Olden Life: Who was Eric Maschwitz?
Eric Maschwitz (1901-1969) was one of the most versatile and influential people in 20th-century British entertainment. I doubt we’ll ever see his like again.
In 1934, under his pseudonym, Holt Marvell, he wrote These Foolish Things with those lovely lines ‘A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces, An airline ticket to romantic places’.
He went on to write the lyrics for two other atmospheric and sophisticated standards, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Room Five Hundred and Four.
Born in Birmingham, Eric Maschwitz – a product of the Cambridge Footlights – was also a talented actor. He wrote book and lyrics for – and also directed – many reviews, musicals and operettas for the West End stage. You might recall Goodnight Vienna (turned into a film starring Jack Buchanan and Anna Neagle), Balalaika and Zip Goes a Million with George Formby. He translated French comedies – and wrote detective novels.
His intriguing love life further reflected his pick-and-mix inclinations. Married to comedy actress Hermione Gingold, he was romantically linked with the celebrated American-chinese film star Anna May Wong and the nightclub singer Jean Ross (inspiration for Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin, immortalised on screen by Liza Minelli in Cabaret). Each of the three speculated whether she had been his muse for These Foolish Things.
A script-writing stint in Hollywood for MGM led to his co-nomination for a Best Screenplay Academy Award in 1939 for Goodbye Mr Chips.
Maschwitz also had a day job, in a shabby, shared office at the BBC.
He edited the Radio Times and then got promoted to Director of Variety, introducing dance bands to the airwaves, along with popular programmes such as In Town Tonight. While working at the BBC, he sat down one Sunday morning (fortified by ‘sips of coffee and vodka’) and dashed off the lyrics for These Foolish Things before midday.
In the Second World War, he distinguished himself in intelligence in London and New York. After the war, he took part in the requisitioning of Radio Hamburg and was instrumental in setting up the Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service. In 1952, he became chairman of the Songwriters’ Guild of Great Britain.
He rejoined the BBC in 1958 as Head of TV Light Entertainment. In 1962, while serving as assistant to the BBC’S Controller of Programmes, he floated an intriguing idea: what about exploring the possibilities of devising a new sciencefiction series?
And so he became one of the founding fathers of Doctor Who.
In summing up his life, Maschwitz declared himself ‘a man who had worked too hard at too many things’.
But who could blame him when the rapidly developing world of entertainment was crying out for assorted talents, and he could supply them in spades? Child in a sweetie shop springs to mind.
And although – because largely he worked behind the scenes, rather than centre stage – he hasn’t become a household name (which he obviously regretted), his legacy, like ‘Gardenia perfume on the pillow’, has hauntingly lingered on.
The passion, haphazard genius, dedication and sheer have-a-go verve he applied to the British entertainment industry – and life itself – seems not only extraordinary in retrospect, but impossible to repeat. Sadly, no box these days would be big enough to accommodate another Eric Maschwitz.