Hitler was my brother-in-law

QUESTION

sister-in-law? Did Adolf Hitler have an Irish Bridget elizabeth Hitler, nee dowling, who was born on July 3, 1891, in dublin, was married to Hitler’s half-brother.

in 1850, Adolf Hitler’s father, Alois, then 36, married Anna glasl-Horer, a wealthy 50-year-old woman in poor health.

in 1880 they separated because of Alois’s frequent affairs and he took up with a former female servant in the household, Franziska ‘Fanni’ Matzelsberger.

As a roman Catholic, Alois couldn’t divorce or remarry under Austrian law, so all his subsequent children were illegitimate. With Fanni, he had two children: Alois Jnr, born in 1882, and Angela, in 1883.

Klara Polzi, Adolf Hitler’s mother, joined the household as a maid in 1876 and became Alois’s mistress. they had six children, only two of whom — Adolf (born in 1889) and Paula (born in 1896) — survived to adulthood.

Alois Jnr eloped with Bridget dowling after they met at the dublin Horse Show in 1909. He had claimed to be a wealthy hotelier, when, in fact, he was a penniless kitchen porter.

As Bridget was under the age of consent, her father threatened to have Alois Jnr charged with kidnapping, but relented when she pleaded with him.

the couple lived in London before taking up residence in rented rooms at 102 Upper Stanhope Street in Liverpool’s toxteth area. in 1911, their only child, William Patrick Hitler, was born.

ironically, the house was destroyed in a german bombing raid in January 1942.

When Alois Jnr returned to germany to start a business in 1914, the marriage was effectively over. He had become violent and was beating William.

After World War i, Bridget was told he was dead, but it was a ruse to enable him to remarry. He was charged with bigamy in 1924, but escaped jail thanks to Bridget’s intervention.

they divorced and she set up home in Highgate, North London, taking in lodgers to make ends meet. William went Taking sides: Bridget Hitler handing out British war relief information to the U.S. to lecture on his infamous uncle, Adolf, and Bridget joined him there in 1939. they set up home on Long island under the name Stuart-Houston.

Bridget appears to have become a fantasist, claiming in a book that Adolf had lived with her in Liverpool and she had introduced him to astrology and persuaded him to clip his moustache into its famous shape.

William served in the U.S. Navy during World War ii as a pharmacist’s mate. He formally changed his name to StuartHouston after the war.

given his notorious ancestry, by this time he strived for anonymity. With his wife Phyllis Jean-Jaques he had four sons, the eldest of whom, born in 1949, was given the middle name of Adolf.

Bridget died in New York on November 18, 1969, aged 78.

Bob Cubitt, Northampton.

QUESTION

Who wrote the terrific film scores to 1949’s The Great Gatsby and 1950’s The Flame And The Arrow? tHe film score for the great gatsby was composed by robert emmett dolan while the Flame And the Arrow is the work of Max Steiner.

dolan, known as Bobby, was a Broadway and Hollywood conductor, composer, songwriter and arranger.

He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1908, the eldest of 12 children, and was taught piano by his mother. He started his career as a pianist for dance bands, nightclubs and Broadway shows.

As the pianist for the show east Wind in 1931, he attracted the attention of Oscar Hammerstein, who hired him as musical director for May Wine in 1935 and Forbidden Melody in 1936.

dolan became musical director for MgM in 1941 and then moved to Paramount, where he was musical director for 16 Bing Crosby pictures.

He scored more than 60 movies and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Score eight times, including for 1942’s Holiday inn (which featured irving Berlin’s song White Christmas), but never won.

Paramount promoted him to producer for 1954’s White Christmas, 1955’s the girl rush and 1956’s Anything goes.

He joined the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1946, collaborating with Johnny Mercer and Walter O’Keefe on a host of songs.

dolan died in Los Angeles in 1972, aged 64.

Sheila Marley, Narborough, Norfolk. MAx SteiNer was born in Vienna in 1888. He was a child prodigy: aged 15, he wrote his first operetta, Die schone

Griechin (the Beautiful greek Woman), which he conducted himself.

He emigrated to the U.S. in 1914 and worked in New York as a theatre conductor and arranger, before moving to Hollywood in 1929.

He was one of the most prolific movie composers, scoring more than 300 films, and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three for 1935’s the informer, 1942’s Now, Voyager and 1944’s Since You Went Away.

He produced memorable scores for King Kong, Little Women, gone With the Wind, Casablanca, the Big Sleep, the Fountainhead, the Flame And the Arrow and the Searchers. Max Steiner died in 1971, aged 83, in Hollywood.

Mike Butler, Birmingham.

QUESTION Are Agatha Christie’s 38 Hercule Poirot novels the longestrunning crime series?

FUrtHer to the earlier answer, the 53 novels of the 87th Precinct series and the 50 that form the . . . in death series come nowhere near the 151 novels of the destroyer series by Warren Murphy and richard Sapir.

A mixture of fantasy comedy and gore, they feature secret government agent remo Williams, who stops crime by executing criminals using an esoteric Korean martial art with the help of Master Chiun.

Kim Wallsworth, Wotter, Devon.

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