Talk:Imogen Hassall

Link to biography
I have removed this link from the article as it appears to be dead. If anyone knows a working link please replace it.

RGCorris (talk) 12:16, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Biography and review of D.Leissner's book

"We don't know where to put you, Imogen."
Clearly nobody could place Imogen. Even Terry Johnson the author of Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and also the director of the original production, 1998, at the Royal National Theatre was off the convincing beam.

Theatrically the laugh below in the extract is "I'd really like to play women with no breasts at all, like in Rattigan." (Terrence Rattigan) But Johnson chooses Ibsen, (Henrik Ibsen) of Norway, where presumably under their clothes his heroines were Nordic and buxom. Was Johnson so coy that he believed Rattigan would be lost on a National Theatre audience?

Additionally though, a brief look across available photographs informs you Imogen was NOT gifted with 'the boobs.' What was there was crafted into a cleavage as well as she may have sensibly wished. Again Johnson misrepresents the daughter of Christopher Hassall.


 * Imogen:
 * "You know what I wish? I wish I had smaller breasts. Then I'd get to play women with small breasts, and they're always the best parts. I'd really like to play women with no breasts at all, like in Ibsen. I should never have done the centrefold. I'm actually very versatile. 'An impressive multifaceted performance'; that's what they said about me in LOVING. And that wasn't just taking off the glasses and letting my hair down, that was ACTING actually. I was ACTING her repressed sexuality. What I'm saying is, I'm not just some stupid girl from Elmhurst with a wonked knee, you know."


 * Sid James:
 * "Right"


 * Imogen:
 * "I'm not just the 'Countess of Cleavage'."


 * Sid:
 * "Absolutely."


 * Imogen:
 * "It's so hard to convince people I'm a serious actress, but I think it's beginning to happen. I've got an audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company. And last month I did The Persuaders. Only the pilot but both Roger Moore AND Tony Curtis were very complimentary and said there was a very good chance my character could become a regular"

This production was at the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company had indeed graced Miss Hassall with employment at a time well distanced from the passage of the events in Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick. In 1962 the actress joined that company in a beginners capacity, http://theatricalia.com/play/35/troilus-and-cressida/production/10e, much as so many actresses have, Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren.

For whatever reasons Imogen was drawn away. – Biography: Leissner, D. (2002). Tuesday's Child: The Life and Death of Imogen Hassall. Luminary Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. ISBN 1-887664-47-5.

– Laurencebeck (talk • contribs) 05:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)