The Full Monty

"If you are lucky enough to be a success, by all means enjoy the applause and the adulation of the public. But never, never believe it."

Robert Montgomery (21st May 1904 – 27th September 1981)

Facts about Mr Montgomery:

• When Billy Haines - read my blog about him - refused to hide his homosexuality and marry a woman (and was fired from MGM), it was Robert Montgomery who landed all the romantic leading roles that were originally meant for Mr Haines.
• He was Norma Shearer's chosen co-star in three movies, and he also starred alongside Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Marion Davies, Carole Lombard, Greta Garbo, Rosalind Russell and many other of the greatest Hollywood stars.
• Mr Montgomery was (to his discredit) a star witness in the McCarthy trials, and subsequently worked as "style consultant" to (Republican) President Eisenhower.
• He was widely considered to be one of the best dressed men in Hollywood and for years did not carry a wallet because it ruined the drape of his suits.
• His (perhaps more famously remembered) daughter was Elizabeth Montgomery ("Samantha" in Bewitched).

The Last Troubador

"Without him, we all would have become accounting clerks." - Jacques Brel



From a tribute on the Bobby Darin website:

When Charles Trenet passed away in early 2001, France reacted almost as dramatically as America did following Frank Sinatra's death nearly three years earlier: it was a time of national mourning. Tributes filled the TV, and nothing but Trenet songs were heard on the radio.

He was a prophet so honored in his native land that not even the rumors that he was both a homosexual (apparently true) and, far more worrisome, a collaborator with the Nazis during World War II (probably not true, but it's complicated) could temper the national enthusiasm for the man, who was billed as "Le Fou Chantant" (the Singing Fool).

Patrick Bishop, writing in The Telegraph:

The advent of rock and roll dimmed his star, but he was back in 1969 with a concert to celebrate 30 years on the stage. By his last performance, in November 1999, he was established as an official national treasure, and singer-songwriters such as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg acknowledged their debt.

Trenet recognised that his real strength derived from his contact with ordinary life. He once said: "I find my poetry in the street." That view was endorsed by one of his old collaborators, Serge Hureau. He said: "Trenet's death reminds us that he belongs to our collective memory, not like a monument but like the cafe on the corner."

"Trenet - 'The Last Troubador'." - Jean Cocteau

"Without Trenet, French chanson would not be as it is today." - Charles Aznavour.

"Do not publish your poems - sing them!" - Charles Trenet



Charles Trenet (18th May 1913 – 19th February 2001)

David Bowie is...

...utterly, and truly amazing.





From The Upcoming online magazine:

David Bowie is boasts the perfect balance of historical interrogation and compelling declaration of a man with nothing to declare except his sequinned genes. A man who sold the world and lived to tell the tale: this is the definitive display of the world’s most revered chameleon, comedian, Corinthian and caricature, in all his slash-backed splendour...

...every piece plays an intrinsic role in the storytelling process – be it the guitar the 16-year-old singer played when he was still known as Davey Jones, to a pocket-size metal spoon carried on Bowie’s person for the sole purpose of consuming cocaine. On entering the stimulating realm of the Thin White Duke, we are met by the famous Kansai Yamamoto bodysuit created for Aladdin Sane (just one of multiple personae developed by the singer as catalysts for his expressive excesses). The exhibition showcases Bowie’s almost pathological need to reinvent and rediscover himself: tortured mime, cracked actor, artistic tricoteur, always ready and waiting to pounce on the next dynamic creative wave.

I cannot put into words the sheer impact of the David Bowie is exhibition that I went to see at the V&A yesterday (before Eurovision celebrations took over our cultural world). I will merely quote Mr Bowie himself:

"All art is unstable. Its meaning is not necessarily that implied by the author. There is no authoritative voice. There are only multiple readings"

David Bowie is at the V&A until 11th August 2013. It is apparently practically sold out.

I'll never know what made it so exciting

The magnificent Birgit Nilsson was an opera diva completely unafraid of dressing up for a role.

And what a voice! Here she is in one of her trademark roles, Turandot by Puccini - In questa reggia:



As Brunnhilde in Wagner's Gotterdammerung (Immolation Scene):



And in complete contrast, I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady:



Birgit Nilssen (17th May 1918 – 25th December 2005)

Do of the Century?

Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra


Candice Bergen


Lee Radziwill


Jacqueline de Ribes [Read more about her]


Gloria Guinness



Truman Capote's Black and White Masked Ball, 1966 (often referred to, mainly by Capote himself, as "The Party of the Century") - read all about it, courtesy of The Independent

Style, models' own.

Hair by Kenneth.

Kenneth Battelle (19th April 1927 - 12th May 2013)

Oh for the wings of a Dove

Art Deco icon Billie Dove (born Lillian Bohny, 14th May 1903 - 31st December 1997)

Facts about Miss Dove:

• In the 1920s she was voted, with Clara Bow, as America's most popular actress.
• Her parents were Swiss immigrants, and as a child she spoke German before she spoke English.
• She began her career (as so many others) as one of Florenz Ziegfeld's girls.
• Apparently Howard Hughes paid Billie's husband $325,000 in thousand-dollar bills to divorce her so she could marry him. She never did.
• Dorothy Parker dedicated a book to her: "To Billie Dove, God loves her, I do, too."
• Her greatest on-screen collaborations were with the heartthrob John Gilbert, and, like him, she never transferred successfully to "talkies".
• She retired from the screen in 1933, and lived till she was 94.

On the Jukebox this weekend at Dolores Delargo Towers