When Baker was cast in the film The Goldwyn Follies (1938), Perrin was signed to touch up his scenes. Despite 10 other writers, two directors, a host of stars and songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Samuel Goldwyn’s extravaganza was a disaster, rightly included in Harry and Michael Medved’s 1978 book The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time. Not much better was Warner Brothers’ Navy Blues (1941), an Ann Sheridan/Jack Oakie potboiler which Perrin helped to write. She retained her wonderfully insouciant personality to the end – talking about Schopenhauer at one moment, and about the delights of riding a motor scooter at the age of 80 the next. For her epitaph one hesitates between two sentences, both her own: “So far every ride has been a joy ride”, or “I wanted to find out something of what life is all about.” On balance, the latter seems the better choice.. Sam Perrin, comedy writer and musician: born 15 August 1901; died Woodland Hills, California 8 January 1998. Nominated seven times and twice winner of the Emmy Award for his work on The Jack Benny Show, Sam Perrin was, for a generation, a key member of one of the finest and most successful comedy-writing teams in US radio and television.
Perrin was working as a drummer in 1920s vaudeville when he first met Benny, whose laconic style had al- ready inspired one critic to describe his comedy act as “the most civilised in vaudeville”.

“It never entered my head,” she said later, “that Ake wasn’t telling the truth about himself. It took just one week of marriage to discover this!” The union, however, lasted until Ake died.At this point her career, finally, began to recover She was in demand as a sculptor of portrait busts. In 1994 she had her first commercial gallery exhibition for many years, at the David Messum Gallery in Cork Street A small book was published about her. Basil’s eye was as good as ever – he spotted the young Elisabeth Frink and gave her her first show – but his personality deteriorated alarmingly due to his now advanced alcoholism.Karin’s initial reputation had begun to fade. In comparison with that of a new generation of modernists her work seemed tame and old-fashioned. At the same moment her marriage came to an end, and she was left on her own with a young son.Though she usually denied the fact, the ensuing years must have been hard. No commercial gallery would show her work, though she continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy and received occasional commissions.

At one point she was reduced to making editions of miniature sculptures in bronze-resin for a firm called Heritage. Her parents aged, and she devoted three years to looking after them. In his will, her father left her enough money to buy the rather Spartan Chelsea studio in which she lived for the rest of her life.In the 1970s she had another matrimonial disaster. She went to Stockholm and rediscovered her old flame Ake Sucksdorff. Impulsively she married him, only to find that he had become a totally negative personality, completely cut off from life.