Stella Linden


Stella Linden was an actress and writer, best known for mentoring playwright John Osborne and for writing the film Two a Penny. She was the wife of actor Terrence Edward Duff—better known by his stage name Patrick Desmond. She died in 2005 in New Mexico.

Childhood

Stella was born to Ruby Mary Wimbush and Charles W Marsden in 1919. Her mother shared ownership of the Wimbush chain of confectionery shops in Birmingham with other members of the family. Stella was particularly close to her aunt, Olive Wimbush, and her uncle, Albert "Bert" Wimbush, both of whom co-owned the confectionery chain with her mother Ruby. In 1923, Stella's mother re-married to Benjamin L Ingham and shortly after gave birth to a boy whom she named Ambrose after her father Ambrose Durrant Wimbush.

Career in England

Stella married Thomas Coulthard in December 1939. Their son John Christopher was born in September 1940 and died three months later. She and Thomas parted and Stella decided to go on the stage, taking the stage-name STELLA LINDEN.
Her first known appearance on-stage was in April 1944 in the play 'Lilies of the Field' presented by the Swindon Repertory Company at the Civic Playhouse, Swindon under the direction of Anthony Hawtree and Yvonne le Dair..
In 1945, she appeared in a short film for TV called 'Here We Come Gathering: A Story of the Kentish Orchards' playing the schoolmistress. She had joined the Sage Repertory Group—Anthony Creighton's provincial touring company.
She also met Patrick Desmond that year when he engaged her to appear in his summer tour of the play 'Laura', and the two got married in July 1948 at the Paddington Registrar's Office, London. Stella's mother, who by then used the name Ruby Ingham, and Stella's half-brother Ambrose Ingham, were the only witnesses to the marriage. Patrick Desmond was the stage-name of Terence Edward Duff, an actor-manager who had been running his own repertory companies since 1929 at the age of 21.
Following the 1945 summer tour of 'Laura', Stella appeared in 'The Quiet Weekend' for a short autumn tour under the direction of Richard Bird. She then joined the P.W. Spellman Company at the Alexandra Theatre, Stoke Newington in January 1946 appearing in a series of plays. In March 1947, she joined the Byron-Thompson Players at the Lyceum Theatre, Crewe and appeared in 'Petticoat Influence..
In early 1947, Stella and Patrick Desmond formed the London Players' Guild, the object being to give understudies and small-part actors the opportunity to appear in plays which were to be presented on Sundays. Stella was honorary secretary. Also in 1947, she and Wilfred Stephens applied for a licence to carry on an employment agency for the acting profession. This agency would operate from the same premises as Patrick Desmond's agency.
Stella met John Osborne in January 1948 when he was engaged as assistant stage manager for the tour of 'No Room at the Inn' in which she was appearing.
When Osborne told Desmond he was trying to write his first play, he referred Osborne to Stella, unaware that Osborne and Stella were lovers at the time. Stella helped him structure and lighten the tone of The Devil Inside Him, and Osborne gave her co-author credits. By May 1950, the play was finished, and Stella appeared in and directed it at the Theatre Royal in Huddersfield. The only surviving copy of the play was found in 2008 in Lord Chamberlain's Office along with Personal Enemy—another play Osborne wrote in collaboration. Both plays are now housed at the British Library.
Earlier in 1950, Stella and her husband, Patrick Desmond took out a tour of 'Rain' by Somerset Maugham, Stella playing the vamp Sadie Thompson. John Osborne was an assistant stage manager and George Dillon played the Captain. John Osborne was to use this name later in his play, 'Epitaph for George Dillon', which he co-wrote with Anthony Creighton. This was followed by working with her husband, Patrick Desmond, acting and directing for his companies in Brighton and Huddersfield. Her final stage engagement before leaving for America was to direct Claude Hulbert and Enid Trevor in the comedy 'For The Love of Mike' at the Pavilion Theatre, Torquay in March 1951.

Career in America

She left her husband to seek fame in Hollywood, sailing on the liner 'De Grasse' and arriving in New York on 16 May 1951. She returned to Europe briefly, sailing from New York to Rotterdam in December 1951 and arriving back in New York on 3 March 1952, sailing on the 'Ryndam'. Why was this journey necessary?
In the summer of 1951 she appeared as a hotel clerk in an episode of the TV show Foreign Intrigue titled "At the Airport" and sometime later was said to have had steady jobs as a gameshow hostess and as a model. Unable to find work, she went to Mexico, writing in a letter to Desmond that she was there to get a 'quickie' divorce.
In May 1954 Stella married Rupert Marius Texel and they divorced in April 1971.
Paramount released the film 'Wild is the Wind' in December 1957. Uncredited screenplay contributions by Dalton Trumbo, Philip Yordan, Eugene Daniell and Stella Linden. Dalton Trumbo was said to be in Mexico during this period. Was Stella there, too?
In 1965, Stella contributed the teleplays for two episodes of the TV series 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. The first was 'The Luxembourg Affair' and the other was 'A Toy for the Infanta'..
In 1967, she wrote an episode of The Monkees titled "A Coffin Too Frequent" and a book titled Two a Penny. "A Coffin Too Frequent" aired on 20 November and Two a Penny was adapted to film that same year. Linden co-wrote the screenplay for Two a Penny with David Winters, who went uncredited.
In 1992 she was residing in Cuba, New Mexico. No further references until she died in Bernalillo County, Albuquerque, New Mexico on 23 January 2005
Little is known or on record of her career in the USA. Stella had been in the country 54 years, yet the paucity of her work leads one to wonder exactly what she did during this time. There are large gaps between the few jobs on record, so what did she live on?
It is possible she wrote the novel titled Shameless, which tells the fictional autobiography of a girl named Honey. The blurb describes her as an actress, model and gameshow hostess. However, there is no actual proof she authored this book and no gameshow has been found that she is thought to have hosted. Is this Stella Linden a pseudonym for another writer?