Dawn Langley Simmons

Early life Simmons' parents were servants at Sissinghurst Castle, the English estate of biographer Harold Nicolson and his novelist wife, Vita Sackville-West. Simmons was born in Sussex as Gordon Langley Hall to Jack Copper, Vita Sackville-West's chauffeur, and another servant, Marjorie Hall Ticehurst, before they were married.

As a child, Simmons was raised by her grandmother and at one point visited the castle and met Virginia Woolf, Sackville-West's lover. She moved to the United States in 1950, and became the society editor for the Nevada Daily Mail in Missouri before moving to New York and working as the society editor of the Port Chester Daily Item.

On 17 October 1971, her daughter, Natasha Margienell Manigault Paul Simmons, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Author Jack Hitt profiled Simmons in a 1996 episode of This American Life titled "Dawn". Hitt, a native of Charleston, had grown up down the street from Simmons. From interviews, including with Simmons, Hitt assembled stories of her transsexuality, interracial marriages in the South, her rumoured voodoo powers, and rumoured hosting of a full-fledged debut for her chihuahua.

In 2022, filmmaker Ron Davis directed the 34-minute documentary Dawn: A Charleston Legend, named after her autobiography. This included interviews with her daughter and her sister-in-law.