Early Life and Career
Born to an upwardly mobile family in Streatham, a southwest London suburb, his parents were publicans and owners of the Crown & Sceptre, a large coaching inn at the top of Streatham Hill. Educated at Mill Hill School, Hartnell read Modern Languages at Magdalene College, Cambridge, but left Cambridge without a degree. More interested in performing, and designing productions, for the university Footlights, Hartnell was noticed by the London press as the designer of a Footlights production which transferred to the Dalys Theatre in London. Having unsuccessfully worked for two London designers, including Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, whom he sued for copying his designs without a credit, he opened his own business at 10 Bruton Street, Mayfair in 1923 with the help of his father and sister Phyllis.
Read more about this topic: Norman Hartnell
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“To you, God the Singer, our voices we raise,
to you Song Incarnate, we give all our praise,
to you, Holy Spirit, our life and our breath,
be glory for ever, through life and through death.”
—Peter Davison (20th century)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)