Sally Bowles is a fictional character in the novels of Christopher Isherwood ‘Mr Norris Changes Trains’ and ‘Goodbye To Berlin’ (also known as ‘The Berlin Diaries’), published in 1935 and 1939 respectively. The character continued in the adaptation of the novels into the award-winning Broadway play ‘I Am A Camera’ in 1951, into the Kander and Ebb musical play ‘Cabaret’ in 1966, with Judy Dench taking the role of Sally in the first London production, and finally into the movie ‘Cabaret’ in 1972 with Liza Minelli as Sally. Isherwood’s inspiration for the character was Jean Ross, a 19 yr old cabaret singer and political writer whom the author met while rooming at Fraulein Thurau’s guesthouse at 17 NollendorfStraße during late 1920’s and early 30’s. Ross had come to Berlin with dreams of stardom. Isherwood described seeing Ross perform for the first time - at a cabaret called ‘The Lady Windermere’ off the Tauentzeinstraße in Berlin in the autumn of 1930: “She had a surprisingly deep, husky voice. She sang badly, without any expression, her hands hanging down at her sides – yet her performance was, in its own way, effective because of her startling appearance and her air of not caring a curse of what people thought of her”. He later added: “Her German is not merely incorrect, it is all her own”. I like seeing the relationship between life and art - in this case I think the real ‘Sally Bowles’ is in fact more interesting. Certainly more intellectually aware, and made less so in the character in the novel as Isherwood wanted to show the escapist mentality in Berlin at the time. Enjoy!

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