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Sunday, December 12, 2004

Belle de Jour has a new rival diarist as the "Original" Bridget Jones' Diary written by Ilene Powell in 1925 goes on sale at Oxfam

OXFAM - The ‘Original Bridget’ Diary - Following unprecedented international public interest, we are now exclusively publishing what has become known as the ‘real Bridget Jones’s Diary’ just days after the original was discovered in Oxfam’s specialist bookshop in Bristol. Detailing the giddy life and loves of 17-year old Ilene Powell in 1920’s Bristol, The ‘Original Bridget’ Diary, has gone on sale at all of Oxfam’s 750 shops and you can also purchase a copy online. The leather-bound journal, written in pencil by 17-year-old Ilene Powell, from Bristol. Ilene Powell - OXFAM - If sales reflect the interest we have received from the public, then The ‘Original Bridget’ Diary could become an international bestseller, and raise £1 million to help people living in poverty across the world. We are sure that Miss Powell would have been delighted to know her adventures are having such a significant impact and that her diary has become a must-have stocking filler. A dazzling urban satire of modern human relations? An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family? Or the confused ramblings of a pissed thirty-something?
The 80-year-old private scribblings of a teenager dubbed the "real-life Bridget Jones" will go on sale across the country next week. The diary of 17-year-old Ilene Powell chronicles three months of her life in 1925, and reveals a twin obsession with dieting and men, much like the fictional heroine of the hit book and film series "Bridget Jones' Diary". The leather-bound pocket book was found inside a bag of books donated last month to the Oxfam charity's bookshop in Bristol, Powell's hometown. It offers a glimpse of life in Britain during the giddy "Roaring Twenties" decade and indicates that love and waistlines have been a priority for young women through the ages. Some of Powell's entries are remarkably similar to those penned by the 30-something Bridget in British author Helen Fielding's blockbuster hit.

- The Times - Ilene Powell : Goodtime girl - A teenager's jottings found in a charity shop have opened up a forgotten social revolution of 80 years ago. Hailed as an early Bridget Jones's Diary, it is also a reminder that women's liberation did not start in the 1960s.

Tallulah! : The Life and Times of a Leading Lady by Joel Lobenthal - Outrageous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Tallulah Bankhead was an actress known as much for her vices - cocaine, alcohol, hysterical tirades, and scandalous affairs with both men and women - as she was for her winning performances on stage. In 1917, a fifteen-year-old Bankhead boldly left her established Alabama political family and fled to New York City to sate her relentless need for attention and become a star. Five years later, she crossed the Atlantic, immediately taking her place as a fixture in British society and the most popular actress in London's West End. By the time she returned to America in the 1930s, she was infamous for throwing marathon parties, bedding her favorite costars, and neglecting to keep her escapades a secret from the press. At times, her notoriety distracted her audience from her formidable talent and achievements on stage and dampened the critical re-sponse to her work. As Bankhead herself put it, 'they like me to 'Tallulah,' you know -- dance and sing and romp and fluff my hair and play reckless parts.' Still, her reputation as a wild, witty, over-the-top leading lady persisted until the end of her life at the age of sixty-six.

- Tallulah Bankhead - The definitive hard-partying girl-about-town and one of the best known West End actresses and celebrities of the 1920s who famously said, "only good girls keep diaries and bad girls haven't the time?"

Posted by Nick @ 14:28 GMT
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