Sally Bowles

Sally Bowles is a fictional character created by Christopher Isherwood. She originally appeared in Isherwood's 1937 novella Sally Bowles published by Hogarth Press. The story was later republished in the novel Goodbye to Berlin. Sally is a central character in the 1951 John Van Druten stage play I Am a Camera, the 1955 film of the same name, the 1966 musical stage adaptation Cabaret and the 1972 film adaptation of the musical.

Creation and description

Sally Bowles is based on Jean Ross, a woman Isherwood knew during the years he lived in Berlin between the World Wars (1929—1933). Isherwood took the last name "Bowles" from Paul Bowles, whom he had met in Berlin in 1931. Explaining his choice, he wrote, "[I] liked the sound of it and also the looks of its owner". He describes Sally by writing:

In the novel Sally is British, purporting to be the daughter of a Lancashire mill owner and an heiress. She is a singer at an underground club called The Lady Windermere. Isherwood describes her singing as poor but surprisingly effective "because of her startling appearance and her air of not caring a curse what people thought of her". She aspires to be an actress or in the alternative to ensnare a wealthy man to keep her. Unsuccessful at both, Sally departs Berlin and is last heard from in the form of a postcard sent from Rome with no return address.