Madeleine Masson

Madeleine Masson [1] (1912-2007). South African-born playwright, journalist. She also wrote biographies, short stories, radio plays, some as "Starr", "Marion Holmes" or "M. Rayner".

Biography

She was born Madeleine Levy in Johannesburg in 1912, and was educated there. Her father was a French banker, Emile Levy, and her mother Lili a Viennese. On a trip to Paris with her parents, 18-year-old Madeleine met 40-year-old Baron Renaud Marie de la Minaudière and married him.

She lived abroad since her first marriage. Madeleine took her surname "Masson" from one of her first husband's subsidiary titles.

She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, where she obtained a PhD in Philosophy. After living in South Africa for a number of years until 1952, she married Captain John Rayner and had a son. Widowed, she moved to Bosham, West Sussex in the 1990s. As novelist wrote many works on the Old Cape.

Career

She was a columnist for the Cape Times until 1951.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

She wrote the plays Bitter Aloes (1945), Miranda (1945), Fantasia in Three (1944), The Heir (1945), Home is the Hero (1944), Passport to Limbo (1942), Puppet's Party (1941), Servant of God (1943), Tropicana (1939, a play in French), Fossil's Secret, In Our Veins (under the nom de plume 'Starr'), People of Quality (under the nom de plume 'Marion Holmes'), Hearts and Flowers (with Ralph Roney), Mask of Youth, Seed for Freedom, No Room for Martyrs, The Flowering Wilderness, The Twain, Audrey, The Black Swan, Cry Haro, Villa Poetica, The Bronte Enigma, Chekmate, Gilded Lilies, Incident at Aasvoel's Kop, The Enigma of George Sands.

Wrote one film Servant of God (retitled Maddalena). Golden Laurel Award as best film at Edinburgh Festival, 19**.

Sources

The Star, 28 December 2004.

NELM [Collection: MASSON, Madeleine]: 1998. 75. 286.

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