Elisabeth Furse

Elisabeth Furse, born Louise Ruth Wolpert (30 August 1910 - 14 October 2002) was a former Communist activist, World War II resistance escape route organizer, London bistro proprietress, and an early member of the Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians (ACCT).

Early life

She was born in Konigsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea enclave of the Russian Federation, and brought up in Berlin. Her father was a Russian-speaking Latvian Jew and a wealthy textile merchant; her mother, also Jewish, a German-speaking Lithuanian from a family of rich corn merchants. She was nicknamed "Lisl" by an aunt, from which she derived Elisabeth, the name she later adopted for herself.

Political activist

As a teenager she joined the Communist Party, and in her early twenties she collected money in France and England to help political refugees in Germany to escape the Nazis. In 1934, she married Bertie Coker, a fellow Communist. It was a marriage of convenience for a new nationality and legal residence outside Germany, where her activities with the Communists put her at risk of arrest and execution by the Gestapo. She left the Communist movement in 1934.

Cinematography

She was one of the earliest members (no.35) of the Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians (ACCT) itself founded in 1933, working in continuity.

World War II

Her second marriage was to Peter Haden-Guest. Their son, Anthony Haden-Guest was born in 1937. The marriage was dissolved in 1945.

Elisabeth was in France when war broke out. She made her way to Marseilles, where she joined MI9 and helped those opposed to the Germans to escape occupied France, using the famed escape line in France, the Pat Line with Ian Garrow. Her group was eventually betrayed, and after her release she returned to London.

She spent the rest of the war on the Devon estate of Pat Furse, who was to become her third husband. In 1946, she married Patrick Furse (surname) of Halsdon. They had four children, John Furse, Katharine (Katya), Anna and Sara.

In 1953 she started The Bistro behind London's Royal Court Theatre with her husband. Under her eccentric management The Bistro became a regular haunt of various journalists, politicians, artists and society figures, many of whom went on to become well-known public figures.

She collaborated with writer Ann Barr on the book of her life story, "Dream Weaver"

She died in 2002, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

References

*Dream Weaver Elisabeth Furse with Ann Barr, 1993, Chapman, ISBN 1855925400.
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1410183/Elisabeth-Furse.html Daily Telegraph obituary]