Anne Cumming

Anne Cumming
from picture with Brion
Born 14 December 1917
Walton-on-Thames
Died 28 August 1993
London
Nationality United Kingdom

Anne Cumming or Felicity Mason (14 December 1917 – 28 August 1993) was a British translator, writer and sexual tourist.

Life

Cumming was born in Walton-on-Thames in 1917. She had an indulgent childhood courtesy of James Grimble Groves who was her grandfather, a member of parliament and a brewery owner.[1]

She was a débutante in 1935 and she later reported that she first had sex under the Eiffel Tower. She studied contemporary dance and later acting at Dartington Hall with Michael Chekhov. She married a fellow student Henry Lyon Young in 1938. He was an aspiring playwright and later writer.[2] She and her husband left with Chekhov to the United States as war approached to establish a drama school in America[3] to teach the Stanislavski method of acting.

During the war they were asked by British Intelligence to leave New York and return to England. They were sent back by convoy and Cumming assisted with encrypting and decrypting coded messages between the British and American governments.[4] In 1948 she eloped with and later married the novelist Richard Mason.[5] Richard and Felicity Mason separated in 1958 and were later divorced. Cumming had two children from her first marriage, but the second marriage created no further children. Cumming had extra marital sexual partners in Britain, North Africa and Middle East. During her marriage she had a longer relationship with the Italian designer Beni Montresor. This was encouraged by her husband and only ended when Montresor took an interest in another man.[4]

In 1953 she started an asexual but deep relationship with the artist Brion Gysin. They had similar backgrounds, ages and they were born in the same area. They would refer to each other as brother and sister. Cumming help catalogue his paintings and after he died in 1986 she arranged his funeral and for his ashes to be scattered at the Caves of Hercules in Morocco.[4]

Whilst she was in Greece working as a translator for the British Council she met the writer Francis King who was also working for the British Council. She enjoyed observing his homosexual adventures. In 1963 she had a small part in Fellini's film 8½.[4] In 1968 she appeared in the Italian comedy film "The Girl Who Couldn't Say No" where she played the mother of George Segal's character, Franco.[2] A third appearance was again for Fellini, this time in his film Roma.[4] After this Cumming took to salacious autobiography. She wrote "The Love Quest" in 1977[6] and she allowed herself to appear topless in the British tabloid the "Sunday Sport".

Cumming discovered that she was HIV positive in 1986. She stayed in Britain to get health care but she was keen to avoid publicity as she did not want to have her condition associated with her life style. She became a social hostess introducing new talent to useful contacts. Cumming died at the London Lighthouse in 1993, but this was the same year that she appeared naked on British television in the first nude TV chat show.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Company biographies, Groves and Whitnall, Retrieved 11 April 2017
  2. 1 2 3 Richard Davenport-Hines, "Cumming, (Felicity) Anne (1917–1993)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2009, accessed 12 April 2017.
  3. ↑ "Obituary: Anne Cumming". The Independent. 1993-08-31. Retrieved 2017-04-12.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Felicity Mason/Anne Cumming – A Brief Biography and Interview – Jennie Skerl". European Beat Studies Network. 2012-10-16. Retrieved 2017-04-12.
  5. ↑ "A lecture to the Royston Pike group: Part 2", The Elmbridge Hundred.
  6. ↑ Cumming, Anne (1991-01-01). The Love Quest: A Sexual Odyssey. Peter Owen. ISBN 9780720608359.
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