was about to realize a deeply held longing. The child of immigrants from Russia and Poland, Wallis had grown up in a Chicago tenement, in an Eastern European Jewish enclave of garment workers and small shopkeepers. And from an early age, he adored all things British. As soon as he had made enough money, from early hits such as Little Caesar and Yankee Doodle Dandy, he built himself a huge manor in the San Fernando Valley, with fireplaces, woodwork, and furniture imported from Britain. And he began to dream of making films that would introduce British history—which he had studied, on his own, since childhood—to movie-going audiences. He so succeeded in this goal that Queen Elizabeth II, at a 1972 Royal Command Performance of Anne of the Thousand Days, shook his hand and whispered, “Thank you, Mr. Wallis. We’re learning about English history from your films.”1 A year later, Wallis was honored with the title of Commander of the British Empire by order of Elizabeth. Discounting The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Wallis’s first foray into British history had been The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn.
What do You think about The Creation Of Anne Boleyn?
