Although famous as the author of 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff also wrote a number of other equally delightful biographical works which are well worth tracking down. The complete works are available new from bookshops as part of the single volume ‘Helene Hanff Omnibus’ or the individual books themselves can be obtained online quite easily on the second hand market. I did a quick search on abebooks.com and came up with 44 copies of the title being reviewed here priced from around $4.00 (£3.00) each plus p&p. Many of the second hand booksellers who advertise on abebooks are based in the UK so postage charges shouldn’t be too excessive.
‘Underfoot in Show Business’ is particularly well worth buying because it is such an entertaining story. Hanff recounts her early days as a struggling writer on the edges of show business. She describes her friendship with Maxine, an aspiring actress who will be well known to anyone who has already read ’84 Charing Cross Road’. Many years after this story is set, Hanff wrote a letter to Maxine, who had landed a part in a play which was playing in London’s West End. Hanff instructed Maxine to take four pairs of nylons around to the Marks & Co. bookshop for Nora Doel and her daughters (‘I just talked to your Mother. She says you don’t think the show will run another month’) and recount everything she saw.
‘Underfoot in Show Business’ is a vivid description of what it is like to be young and poor and on the edges of Theatreland. Together the young Helene and Maxine embark on the ‘Underfoot Free Enterprise System’ where by dint of begging, borrowing and sheer boldness they contrive obtain music lessons in exchange for language lessons, pay for cinema tickets with postage stamps, obtain free lifts with travelling orchestras, borrow new frocks for dates, obtain corsages from unwanted flowers at a funeral home and get seats at popular shows by always turning up after the interval without a coat.
What is not generally known is that Hanff worked for many years as a playwright for the Theatre Guild, and in this capacity not only became acquainted with the early work of many famous actors and actresses, but saw at first hand shows which either became major hits overnight or sank without trace. One particularly memorable reminiscence is of a opera called ‘Away We Go’ which was early on dubbed by a critic as having ‘No Legs, No Jokes and No Chance’. With some re-writes and some new songs the show became the immensely popular musical Oklahoma! Hanff recounts with some clarity how at the eleventh hour the decision was suddenly taken to insert an exclamation point after the show's name, and how she and a colleague sat up all night appending these by hand to 10,000 press releases, with the result that they slept through the opening night of what was to become a Theatre Guild triumph.
‘Underfoot in Show Business’ is perhaps Hanff’s funniest book. If you are stuck for some holiday reading this summer, I can heartily recommend you invest in a copy. Hanff’s informed yet witty style will appeal to all age groups and sexes, even my husband enjoyed it!
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