Monday, May 12, 2008

Life with Dylan and Caitlin Thomas

Before the poet Dylan Thomas drank himself to death at the age of 39, he and his wife, Caitlin, had binged and brawled their way all around Britain. But as a new film about the couple reveals, they were not the only casualties of their excesses.
By Kathryn Hughes writing in The Telegraph.


Cynically minded friends said she was less interested in dancing than in showing off her figure, which was spectacular. Caitlin embarked on a wild programme of sexual promiscuity, culminating in vengeful orgies with local men There is a single photograph that has done more to capture the romantic myth of Dylan Thomas and his wild wife, Caitlin, than any other. The young couple are sitting in a corner of their favourite drinking spot, Brown's Hotel in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. It sounds grand, but actually it was nothing more than a local pub where they spent an inordinate amount of time and money in the late 1930s and 1940s. Dylan, his charming cherub looks not yet ruined by drink, looks steadily at the camera, as if happy to meet it on his own terms. Caitlin, her Pre-Raphaelite beauty slightly too plump for our time but perfect for hers, stares out of the frame into the middle distance, as if wondering just what lies ahead.
Rest of story at Telegraph online.

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