'People may say that I couldn't sing. But no one
can say that I didn't sing.' Despite lacking pitch, rhythm or tone,
Florence Foster Jenkins became one of America's best-known sopranos,
celebrated for her unique recordings and her sell-out concert at
Carnegie Hall. In Florence Foster Jenkins, Nicholas Martin and
Jasper Rees tell her extraordinary story, which inspired the official
film starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, and directed by Stephen
Frears. Born in 1868 to wealthy Pennsylvanian parents, Florence was a
talented young pianist but her life was thrown into turmoil when she
eloped with Frank Jenkins, a man twice her age. The marriage proved a
disaster and, in order to survive, Florence was forced to abandon her
dreams of a musical career and teach the piano. Then her father died in
1909 and, newly installed in New York, she used a considerable
inheritance to fund her passion. She set up a prestigious amateur music
club and began staging operas. Aided by her English common-law husband,
St Clair Bayfield, she worked tirelessly to support the city's musical
life. Many young singers owed their start to Florence, but she too
yearned to perform and began giving regular recitals that quickly
attracted a cult following. And yet nothing could prepare the world for
the astonishing climax of her career when, at the age of seventy-six,
she performed at the most hallowed concert hall in America.
