Letter to Louise

In 1964, a young actress gave her baby up for adoption. In this memoir, Pauline Collins recalls the idyllic time spent in Killarney, playing in a different play every night, living in digs and falling in love. After the season had finished, she found she was pregnant. Frightened and alone, she decided to have the baby, hiding the fact from family, agents, and friends. She waited for the baby to be born in a home for unmarried mothers, buoyed by the kindness and humor of the other residents and the nuns who cared for them. She never forgot her daughter Louise, and their story has the ultimate happy ending—the day they were reunited 22 years later.