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RE: MRS GERTRUDE FRANCES BRIND, | Isle of Wight County Press January 1, 1999. |
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A Waterway of life | Waterways World January 1999 |
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Authorship? | Dabchick February 1999 |
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A wise way to settle the 'Girls war' | Boston Globe SUNDAY, February 14, 1999 |
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In memoriam Bobby Brind (1936-1959)' | The Times April 19, 1999 |
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Major-General P H W Brind | The Times Wednesday May 19, 1999. |
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Obituaries: Vanessa Brown/ Smylla Brind | The Guardian June 1, 1999. |
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Obituaries: Vanessa Brown/ Smylla Brind | The Telegraph June 2, 1999. |
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Wartime memories | Dabchick issue 54, October, 1999. |
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Talking Cure: The Tavistock Clinic | BBC November 16, 1999 |
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Launch of Conservatory Magazine | RCI November/December 1999 |
| Media index |
OBITUARIES
All a quiver..;. Brown and Lex Barker in Tarzan and the Slave Girl: ‘Swinging in the trees was not too difficult,’ she said. Vanessa BrownThe actress who squirmed at being beautiful and having an IQ of 165. Vanessa Brown, who has died of cancer aged 71, characterised, more than most actresses the phrase, “Not just a pretty face”. Although she made her name as the sexy, flighty girl upstairs in George Axelrod’s The Seven Year Itch on Broadway in 1952 (that part taken in the 1955 Billy Wilder movie), and played a number of other none too bright women, she was a painter of considerable talent, wrote a play called Europa and the Bull and a book with the enthralling title of Manpower Policies of Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz. She was a correspondent for Voice of America, covering topics such as politics, science and medicine. She also served as a delegate to the 1956 Democratic national convention and campaigned for Adlai Stevenson and John F Kennedy. She commented that having been blessed with beauty and an IQ of 165 made her feel “squirmy”. Vanessa Brown was born Smylla Brind in Vienna, the daughter of language teacher Nah Brind and psychologist Anna Brind. Her family fled the Nazis when she was nine moving first to France and then to New York. In 1941 aged 13 the precocious child who spoke German, French, Italian and English, was in elementary school in Manhattan, when she heard that the producer of the first production of Watch on the Rhine was looking for a little girl with a German accent to play the role of the 10-year-old Viennese girl. She borrowed the subway fare and went directly to author Lillian Hellman, who offered her the part. However, her parents refused to allow her to leave school, so she under studied Ann Blyth and stepped into the role at the end of the Broadway run. While in Chicago with the play she was a guest on the popular radio show Quiz Kids, featuring a panel of five exceptional children answering questions from listeners and the studio audience. She did so well that she was offered and accepted a regular spot on the panel. After two years on radio she made her first movie billed as Tessa Brind in Youth Runs Wild (1944) in which she shone as a star crossed lover. While taking an English degree at the University of California she signed a seven year contract with 20th Century Fox and became Vanessa Brown. For the studio she played the demur friends of the juvenile leads in Margie (1946) and Mother Wore Tights (1947) and appeared in two Joseph M Mankiewicz films in 1947-- The Late George Apley and The Ghost and Mrs Muir. At RKO she was a far from plain Jane to Lex Barker’s ape man in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950). “The swinging in the trees was not too difficult,” Brown explained. “My muscles were in good shape. Playing the role itself as I thought it should be played required much more effort.” More demanding was her role as Celia to Katharine Hepburn’s Rosalind in the touring company of As You Like It in the same year. After appearing opposite Richard Conte in The Fighter and in a minor role in Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and The Beautiful (both 1952) she made a spectacular return to the stage in The Seven Year Itch. She was described as “looking nothing like so much as a taboo perfume ad” to entice 39 year old married man Tom Ewell. After this long run, Brown married a plastic surgeon Robert Alan Franklyn, and starred in a tv sitcom My Favourite Husband. She then retired from acting. Following her divorce in 1959 she married tv director Mark Sandrich, with whom she had two children. She made her film come back in Rosie! (1967) as wealthy widow Rosalind Russell’s grasping daughter and appeared in tv series such as General Hospital, Murder She Wrote and Homicide: Life on the Streets as late as 1997. Ronald Bergan Vanessa Brown, actress born March 24, 1928, died May 21, 1999. The Guardian, June 1, 1999. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
OBITUARIES
Vanessa Brown: "In Hollywood having a mind is all right, as long as you conceal it behind a low-cut bosom." Vanessa BrownActress who created the part of the temptress upstairs in The Seven Year Itch VANESSA BROWN, who has died aged 71, was at once brainy and beautiful; and though her writings never won the Pulitzer Prize, and her career as an actress brought her no Oscars, she succeeded in serving the claims of both intellect and glamour. On Broadway, in 1952, she received splendid reviews, and made the cover of Life, when she created the part of the innocent temptress upstairs in George Axelrod's The Seven Year Itch. (Three years later Marilyn Monroe player the role-- rather less subtly, as Vanessa Brown considered-- in Billy Wilder's film.) Yes this same Vanessa Brown also became an expert on automation and the author of The Manpower Policies of Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz. In the cinema she appeared as Jan in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950). She recalled that swinging in the trees was not so difficult, but that delivering the dialogue required extreme concentration. This Jane, though, went on to work in the 1960s as a write and reporter with Voice of America, interviewing such luminaries as Robert Kennedy, Zubin Mehta and Benjamin Spock. "In Hollywood," she concluded, "having a mind is all right, as long as you conceal it behind a low cut bosom."
Scenting danger from the Nazis, the Brind family moved to France in 1933, and to New York in 1938. Smylla learned English so quickly that within two years she was a member of a children's jury which reviewed films on the radio. In 1941 she was taken on as an understudy to Ann Blyth in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, though never relaxing her studies at Hunter High School for the Gifted. Her parents were determined to push her, and she was more than happy to oblige. She became a regular performer on Quiz Kids, amazing American audiences with her fluency in French, German and Italian. In her spare time she played the piano, painted, won a short story competition and was the leading light in her school's drama. Her father was now writing subtitles for American films to be exported to Europe; her mother dreamed of riches in Hollywood. It was arranged that Smylla should have an interview with David O'Selznick, who obliged by giving her a contract and then loaning her to RKO for a film called Youth Runs Wild (1944). Her part involved a blighted love affair, and reviewers found her performance at once touching and convincing. Smylla Brind was now reading English at the University of California, without any detriment to her screen career. After being re-invented as Vanessa Brown to play the daughter of a concert pianist in I've always Loved You (1946), she was snapped up by 20th Century-Fox. "We're going to do big things for you, make you a star," Darryl F Zanuck told her. But somehow it never happened. She was schoolgirl in Margie (1946), which dealt with college days in the 1920s; a matrimonial target in Joseph Mankiewicz's The Late George Apley (1946) about a blueblooded Boston family; and the daughter of Mrs Muir (Gene Tierney) in The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947), in which a widow falls in love with the ghost of a sea captain. All these were excellent films, but none of them gave Vanessa Brown much chance to shine. No more did her roles as Betty Grable's friend in Mother Wore Tights (1947), and as the maid in William Wyler's The Heiress (1949). She turned to the theatre, taking on the role of Celia opposite Katherine Hepburn's Rosalind in a nationwide tour of As You Like It. Two small film parts followed-- The Fighter (1952) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)-- and then came her triumph in The Seven Year Itch. From this Vanessa Brown retreated into a television sitcom called My Favourite Husband, in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a young banker. It did nothing for her career, and with her marriage in trouble she decided to retire from acting. In 1956 she campaigned for Adlai Stevenson, the Demoncratic candidate in the Presidential election and made a television documentary about nuclear fall out. Vanessa May (sic!) returned briefly to films as Rosalind Russell's daughter in Rosie (1967) and continued to appear occasionally on television up to 1997. She married first, in 1950 (dissolved 1956) Robert Franklyn, a plastic surgeon. She married secondly in 1959 (dissolved 1989) Mark Sandrich; they had a daughter. Daily Telegraph, June 2, 1999. |
| Smylla Brind/ Tessa Brind/ Vanessa Brown
(1928-1999)
The attractive daughter of Austrian-Jewish émigrés who fled their homeland to Paris in 1937 before coming to America, "B" actress Vanessa Brown grew up exceptionally fluent in German, French, Italian and English. She auditioned for Lillian Hellman at age 13 sporting a perfect Teutonic accent and earned the chance to understudy Ann Blyth on Broadway in the classic stage drama "Watch on the Rhine" in 1941. She eventually was given a featured role and followed that with a tour of the play using the stage name of Tessa Brind. A gifted student who also wrote and directed plays at her New York high school, she was a pure natural when she appeared on the radio quiz show "Quiz Kid." Hollywood and David O. Selznick took notice of her charms and transferred her to Hollywood High. She quickly made her film debut in Youth Runs Wild (1944) and continued in secondary teen roles with The Girl of the Limberlost (1945), I've Always Loved You (1946), Margie (1946), and The Late George Apley (1947), the last being her best and showiest to date. Following high school graduation, the now-billed "Vanessa Brown" progressed to young adult roles. She received lots of attention when she won the role of "Jane" opposite Lex Barker's loin-clothed swinger in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950), but abruptly left the series after only one attempt. In the 1950s she moved to TV where she became a perky panelist in such quiz shows as "Leave It to the Girls" (1949) and "Pantomime Quiz," in addition to regular dramatic programming. After a small part in the classic film The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Vanessa found renewed attention on Broadway co-starring as the girl who lives upstairs in the phenomenal hit "The Seven Year Itch" opposite Tom Ewell. Of course, she wasn't given the chance to repeat her sexy role in Hollywood. The meteoric Marilyn Monroe was an absolute sensation in Vanessa's part opposite Ewell in the 1955 movie version. On TV, Vanessa did, however, replace Joan Caulfield on the sitcom "My Favorite Husband" (1953) with Barry Nelson, enjoying a couple seasons of steady paychecks. Politics overrode all other interests in 1956 when she actively served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Acting took a further back seat in the early 60s when she married her second husband, TV director Mark Sandrich Jr., and gave birth to two children. From then on she was glimpsed here and there in small, matronly roles in such films as Rosie! (1967) and Bless the Beasts & Children (1971). In addition she had some running parts on a couple of daytime and nighttime TV programs. Vanessa's last years were marred by a second divorce (from Sandrich) and ill health. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988, she had successful surgery, but the cancer returned and she died in 1999 at the Motion Picture Country Home at age 71. |
Had an I.Q. of 165. She was a regular on the radio show "Quiz Kids" for two years. Sister-in-law of director/producer Jay Sandrich. Daughter-in-law of director/producer Mark Sandrich. Played a minor role of a maid in the film "The Heiress" starring Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland. Interestingly, she played the de Havilland part on radio a few years later. Directed "Meg," a prize-winning play, in Los Angeles in 1978. Wrote the play "Europa and the Bull" and a non-fiction work entitled "The Manpower Policies of Secretary of Labor, Willard Wirtz." There was also a novel and an unfinished autobiography. Daughter Cathy Sandrich (born 1961) became a top casting director, and son David (born in 1964) became a linguistic major and computer whiz. Lost her home in the 1989 Los Angeles earthquake. Her first husband, Dr. Robert Franklyn, was a popular Hollywood plastic surgeon. She apparently divorced him when she refused to go under the knife. Played the girl upstairs, the neighbor of Tom Ewell in the original Broadway production of "The Seven Year Itch," the part Marilyn Monroe later played with Ewell in the Billy Wilder film. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
Authorship?My great grandfather, John Brind, a native of Aldbourne, was born in 1828. In 1853 he married Sarah Spruce at St Mary's Church, Rodbourne Cheney and they then set up home in Aldbourne in one of the houses fronting on to the Green. They had nine children, two of who died when very young. Later they moved to live at Crooked Corner. Sarah died in 1896 and John In 1901. They are buried in the churchyard on the right, a short distance up from the belfry door. Their headstone is still readable. They lived and are buried in close proximity to the church which had been such an important part of their lives. Their eldest child, Mary Jane Brind, was born in 1854. The next two children died before reaching the age of five years and my grandfather, John James Brind, the fourth child,was born in 1861. He died in 1923, a few years before I was born. Gradfather's bible is in my possession and contains a record on the flyleaf of births, marriages and deaths of close family members. Also on the bible was a loose sheet of paper apparently removed from a notebook with the following written on it.
Mary Jane Brind's book. May 14th 1869. Aged 15 years On the reverse side of the paper is the one word, "John", presumably my grandfather. The poem seems rather morbid which may not be so suprising for in those days children found death a fairly frequent companion. Mary Jane herself had lost two siblings. It is obvious that the poem was of significance to my grandfather for he kept it in his bible. A few years ago my eldest daughter carried out some family history research and discovered that Mary Jane Brind married a John Radbourne. She is recorded as living at Winterbourne Bassett in 1912. Although schools had been in existence for many years compulsory school attendance did not commence until 1870 when decreed so by statute. I do not know the extent of Mary Jane's formal eduction but I would have expected her father to ensure that it was the best available commensurate with parental means. It is possible that Mary Jane is not the author of the poem and if that is so a reader may know of its origin. Anthony (Tony) Brind. (letter in The Dabchick, a bi monthly magazine for Aldbourne, Wiltshire, February 1999) PS. If any reader of this web site can throw light on the authorship of the poem, I'd be very interested. Please email me, Jonathan Brind. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
OBITUARIES
Major-General P H W Brind
Peter Brind as a brigadier in Aden in 1960. Major-General P H W Brind CBE, DSO, former chief of staff Northern Command, died on May 12 aged 87. He was born on February 16,1912. Peter Brind took over command of 2nd battalion The Devonshire Regiment in November 1944, at the end of the battalion's long slog from Normandy to Nijmegen with the 50th Division. A pause in the Allied advance through Belgium and Holland, intended for a regrouping of the fighting formations, saw the 2nd Devons switched to the 7th Armoured Division on the eve of the massive and unexpected German counter stroke through the Ardennes. As the Battle of the Bulge broke Brind's battalion was 25 miles north east of Maastricht on the right flank of General Hasso von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army attack which was intended to recapture Antwerp. As a lorried infantry battalion, the 2nd Devons were expecting to follow up the 7th Armoured Division's tanks in a continued advance eastwards. Instead, they were ordered to hold a 3,000 yard front at Sittard to help to contain any attempt by von Manteuffel to break out to the north to link up with General Sepp Dietrich's parallel move on Liège. Despite Luftwaffe attacks and vigorous probing of their line, the 2nd Devons held their sector of the German salient until the offensive petered out through shortage of fuel, ammunition and air support. January 1945 saw a brisk renewal of the Allied advance on the Rhine and into Germany. The 2nd Devons began with Operation Blackcock to clear the enemy from the Roer triangle, north of Heinsberg. This was a useful phase, as it allowed Brind to gear up his battalion to the swifter moving armoured battle after the defensive pause. By mid March the battalion was preparing for the break out beyond the Rhine following Montgomery's crossing of the river on the night of the 23rd. Once over the Lower Rhine, the race northeastwards began. For the 2nd Devons this ended with the battle for the village of Vehrendorf a few miles south of Hamburg towards the end of April. Brind was awarded the DSO for his inspired leadership of the 2nd Devons from November 1944 and their stand on the north of the Ardennes salient, through the advance to the Rhine and the break out from the bridgehead until they reached Hamburg. He was lucky not to be wounded or killed during a period when infantry battalion commanders were expected to survive for weeks rather than months. After two years on the War Office staff in training appointment, he was sent to Palestine where Arabs and Jews were already in conflict and aligned only in opposition to British rule under a League of Nations mandate granted at the end of the First World War. As GSO1 (operations), Brind was responsible for planning counter insurgency operations against the Jewish terrorist groups Irgun and the Stern Gang, as well as organising an orderly withdrawal of British forces when the Attlee Government unilaterally relinquished the mandate. He was mentioned in dispatches for his service in Palestine and appointed OBE. Although scarcely an exhilarating period of his career, Palestine proved useful experience of counter insurgency operations when he was appointed to command 5th Battalion Kings African rifles in Kenya six years later. The Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya has begun in 1952. It was almost exclusively confined to the Kikuyu tribe and their sympathisers who believed themselves deprived of their lands by British settler farmers. Terrorist activity and security force counter operations took place in the Aberdare mountain range and the forest surrounding Mount Kenya. The battalions of the King's African Rifles remained loyal as they were principally recruited from tribes other than those supporting the Mau Mau. Brind's 5th KAR were based on Nyeri, at the centre of the area of operations. He took over command at a time when there was concern at home over the methods used by some British and African units in countering the insurrection. A professional soldier to his fingertips, he brought his officers to understand the legal and human issues involved with emphasis on the certainty that some form of political settlement must follow a successful outcome of the campaign, however brutal and distressing the beginning had been for the settlers. The 5th KAR operated against the Mau Mau gangs in the local forest areas until they were reduced to a few isolated bands towards the end of 1956. Brind was again mentioned in dispatches. Appointment to command the 5th Infantry Brigade Group in German in 1956, immediately after leaving Kenya, came as a surprise. It was unusual for someone who had been "bush whacking" as the Army referred top service in places like East Africa, to be selected for a brigade command in the 1st (British) Corps facing the Warsaw Pact forces across the then "Inner German border". His success there was apparent from his selection to attend the 1959 course at the Imperial Defence College in London. Senior staff appointments followed at GHQ Middle East in Aden, for which he was advanced to CBE and in England. He became Chief of Staff Headquarters Northern Command York, in the range of major general in 1965. He was an ADC to the Queen in 1964 and retired from the Army in 1967. Peter Holmes Walter Brind was the younger son of General Sir John Brind. He was educated at Wellington College and RMC Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Dorset Regiment in 1932 and served in India with his Regiment and then as ADC to the Governor of Bengal 1936-39. He was adjutant of the 2nd Dorsets in France with the British Expeditionary Force in 1940 and after being wounded during the withdrawal was evacuated at Dunkirk. His exceptional ability as an organiser was demonstrated by a series of demanding operational staff appointments in England during the period of the "invasion scare" after Dunkirk and up to his embarkation for France to take command of the 2nd Devons four years later. On retirement from the Army he lived in Haslemere, where he was successively director, president and vice president of the Surrey Branch of the British Red Cross Society. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Surrey in 1970. He married Patricia Stewart Walker, a naval officer's daughter in 1942. She and three sons survive him. The Times, Wednesday May 19, 1999. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
Programme Three: Mr Brind16 November 1999 @ 21:50 "I can't go into the school at all at the moment... I'm so chewed up inside. I'm afraid to meet people." Roger Brind has been the head teacher of the Trelai Primary School on the Ely estate in Cardiff for over eighteen years. It's a difficult job, especially since in this area many of the children come from economically deprived backgrounds and 48% are registered with special needs. School property is often vandalised and Roger regularly has to face irate parents and violent threats. For all this, Roger is deeply committed to his job, is adored by his hard-working staff and admired by the school inspectors. Roger Brind answered a BBC advertisement asking head teachers if they would like to take part in a programme about managing stress and change in the public sector. As a result he's travelling to London for an appointment with Dr Anton Obholzer, an expert in organisational analysis. During their first meeting, Roger talks about the pressures of vandalism and violence, the constant grind of trying to do something good for the children and often getting nothing in return but grief. Anton picks up on a story Roger tells about how the teachers grew twenty trees from seed, only to have them destroyed the moment they were planted outside. He feels this is at the heart of Roger's anxieties about what he wants for the school and how it can be reconciled with the realities of the outside world. A month after the London consultation, Anton travels to Cardiff to attend a staff management meeting at Trelai. The staff, like the head, are dedicated and overworked, and find it hard to say 'no' to Roger. They all know they must lessen the professional and personal burdens - but how? In a later session, Roger is faced with the fact of his staff's exhaustion and the possibility that he's asking too much of them, and of himself. "I can't carry on like this," he admits. "The pressures on me are too great." So Roger takes sick leave. Anton confesses that he's 'slightly panicked' by this, but hopes the turmoil at Trelai is part of a movement towards growth and positive change. At the beginning of the next term Roger is still off sick, leaving deputy head Dianne Nicholls to manage the annual inspection. There is confidence in her leadership and the inspection goes well. When Roger returns after a six-month absence, he and the school are able to contemplate what had previously been the unthinkable - that Trelai could go on without Roger, and for Roger there was a life beyond Trelai. BBC Health & Fitness, 16 November 1999. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
Wartime memoriesBrentwood Bay Dear David It is some time since I wrote so first of all enclosed is a contribution to the Dabchick expenses. The millennium is fast approaching and your plans are obviously well in hand. I am sure the defining event of the twentieth century was World War II and many of the young people of the village participated; some of course failed to return. I wonder if anyone else has chronicled their experiences as I did a few years ago. (Primarily for my children and grand children). Mention was made of this in issue 47, August 1998. My brother Tony followed up with a couple of paragraphs in issue 48. I am wondering if the village is contemplating a written record of the century to be kept in the Memorial Hall, the church or some other suitable repository. If so the events of 1943/4 concerning my personal war could be included. Mary and I continue to welcome the Dabchick which we thoroughly enjoy reading. Thank you, David and good luck with the millennium project. Ken Brind Perhaps someone with a historical bent will take up Ken's idea. Ed Dabchick , issue 54, October, 1999.
IN MEMORIAM - PRIVATE BRIND Bobby (1936- 1959). Tell me not here, it needs not saying. Times 19/4/1999. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
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| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
| Unity launch
A new magazine dedicated to the conservatory industry has been launched by Unity Media, publisher of RCI and stablemate Glass & Glazing Products (GGP). The Conservatory Magazine is the first stand alone publication serving this young and dynamic industry and its first issue in October last was extremely well received by an industry hungry for information. "Congratulations on the first issue of Conservatory Magazine," wrote David Flitter of media consultants Austen Harlow Flitter to editor Jonathan Brind, who also edits GGP. "I feel it has the makings of an excellent publication. "One of your advertisers talks of a winning formula. This certainly appears to be the case as the magazine obviously reaches the right target audience. It is well presented with authoritative and topical editorials." The magazine is available to professionals manufacturing, supplying or retailing conservatories. The first issue teed off with a major feature on golf courses: many of which have built commercial sized conservatories in recent years. For further details telephone Unity's Circulation Department on 01959 568741, or use the RCI Reader Enquiry Service . Roofing Cladding & Insulation November/December 1999 |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
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| Waterways World January 1999. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
Official Notices RE: MRS GERTRUDE FRANCES BRIND, PURSUANT TO THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925 SECTION 27 NOTICE is hereby given that any person having a claim against or an interest in the Estate of Gertrude Frances Brind deceased of St Joseph's, Medeira Road Ventnor, Isle of Wight, who died on November 30, 1998, is hereby required to send particulars in writing of his claim or interest to the undersigned, the solic itors for the Executors, before th expiration of two calendar months from the date of the publication in which this notice shall appear, after which date the Executors will proceed to distribute the assets of the said deceased amongst the persons entitled thereto having regard only to claims and interests of which they shall then have had notice. DATED this 22nd day of December 1998 Walter Gray & Co., Solicitor for the Executors. 10 Birmingham Road, Cowes, Isle of-Wight. . P031 7BH Ref; JG/4428BRI/6 Isle of Wight County Press January 1, 1999. |
| Media index | Family history | 1999 |
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