Editing John Osborne (section)

== Personal life ==

=== Politics ===
In ''A Better Class of Person'', Osborne describes the emotional appeal that socialism had to him as a schoolboy and how he and his closest friends "all attended the local [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] meetings" as youths.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|pp=83–85}}.</ref> He carried these affiliations with him into adult life, alienating fellow commuters and colleagues by regularly bringing a copy of the ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' into the office as a young journalist.<ref name=":3">{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|pp=159–60}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Heilpern|2006|p=71}}.</ref> Given a platform to express his views in [[Declaration (anthology)|the 1957 anthology ''Declaration'']], he took the opportunity to criticize monarchy:
{{quote|I have called Royalty religion the 'national swill' because it is poisonous... the leader-writers and the bribed gossip mongers have only to rattle their sticks in the royalty bucket for most of their readers to put their heads down in this trough of Queen-worship... My objection to the Royalty symbol is that it is dead; it is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1957|pp=68, 76}}.</ref>}}

He also protested about "[[Operation Grapple|the Christmas Island explosion]]" and what he perceived as the blindly supportive response of the British media.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1957|pp=65-66}}.</ref> Osborne joined the [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament|CND]] in 1959, and in the early '60s was a member of the [[Committee of 100 (United Kingdom)|Committee of 100]] who engaged in civil disobedience to protest against nuclear weapons.<ref name="ratcliffe" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://cnduk.org/peoples-history-of-cnd-the-committee-of-100/|title=The Committee of 100|website=Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament|access-date=2023-03-23}}</ref> 

In 1961, in the aftermath of the [[Berlin Wall]] being built, the left-wing magazine ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' published Osborne's "Letter to My Fellow Countrymen", addressing those politicians the author considered responsible for [[nuclear proliferation]]:
{{quote|My favourite fantasy is four minutes or so non-commercial viewing as you fry in your democratically elected hot seats... I would willingly watch you all die for the West... you could all go ahead and die for Berlin, for Democracy, to keep out the red hordes or whatever you like... damn you, England. You're rotting now, and quite soon you'll disappear... I write this from another country, with murder in my brain and a knife carried in my heart for every one of you. I am not alone. If WE had just the ultimate decency and courage, we would strike at you - now, before you blaspheme the world in our name. There is nothing I should not give for your blood on my head.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1994|pp=193–94}}.</ref><ref name="ianjack">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/02/damn-you-england-wonder-whether-we-belong-brexit-vote | work=The Guardian | title=Damn you, England, for making us wonder whether we belong here | first=Ian | last=Jack | date=2 July 2016 | access-date=26 March 2023}}</ref>}}

The letter caused controversy. Conservative journalist [[Peregrine Worsthorne]] expressed concern about its "murderous language" and the possibility that the "resentment that John Osborne so virulently articulated" might be shared by many others, while the trade unionist [[Jack Jones (trade unionist)|Jack Jones]] commented, "every true Socialist should roar with applause".<ref name=":4">{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=201-3}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Whitebrook|2015|pp=4-5, 184-89}}.</ref><ref name="ianjack" />

In his public letter, however, Osborne had denounced Labour leader [[Hugh Gaitskell]] as well as Conservative PM [[Harold Macmillan]].<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1994|p=194}}.</ref><ref name="ianjack" /> The following year, he told the ''[[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|Daily Herald]]'' that he would not be voting Labour at the next election, adding "Barrenness is preferable to rape by one of two monsters."<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1994|p=195}}.</ref> His play ''Time Present'' (1968) contains a mocking caricature of a female Labour MP.<ref name="Meyers">{{registration required|date=April 2023}} {{cite journal|title=Osborne's Harem |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25475737 |access-date=April 1, 2023|journal=Antioch Review|date= 2009|volume= 67|pages=323–339|last1=Meyers |first1=Jeffrey |issue = 2|jstor=25475737 }}</ref> Critics saw a conservative attitude to empire reflected in ''West of Suez'',<ref name="Hartnoll" /><ref name="billington" /><ref name="Heilpern Guardian" /> and later in the 1970s he expressed support for [[Enoch Powell]].<ref name="edgar">{{cite news| url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n14/david-edgar/stalking-out | work=The London Review of Books | title=Stalking Out | first=David | last=Edgar | author-link=David Edgar (playwright)| date=20 July 2006 | access-date=18 April 2023}}</ref> In the words of Osborne's biographer Michael Ratcliffe, "he drifted to the libertarian, unorganized right"; even his friend [[David Hare (playwright)|David Hare]] acknowledged that he passed "from passion to prejudice. He was forced back into a position which, finally, for most writers is undignified and unproductive: the pretence that the past is always, necessarily, superior to the present".<ref name="ratcliffe" /><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/04/hayfestival2002.hayfestival | work=The Guardian | title=Look back and marvel at anger of Osborne | first=John | last=Ezard | date=4 June 2002 | access-date=27 May 2023}}</ref> Several commentators have argued that a conservative and nostalgic strain was apparent in Osborne's work from an early stage.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Lewis (biographer)|year=1989 |title=Stage People|location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |pages=52–58 |isbn=0-297-79212-1}}</ref><ref name="mount" /><ref name="edgar" /> As early as 1957, [[Kenneth Tynan]] had noticed "a deeply submerged nostalgia" for Britain's pre-[[WW1]] past in ''The Entertainer''.<ref name=":5">{{cite book |last=Tynan |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Tynan |date=2007 |editor-last=Shellard |editor-first=Dominic |editor-link=Dominic Shellard |title=Theatre Writings |url=https://archive.org/details/theatrewritings0000tyna_o7o9 |url-access=registration |location=London |publisher=[[Nick Hern Books]] |page=169 |isbn=978-1-85459-050-3}}</ref>

=== Relationships ===
Osborne had many affairs and frequently mistreated his wives and lovers.<ref name="Meyers" /> He was married five times, all except the last being unhappy unions. The first four were marred by frequent affairs and mistreatment of his partners.<ref name="Meyers" /> He outlived three of his wives, being survived only by the first and the last,<ref name="mount" /> both of whom have since died. His final marriage, from 1978 until his death, was to the journalist [[Helen Osborne|Helen Dawson]]. 

==== Pamela Lane (1951–57) ====
Source:<ref name=PamLanobit />

In ''A Better Class of Person'', Osborne describes feeling an immediate and intense attraction towards his first wife, Pamela Lane. The pair were both members of an acting troupe in [[Bridgwater]].<ref name="sierz" />
{{quote|She had just recently shorn her hair down to a defiant auburn stubble and I was impressed by the hostility she had created by this self-isolating act. I was unable to take my eyes from her hair, her huge green eyes which must mock or plead affection, preferably both, at least… She startled and confused me… There was no calculation in my instant obsession.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|p=239}}.</ref>}}

Though Alison Porter in ''[[Look Back in Anger]]'' was based on Pamela,<ref name="sierz" /> Osborne describes Lane's respectable middle-class parents – her father a successful draper, her mother of a family of minor rural gentry<ref>{{cite news|author=John Heilpern |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/nov/21/pamela-lane-obituary |title=Pamela Lane obituary |work=The Guardian |date=21 November 2010}}</ref> – as "much coarser", and how at one point they hired a private detective to follow him after a fellow actor was seen 'fumbling' with his knee in a tea shop.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|pp=240-41}}.</ref>

Lane and Osborne married in nearby [[Wells, Somerset|Wells]] and then left Bridgwater the following Sunday amidst an uneasy truce with Lane's parents (Osborne's hated mother was not aware of the union until the couple were divorcing), spending their first night as a married couple together in the [[Cromwell Road]] in [[London]].<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|pp=243-44}}.</ref>

The two lived a fairly itinerant and reasonably happy married existence at first, living at a number of places around London and finding work there at first, then touring, staying in [[Kidderminster]] in Osborne's case. While Lane's acting career flourished in Derby, Osborne's struggled, and she began an affair with Joe Selby, a dental surgeon.<ref name="sierz" />

Osborne spent much of the next two years before their divorce hoping they would reconcile. In 1956, after the opening of ''[[Look Back in Anger]]'', Osborne met Lane at the railway station in [[York]], where she told Osborne of her recent abortion and enquired after his relationship with [[Mary Ure]]. In April 1957, Osborne was granted a divorce from Lane, on the grounds of his adultery.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=43-44}}.</ref> It later emerged that in the 1980s, Lane and Osborne corresponded frequently and met in secret until he became angered by her request for a loan.<ref>Peter Whitebrook (ed.). 2018. ''Dearest Squirrel: The Intimate Letters of John Osborne and Pamela Lane''.  Oberon, pp.416.</ref>

==== Mary Ure (1957–1963) ====
Osborne began a relationship with Ure shortly after meeting her when she was cast as Alison in ''[[Look Back in Anger]]'' in 1956, while he was married to Pamela Lane. The affair swiftly progressed; and the two moved in together in Woodfall Road, [[Chelsea, London]]. He wrote later:

{{quote| Mary was one of those unguarded souls who can make themselves understood by penguins or the wildest dervishes .. I was not in love. There was fondness and pleasure, but no groping expectations, just a feeling of fleeting heart's ease. For the present we were both content enough.}}

Eventually, Osborne became jealous and somewhat contemptuous of Ure's stable family background and her relationship with them. He also began to lose regard for her acting abilities.

{{quote|I had stopped concealing from myself, if I ever had, that Mary was not much of an actress. She had a rather harsh voice and a tiny range. }}

There was infidelity on both sides; and, after an affair with [[Robert Webber]], Ure eventually left Osborne for the actor and novelist [[Robert Shaw (actor)|Robert Shaw]].

Osborne described visiting her after she had left him and having sex with her while she was pregnant with the first of four children she would bear to Shaw. Of their divorce, Osborne wrote of being surprised that she repeatedly refused to return to him treasured postcards drawn for him by his father,<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|p=90}}.</ref> but is circumspect about her early death in 1975: "Destiny dragged her so pointlessly from a life better contained by the softly lapping waters of the [[River Clyde|Clyde]]."<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=174}}.</ref>

==== Penelope Gilliatt (1963–68) ====
Osborne met his third wife, writer [[Penelope Gilliatt]], initially through social connections, and then through an interview she conducted with him:<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=175-77}}.</ref>
{{quote|It was not so much chastity that troubled me, but the withdrawal of feminine intimacy. And now, here I was, giving a routine interview to a young, animated woman, seemingly very informed and quick to laugh… I was already engaged in the prospect of mild and easy flirtation. I hadn't marked Penelope down in any appraising way as a future sportive fancy, but I had always been addicted to flirtation as a game worth playing for itself.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=177}}.</ref>}}
One great attraction Penelope held for Osborne was her red hair: "Penelope was a redhead, as was Pamela... I took red hair to be the mantle of goddesses".<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=177}}.</ref> Despite her being married and Osborne knowing her husband, Gilliatt set out to seduce Osborne and succeeded in doing so. "Penelope's behaviour and my own during the weeks that followed were probably grotesquely indefensible", he wrote.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=179-80}}.</ref>

Osborne and Gilliatt were together for seven years, five of which they spent married, and became the parents of his only biological child, Nolan.<ref>The name was chosen in honour of [[Captain Nolan]], who led the famous [[Charge of the Light Brigade]] in the [[Crimean War]]. At the time of her birth, Osborne was researching that war and writing the screenplay of the film his next wife would star in ({{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=255-9}}).</ref> Osborne had an abusive relationship with his daughter and cast her out of his house when she was 17; they never spoke again.<ref>{{harvnb|Heilpern|2006|pp=421–2}}</ref> Osborne and Gilliatt's marriage suffered through what Osborne perceived to be an unnecessary obsession on her part with her work, writing film reviews for ''[[The Observer]]''. "I tried to point out that it seemed an inordinate amount of time and effort to expend on a thousand-word review to be read by a few thousand film addicts and forgotten almost at once."<ref>{{registration required|date=March 2023}} {{cite news|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/01/the_uneasy_partnership_of_pauline_kael_and_penelope_gilliatt.html|title=The Other Film Critic at the New Yorker|first=Sarah|last=Weinman|author-link=Sarah Weinman|date=January 13, 2012|newspaper=Slate|access-date=March 15, 2023}}</ref> Osborne wanted Gilliatt to give up her multiple careers and move with him to a country house where she would tend his needs. Osborne had put a refrigerator in the couple's bedroom and filled it with champagne to alleviate his night terrors. Both began to have struggles with alcoholism.

He treated with contempt what he saw as Gilliatt's growing pretentiousness. "She was to become increasingly obsessed with fripperies and titles … She took to calling herself 'Professor Gilliatt'."<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=240}}.</ref> Strains in the marriage led to Osborne conducting numerous affairs behind her back, including one with his future wife, [[Jill Bennett (British actress)|Jill Bennett]].

==== Jill Bennett (1968–1977) ====
Osborne had a turbulent nine-year marriage to the actress [[Jill Bennett (British actress)|Jill Bennett]]. Their marriage degenerated into mutual abuse with Bennett insulting Osborne, calling him impotent and homosexual in public as early as 1971.<ref name="Heilpern Guardian" /> Osborne showed similar cruelty towards her, breaching a court order by harassing her with abusive messages after their divorce.<ref>{{harvnb|Heilpern|2006|pp=394-95, 412-13}}.</ref> Bennett committed suicide in 1990 (having expressed suicidal thoughts for decades): some have blamed this on Osborne's treatment of her.<ref name="Heilpern Guardian" /><ref name="Meyers" /> He said of Bennett, "She was the most evil woman I have come across", and showed open contempt for her suicide.<ref>Heilpern writes ({{harvnb|Heilpern|2006|p=443}}) that the second volume of Osborne's [[autobiography]] was ready to go to press at [[Faber and Faber]]. Bennett's suicide freed Osborne from the [[restraining order]] arising from their bitter divorce. He sat down and wrote a new chapter for the book, specifically to excoriate his ex-wife.</ref>

{{quote|She was a woman so demoniacally possessed by Avarice that she died of it… This final, fumbled gesture, after a lifetime of glad-rags borrowings, theft and plagiarism, must have been one of the few original or spontaneous gestures in her loveless life.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=255}}.</ref>}}

He concluded by stating that his only regret was that he could not "look down upon her open coffin and, like that bird in the [[Book of Tobit]], drop a good, large mess in her eye."<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=259}}.</ref> Reviewing ''Almost a Gentleman'', which contains this passage, [[Hilary Mantel]] commented, "the pious reader may wish to pray, the queasy reader vomit, the prudent reviewer consult the libel laws" (though she did speculate about Osborne's mental health).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v13/n22/hilary-mantel/looking-back-in-anger|title=Looking Back in Anger|date=21 November 1991|accessdate=14 May 2023|author=Mantel, Hilary|author-link=Hilary Mantel|newspaper=London Review of Books}}</ref> [[Michael Billington (critic)|Michael Billington]] called the attack on Bennett a "vicious assault", though he added, "he must have once loved her a lot to have hated her so much".<ref name="billington" />

==== Helen Dawson (1978–1994) ====
[[Helen Osborne|Helen Dawson]] (1939–2004) was a former arts journalist and critic for ''[[The Observer]]''. This final marriage of Osborne's, which lasted until his death, seems to have been happier than any of his prior marriages. Until her death in 2004, Dawson worked to preserve and promote Osborne's legacy.<ref name="helen">{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/helen-osborne-549298.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101210051802/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/helen-osborne-549298.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=10 December 2010 | work=The Independent | location=London | title=Helen Osborne | date=19 January 2004 | access-date=7 May 2010}}</ref>

Osborne died deeply in debt; his final word to Dawson was: "Sorry".<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/may/20/featuresreviews.guardianreview7 | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=Stage-boor Johnny | first=Blake | last=Morrison | author-link=Blake Morrison | date=20 May 2006 | access-date=7 May 2010}}</ref> After her death in 2004, Dawson was buried next to Osborne.

=== Vegetarianism ===
[[File:JohnOsborne.jpg|thumb|right|Graves of Osborne and his fifth wife in [[Clun]] churchyard]]

Around the time of ''Look Back in Anger'', Osborne was a [[vegetarian]], something which was considered unusual at the time. In ''Almost a Gentleman'' he gives some insight into this lifestyle choice:

{{quote|My own vegetarianism had been prompted by self-interest. I wanted to confound my pitted complexion, implacable daily headaches, throbbing glands, dish-cloth hair and dandruff. That my appearance had marginally improved (though not the headaches) was no doubt due a little to less toxic input… Meat could be equated with inner squalor. Vegetarianism might banish that, too.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=2}}.</ref>}}