Queer Places:
Bury St Edmunds Cemetery
Bury St Edmunds, St Edmundsbury Borough, Suffolk, England
Henry Lyon Young (1909–1987) was an aspiring playwright and later writer.
He was a relative of the Queen Mother. In 1981 he wrote Memoirs of a castrato, about the great Dulcinelli, whose magnificent voice enthralled audiences in the 18th century. He was a "castrato", gelded before puberty to ensure that his voice would retain the range of purity it had while he was a boy soprano.
Young studied acting at Dartington Hall with Michael Chekhov. He married a fellow student, Anne Cumming aka Felicity Mason (14 December 1917 – 28 August 1993), in 1938. They were married for ten years and had two daughters. During the war, the Lyon Youngs lived in New York City, following Chekhov, who moved to the U.S. to teach the Stanislavski method to American actors. When war broke out, the couple was recruited by British Intelligence in New York and eventually sent back to London by convoy during the war. Felicity Lyon Young worked at decoding ciphers and messages between the British and American governments. In 1948, Felicity divorced Henry Lyon Young and married Richard Mason, author of The World of Suzie Wong, a best-selling novel which was also the basis for a successful play and film.
Verso: in pen, "Henry Lyon-Young, 909-7-11, 1981"; signed in pen, "Peter Hujar '81"; in pen, "3/15"; stamp, "From the Estate #" in pencil, "EPH 5202-2"; in pencil, "HUJ 192".
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