Note: I wrote this feature on Meryl Streep’s latest film for the September 2017 print and digital editions of Premiere, the True Visions customer publication.
Florence Foster Jenkins spent her life chasing a dream. She wanted to be a great American opera singer, so she worked hard and never gave up. But there were two problems: 1. She was a terrible singer; and 2. She didn’t know it.
Meryl Streep earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for bringing Jenkins’ story to life in “Florence Foster Jenkins”, and co-star Hugh Grant “is on career-best form” as St. Clair Bayfield, Jenkins’ partner and manager.
The film focuses on Jenkins’ late middle-age years leading up to her death in 1944. But her entire life is almost too silly to be believed.
She had great moments of triumph. Her small circle of family and friends was a magnet for death and disease. Her devotion to music was unshakeable. And she was oblivious to her utter lack of singing talent.
Persistence and money helped Jenkins become a minor celebrity in the New York music scene during the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. Throughout her life, she shared her best and worst moments with a small group of loved ones:
Jenkins’ parents encouraged her childhood interest in playing the piano; as a 10-year-old, she played a recital in the White House for the US president. And the huge inheritance they left her paid for lifelong singing lessons; enabled her generous support for music charities; and funded her private Carnegie Hall concert and and entry into New York’s high society.
Her first husband, a doctor, married the 16-year-old Jenkins, giving her freedom from her overbearing father. He apparently gave his new bride something else: a bad case of syphilis that doomed the marriage.
Shakespearean actor St. Clair Bayfield proved a better match for the 40-year-old Jenkins. The couple moved in together soon after meeting; their common-law relationship endured for the rest of Jenkins’ life. St. Clair was Jenkins’ most loyal supporter and the last line of defense against his wife discovering the secret that everyone else knew: Worst. Singer. Ever.