CLATWORTHY, Pamela Barbara May

1918 - 2005

As Pamela Barbara May Gordon-Howley, she was born at Wandsworth, London on 28 May 1918, only child of Francis Xavier Gordon-Howley (30 November 1880-1964), a theatre impresario, and his first wife Gertrude Alexandra Dagmar née Klasen, the famed actress and singer known as Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898-6 September 1952), who married at Wandsworth the previous year and separated shortly after Pamela’s birth and divorced on 19 December 1927. Gertrude married secondly in 1940, Richard Aldrich. Pamela had an interesting childhood, divided between exclusive private schools such as Roedean in England, where she spent about half her time, and a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York, where she lived whenever her mother was in a play that had a long Broadway run. As Pamela Gordon, she made her stage debut in C. B. Cochran's 'Follow the Sun' at Manchester Opera House on 23 December 1935 and spent six months of 1937 with the Northampton Repertory Company. In 1938, Pamela became engaged to Lieut. Perley Edmund Holmes (5 March 1912-24 December 1969), a Canadian serving army officer, but married in 1941, a New York doctor, Bill Cahan but they later divorced, there were no children by this marriage. In 1952, she married again, at Kensington, London, sculptor Robert Ernest Clatworthy (31 January 1928-16 March 2015) by whom she had three children, but they also were later divorced. Pamela was a painter, a poet, and a free spirit who, to celebrate her 80th birthday, sailed around the world as a working crew member. Pamela Barbara May Clatworthy died at her home in Halesworth, Suffolk on 15 June 2005. Pamela's three children were Benn Clatworthy (born 1955), a tenor saxophonist based in Los Angeles, Sarah A. G. [Hunt] (born 1956) and Thomas (born 1959).

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Works by This Artist