Miss P.L. Travers

Her name may not ring a bell but her work is unmistakable. P. L. Travers or Pamela Lyndon Travers was the writer of one of the children's classics, "Mary Poppins". Pamela Lydon Travers was born in Australia with the name of Helen Lyndon Goff in 1899. Her father was a ne're do well banker in Queensland who died young leaving a widow and three children. Helen and her family moved to New South Wales where Helen started writing poems. She also dabbled in the theater and eventually started acting under the stage name of Pamela Lyndon Travers. She travelled Australia and New Zealand with a Shakespeare company and that eventually brought Her to London. Travers arrived in London in 1924 and worked as an actress aa well as a writer. She and a friend moved to a thatched cottage in rural Sussex and it was there she started writing in earnest. In 1934 she started work on what would become her most famous work "Mary Poppins". She was a great admirer of  J M Barrie the writer of "Peter Pan". She emulated Barrie and the style of "Mary Poppins" is very similar to Barrie's. In fact her publisher was Barrie's son.
Her first and most successful novel "Mary Poppins" was published in 1934. There are seven sequels to the original book but the first was the most famous of them all. Her last "Mary Poppins" book; "Mary Poppins and the House Next door" was published in 1988.
P.L. Travers will forever be linked with a man she despised, Walt Disney because of the 1964 movie he made based on her first book. Roy Disney first approached Travers in 1938 about making a movie of her book but she turned him down as she didn't think an animated film would do her character justice. Travers met Disney while she was living in Manhattan. She left England just before the start of war and lived there until the war was over.
It wasn't until 1961 that the Disneys could convince her to sell them the rights to "Mary Poppins" and even then she had script approval. This doesn't mean she was happy with the script. Disney had cut a lot of the characters and toned down Mary Poppins' manner making her more like able and less prickly. She also didn't care for the songs or the animated segments. At the films premiere (she wasn't invited and had to ask for tickets) she told Walt Disney that the animation had to go. Disney reportedly responded "Pamela the ship has sailed" and walked away from her. She would never allow another Disney adaptation even though they made may requests for sequels. Travers left a credo in her will that Disney could never do another film.
It wasn't until Cameron Mackintosh approached her that she agreed for any adaptations of her work. Travers said yes to Mackintosh but insisted that only English people be involved. No Americans at all and especially no one from the film version was to be involved.

Until her death she was unhappy with the film adaptation of her book although it had made her a wealthy woman as she owned a percentage of the film. Travers was known to be a rather prickly spinster not unlike her creation. She never married but at the age of 40 adopted a son. He was one of a set of twins. She refused to adopt the other.
P.L. Travers was given an OBE in 1977.  She published her last book in 1989 and died in London 1996 at the age of 96.