Caitlin MacNamara

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Caitlin MacNamara (December 8, 1913 - July 31, 1994) was the wife of Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas. She authored the book Leftover Life to Kill.

MacNamara was born in Hammersmith, London, to Francis and Yvonne MacNamara. At 16 entered a dancing school. She eventually settled in Ireland, in County Clare, then Paris.

MacNarama met Thomas in a bar in London in 1936, and the pair were married on 11 July 1937 in Penzance, Cornwall. The couple had three children.

In Caitlin, her autobiographical account of her marriage with Thomas, she claims to have lost her virginity due to being raped by the painter Augustus John, who thereafter made her into one of his mistresses. She also states that her initial attraction to Thomas was as a means of getting away from John; moreover she claimed that Thomas was not physically attractive to her, particularly as he became obese and his drinking habit worsened; and finally, she says that by the time of his death their marriage was in severe trouble.

After Thomas' death in 1953, MacNamara moved to Italy. In 1957 she met, Giuseppe Fazio, with whom she later had one child. She blamed Thomas' sudden death on medical malpractice. Some support for this theory is to be found in the article "Dylan Thomas: Death of a Poet"[1] on the BBC website.

By her own account, after the death of Thomas she experienced severe emotional and psychological distress, even being institutionalized at one point. She began to attend Alcoholics Anonymous in 1973, aged 60.

[edit] In popular culture

As of April 2007, two films[2] about MacNamara were in production: The Edge of Love, previously known by its working title The Best Time of Our Lives, in which MacNamara is played by Sienna Miller[3]; the other, Caitlin (with Miranda Richardson and Rosamund Pike depicting the title character at different points in her life), was being produced by Pierce Brosnan, who also has a small part in it as Dylan Thomas' literary agent. Another biopic, Dylan, in which MacNamara is played by Kelly Reilly will be released in 2008.

An earlier film project, The Map of Love with Emily Watson lined up to star was abandoned in 2004. One of its backers was Mick Jagger.

[edit] References

• Double Drink Story - My Life with Dylan Thomas by Caitlin Thomas (ISBN 1-86049-560-5).

[edit] External links

• [4]BBC obituary of Caitlin MacNamara Thomas.