Charmian Clift

Charmian Clift (30 August 1923 – 8 July 1969) was an Australian writer. She was the second wife and literary collaborator of George Johnston.
Early life
Clift was born 30 August 1923 in Kiama, New South Wales.
In 1941 she won a Beach Girl competition run by Pix magazine and soon after moved to Sydney where she did modelling work to supplement her main job as an usherette at the Minerva Theatre. In 1942, aged 19, she became pregnant and gave up her child for adoption.
In April 1943 Clift enlisted in the Australian Army, where she gained the rank of Lance Bombardier in charge of a group of gunners housed in Drummoyne.
Career
After Clift and husband George Johnston's collaboration High Valley (1949) won them recognition as writers, they left Australia with their young family, working in London. In November 1954 they relocated to the Greek island of Kalymnos and later Hydra to try living by the pen. She met the songwriter Leonard Cohen whilst there in 1960.
Johnston returned to Australia to receive the accolades of his Miles Franklin Award-winner My Brother Jack. Clift moved back to Sydney with their children in 1964, after which her memoirs Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus and her novel Honour's Mimic became successes.
She was also well known for the 240 essays she wrote between 1964 and 1969 for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Herald in Melbourne. They were collected in the books Images in Aspic and The World of Charmian Clift. In the meantime, Clift and Johnston's marriage was disintegrating under the pressures of their drinking habits and the problems their children had settling into life in Sydney.
On 8 July 1969, the eve of the publication of Johnston's novel Clean Straw for Nothing, Clift committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates in Mosman, a Sydney suburb, while considerably affected by alcohol. Academics Paul Genoni and Tanya Dalziell suggest in their 2018 book Half the Perfect World that it was the impending publication of Johnston's novel, which Clift knew would lay bare her infidelities whilst on the island of Hydra, which prompted her to suicide. In her posthumously published article My Husband George in that month's edition of POL magazine, she wrote:
Clift’s autobiographical books Mermaid Singing and Peel Me A Lotus were reissued by Muswell Press in 2021, with new introductions written by novelist Polly Samson, whose own 2020 bestselling novel A Theatre For Dreamers is a fictionalized account of life on Hydra in the 1960s, featuring real-life characters including Clift, Johnston and Cohen.
Death
Clift died by suicide on 8 July 1969. Her ashes were later scattered in the rose garden of the Northern Suburbs Crematorium in Sydney.
Personal life
She married war correspondent George Johnston in 1947. They had three children. The eldest was the poet Martin Johnston who was born in 1947; their daughter Shane was born in 1950 and Jason in 1956.
Portrayals
She is depicted in the upcoming drama television series So Long, Marianne, in which she will be portrayed by Anna Torv.
Bibliography
Novels
High Valley (with George Johnston), 1949
The Big Chariot (with Johnston), 1953
The Sponge Divers (with Johnston), 1955
Walk to the Paradise Gardens, 1960
Honour's Mimic, 1964
Short stories and collections
Strong Man from Piraeus and Other Stories, (with Johnston) 1983
Autobiography
Mermaid Singing, Indianapolis, 1956
Peel Me a Lotus, London, 1959
Non-fiction
Images in Aspic, Selected Essays, Sydney, 1965
The World of Charmian Clift, Sydney, 1970
Trouble in Lotus Land, Sydney, 1990
Being Alone with Oneself, Sydney, 1991
Charmian Clift: Selected Essays, 2001
References
Further reading
Brown, M. 2004, Charmian and George, Rosenberg, Sydney.
Genoni, Paul and Tanya Dalziell Half the Perfect World: Writers, Dreamers and Drifters on Hydra, 1955–1964 Monash University Press, 2018.
Wheatley, N. 2001, The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift, Flamingo (HarperCollins), Sydney.
External links
Charmian Clift Website
1923 births
1969 suicides
1969 deaths
Australian women novelists
Australian essayists
Drug-related suicides in Australia
Suicides in New South Wales
20th-century Australian novelists
20th-century Australian women writers
Australian women essayists
20th-century essayists
Greek people of Australian descent
Naturalized citizens of Greece
20th-century Australian journalists
Barbiturates-related deaths
The Argus (Melbourne) people
People from Kiama, New South Wales