Giorgio Joyce

Giorgio JoyceSon of JJ and Nora Joyce, born in Trieste on 27 July 1905. The family's frequent change of residence while in Trieste, their abrupt move to Zurich in 1915, the return to Trieste in 1919, and then departure for Paris in 1920 left him with an educationally erratic childhood. He preferred to be known as "George" from his teen years. After a short bank employment in Paris, he became interested in a singing career and studied with a private voice teacher. A debut in Paris in 1929 presaged a desultory career. He performed on radio broadcasts with the National Broadcasting Company in New York in November and December 1934, later in London on the BBC, and had several appearances in postwar Zurich. On 10 December 1930 he married Helen Kastor Fleischman of New York, and their son Stephen James Joyce was born on 15 February 1933. The couple lived in New York (when he was briefly introduced to President Roosevelt) from May 1934 until late 1935. His father's numerous extended letters during this time seem to have gone mostly unanswered. Helen's mental breakdown led to her return to the United States in 1940, Giorgio and Stephen spent several months with James and Nora in unoccupied France before the four took refuge in Zurich in December. Giorgio remained in Zurich after his father's death in 1941; Stephen moved to the United States to live with his mother's family. Giorgio married the German oculist Dr. Asta Osterwalder in 1954 and the couple moved to Munich. In 1955 family friend Maria Jolas gave Giorgio a trunk of hundreds of letters to his father from the 1920s and 1930s; the present location of this collection is uncertain. Though he took little interest in his father's writing and literary legacy, Giorgio was present at the opening of JJ's and Nora's "honorary grave" in Zurich on 16 June 1966 and as an invited guest of honour at the First International James Joyce Symposium 1967. He died on 12 June 1976 and is buried with JJ and Nora Joyce and Asta Osterwalder in Zurich's Fluntern Cemetery. Fritz Senn and William Brockman