Dawn Langley Simmons - Early Career

Early Career

Simmons exhibited an early talent for writing—with the first poem published at the age of four. At nine Simmons wrote a column for the Sussex Express, once interviewing Mae West while sitting in the visiting star's lap.

In 1953, aged sixteen, Simmons emigrated to Canada after the grandmother's death. Still living as a man, she crewcut her hair and became a teacher on the Ojibway native reservation on Lake Nipigon, experiences from which were translated into the best-selling Me Papoose Sitter (1955)—the first of many published books.

After a stint as an editor for the Winnipeg Free Press, Simmons moved back to England in 1947, to teach theatre at the Gregg School in Croydon. She moved to the United States in 1950, and became the society editor for the Nevada Daily Mail in Missouri before moving to New York and working as the society editor of the Port Chester Daily Item. Shortly after moving to New York, Simmons met artist Isabel Whitney, beginning a friendship that would last until her death in 1962.

During this time, Simmons began a prolific writing career, including a series of biographies which covered personalities such as Princess Margaret (1958), Jacqueline Kennedy (1964), Lady Bird Johnson (1967), and Mary Todd Lincoln (1970) among many more. While living in New York, Simmons was introduced to Margaret Rutherford and her husband Stringer Davis, who treated her as adoptive parents. That same year, Simmons and Whitney purchased a house in Charleston, South Carolina, though Whitney would die two weeks later, leaving Simmons the house and $2 million.