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DAVENPORT, Marcia Gluck

Born 9 June 1903, New York, New York; died January 1996

Daughter of Alma Gluck and stepdaughter of Efrem Zimbalist, Sr.; married Russell Davenport, 1929

Marcia Davenport was the daughter of Alma Gluck, celebrated soprano of the concert stage and the Metropolitan opera. Davenport's husband exited from her life when their child was five, and she began supporting herself by writing for the New Yorker. Later Davenport became the music critic for Stage, and went on to be the musical commentator for NBC and the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

Davenport's life was many-faceted. She had an almost mystical attraction for the land and culture of Czechoslovakia, that started years before she ever met and loved Jan Masaryk, a Czech foreign minister. The country became her second homeland, and she gave in to the lure of Prague, where she took up residence after World War II.

Davenport's career as an author started with her love for Mozart, whose biography she published in 1932. Her first novel, Of Lena Geyer (1936, reprinted 1982), is the story of a poor Czech girl and of her ascent to fame and fortune, triumph and tragedy. It is a work of fiction, yet Lena is only partly the child of imagination: she is a composite figure of several singers Davenport had known intimately, among them her own mother. The background of the novel opens a wide vista on the golden age of opera both in New York and in Europe.

Davenport's most significant book is her autobiography, Too Strong for Fantasy (1967, reprinted 1992), dedicated to "J. M. In Memoriam." It is a bouquet of reminiscences, an easy-flowing parade of the people in Davenport's life, a mosaic that is a Who's Who of the musical, literary, and political worlds of New York and Prague. The feminine touch comes through in Davenport's descriptions of places and architecture, and in her attachment to her feline companion, Tam. It is equally clear, however, that Davenport is first and foremost an independent soul; she is never a mere appendage to her mother or to the men in her life. Historically, the most meaningful part of the memoirs is the last third of the book, dealing with the international situation. It describes the regrettably one-sided struggle between East and West over Czechoslovakia, and the mysterious death of Jan Masaryk, who either committed suicide or was assassinated a few days before his planned marriage to Davenport. She quotes firsthand information no other source provides about the political crisis of 1948 and the communist coup. She also draws a clear picture of Masaryk, the "playboy of the Western world," who in his last days became the "latter-day Hamlet."

By her own admission, Davenport never had the genius to make literary history with her novels: she was driven by a need to write what she knew rather than what she was. Only in her autobiography does Davenport open up and give of herself. She is a superb craftsman of the pen and a captivating reconteur.