Pam Gems
Pam Gems (1 August 1925 – 13 May 2011) was an English playwright. The author of numerous original plays, as well as of adaptations of works by European playwrights of the past, Gems is best known for the 1978 musical play "Piaf". Personal life. Iris Pamela Price was born in Bransgore, Hampshire, and had her first play – a tale of goblins and elves – staged when she was eight by her fellow pupils at primary school. She studied psychology at Manchester University from which she graduated in 1949. She was in her forties when she started to write professionally. She  is best known for her 1978 musical play "Piaf" about French singer Édith Piaf. She was nominated for two Tony Awards: for "Stanley" (Best Play) in 1997, and for "Marlene" (Best Book of a Musical), starring Siân Phillips as Marlene Dietrich, in 1999. Gems adapted works by dramatists ranging from Henrik Ibsen, Federico García Lorca and Anton Chekhov to Marguerite Duras. Family. She married wax model manufacturer (the family firm, Gems Wax Models, established in 1885, has supplied models to Madame Tussauds) and former architect Keith Gems; the couple had four children.