Anne Cumming

Anne Cumming (the pen name of Felicity Anne Cumming Mason, 14 December 1917 – 28 August 1993) was an English writer, translator, public relations officer and polyamorist.

Biography Early life Cumming was born in Walton-on-Thames in 1917, to parents Howard Cumming and Eileen Groves, in an upper-middle-class family. She had an indulgent childhood courtesy of her grandfather, James Grimble Groves, a brewery owner and a Conservative member of parliament for Salford South. Cumming spent much of her childhood in South Africa, where her father had bought a farm.

She was a débutante in 1935 and she later reported that she first had sex under the Eiffel Tower. She studied contemporary dance and later acting at Dartington Hall in Devon with Michael Chekhov. She married a fellow student, Henry Lyon Young, in 1938. He was an aspiring playwright and later writer, as well as a relative of the Queen Mother.

She and her husband, along with Chekhov, left for the United States as war approached, intending to establish a drama school there to teach the Stanislavski method of acting.

While in Greece, she worked as a translator for the British Council.

Work Acting In 1963, she had a small part in Fellini's film 8½.

Writing Cumming wrote The Love Habit in 1977 and The Love Quest in 1991. She appeared topless in the British tabloid the Sunday Sport.

Personal life In 1948, she eloped with and later married the novelist Richard Mason. Richard and Felicity Mason separated in 1958 and were later divorced. Cumming had two children from her first marriage, but had no further children. Cumming had extramarital sexual partners in Britain, North Africa and the Middle East. During her marriage she had a longer relationship with the Italian designer Beni Montresor. This was encouraged by her husband and only ended when Montresor took an interest in another man.

Cumming discovered that she was HIV positive in 1986. She stayed in Britain to receive health care but she was keen to avoid publicity as she did not want to have her condition associated with her lifestyle. She became a social hostess introducing new talent to useful contacts.

Death Cumming died at the London Lighthouse in 1993, the same year as she appeared nude on British television in the first nude TV chat show.

Works The Love Habit, 1978 The Love Quest, 1991