Gloria Esme Ann Kirkland Schmidt
7 June 1946 – 22 September 2013

Having just seen the film Coming Home with Jane Fonda, I was visiting friends in the London building in which I have come since to live, and a just a week after her husband had died, Esme walked into my life as if straight out of the film, and it was love at first sight. Her husband, a musician who worked with Brian Eno, had passed when he was in Brussels for work. Esme refused to view his body saying that for her he had just gone away on a trip and it was like he was still away. He used to go upstairs in their house and return with whatever money he needed, but try as we did, we were never able to find where these funds had been stored. The house was eventually sold. Esme moved to the Earls Court area and loved the apartment she found but eventually moved together with Archie, a former army major. He passed away suddenly about two years ago, but they had a long and comfortable relationship.

For me, Esme goes way back. Everyone we knew together is now gone. But Esme has always been a sterling character and never with a bad word for anyone. She became known by many back in the sixties from when she posed dreamily for hours inside a shop window with her long blonde hair – like some translucent being from another dimension. She loved the theatre, and that was one of things Richard and I would do with her. We went several times to the Albert Hall – the last being for a scintillating performance by Liza Minelli during her “Liza’s Back” tour just after marrying her fourth husband, David Guest. Our last outing together was in the summer of 2012 for the Play Without Words at Sadler’s Wells.

Esme had been hospitalised or in rehabilitation from the time we last saw her in January of this year. Just before four weeks ago, she was making travel plans with Tony. He would visit her every day. But then suddenly she became terribly disoriented, and Tony feels that she was given too much of an overdose of morphine for her frail body. She went into a coma. After refusing for days, Tony finally gave permission for her to be detached from the machine, and she passed within minutes. Virtually everyone from the Furniture Cave attended her memorial last Wednesday, and Tony says that she would have been most pleased with the service and attendance. Forty-two people were there in all.

For me, Esme has been a most dear and loyal friend and a great love in my life. She remains one of the most special of people I have been privileged to have known and enjoyed. I will miss her hugs and everything else about her. Essentially a most private lady, she is among the most warm and loving of beings. Tony will be taking her ashes to The Philippines. May she fly now gently and in joy and peace!