Amaryllis Fleming

Amaryllis Marie-Louise Fleming (10 December 1925 – 27 July 1999) was a British cello performer and teacher. She was the illegitimate daughter of the painter Augustus John by his mistress Eve Fleming, mother of the writers Peter Fleming and Ian Fleming by her late husband.

She attended the Royal College of Music in 1943. She established herself throughout the 1950s, winning the prestigious Queen's Prize in 1952, making her debut the following year at the Proms, the annual classical music series at London's Royal Albert Hall, and playing with notable musicians throughout Europe.

Ms. Fleming became a professor at the Royal College of Music.

In 1970, she stood in for Bette Davis in a film called "Connecting Rooms", in which the Hollywood star played a cellist.

Her playing career ended in 1993 following a stroke, but she continued to teach.

She died unmarried in 1999.

Ms. Fleming died peacefully in a hospital at the age of 73, as reported by the Associated Press. The Times reported that she "she never became complacent. She sought out the best teachers in Europe and willingly experimented with many techniques, including practicing naked in front of the mirror." The Daily Telegraph said friends often remarked: "Men fell in heaps around her."

She is obliquely referred to in one of her half-brother Ian's James Bond short stories. In "The Living Daylights", Bond muses about a cellist he observes from his sniper's position: "There was something almost indecent in the idea of that bulbous, ungainly instrument between her splayed thighs. Of couse Suggia had managed to look elegant, and so did that girl Amaryllis somebody. But they should invent a way for women to play the damned thing side-saddle."

ources

*G. R. Seaman, "Fleming, Amaryllis Marie-Louise (1925?–1999)", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/72500, accessed 22 Sept 2006]