Joy Davidman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Joy Davidman
Born	Helen Joy Davidman (1915-04-18)18 April 1915 New York City, U.S.
Died	13 July 1960(1960-07-13) (aged 45) Oxford, England
Nationality	American
Occupation	Poet, author
Known for	Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments; life with CS Lewis
Spouse(s)	William Lindsay Gresham ​ ​ (m. 1942; div. 1954)​ C. S. Lewis ​ ​ (m. 1956)​
Children	2, David and Douglas Gresham

Helen Joy Davidman (born April 18, 1915 – died July 13, 1960) was an American poet and writer. She was very smart from a young age, like a child prodigy. She earned a master's degree in English literature from Columbia University when she was just twenty years old.

Joy Davidman won important awards for her book of poems, Letter to a Comrade, in 1938 and 1939. She also wrote several other books, including two novels.

She married her first husband, William Lindsay Gresham, in 1942. They had two sons. Later, after a difficult marriage, she became a Christian. She then divorced and moved to England with her sons.

In 1954, Davidman published her well-known book, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments. C. S. Lewis, a famous writer, wrote the introduction for her book. Lewis had a big influence on her writing and her journey to Christianity. He later became her second husband after she moved to England permanently in 1956. Joy Davidman passed away in 1960 from cancer that had spread to her bones.

The story of Davidman and Lewis's relationship has been told in a BBC television film, a play, and a movie called Shadowlands. After Joy's death, C. S. Lewis wrote a book called A Grief Observed. In this book, he shared his deep sadness and how he questioned his faith during that difficult time.

Early Life and Education

Helen Joy Davidman was born on April 18, 1915, in New York City. Her family was from a Jewish background. Her parents, Joseph Davidman and Jeanette Spivack, came to America in the late 1800s. Joy grew up in The Bronx with her younger brother, Howard. Both of her parents worked, even during the Great Depression, a time when many people lost their jobs. She received a good education, took piano lessons, and went on family vacations. Joy wrote in 1951 that she was raised to believe in material things and was an atheist, just like her father.

Joy was a very gifted child, often called a child prodigy. She scored very high on IQ tests and was excellent at thinking, analyzing, and playing music. She read a long history book, The Outline of History, when she was only eight. She could also play a Chopin piano piece after reading the music just once. When she was young, she read children's books and a fantasy book called Phantastes by George MacDonald. She later said these stories made her love fantasy, which eventually led her to C. S. Lewis and then to religion.

Joy was often sick as a child. She had a crooked spine, scarlet fever, and anemia. She also attended classes with much older students. She later described herself during this time as "bookish, over-precocious and arrogant" (meaning she loved books, was too smart for her age, and sometimes acted like she knew everything).

After finishing high school at Evander Childs High School at age fourteen, she read many books at home. She then entered Hunter College at fifteen and earned her bachelor's degree at nineteen. In 1935, she received her master's degree in English literature from Columbia University in just three semesters. She also taught at Roosevelt High School. In 1936, after some of her poems were published in Poetry magazine, the editor asked her to work for the magazine. Joy then left her teaching job to focus on writing and editing.

During the Great Depression, Joy saw things that made her question if the American economic system was fair. In 1938, she joined the American Communist Party.

Her collection of poems, Letter to a Comrade, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 1938. The judge, Stephen Vincent Benét, praised her for her skill with different poetry styles and her strong writing. In 1939, she won another award, the Russell Loines Award for Poetry, for the same book. Even though some of her work at this time showed her political views, this book of poems was about more than just politics. It had forty-five poems about important topics like the Spanish Civil War, unfair class differences, and relationships. Joy's writing style in these poems was influenced by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

In 1939, she worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood for six months, writing movie scripts. She wrote at least four scripts, but they were not used. She then returned to New York City to work for The New Masses magazine. There, she wrote a movie column that was known for being very critical of Hollywood films. Her first novel, Anya, was published in 1940. From 1941 to 1943, she worked as a book reviewer and poetry editor for The New Masses, with many of her writings appearing in the magazine.

Marriage to William Lindsay Gresham

Joy Davidman married her first husband, author William Lindsay Gresham, on August 24, 1942. They had met because they shared an interest in communism. They had two sons, David Lindsay Gresham (born in 1944) and Douglas Howard Gresham (born in 1945). Bill Gresham became unhappy with the Communist Party after volunteering in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He influenced Joy to leave the party after their sons were born. During their marriage, Gresham wrote his most famous book, Nightmare Alley, in 1946. Joy did freelance work and took care of their home and children.

When Gresham received a lot of money for the movie rights to Nightmare Alley, the family moved to a large old house in the New York countryside. There, Joy began writing her second novel, Weeping Bay, and Gresham started his second novel, Limbo Tower. In 1948, they joined the Pleasant Plains Presbyterian Church. Gresham at first shared Joy's Christian beliefs, but he soon changed his mind. Both of them also tried out L. Ron Hubbard's ideas called Dianetics. The couple grew apart, even though they continued to live together. In 1950, Joy began writing letters to C. S. Lewis after being introduced to him by a fellow American writer, Chad Walsh.

Life with C. S. Lewis

Joy Davidman first met C. S. Lewis in August 1952 when she visited the United Kingdom. She planned to finish her book about the Ten Commandments, which was influenced by Lewis's way of explaining Christian beliefs. After several lunches and walks with Lewis, Lewis's brother, Warren Lewis, wrote in his diary that a "rapid friendship" had grown between his younger brother and Joy. He described her as "a Christian convert of Jewish race, medium height, good figure, horn rimmed specs, quite extraordinarily uninhibited." She spent Christmas and two weeks at The Kilns, the home of the Lewis brothers. Even though Joy was deeply in love with Lewis, he did not feel the same way at first.

She returned home in January 1953 after receiving a letter from Gresham saying he wanted a divorce. Joy tried to save her marriage, but eventually, she agreed to the divorce.

Joy loved England very much. She returned there with her sons in November 1953. She found an apartment in London and enrolled David and Douglas in a school. However, she soon faced money problems when Gresham stopped sending support. Lewis paid the school fees and helped Joy and her sons find a house in Oxford, close to his home, The Kilns. At first, Lewis saw her only as a smart and friendly companion. Warren Lewis wrote that for Jack (C. S. Lewis), the attraction was mainly intellectual. Joy was the only woman he had met who had a mind as sharp and broad as his own, and who shared his sense of humor.

Lewis began to ask for Joy's thoughts and ideas when he was writing. She even inspired Orual, the main character in his book Till We Have Faces (1956). She also influenced or helped with other works, including Reflections on the Psalms (1958) and The Four Loves (1960). Joy Davidman's book Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments was published in England in 1955 with an introduction by C. S. Lewis. It sold many copies, more than double what it sold in the US.

In 1956, Joy's visitor's visa was not renewed by the British government, meaning she and her sons had to return to America. Lewis agreed to marry her in a civil marriage ceremony so she could stay in the UK. He told a friend that the marriage was "a pure matter of friendship and expediency" (meaning it was for practical reasons). The civil marriage took place on April 23, 1956.

The couple continued to live separately after the civil marriage. In March 1957, Joy tripped over a telephone wire in her kitchen and broke her left upper leg. At the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, she was diagnosed with incurable cancer that had spread to her bones. It was at this time that Lewis realized he had fallen in love with her. He understood how sad he would be to lose her. He wrote to a friend that "new beauty and new tragedy have entered my life." He also said there was a "strange sort of happiness and even gaiety" between them. Joy had several operations and radiation therapy for the cancer. In March 1957, Warren Lewis wrote in his diary that it was a very painful day, as Joy had been given a "sentence of death."

The Kilns, the Lewis home in Oxford

Joy and C. S. Lewis's relationship had grown so much that they wanted a Christian marriage. This was not easy in the Church of England at the time because she had been divorced. However, a friend and Anglican priest, Reverend Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at Joy's hospital bed on March 21, 1957. This marriage was not fully accepted by some of Lewis's friends and colleagues, and some avoided the new couple.

A week later, after leaving the hospital, Joy was taken to The Kilns. She soon experienced a remission from her cancer, meaning her symptoms improved. She helped Lewis with his writing, organized his finances and clothes, and had the house renovated. The couple went on a delayed honeymoon to Wales and then to Ireland by plane. In October 1959, a check-up showed that the cancer had returned. By March 1960, it was not responding to radiation therapy as it had before. In April 1960, Lewis took Joy on a trip to Greece to fulfill her lifelong wish to visit there. However, her condition quickly worsened after they returned, and she passed away on July 13, 1960.

After Joy's death, Lewis wrote A Grief Observed. He published it using a fake name, N. W. Clerk. In the book, he described his feelings and honored his wife. He wrote about how his faith wavered because of the overwhelming sadness he felt after Joy's death, and how he struggled to get his faith back. Lewis developed a heart condition two years later and died a year after that, three years after his wife.

Shadowlands

Shadowlands is a play and film based on Joy Davidman's life with C. S. Lewis. It was written by William Nicholson and has been made into a film twice. In 1985, the BBC One made a television version. It starred Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Davidman. This BBC production won BAFTA awards for best play and best actress in 1986. Nicholson's work was partly inspired by Douglas Gresham's book Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and CS Lewis. The play was also performed successfully in London in 1989–90 and won awards. It then moved to Broadway in 1990–91 with Nigel Hawthorne and Jane Alexander as the stars. It was also brought back to London in 2007. A movie version was released in 1993. It starred Anthony Hopkins as Jack (C. S. Lewis) and Debra Winger (who was nominated for an Academy Award) as Joy Davidman.

Epitaph

C. S. Lewis wrote a special poem, called an epitaph, for his wife's grave. He had originally written it for another writer, Charles Williams, but he changed it to fit Joy.

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See also

In Spanish: Joy Gresham para niños