1. Michael Arlen had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England, publishing the best-selling novel The Green Hat in 1924.
23 Facts About Michael Arlen
1. 2.
Michael Arlen was always impeccably dressed and groomed, and was seen driving around London in a fashionable yellow Rolls-Royce and engaging in various luxurious activities.
3.
Michael Arlen's works became an inspiration for famous Hollywood movies such as A Woman of Affairs, starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert; The Golden Arrow, starring Bette Davis; and he was screenwriter of The Heavenly Body, based on a story by Jacques Thery, starring William Powell and Hedy Lamarr.
4.
Michael Arlen was born Dikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian on 16 November 1895, in Ruse, Bulgaria, to an Armenian merchant family.
5.
In 1895, Michael Arlen was born as the youngest child of five, having three brothers, Takvor, Krikor, and Roupen, and one sister, Ahavni.
6.
Michael Arlen's family moved once more: this time to the seaside town of Southport in Lancashire, England.
7.
In 1913, after a few months of university, Michael Arlen moved to London to live by writing.
8.
Michael Arlen's nationality was still Bulgarian, but Bulgaria had disowned him because he would not serve in Bulgaria's army.
9.
In London, Michael Arlen found company in modernist literary circles with others who had been looked upon suspiciously or had been denied military service.
10.
Michael Arlen began his literary career in 1916, writing under his birth name, Dikran Kouyoumdjian, firstly in a London-based Armenian periodical, Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, and soon afterward for The New Age, a British weekly review of politics, arts, and literature.
11.
Michael Arlen became naturalized as a British citizen in 1922, and legally changed from his birth name to Michael Arlen.
12.
Michael Arlen spent some time in France with Nancy Cunard in 1920, although she was married to someone else at the time; the relationship fuelled Aldous Huxley's jealousy.
13.
Michael Arlen later used Shepherd Market as the setting for The Green Hat.
14.
Michael Arlen's identity is not entirely clear until the story "Salute the Cavalier".
15.
Michael Arlen adapted the novel for a 1925 Broadway play, starring Katharine Cornell and Leslie Howard in his most successful Broadway appearance to date.
16.
Naturally, after all this fame and attention, Michael Arlen felt somewhat anxious to write the book that would follow The Green Hat.
17.
Notwithstanding, Michael Arlen wrote Young Men in Love and received mixed reviews.
18.
Michael Arlen wrote a volume of Ghost Stories, which were influenced by Saki, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Machen.
19.
Lawrence was working on Lady Chatterley's Lover and Arlen served as a model for the character Michaelis.
20.
Michael Arlen then moved to Cannes, France and, in 1928, married Countess Atalanta Mercati.
21.
In 1939, when the Second World War began, Michael Arlen returned to England.
22.
In 1940, Michael Arlen was appointed Civil Defence Public Relations Officer for the East Midlands, but when his loyalty to England was questioned in the House of Commons in 1941, he resigned and moved to America, where he settled in New York in 1946.
23.
Michael Arlen died of cancer on June 23,1956, in New York.