Anthony Watson-Gandy
Flying Officer Anthony Watson-Gandy (29 June 1919 – 27 June 1952) was a scholar and Denham Fouts's last lover, the one who was taking care of him at the time of his death in Rome.[1]
Biography
Anthony "Tony" Blethyn (or Blethwyn) Watson-Gandy was born on 29 June 1919.[2] He was the son of Major William Donald Paul Watson-Gandy (1872-1947) and Annis Vere Gandy (b. 1884).[2]
He was educated at Westminster School, London, entering in 1933.[2][3] He then went to King's College, Cambridge University.[2] He also attended the Sorbonne University, Paris.[2][1]
He fought in the World War II.[2] He gained the rank of Flying Officer in the Royal Air Force.[2]
After WWII he was in Rome with Denham Fouts. Fouts spent much of his later life dissolute, spending time "in bed like a corpse, sheet to his chin, a cigarette between his lips turning to ash. His lover, Anthony Watson-Gandy, a writer and translator, would remove the cigarette just before it burned his lips." Fouts died in 1948.[4][5]
After the death of Fouts, Watson-Gandy went to live in Macao with a Chinese boyfriend, smoking opium and studying Mandarin.[6] He translated from French The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire (1952) by René Grousset.[1]
He died on 27 June 1952 in London.[2][3]
References
- ^ a b c Isherwood, Christopher (2013). Lost Years. Random House. p. 360. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003
- ^ a b "7 - Westminster School". westminster. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
- ^ Leddick, David. Intimate Companions: A Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle. Pages 206–207. St. Martin's Press, 2000.
- ^ Companion's name given on the American Foreign Service form "Report of the Death of an American Citizen," accessed on ancestry.com on 13 September 2011.
- ^ Wollheim, Richard. "Jesus Christie". London Review of Books. Retrieved 31 December 2017.