This Is Your Life: Ginette Spanier

Ginette SPANIER (1904-1988)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Ginette Spanier, fashion house director, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while displaying her spring collection for the press at the House of Balmain in Paris.

Ginette was born in Paris, the daughter of a wealthy English pearl merchant, but grew up in Hampstead, London. A family financial crisis caused by the Wall Street crash in 1929 forced Ginette to seek employment. She found a job as a shop assistant in the Fortnum and Mason store in London.

Having moved to Paris in the late 1930s, Ginette married a young doctor, Paul-Emile Siedmann, and planned to settle down. However, the Second World War meant the young Jewish couple had to flee the French capital and spend the next four years on the run from the Germans. After the war, Ginette returned to Paris, and, using her sales experience, she secured a job at Pierre Balmain's exclusive fashion house, where she was promoted to director in 1947.

"I don't believe it, I don't believe, I don't believe it!"

programme details...

Edition No: 321
Subject No: 322
Broadcast date: Wed 9 Feb 1972
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: unknown
Venue: Euston Road Studios
Series: 12
Edition: 13

on the guest list...

Paul-Emile Seidmann - husband
Muriel Chapman
Adrienne - sister
Hugh 'Binkie' Beaumont
Claude Wittelson
Bronwen, Lady Astor
Lilli Palmer
Joshua Logan
Madeleine Joguet
Rene Joguet
Madame Joguet

production team...

Researcher: Sarah Dickinson
Writer: Jack Crawshaw
Director: Margery Baker
Producer: Malcolm Morris

related pages...

A Fashionable Life

from catwalk to all things artistic

Life Is What They Make It...

New producer Malcolm Morris reveals more behind-the-scenes secrets

This Is Your Life

A feature from Television and Radio 1985

Screenshots of Ginette Spanier This Is Your Life

Presenter Eamonn Andrews and producer Jack Crawshaw recall this edition of This Is Your Life in their book, Surprise Of Your Life...

Haute couture has never been my forte. Which roughly translated means that my stepping into a Parisienne house of fashion was about as likely as my marching into Notre Dame in hobnail boots. That is until I read the life story of Ginette Spanier.

It led to my donning my "Sunday best" and on a Wednesday early in 1973 taking that flight to Paris in search of a romantic story that had been described as a mixture of fear, fun and faith.

As we flew over the English Channel and out towards the French coast I browsed through the notes that pieced together Ginette's amazing life.

It began in Paris where she was born the daughter of an English pearl merchant. She was brought up in the 1920's to live the life of a wealthy young lady in Hampstead. But when the family fortunes crashed she took a job as a shopgirl in a London department store. Just before the war she fell in love with a French doctor and returned to Paris.

In 1940 when Nazi troops marched on the French capital she and her husband were forced to flee. Four frightened years were spent on the run and never once could she have dreamt that one day she would run one of the world's most famous fashion houses as Directrice of The House of Balmain.

After touch down at Orly, that was my destination. I knew she would be there, supervising a fashion parade of her latest collection for cameras recording a documentary programme about men and women who had reached the top of their professions.

The documentary was one we had invented to facilitate our surprise. And it wasn't the only undercover tactic we had to use in our attempts to get Ginette's amazing life to the screen. The First came when researcher Sarah Dickinson flew with Jack to Paris for the vital initial talks with Ginette's husband Dr Paul Emile Seidmann. Dr Seidmann's surgery was on the ground floor of the family home just a walk away from Balmain. While Ginette was at work the two of them calmly walked into her home having been booked in to see the doctor as "patients".

Riveted by the story that Dr Seidmann unfurled, the two patients were still in the surgery when they heard the outside door open and feminine footsteps tread the stairs. It was Ginette. Dr Seidmann left the room and went upstairs to explain to his wife that he would be held up a little longer dealing with the problems of a young couple downstairs.

I can tell you that at that moment the problems were purely emotional, temporary and were cured the moment they slipped out of the surgery and escaped down the rue to plan their next move.

Dr Seidmann had been a tremendous help and the following day Sarah returned to London to pursue the English and American leads in the story while Jack flew off to Geneva en route to the French Alps in search of a family who had hidden Ginette and her husband from the Germans during the war.

But if Sarah and Jack had had a near miss with Ginette then Margery Baker and Maggi Minchin were soon to go one step closer. It was their task to sell Ginette the idea of the documentary so they flew to Paris and went straight to Balmain to discuss the project with Ginette herself.

While they chatted about staging the fashion parade, their eager eyes flashed in all directions searching for the things they could not discuss. A route for me to get in without being seen. A place to hide.

Margery, a former actress who came into television after directing in the theatre, was calling on all her talents when she looked up and spotted a familiar face entering the salon. It was actor Peter Daubeny and his wife.

Nothing in the world would stop Ginette introducing the foursome and you could have heard a hemline drop when, at the mention of Thames Television, Peter announced that he had only recently been talking to someone about the programme, This Is Your Life.

Did Margery and Maggi know the people who worked on it? Before I could be denied even once, Ginette had butted in saying that she knew the programme well because some years before a good friend of hers had been a subject. She thought it was marvellous. Margery and Maggi agreed, then gently steered the conversation back to the documentary.

Two near misses – and we still had a long way to go. I was hoping that it wouldn't be third time unlucky as I drove through Paris from Orly towards Balmain.

The only way into the salon was through the main front door and past reception. As we pulled up outside I could have sworn it was Notre Dame and certainly my feet felt heavier. It was raining, and in a way that helped us. I waited in the car until one of the cameramen came out carrying a huge battery and wearing an anorak with his hood up. Only moments later another "cameraman" dressed identically and carrying the same battery slipped into the building and past reception without raising an eye.

I was smuggled into a small sewing room which Ginette had very kindly cleared at Margery's request for "equipment" and I sat there knowing that every minute that ticked by was taking us closer to take off time for the plane that was to whisk us back to London.

But first things first – I had to get to Ginette. At a given signal, I slipped out of the room behind a cameraman and within seconds stepped out in front of the camera.

When I "threw the book" Ginette threw me – by putting her elegant arms around my neck and giving me a kiss.

C'est la vie, or should it have been "C'est votre vie"? It didn't really matter. She had said "Oui" and within minutes, after a quick introduction to another visiting actor to the salon, Jean Pierre Cassel, we were on our way at full speed to the airport and London.

The first of the surprises we had planned for Ginette came 20,000ft. up shortly after take off. She hadn't noticed the gloved hand clutching the Times newspaper that hid the face of the man in the seat behind us until I asked her where she thought her husband Paul Emile was.

At the mention of his name, he dropped the newspaper and tapped her on the shoulder. She was as surprised as she had been to see me.

In London, the two of them sat side by side and you could feel their happiness together. A happiness that must have helped brighten their lives during those awful wartime years spent together, but on the run.

And there was no mistaking that either when, on the programme, they were reunited with the son and daughter of the family who helped save their lives by hiding them in the village of Notre Dame de Bellecombe high in the French Alps. Rene and Madeleine Joguet had accepted our invitation to board a plane for the first time and fly from Geneva to meet Ginette again.

Series 12 subjects