Pam Gems
1 August 1925
Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
13 May 2011 (aged 85)
London, England, United Kingdom
English
Jonathan Gems (son)
Personal life[edit]
Iris Pamela Price was born in Bransgore, Hampshire, and had her first play – a tale of goblins and elves – staged when she was eight by her fellow pupils at primary school.
She studied psychology at Manchester University from which she graduated in 1949.[3] She was in her forties when she started to write professionally. She is best known for her 1978 musical play Piaf about French singer Édith Piaf.[4]
She was nominated for two Tony Awards: for Stanley (Best Play) in 1997, and for Marlene (Best Book of a Musical), starring Siân Phillips as Marlene Dietrich, in 1999. Gems adapted works by dramatists ranging from Henrik Ibsen, Federico García Lorca and Anton Chekhov to Marguerite Duras.
Family[edit]
She married wax model manufacturer (the family firm, Gems Wax Models, established in 1885, has supplied models to Madame Tussauds) and former architect[5] Keith Gems; the couple had four children.[6]