Partner
John Gielgud, Guy Gauvreau
Queer Places:
6 Cale St, London SW3 3QS, UK
Chelsea Studios, 410-412 Fulham Rd., London SW6 1EB, UK
Templewood, Cade Street, Heathfield TN21 9BN, UK
Paul Anstee (December 30, 1928 - August 26, 2010) was one of three great loves in Sir John Gielgud's life, the first being
John Perry, who worked for and later lived with Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont at HM Tennent impresarios, and the last a possessive Hungarian, Martin Hensler. Gielgud's Letters, 800-plus missives, written between 1912 and 1999, are with his mother, his onetime lover Paul Anstee, the actress Irene Worth, photographer and designer
Cecil Beaton and the playwright Hugh Wheeler. The early part of the volume is dominated by correspondence to his mother (the only family member who figures prominently), and is full of excited career talk as he achieves success. Then comes the romance with Anstee — tarnished by Anstee's jealousy and Gielgud's insistence that "I can't really share my life completely with anybody." Finally, true love arrives with a Hungarian, Martin Hensler, and Gielgud's letters become saturated with a new, blissful sense of mutual dependence.
Anstee was born Henry Miskin on December 30 1928, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Harold Miskin, OBE, MC and Bar, of the Bedfordshire Regiment, from a well-known family of builders in St Albans, and Frances May Whitby.
Henry was educated at Bryanston and then trained at Rada before changing his name to Paul Anstee and going into repertory. A tall, languid figure with a pronounced coiffe, he later moved into theatre design, working closely with Cecil Beaton for seven years. In 1953 Beaton was amused to notice him spraying hydrangeas blue before the Queen attended a Coronation command performance of Aren't We All? The originals had faded under the television camera lights.
In the same year Anstee had a part in A Woman of No Importance alongside Isobel Jeans and Athene Seyler. He designed Time Remembered in 1954; Nude with Violin (for Noël Coward, thanks to John Gielgud, who starred) in 1956; Suddenly It's Spring, starring Margaret Lockwood in 1959; and The Collection in 1962.
Vivien Leigh entertains over lunch at Tickerage Mill. Seated from L-R: Actor and interior designer Paul Anstee, Sir Kenneth Clark, Vivien, John Gielgud, journalist Alan Dent, and Lady Jane Clark
During his relationship with Gielgud, which flourished for several years from 1953, he opened an interior decorating and antiques shop in the King's Road, partly financed by his father and briefly by the actress Adrianne Allen, wife of Raymond Massey. The shop opened in October 1955, giving him pleasure and hard work in equal measure. In September 1961 he opened a design shop in Cale Street, with favourable publicity, retaining for a few further years the King's Road shop solely for antiques.
He travelled frequently with Gielgud, mixing with figures such as
Truman Capote and
Somerset Maugham. But in June 1956 his relationship with Gielgud became troubled after the actor revealed that he was still occasionally involved with
George Pitcher, a Princeton professor of philosophy with a long-term partner – the composer
Ed Cone.
Gielgud found it hard to relinquish Pitcher, despite his devotion to Anstee, something he explained as "the worst kind of Rex Harrison compromise". "I do feel such a treacherous bitch," the actor confessed. Gielgud and Anstee remained lovers, and by 1958 Gielgud was less concerned about whether his infidelities remained secret. Seizing a week with Pitcher in America that year, Gielgud told a friend: "I cannot be bothered with intrigues, lies and subsequent recriminations."
In 1959 Anstee supported Gielgud through a blackmail attempt made on him in New York, reminiscent of the cottaging incident in London in 1953 when Gielgud was arrested for approaching a man in a public lavatory who turned out to be an undercover policeman. But Gielgud continued to demand independence and, in October 1962, picked up a young Hungarian, Martin Hensler, at an art exhibition.
From being an "agreeable once a week diversion", Hensler soon became Gielgud's partner, staying with him for 37 years until he predeceased the actor in 1999. By this time the relationship with Anstee had settled into one of close companionship, Gielgud confiding in him about Hensler and welcoming Anstee's friendliness towards his successor. Anstee remained steadfast in his devotion to Gielgud, and such was the mutual trust that Gielgud appointed him his executor.
As an interior designer, Anstee decorated Tickerage Mill for
Vivien Leigh, the Sussex house which she bought after her separation from
Laurence Olivier. Anstee brightened it with chintzes, creating for the star a beautiful refuge. He also decorated for Yehudi Menuhin, Lady Pamela Berry, Mrs John Hare and others.
In the early 1970s he found happiness with a young Canadian called Guy Gauvreau. In London they lived at Chelsea Studios, weekending at Anstee's country home, Templewood, near Heathfield in Sussex. Their garden was badly damaged in the 1987 storm, during which they lost 58 trees. Gauvreau died of
AIDS-related leukaemia in December 1989, aged 41.
In his later years Paul Anstee suffered from Alzheimer's disease, spending his last two years at Dudwell St Mary Nursing Home, Burwash, where he died on August 26, 2010.
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