CAMP: "A cornucopia of frivolity, incongruity, theatricality, and humour." "A deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love." "The lie that tells the truth." "Ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals."
[click any image to enlarge]
Photography by the late Robyn Beeche (in collaboration with makeup artists Richard Sharah, Phyllis Cohen and Richard Sharples).
One of the true "Shapers of the 80s", she frequented Steve Strange's Blitz Club and worked with just about everyone who was anyone in that era, including Divine, Andrew Logan, Scarlett, Leigh Bowery, Stephen Jones, Mary Quant and Zandra Rhodes.
For more, read the article Robyn Beeche, Before Photoshop over at the A.G. Nauta Couture blog.
The effervescent and glittering Ann-Margret blows out 80 candles on her cake today! Gulp. As famous for her va-va-voom dancing as much as she ever was for her acting or singing talents, she was rocketed to stardom as a more-than-equal co-star to Elvis Presley (with whom she was alleged to be having more than merely a professional relationship) in Viva Las Vegas, and has had a top-billing stage, television and fim career ever since - she has won numerous awards and accolades for her performances, and was nominated for Best Actress Oscar for her role in Tommy.
All hail "The Kitten With a Whip"!
Facts:
Many happy returns, Ann-Margret Olsson (born 28th April 1941)
Much more Ann-Margret over at my other blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle
The world of opera has lost another of its greats - Fräulein Christa Ludwig, a lady who possessed an outstanding mezzo-soprano (and occasionally, dramatic soprano) voice that could hold its own against the likes of Maria Callas, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland [we have a copy of her and Dame Joan's definitive interpretation of Suor Angelica by Puccini in our collection here at Dolores Delargo Towers], Anna Moffo or Lucia Popp, and who worked with many of the great conductors of the world such as Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Georg Solti, Lorin Maazel, Karl Böhm and Leonard Bernstein. She made her stage debut in 1946 at the Oper Frankfurt, and her final live operatic performance was for the Vienna State Opera in 1994 - during which time she was lauded for her varied and wide-ranging roles in opera, lieder and oratorio, which she sang in all the great opera houses of the world, and won numerous accolades and awards for her performances.
I listened to a tribute to her by Sean Rafferty on Radio 3's In Tune programme today, in which he recounted an interview when the great lady was asked which music she would choose for her funeral. She immediately responded with the following, but "MY version, of course!"...
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!
Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.
Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh’ in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!
English Translation by Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder:
I am lost to the world
With which I used to waste much time;
It has for so long known nothing of me,
It may well believe that I am dead.
Nor am I at all concerned
If it should think that I am dead.
Nor can I deny it,
For truly I am dead to the world.
I am dead to the world’s tumult
And rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love, in my song!
That's all a bit maudlin, I have to admit - so let's remember the lady in a far more jolly way, with a soupçon from her long collaboration with Lenny Bernstein:
RIP, Christa Ludwig (16th March 1928 – 24th April 2021)
Happy Saint George's Day!
"I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.""If you're going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it's well furnished."
"Life is unfair but remember sometimes it is unfair in your favour."
"The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought."
"If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."
"The truth is an ambition which is beyond us."
"Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first."
"I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the world."
To my eternal shame, I neglected to notice another significant centenary that came and went last Friday - that of the magnificent Sir Peter Ustinov!
Oscar-winning actor, filmmaker, memoirist, wit, author, director, playwright, chat-show favourite, polyglot, polymath - many are the epithets (and accolades) applicable to this marvellous man. As Brian MacFarlane described on the BFI Screenonline website:
"...if there is something of the Renaissance man about Ustinov (he is also a playwright, autobiographer, raconteur of one-man show proportions), there may also be something of the dilettante, as if he can't quite settle to anything because of all the conflicting claims on his darting imagination. The problem is that he does them all well."
The world will never see the like of him again.
Sir Peter Alexander von Ustinov CBE FRSA (16th April 1921 – 28th March 2004)
Her Majesty The Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Queen of Scots, Duke of Lancaster, Duke of Normandy, Lord of Mann, Royal Lady and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Sovereign of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, Dame Grand Cross and Sovereign Head of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Lady of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Colonel-in-Chief of the UK's armed forces, and so much more besides...
...is ninety-five years old today.
Understandably, this milestone birthday is a somewhat muted and low-key affair, but nevertheless, we salute Our Gracious Queen in the traditional manner...
Gawd bless, you, Ma'am!
If there was a rule about such things when I was a kid, it was that Doctor Who should not be fanciable. Likeable, eccentric, bold, believably "alien" - yes. Swooningly handsome? No.
All that changed, of course, when young Peter Davison - already a household name as "Tristan Farnon" in All Creatures Great And Small - arrived as The Fifth Doctor, replacing the long-serving Tom Baker in 1981. Today is - gulp - Mr Davison's 70th birthday!
By way of a celebration, I was overjoyed to find that the spoof adventure he wrote (and starred in) for the 50th anniversary of the series - The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot - is still available online via the BBC. So here it is, for your delectation - worth watching, for the hilariously camp vignette from John Barrowman alone...
[If the BBC version doesn't work for you, it is available on DailyMotion]
Facts:
Sonja Henie (8th April 1912 – 12th October 1969)
Dame Cicely Courtneidge (1st April 1893 – 26 April 1980)
Billie Holiday (7th April 1915 – 17th July 1959)
Mistinguett (5th April 1873 – 5th January 1956)
Carmen McRae (8th April 1920 – 10th November 1994)
Dame Penelope Keith (born 2nd April 1940)
Alberta Hunter (1st April 1895 – 17th October 1984)
Debbie Reynolds (1st April 1932 – 28th December 2016)
Mary Pickford (8th April 1892 – 29th May 1979)
