Charlotte Kandel |
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Charlotte Kandel was born in Manchester, England, a twin, and the daughter of an English mother and an American father. She was educated in England and Paris.
She knew by the age of ten that she wanted to work behind the scenes in the world of theater, ballet and movies that she loved. After training for a career in public relations, Charlotte began work in a trendily insane London advertising agency with an assortment of genius misfits. Then, when her family decided to leave London for New York, she found a job as publicity assistant to two dynamic producers of dramas and musicals. Part publicist, part gofer, she spent three enthralling years on Broadway.
During this time she met the brilliant English classical director, Michael Langham, who, when he assumed the Artistic Directorship of Minneapolis’ famed Guthrie Theater, invited Charlotte to join his staff as Publicity Director. Packing every warm garment she possessed, Charlotte journeyed to the Midwest. It proved to be one of the best decisions of her life. Under the guidance of Mr. Langham, the Theater sparkled, introducing the dramatic work of Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the West, as well as staging, to national critical acclaim, repertory seasons of works from Shakespeare to Steinbeck, with the world’s finest actors and directors.
Six years later Charlotte relocated to Los Angeles, and began a long, (although interrupted) career as a movie publicist for Warner Bros., working on Clint Eastwood’s films and on the first of the studio’s ‘Superman’ movies with Christopher Reeve.
After two years in Hollywood, a personal relationship moved her on again, this time to Sydney, Australia. There she became Marketing Director for Village Roadshow, Australia’s largest entertainment conglomerate and the distributor for all Warner Bros. films in the region. She was lucky enough to arrive at the height of Australia’s burgeoning film industry, and played a major role in the campaigns for films such as ‘Mad Max’, “Gallipoli’ and ‘Breaker Morant’.
On Charlotte’s return to the United States, she rejoined Warner Bros. and rose to become Executive Vice President of World Wide Publicity, guiding a staff of two hundred publicists in launching the studio’s films around the globe. During this time she supervised publicity for the ‘Lethal Weapon’, ‘Batman’ and ‘Matrix’ series, as well as such award winning films as ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, ‘Malcolm X’ with Denzel Washington’, ‘The Fugitive’ with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, ‘You’ve Got Mail’ with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, ‘Contact’ with Jodie Foster and ‘Interview With The Vampire’ with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
After fifteen fascinating and demanding years in Hollywood, she decided to change directions.
According to Charlotte, “I’ve always wanted to write but lacked any confidence that I could actually do it. My fabulous mother, reading aloud to my sister and me by the fire on rainy Manchester evenings, introduced us at a very early age to David Copperfield, Jane Eyre and Mr. D’Arcy. They were as real as anyone I knew. It seemed like magic. Too important and mysterious for me to attempt.
I never even kept a diary.
Then came the teenage years when, becoming suddenly shy and wracked with self-consciousness, I found my salvation in reading, gradually attaining a sense of proportion, realizing through books that the see-sawing emotions I was experiencing had been felt by all humanity through the ages.
Post-Warner Bros, a very close friend, multiple Tony Award-winning set and costume designer, Desmond Heeley, pushed me, shaking, to my computer keyboard. A few of the characters in the Scarlet Stockings began life as mice in Hoxton in an illustrated story drawn by Desmond. When he was unable to continue with the project he generously said, ‘Here, you take Daphne and make her your own.’
I was so concerned about betraying his faith in me that I did!
I was intrigued by the idea that magic can be found in the real world, not only in enchanted realms. So in Scarlet Stockings, magic comes to Daphne to shape her life. And as in all adventures, there is a quest and there is danger and there is unimaginable beauty.
I hope that this magic is transmittable. And that The Scarlet Stockings brings to its readers those things--love, courage, self-confidence, glamour and a second chance--that everyone needs to nourish them, and always will.”
Charlotte and her husband live in Los Angeles. She has completed work on Book Two of the trilogy, Daphine in Danger.
Visit Charlotte Kandel's novel related websites at www.scarletstockings.com and www.enchantedriddle.com.
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