fatal Night, and again in 1956 as a television episode forAlfred Hitchcock's TV seriesAlfred Hitchcock Presents. Near the end of his life, Arlen mainly occupied himself with political writing. Arlen's vivid but colloquial style "with unusual inversions and inflections with a heightened exotic pitch"[1] came to be known as 'Arlenesque'.
Very much a 1920s society figure resembling the characters he portrayed in his novels, and a man who might be referred to as adandy, Arlen invariably impressed everyone with his immaculate manners. He was always impeccably dressed and groomed, and was seen driving aroundLondon in a fashionable yellowRolls-Royce and engaging in various luxurious activities. However, he was well aware of the latent suspicion of foreigners, mixed with the envy with which his success was viewed by some.
His works became an inspiration for famous Hollywood movies such asA Woman of Affairs (1928), starringGreta Garbo andJohn Gilbert;The Golden Arrow (1936), starringBette Davis; and he was screenwriter ofThe Heavenly Body (1944), based on a story by Jacques Théry, starringWilliam Powell andHedy Lamarr.[2]
Michael Arlen was born Dikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian[3] on 16 November 1895, inRuse,Bulgaria, to anArmenian merchant family. In 1892, his family moved toPlovdiv, Bulgaria, after fleeingTurkish persecutions of Armenians in theOttoman Empire. In Plovdiv, Arlen's father, Sarkis Kouyoumdjian, established a successful import business. In 1895, Arlen was born as the youngest child of five, having three brothers, Takvor, Krikor, and Roupen, and one sister, Ahavni. Arlen's family moved once more: this time to the seaside town ofSouthport inLancashire, England.[4]
After studying atMalvern College and spending a brief time in Switzerland, Arlen enrolled as a medical student at theUniversity of Edinburgh,[5] despite his and his family's intention that he attend theUniversity of Oxford. If we are to view Arlen's first published book,The London Venture, as being semi-autobiographical, then we will never know why Arlen made this "silly mistake"[6] of going to Edinburgh instead of Oxford. We know however what led Arlen to London, where he would make his break into a literary career.
InThe London Venture, Arlen wrote: "I, up at Edinburgh, was on the high road to general fecklessness. I only stayed there a few months; jumbled months of elementary medicine, political economy, metaphysics, theosophy – I once handed round programmes at an Annie Besant lecture at the Usher Hall – and beer, lots of beer. And then, one night, I emptied my last mug, and with another side-glance at Oxford, came down to London; 'to take up a literary career' my biographer will no doubt write of me." (p. 132)
In 1913, after a few months of university, Arlen moved to London to live by writing. A year later, theFirst World War broke out and made Arlen's position in England as a Bulgarian national rather difficult. Arlen's nationality was still Bulgarian, but Bulgaria had disowned him because he would not serve in Bulgaria's army. Bulgaria being allies with Germany made England suspicious of Arlen, who could neither be naturalized as a British citizen, nor change his name. In London, Arlen found company inmodernist literary circles with others who had been looked upon suspiciously or had been denied military service. Among these wereAldous Huxley,D. H. Lawrence,Nancy Cunard, andGeorge Moore.[7]
Arlen began his literary career in 1916, writing under his birth name, Dikran Kouyoumdjian, firstly in a London-based Armenian periodical,Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, and soon afterward forThe New Age, a British weekly review of politics, arts, and literature. For these two magazines, Arlen wrote essays, book reviews, personal essays, short stories, and even one short play.
His last submissions toThe New Age, a series of semi-autobiographical personal essays entitled "The London Papers", were assembled in 1920 and published with slight revisions asThe London Venture. From this time onward he began to sign his works as 'Michael Arlen'. In January and April 1920, he had already published two short stories inThe English Review signed thus. He became naturalized as a British citizen in 1922, and legally changed from his birth name to Michael Arlen.
Arlen spent some time in France with Nancy Cunard in 1920, although she was married to someone else at the time; the relationship fuelled Aldous Huxley's jealousy. During the 1920s, Arlen rented rooms opposite 'The Grapes' public house inShepherd Market, then a bohemianMayfair address. He later used Shepherd Market as the setting forThe Green Hat.
AfterThe London Venture, Arlen worked on romances, spicing them with elements of psychological thrills and horror, includingThe Romantic Lady,These Charming People, and"Piracy": A Romantic Chronicle of These Days. InThese Charming People, for instance, Arlen wrote tales which included elements offantasy andhorror, in particular "The Ancient Sin" and "The Loquacious Lady of Lansdowne Passage". The volume also introduced a 'gentleman crook' reminiscent ofRaffles. His identity is not entirely clear until the story "Salute the Cavalier". The title of another story, "When a Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square", was the inspiration for thepopular song of the same name.
These works culminated in the book that would launch Arlen's fame and fortune in the 1920s:The Green Hat, published in 1924.The Green Hat narrates the short life and violent death of Iris Storm, afemme fatale and dashing widow, the owner of a yellowHispano-Suiza as well as the green hat of the title. Arlen adapted the novel for a1925 Broadway play,[8] starringKatharine Cornell andLeslie Howard in his most successful Broadway appearance to date. An almost simultaneous but less successful adaptation in London'sWest End starredTallulah Bankhead. The book figures inA Question of Upbringing byAnthony Powell as representative of life in Shepherd Market.
The novel was adapted for the silent 1928 Hollywood filmA Woman of Affairs starringGreta Garbo andJohn Gilbert.The Green Hat was considered provocative in the United States; hence, the movie was not allowed to make any references to it. The film obscured or altered plot points in the novel concerning homosexuality and venereal disease. It was adapted a second time in 1934, asOutcast Lady, withConstance Bennett andHerbert Marshall in the main roles.
After the publication ofThe Green Hat, Arlen became almost instantly famous, rich, incessantly in the spotlight and newspapers. During the mid-1920s, Arlen frequently travelled to the United States and worked on plays and films, includingDear Father andThese Charming People.
According toNoël Coward's biographerSheridan Morley, in 1924 Arlen rescued the playThe Vortex by writing Coward a cheque for £250 when it seemed that the production would otherwise collapse (according to Coward himself—“Present Indicative,” p. 188–it was for £200).The Vortex made Coward's name.
Naturally, after all this fame and attention, Arlen felt somewhat anxious to write the book that would followThe Green Hat. Arlen wroteYoung Men in Love (1927) and received mixed reviews. Arlen continued withLily Christine (1928),Babes in the Wood (1929), andMen Dislike Women (1931), none of which received the enthusiastic reviews thatThe Green Hat had received. Arlen also wrote a volume ofGhost Stories (1927), which were influenced bySaki,Oscar Wilde andArthur Machen.[9][10]
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In 1927, Arlen, feeling ill, joinedD. H. Lawrence inFlorence, Italy. Lawrence was working onLady Chatterley's Lover and Arlen served as a model for the character Michaelis.
Arlen then moved to Cannes, France and, in 1928, married Countess Atalanta Mercati. They had two children, a son,Michael John Arlen born in 1930, and a daughter, Venetia Arlen, born in 1933.
With his following novel,Man's Mortality (1933), Arlen turned to political writing andscience fiction, brushing aside his earlier, smart society romances. Set fifty years in the future, in 1983, the book can be seen as portraying aDystopia, whose rulers claim that it is aUtopia. Most critics compared it unfavourably with Huxley'sBrave New World, which had been published the previous year.
In the following years, Arlen also returned togothic horror withHell! Said the Duchess: A Bed-Time Story (1934). In his final collection of short stories,The Crooked Coronet (1939), Arlen briefly returns to his earlier romantic, but also comic, style. Arlen's claim to fame in the world ofcrime fiction rests on oneshort story, "Gay Falcon" (1940), in which he introduced gentleman sleuth Gay Stanhope Falcon. Renamed Gay Lawrence and nicknamed 'the Falcon', the character was taken up byHollywood in 1941, and expanded into a series of mystery films withGeorge Sanders in the title role. When Sanders left the role, he was succeeded by his brotherTom Conway, who played Gay Lawrence's brother Tom and also used the nickname 'the Falcon'.
In 1939, when theSecond World War began, Arlen returned to England. While his wife, Atalanta, joined theRed Cross, Arlen wrote columns forThe Tatler. That same year, his final book,The Flying Dutchman (1939), was published, a political novel, commenting harshly on Germany's position in the war.
In 1940, Arlen was appointed Civil Defence Public Relations Officer for the East Midlands, but when his loyalty to England was questioned in theHouse of Commons in 1941, he resigned and moved to America, where he settled in New York in 1946. For the next ten years of his life, Arlen suffered fromwriter's block.
He died of cancer on June 23, 1956, in New York.
Horror writerKarl Edward Wagner includedHell! Said the Duchess on his list of "The Thirteen Best Supernatural Horror Novels" in the May 1983 issue ofThe Twilight Zone Magazine.[11]F. Scott Fitzgerald was an admirer of Arlen's work. InA Moveable Feast,Ernest Hemingway recounts how, as he and Fitzgerald were sharing a long car journey to Paris, Fitzgerald told him the plots of all Arlen's books, concluding that the author was "the man you had to watch".[12]
