On this day, June 7, 1939, actress Margerie Bonner met writer Malcolm Lowry on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Ave. in Los Angeles. Born in Washington, D.C., Bonner had moved out to the West Coast to be close to her sister, silent film star Priscilla Bonner. Margerie appeared in several films herself before getting work as a personal assistant to actress Penny Singleton. Lowry, kicked out of Mexico by this point, was staying at the Hotel Normandie, and working on an early draft of his novel, Under the Volcano. They eventually married and moved to a shack on the North Vancouver waterfront where Margerie helped Lowry finish Under the Volcano as well as other work including a never-filmed screenplay for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night. During their time on Burrard Inlet she also published three novels of her own: The Shapes That Creep (1944), The Last Twist of the Knife (1946) and Horse in the Sky (1947).
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As part of a Polygon Gallery digital art program launched this week, the Lowry’s home is featured in Polygon Outside, a site specific, 360° virtual recreation of the cabin in Cates Park, 4141 Dollarton Highway, North Vancouver.
