Born Winifred Ashton in 1888 in London, Clemence Dane (her pen name, taken from a church on The Strand) was an English actor, teacher, writer, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, sculptor, painter, broadcaster, lecturer and pioneering feminist. Regiment of Women, her first novel, was published in 1917. Subsequently she divided her time between writing plays, novels and screenplays. Her writing took her to Hollywood and films of her work featured some of the most famous stars of their day: Hitchcock, Hepburn, O’Hara, Garbo, Olivier, Kerr, Leigh. Two of her artworks are in the National Portrait Gallery and her great friend Noël Coward immortalized her as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit. She was the first British female screenwriter to win an Oscar and was famous for dropping entirely innocent double-entendres.
