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Sheilah Graham

Stage Performer, Writer
1904 – 1988
by Wendy Fairey
Sheilah Graham, early 1950s.

How Lily Shiel transformed herself into Sheilah Graham is a story my mother recounted in no less than eight published works of autobiography. She wrote about her three-and-a-half year romance with F. Scott Fitzgerald, which tragically ended when he died in her living room of a heart attack a few days before Christmas 1940. She wrote about her childhood—its poverty and her eight years, aged six to fourteen, in an East End of London orphanage. She wrote about her thirty-five years, stretching from the late '30s into the '70s, as one of “the unholy trio” of Hollywood columnists along with Hedda Hopper and Louella O. Parsons. She did not write about being Jewish.

September 15, 2004, the centennial of my mother's birth, coincided with this year's Rosh Hashanah. To note this is to link her with a heritage that for much of her life she discreetly concealed. She had emerged from her years in the orphanage with contradictory qualities of courage and secrecy, optimism and wariness that would guide her to the end of her life. Few of her colleagues or even her friends knew of her Jewish origins, though I am certain she was proud of her past as well as ashamed of it. I like to think it would have pleased her to be recollected in these pages, to be given a place in the archives of accomplished Jewish women.

As one of my mother's two children born some years after F. Scott Fitzgerald died, I came to know her story in pieces and over time. When I look back to my own childhood, I marvel at how lacking I was in curiosity about her earlier life. She was a single parent (having divorced our almost incidental father early on), working to stay at the top of her profession and to raise me and my younger brother Robert. We lived in an elegant Spanish style house in Beverly Hills, with pets and bicycles and a ping-pong table on the back veranda. I remember the orderly life of the house, the reassuring points of reference in the people who worked there: my mother, whom I would always seek out after school, never afraid to interrupt her on my way out to play in the high wall-enclosed back yard; the housekeeper in the kitchen, making pastry dough or ironing laundry; the secretary typing out my mother's column in the bookcase-lined den, the Filipino gardener working shirtless among the hibiscus. This was my early life and all the past I ever knew. An avocado tree in the backyard. Family friends. A series of cherished dogs. Then Malibu in the summers for children, dogs, and servants. And our mother, our only relative, the prime mover of it all.

I learned of my mother's Dickensian childhood as well as her relationship with Fitzgerald only when I was a teenager and she published the first of her books, Beloved Infidel (1957), which shared its title with a poem Fitzgerald had written for her. The movie version, starring Gregory Peck as Fitzgerald and Deborah Kerr as my mother, appeared two years later. Neither the book nor the movie made any mention of my mother's five older siblings or of the fact of her family being Jewish. She had to tell Robert and me about her family in 1959, because one of her brothers, upset at the family's erasure from her history, revealed the “real Sheilah Graham story” to a London tabloid. I was sixteen. Raised Episcopalian (indeed, one of the few children left in my Beverly Hills public school on Jewish holidays), I was intrigued to find myself, as I put it, “half Jewish,” and went around informing my friends. My mother begged me to show some discretion, though in her later years she gradually became more open, at least among her close friends, about her background.

Once we children knew about the members of her family, she relished talking to us about them. She also renewed contact with her older sisters—“the thin sister” and “the fat sister,” she dubbed them, who lived two miles from one another in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1960, Robert and I were taken to visit them, but since these sisters were not on speaking terms with one another, we would have lunch with one and tea with the other. My mother loved them and loved their Jewish cooking. By then, two of her brothers were dead, and she wouldn't see the one living brother, who had betrayed her to the press.

Strangely, I never knew the names of my mother's parents until 1988, right after she died, though I had seen their pictures. I found her birth certificate among her papers, noting that Lily Shiel had been born on September 15, 1904 in Leeds England, to Louis and Rebecca Shiel. They were recent immigrants from the Ukraine, having escaped the pogroms. My mother cherished the one photograph she had of her father, a dignified-looking tailor, whose death when she was a baby left his family impoverished. He died on a trip to Berlin and is buried there in the Jewish cemetery. My mother visited his grave in the early 1930s and told us about the German children who came around throwing stones and shouting “Juden, Juden.

The family moved to Stepney Green in the East End of London, where my grandmother, who hardly spoke English, worked cleaning the public lavatories. As was not uncommon among families in such straightened circumstances, she put my mother and her next youngest child, Morris, in an orphanage—the name of which I discovered after my mother's death was the Jews Hospital and Orphan Asylum—in the neighborhood of Norwood. Entering this institution at age six, my mother had her golden hair shaved to the scalp as a precaution against lice. To the end of her life she was haunted by the degradation of this experience. Eight years later when she “graduated,” she had established herself as Norwood's “head girl:” captain of the cricket team and recipient of many prizes, including both the Hebrew prize and a prize for reciting a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The orphanage wanted her to try for a scholarship to become a teacher, but her mother, who was by then dying of stomach cancer, needed her at home.

It is revealing of the times that all six Shiel children adopted unmistakably “English” names: Heiman became Henry, Esther changed to Iris, Sarah became Sally, Meyer—the “bad” brother who had taken my mother on his thieving expeditions when she was small—took the name of Jack, Morris became Maurice, the owner of a successful ladies' clothing shop.

And Lily? After her mother's death when she was sixteen, my mother left home to move into her own little flat in London's West End. She had a job in a department store demonstrating a toothbrush that cleaned only the backs of the teeth. When the toothbrush company folded, she looked up one of the many gentlemen who had left their cards. At eighteen, she married John Graham Gillam, a kindly older man who proved impotent, went bankrupt, and looked the other way when she went out with other men, but under whose Pygmalionesque tutelage she improved her speech and manners, enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and changed her name. She became a chorus girl, one of Cochran's Young Ladies, the English equivalent of the Ziegfield Girls.

My mother started writing professionally during her period on the stage. She came home to find her husband trying to write an article for the newspapers about Easter eggs. When she suggested he might be wasting his time, he challenged her to think of a better topic. She promptly sat down with a pencil and yellow notepad and wrote “The Stage Door Johnnies by a Chorus Girl.” The Daily Express ran it and paid her two guineas.

By the time she left England in 1933 to try her fortune in America, my mother had earned a modest reputation as a freelance journalist. She had also written two unsuccessful novels, a credential that allowed her to bluff her way into jobs as a New York staff reporter, getting scoops and writing eye-catching features such as “Who Cheats Most in Marriage?” a breezy inventory of the men of Western nations. Then, in 1936, she landed the opportunity to go to Hollywood as a nationally syndicated columnist, a position she held for over 35 years.

Because this stretch of her life, the Fitzgerald and Hollywood years, is well documented, I will note only what seems salient for this remembrance. One day in 1938 Fitzgerald found my mother struggling to read the first volume of Proust. He took her in hand and drew up a two-year plan of study, the F. Scott Fitzgerald “College of One.” My mother spent hours each day reading books and discussing them with her teacher. The curriculum had history in it—the aim was to work up to reading Spengler—and art and music, but above all it was the study and appreciation of literature. Keats, Shelley, Swinburne, T.S. Eliot—Fitzgerald and my mother recited the poems together and pretended to be famous characters from novels by Dickens and Thackeray and Tolstoy.

It is the story of the education, along with a few other of her shared memories of little things, that have brought my mother and Fitzgerald together alive for me: Fitzgerald looking at her “with such love,” with his head cocked to one side, the two of them lying at opposite ends of a sofa with their shoes and socks off and massaging one another's toes, the two of them at Malibu scooping into buckets the tiny fish called grunion that come onto the beach at night to spawn.

My mother told Fitzgerald the truth about herself—not just about the poverty and the orphanage, but also her Jewishness. But it's as much a part of the story that Fitzgerald abused her trust as that he had won it. As she put it in her book College of One (1966), during his great drinking binge of 1939, he screamed “all the secrets of [her] humble beginnings” to the nurse taking care of him. That same day, my mother and Fitzgerald grappled over his gun, and she made the pronouncement of which I think she was rather proud, “Take it and shoot yourself, you son of a bitch. I didn't pull myself out of the gutter to waste my life on a drunk like you.” What Fitzgerald had screamed to the nurse, my mother eventually told me, though she never brought herself to write it in any of her books, was that she was a Jew.

She forgave him, he stopped drinking, and they had a final deeply calm year, immersed in the education project, before he died. Dying in my mother's living room, twenty-one months before my birth, his death made way for me—for surely there would have been no me if he had lived, and he hovered over our lives as our own personal guardian angel and, strangely, our ghostly progenitor. I read the books he had bought for the College of One and absorbed his politics, which had converted our mother from a conservative to a liberal “in a day.” One thing she did not pass on was his anti-Semitism (or her own). I am happy to say that increasingly over the years, she seemed at peace with her heritage. She was enormously enthusiastic about Israel, which she first visited in the 1970s. In London, she took me to see where she had lived in the still-Jewish neighborhood of Stepney Green, and in New York we went down to the Lower East Side to eat blintzes. In her eighties, my mother was invited to a seder, though I don't think her hosts knew she was Jewish. I saw her when she returned from the event, and she was indignant. “They got the prayers all wrong,” she said. And then, with a swell of pride in her good memory, she recited them correctly.

26 Comments

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I'm a huge fan of f.scott Fitzgerald. He's my favorite author. I have a degree in English. I am shocked to learn that shielah graham was Jewish. I wish she would have been a proud Jew. But Fitzgerald and Zelda and all his friends were anti- semetic. The times were different then, but those times are coming back. He is still the greatest American author and wrote the greatest American novel. I have to forgive him as she did.

Hi Wendy! I am in the beginnings of writing my grandfather's biography. Do you remember any stories that your mother may have told you about a secret cabin that celebrities would sneak off to around 1930-1940? If so, that was my grandfather's log mansion in Wisconsin. Family folklore is that Sheila was hounding Fitzgerald about where he and his group would sneak off to, and he told her, "if you promise to never write of it again, I will take you there" and hence their love affair was fueled with the help of Doc and Chatty - the hosts of the secret cabin getaway. Thank you for any information you have. All I have is a letter from Gene Autry discussing it.

I met Sheila Grahm at my father and stepmothers apartment right across from the Armory on Park Ave. in NYC in the 70's. She was a close friend of my stepmother Kathleen Flanagn who was known as Countess Kathleen Balbi Valier. Kathleen married Count Balbi who killed himself after finding out about her affair with my father (you can google the Palazzo Balbi on the Grand Canal in Venice). Sheila was probably in her 60's or 70's at the time and she was filled with stories about "Scott" as she called him as well as so many others from that wonderful period. I was in my teens and frankly had other things on my mind like girls and other forms of debauchery to pay much attention to older people. Not the case with Sheila.

F. Scott was my favorite author and the fact that she was so close to him demanded that I pay way more attention than I would normally would to an older person, plus she was so bright, she knew how to make it interesting. My dad was friendly with so many cool people, you never knew who was going to be staying for dinner.

I was on Password the Game Show in 1974. My first celebrity partner was Adam West who was the most nervous celebrity I ever met during my years in Hollywood. The show was so dismayed at West's performance they brought me back on the next show on a technicality. The second show I had Sheila Graham as celebrity partner. Sheila was the sharpest, quick witted partner I have ever witnessed on Password. I ended up winning well-needed money as a struggling actor. My warmest regards and estimation of Ms. Graham ever since. She was a great lady, and that's not a small thing in Hollywood.

Cordially, Jerry Ballew

I was on Password the Game Show in 1974. My first celebrity partner was Adam West who was the most nervous celebrity I ever met during my years in Hollywood. The show was so dismayed at West's performance they brought me back on the next show on a technicality. The second show I had Sheila Graham as celebrity partner. Sheila was the sharpest, quick witted partner I have ever witnessed on Password. I ended up winning well-needed money as a struggling actor. My warmest regards and estimation of Ms. Graham ever since. She was a great lady, and that's not a small thing in Hollywood.

Cordially, Jerry Ballew

Wendy, thank you. Your mother was such a great lady and her love of Scott Fitzgerald was such a beautiful time in her life except for that very short period. Could you please tell me where this beautiful and warm lady is buried? I have searched for years to no avail. I came to my own conclusion that she must have been cremated and her ashes given to one of you children or scattered. Please, if you have the time let me know. Thank you again for sharing your mother with all of the people who adored her. (

In reply to by Joan

Wendy, thank you for sharing thw details of your mother. I am a 70yr old woman and I watched, Belived Infidel this morning and was intriged with your mother. It was truly a beautuful love story.

Wendy, thank you. Your mother was such a great lady and her love of Scott Fitzgerald was such a beautiful time in her life except for that very short period. Could you please tell me where this beautiful and warm lady is buried? I have searched for years to no avail. I came to my own conclusion that she must have been cremated and her ashes given to one of you children or scattered. Please, if you have the time let me know. Thank you again for sharing your mother with all of the people who adored her. (

I just watched the last half of Beloved Infidel and loved it. It really is about "real" love.

Did Sheila Graham ever have a Television show in the late 50's or 60's? The show I remember was a "Hollywood Gossip" type show. I would love to see some photos of Ms. Graham later in life.

Louise

I just watched the last half of Beloved Infidel and loved it. It really is about "real" love.

Did Sheila Graham ever have a Television show in the late 50's or 60's? The show I remember was a "Hollywood Gossip" type show. I would love to see some photos of Ms. Graham later in life.

Louise

In reply to by Anonymous

You may be thinking of Virginia Graham, who hosted a tv show called "Girl Talk" from 1962-1970.

Great movie that got me wanting to know more about Sheilah Graham. Her own personal story is beautiful.

In reply to by Amy Holleman

I discovered this book in my mother's wardrobe in 1971 when I was 10 years old - and I read it over and over again. I have recently managed [40 years later]to get hold of my own copy and read it once again.

Such a well written book - hugely evocative of 1930s America and the poverty & wealth of 1920s London. An inspiring account of a woman of beauty, wit, ambition and humility but most of all, a moving story of courage, forgiveness and love.

I had no idea that Sheilah Graham was Jewish and I find this so interesting. Even in 1958, when she wrote this book,revealing a past that she had been ashamed of, she couldn't reveal her Jewishness. I wonder/doubt whether if she were writing today she would make the same omission.

How LOVELY to read this piece by Sheilah's daughter and what better person to write it.

In reply to by Amy Holleman

I discovered this book in my mother's wardrobe in 1971 when I was 10 years old - and I read it over and over again. I have recently managed [40 years later]to get hold of my own copy and read it once again.

Such a well written book - hugely evocative of 1930s America and the poverty & wealth of 1920s London. An inspiring account of a woman of beauty, wit, ambition and humility but most of all, a moving story of courage, forgiveness and love.

I had no idea that Sheilah Graham was Jewish and I find this so interesting. Even in 1958, when she wrote this book,revealing a past that she had been ashamed of, she couldn't reveal her Jewishness. I wonder/doubt whether if she were writing today she would make the same omission.

How LOVELY to read this piece by Sheilah's daughter and what better person to write it.

I just watched the movie and was so impressed with the love they had for each other. I always thought I would never find a love like that but I did. Love.. that you look forward to waking up each morning just to see him standing before you. It took a very difficult divorce to finally have the love of my life. The Lord always knows what HE is doing and I thank HIM each day for the life I now have. My childhood was hard too so I guess this is what the LORD bestows on us for surviving those years.

God Bless you Wendy.

I just watched the movie and was so impressed with the love they had for each other. I always thought I would never find a love like that but I did. Love.. that you look forward to waking up each morning just to see him standing before you. It took a very difficult divorce to finally have the love of my life. The Lord always knows what HE is doing and I thank HIM each day for the life I now have. My childhood was hard too so I guess this is what the LORD bestows on us for surviving those years.

God Bless you Wendy.

Thank you for sharing. I have only read The Garden of Allah but that was enough to convince me that your mother was quite a woman.

Thank you for sharing. I have only read The Garden of Allah but that was enough to convince me that your mother was quite a woman.

It is many years since I read Sheilah Graham's books. My own father was lucky not to have been sent to an orphanage; his mother was left a widow aged 34 with five small children, in the East End during the Depression. I found this piece very moving; had to mop up my eyes, in fact.

It is many years since I read Sheilah Graham's books. My own father was lucky not to have been sent to an orphanage; his mother was left a widow aged 34 with five small children, in the East End during the Depression. I found this piece very moving; had to mop up my eyes, in fact.

Wendy, I just watched the movie Beloved Infidel and I enjoyed it immensely. I wanted to know more about Ms. Graham and found you article. Thank you for sharing your personal and poignant memories of her and the time she shared with Mr. Fitzgerald.

Wendy, I just watched the movie Beloved Infidel and I enjoyed it immensely. I wanted to know more about Ms. Graham and found you article. Thank you for sharing your personal and poignant memories of her and the time she shared with Mr. Fitzgerald.

I very much enjoyed your mother's book "College of One" when I was in community college and struggling as a novice writer. I was taking a course on Fitzgerald then and dug further. Her book served to inspire me to continue studying on my own, even at times when I could not afford to continue my formal education. (It took 10 years in between stints as a reporter for small newspapers.) I am working on a historical fiction book now and would like to talk to you more or find some things she wrote that are out of print. Please write me at statescape-writer@yahoo.com. Thanks again for sharing.

I very much enjoyed your mother's book "College of One" when I was in community college and struggling as a novice writer. I was taking a course on Fitzgerald then and dug further. Her book served to inspire me to continue studying on my own, even at times when I could not afford to continue my formal education. (It took 10 years in between stints as a reporter for small newspapers.) I am working on a historical fiction book now and would like to talk to you more or find some things she wrote that are out of print. Please write me at statescape-writer@yahoo.com. Thanks again for sharing.

Stunning woman, and the lives and times of the Lost Generation, man!! Was looking up Zelda Fitzgerald on Wiki, and of course, one thing led to another.

I was touched by her early life, and all that she had to cope with. A stunning woman, and a shining star. Thank you, Wendy, for writing this article. Your mother has inspired me at a time when inspiration is sparse in my life.

Stunning woman, and the lives and times of the Lost Generation, man!! Was looking up Zelda Fitzgerald on Wiki, and of course, one thing led to another.

I was touched by her early life, and all that she had to cope with. A stunning woman, and a shining star. Thank you, Wendy, for writing this article. Your mother has inspired me at a time when inspiration is sparse in my life.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Sheilah Graham, 1904 - 1988." (Viewed on March 19, 2024) <http://jwa.org/weremember/graham-sheilah>.