The One and Only Mabel Poulton

AWARDED | Silvers Grant for Work In Progress from the New York Review of Books | Arts Council England project grant

Mabel Poulton was a real-life Lina Lamont from Singin’ In The Rain. Plucked from a typing pool as a teenager to ‘die three times a day’ in a stage tableau at the Alhambra Cinema, she quickly became one of Britain’s leading silent movies actresses, starring opposite Ivor Novello in the 1928 hit The Constant Nymph. But when the film industry turned on the microphones, Mabel’s unpalatable, working-class voice brought her career to an abrupt halt. Except that’s not really what happened. There’s another story about Mabel, and another, and another…

With unique access to Mabel’s family archive, this is an incisive, personal book about the way we shape the telling of our lives.

ALL PUBLISHER ENQUIRIES | Louise Lamont, LBA Books