ABSTRACT
For most of his working life Edmund Goulding was known as a man of many talents, a prolific movie director, scriptwriter and composer, responsible for directing 26 films including such hit 'women's pictures' as Grand Hotel, Drawn Patrol, Dark Victory and The Great Lie. London stage saw films as a nice sideline Goulding, always energetic and ambitious, recognized them as the future. He had a good singing voice and for a while it looked as if he might establish himself in the United States as ballad-singing baritone. Goulding's last appearance on the stage was at the Savoy Theatre in 1916 in a Pioneer Players' matinee of his and Gabriel Enthoven's melodrama about a consumptive ballet dancer, Ellen Young (later filmed), and he had not made many appearances before that. Goulding died in 1959 aged 68, rich and alcoholic, his lurid private life often threatening to overshadow an extensive body of distinguished work.
