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David Niven appeared in films for over 50 years of his life, from swashbucklers such as The Prisoner of Zenda to playing the part of the ‘bogus gentleman’ (which, he claimed, was his only acting talent) in Paper Tiger. Despite his on-screen persona, Niven would later admit that he wasn’t always the perfect gentleman. He was insecure both privately and professionally. He used people for his own ends, which was something he learned in Hollywood, but he did, he said, ‘at least try to be a decent man.’ He knew he often failed, although it isn’t easy to find people who ever had a bad word to say about him. In this fascinating biography of the star, Munn looks at the funny stories and the sad underlying truth, from his outrageous days with Errol Flynn and their irrevocable split -’You always know where you are with Flynn. He always lets you down’ – and affairs with stars such as Ava Gardner, to admissions of infidelity, an attempted suicide and the breakdown and blame of his second marriage. Funny, poignant and told with the compassion of one who knew him, this is a fascinating portrayal of a legend that really gets behind the screen and autobiographical persona. Writer, actor, director and former journalist and Hollywood publicist, Michael Munn, has written twenty-one books, including the best selling John Wayne: the Man behind the Myth and the acclaimed Richard Burton: Prince of Players.
28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964
If you are of an age, and have ever been out-of-doors, then you need to read some Patrick F. McManus. Start here. Trust me on this.
A Short History of a Small Place by T. R. Pearson
Young Louis Benfield tells the story of his tiny little North Carolina town. There is the looniness of his family, the town of characters, the charm and naviete that gives us a world unknown, and stories that deserve to be told about how it is to grow up a certain kind of way, and to suddenly discover there’s a world beyond your own that calls to you.
The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris by Leon Garfield
Harris and Bostock are the best of friends, even though it’s usually Bostock who gets into trouble through Harris’s scheming. When Harris puts his baby sister Adelaide out in the woods to see if she will be adopted by a fox, little does he realize that he’s starting a chain of amazing events.
The verbal prestidigitation and the devices of period drama that Garfield himself exploits so flamboyantly are turned to comic purpose in this spoofy commotion about a missing infant. The disappearance of Adelaide (whose brother has attempted to expose her to the wolves for the sake of a natural history experiment) sets off an extravagant series of complications at the mediocre boys’ school young Harris attends: the baby is discovered by the math teacher’s daughter who is roaming the Downs with the headmaster’s son; her father rashly challenges the young man to a duel that is planned and feared and connived around throughout the book but never consummated; a timid schoolteacher who has inadvertently committed himself as a second to both duelists elopes with the daughter; a fat rich boarder, the school’s chief catch, further disrupts procedure by running away in a panic of misunderstanding; and a club-footed “inquiry agent” inserts himself into the action and ludicrously misinterprets every clue. All ends well when Harris traces his sister to a foundling home and secretly swaps her with the crumpled, dark male infant (referred to as “the gypsy brat”) he has previously put in her place. (As for the gypsy brat, it is disclosed in the nice-and-tidy wrap-up that he later ran away from the foundling home, “was found in the streets of Liverpool by a kindly old gentleman by the name of Earnshaw. . .and after an early disappointment in love, he ended his days in prosperous circumstances in a remote part of Yorkshire.”) Garfield with his tongue in his cheek is as adept as ever, and what he relinquishes in densely atmospheric suspense he gains in buoyancy and accessibility.
From the underrated American humorist Will Cuppy.
One of the original staff of Harold Ross’s New Yorker, Will Cuppy is the author of How to Attract the Wombat and How to Become Extinct. He is also, says P.G. Wodehouse in his introduction, “the author of the best thing said about Pekingese, viz. ‘I don’t know why they should look so conceited. They’re no better than we are.’” This is pure Cuppy: concise misanthropy, a.k.a. pith and vinegar. About the title here: “I grant you there are plenty of old-fashioned and pretty ineffective ways to tell your friends from the Apes,” confesses the author. “What could be simpler, for instance, when you are at the zoo? The Apes are in cages. Yes, but when you are not at the zoo, what then?”
Kenneth Roberts at Kennebunkport, 1939
“…Like all Roberts romances, Oliver Wiswell is also important history. Novelist Roberts sees the American Revolution as a social revolution in which the colonial masses, stirred by rabble rousers like Sam Adams and John Hancock, brought the colonies to the brink from which they were later saved by the men who framed the Constitution. This book explains why Americans became tories, why the tories, through they appear to have represented at least half of the population in the 13 colonies, were defeated, why the English were unable to quash the rabble in arms.
Oliver Wiswell is also contemporary. The tragic dilemma of Oliver Wiswell and the tories is a central tragedy of our time. They learn what modern exiles have to learn: 1) that decency, thrift, sobriety, intelligence have no value in a civil war; 2) that there is no hope for the vanquished in a social revolution except to start life over again in a new country. Says Author Roberts through the mouth of troubled Oliver Wiswell: “God grant to all peoples a Wilderness Trail at whose end they can find surcease from demagogues, interference, greed, intolerance and politicians. . . .”
Very nice boat…
Now here is a photo of a friend of Sir Basil modeling some very fetching and modest swimwear. As you know, I have always been an advocate of public modesty in regards ladies and gentlemen. Although I think some tend to take the modesty thing too far. Modesty is one thing and prudery another. Hidden is preferable to flouted if you ask me. I mean, one can’t exactly be alluring in a string bikini. Hot yes, alluring no. And this type of suit does fit the bill, I think. Alluring does come to mind. I find it quite preferable to the Catholic Amish practice of diving in with your peasant skirt and hand knitted sweater still hanging about your body. As if the sight your very large naked thighs and varicose veins would tempt us poor chaps beyond reason. Really, after your sixth or seventh child, our attention tends to wander a bit. Please, most of these women have to sneak up on bath water.
But this suit style is just right. Although the Countess always wears the little skirt thing with hers. I asked her one time why she always did this and she said that the design of the suit, in her opinion, with long tail and small triangle of cloth showing below tends to focus the eyes of lecherous men (read all) on the black cat. As if they needed any help in the matter. Of course, I didn’t see the problem with this particular design flaw, but that’s just me. And all cat’s are gray in the dark anyway…
Laird Cregar 1913-1944
One of my favorite actors in the world of Classic Film is Laird Cregar. Cregar was, at 6′3″ and 300lbs., huge both in stature and in talent. He could, and did play anything, and do it exceptionally well. Comedy, drama, old, young, hero, villain, he could do it all. If you don’t believe me watch the Jack Benny film Charley’s Aunt. In it Cregar plays one of the college boy’s father, Sir Francis Chesney, a fifty-something widower. He gives a wonderful comic performance. But what is more remarkable is that Cregar was 28 years old when he made the film. See it to believe it. He was the heavy in This Gun For Hire, Blood and Sand, Capt. Morgan in The Black Swan , psycho killer in The Lodger and the Devil himself in Heaven Can Wait, another delightful performance. At this point Cregar wanted to stop being stereotyped as the “heavy” or another Sydney Greenstreet in films, so he embarked on a crash diet and lost 100 pounds very quickly. This was such a shock to his system that he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 31. Thus we were deprived of what would assuredly have been a long and distinguished career. We are left to watch what he accomplished during his short life, and this is very good.
