# Geraldine Sherman

Geraldine Sherman (born Geraldine Judith Schoenmann) known as Dena Hammerstein, is a British actress and writer, and theatre producer. She was the third wife of James Hammerstein, and after his death became president/CEO of James Hammerstein Productions Ltd.

## Early life

Sherman was born in Staines, Middlesex. Her parents were refugees from Czechoslovakia. Her father Kurt Wilhelm Schoenmann was born in Teplice in 1915. He married Edith Peller, later coming to Britain to escape Nazi persecution, but was interned in March 1940 because his nationality was Austrian. He was then transported to Australia on the infamous 1940 Dunera voyage, and held in Loveday and Tatura internment camps until 1942.
   Dena came from a bedsit in Ladbroke Grove, long before Notting Hill became fashionable.
   Her parents were Jewish refugees. When Dena – Geraldine Sherman – was born, her father was in an internment camp in Australia and her nervous mother sent her out of London to the safety of a Jewish orphanage in Shenfield, Essex.
   The kindly matron was her mother figure, so, when she was sent back to live with her parents at the age of 11, she was miserable.
   "All I wanted was to go back to the orphanage," she says. "I was embarrassed by my parents, by their broken English and their permanent refugee complex. I hadn't been brought up to think that every time the doorbell rang, it was the Gestapo."
   One happy memory from the orphanage to which she clung during the difficult years with her parents was of an outing to the theatre. "We were taken to see a frothy pink and white fantasy show," she remembers.
   "Afterwards, I was taken to the stage door and I didn't have my arm through the sleeve of my jacket, so it was hanging loose. When the star came out, she said: 'Would the little girl with only one arm please step forward?' I immediately put on a limp as well and, from that moment, I was on the road to make-believe."
   At the age of 17, she ran away to join a theatre group.
Notes:

## Actress

Film :
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1964 | A Hard Day's Night | Girl Outside Secondhand Shop | Uncredited |
| 1967 | Poor Cow | Trixie | |
| 1968 | Interlude | Natalie | |
| 1968 | Deadfall | Delgado's Receptionist | |
| 1968 | The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom | Dr. Krunhauser | |
| 1968 | Song of Summer | Girl next door | TV series documentary |
| 1969 | Take a Girl Like You | Anna Le Page | |
| 1970 | There's a Girl in My Soup | Caroline | |
| 1971 | Get Carter | Girl in Café | |
| 1971 | Cry of the Penguins | Penny | |
| 1995 | Thin Ice | Dena | |
| 1997 | Bent | Prostitute | (final film role) |
Television :
| Date | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1964 | Foreign Affairs | peasant girl | Granada Television |
| 1 July 1964 | Catch Hand: Stop Counting at One | Marian | BBC tv |
| 25 August 1964 | Love Story: Arranged for Strings | Miss Fish | ATV |
| 18 September 1964 | The Big Noise, or Episodes in the Uneasy Life of a Top Pop Disc Jockey | Jackie | BBC tv |
| 3 November 1965 | Up the Junction | Rube | BBC tv |
| 9 March 1966 | Softly, Softly: The Key | Eileen Murphy | BBC tv |
| 4 June 1966 | Juke Box Jury | Self – panellist | BBC tv |
| 6 July 1966 – 26 October 1966 | King of the River | Susanna King | BBC tv 15 episodes: |
| 30 January 1967 | Till Death Us Do Part: A Woman's Place is in the Home | | BBC tv |
| 4 March 1967 | Juke Box Jury | Self – panellist | BBC tv |
| 22 April 1967 – 13 May 1967 | The Forsyte Saga | Victorine Bicket | BBC tv 4 episodes: Part 16: A Family Wedding Part 17: The White Monkey Part 18: Afternoon of a Dryad Part 19: No Retreat |
| 13 December 1967 | The Wednesday Play: Death of a Private | Mary | BBC tv |
| 10 April 1968 | Thirty-Minute Theatre: The Sinner | the Girl | BBC tv |
| 13 April 1968 | Public Eye: Cross That Palm When We Come to It | Fay | ABC Television |
| 30 October 1968 | The Wednesday Play: A Bit of Crucifixion, Father | Sheila | BBC tv |
| 18 January 1969 | ITV Sunday Night Theatre: Bangelstein's Boys | Dick's Girl | LWT |
| 9 November 1969 | Strange Report: Report 2475: Revenge - When a Man Hates | Secretary | Arena Productions |
| 19 November 1969 | The Wednesday Play: There is also Tomorrow | Rosemary | BBC tv |
| 15 December 1969 | The Root of All Evil?: Bloxham's Concerto for Critic and Carpenter | Pippa | Yorkshire Television |
| 19 April 1970 | Play of the Month: E. M. Forster's Howards End | Jacky | BBC tv |
| 4 January 1971 | Doomwatch: The Islanders | Alice | BBC tv |
| 21 October 1971 | Play for Today: Edna, the Inebriate Woman | Trudi | BBC tv |
| 30 June 1976 – 7 July 1976 | Killers: The Stinie Morrison Case | Nellie Deitch | Thames Television 2 episodes: |
| 3 January 1982 | Little Miss Perkins | Mrs. Issacs | LWT |
| 21 November 1982 | The Professionals: You'll Be All Right | Chrissie Stone | LWT |
| 11 October 1992 | Screen One: Running Late | Mrs Zee | BBC tv |
| 10 December 1996 | Soldier Soldier: Hell and High Water | Mrs. Beryl Grey | Central Independent Television |
Stage :
| Date | Title | Role | Theatre | Notes |
| 31 October 1972 – 24 February 1973 | Butley | Miss Heasman | Morosco Theatre, New York | |

## Writer

When It's Over, by Geraldine Sherman and Eduardo Machado:
    Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut: playreading 1985–1986, workshop 1986–1987
    Finborough Theatre, London, 23 October – 16 November 1991
Thin Ice, 1995 film

## Theatre producer

Theatre Producer (Dena Hammerstein) :
| Dates | Title | Author | Director | Theatre |
| 1 August 1996 – 27 July 2008 | I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change | Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts | Joel Bishoff | Westside Theatre (Upstairs), New York |
| 6 January 2004 – 22 February 2004 | Allegro | Rodgers & Hammerstein | Eric Schaeffer | Signature Theatre, Arlington, Virginia |
| 16 June 2004 – 28 August 2004 | Dirty Blonde | Claudia Shear | James Lapine | Duke of York's Theatre, London |
| 1 October 2005 – 13 November 2005 | Slut | Ben H. Winters & Stephen Sislen | Gordon Greenberg | American Theater of Actors / Century Promenade, New York |
| 13 May 2006 – 22 July 2006 | Sunday in the Park with George | Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine | Sam Buntrock | Wyndhams Theatre, London |
| 15 October 2006 – 17 December 2006 | My Name Is Rachel Corrie | Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner | Alan Rickman | Minetta Lane Theatre, New York |
| 11 December 2007 – 29 March 2008 | Dealer's Choice | Patrick Marber | Samuel West | Trafalgar Studios, London |
| 2 October 2008 – 21 December 2008 | The Seagull | Anton Chekhov, new version by Christopher Hampton, music by Stephen Warbeck | Ian Rickson | Walter Kerr Theatre, New York |
| 26 February 2009 – 12 September 2010 | Our Town | Thornton Wilder | David Cromer | Barrow Street Theatre, New York |
| 1 October 2009 – 3 January 2010 | Superior Donuts | Tracy Letts | Tina Landau | Music Box Theatre, New York |
| 27 April 2010 – 9 May 2010 | Enron | Lucy Prebble (words), Adam Cork (music) | Rupert Goold | Broadhurst Theatre, New York |
| 31 May 2011 – 27 August 2011 | Butley | Simon Gray | Lindsay Posner | Duchess Theatre, London |
| 15 January 2015 – 5 April 2015 | Honeymoon in Vegas | Jason Robert Brown | Gary Griffin | Nederlander Theatre, New York |

## Philanthropist

Dena Hammerstein worked as a volunteer in New York City hospitals for over 15 years, and in 2003 received the United Hospital Funds New Leadership Group's Humanitarian Award. She is Founder of Only Make Believe, a non-profit organisation that creates and performs interactive theatre for children in hospitals and care facilities, inspired by her early work as an actress in the UK touring special-needs schools.
   Her greatest pride is reserved for the charity, "Only Make Believe", which she founded with the idea of letting the theatre help institutionalised children as it had once helped her. At first, she had thought of taking sick children to the theatre, but it was such a problem getting them there that they were too exhausted to enjoy the shows.
   Instead, she has brought the theatre to the children. The actors arrive with a large dressing-up trunk to rehearse a play in hospital using a script by Dena and children as performers.

## Personal life

In 1970, a choreographer friend invited her to holiday in New York where she met Jamie Hammerstein.
Married theatre director James Hammerstein who directed her in Butley, and has one son Simon Hammerstein (born 1977).