Timeless

Good grief!

Or Patron Saint of Kitsch, Bob Mackie's #1 fan, the ageless, timeless Cher has blown out eighty candles on her cake!

There are few words Ican say about the great lady, her 60-year career, her Oscar-winning stint as an actress, her numerous "comebacks", or her tumultuous life that have not been said before.

Suffice to say, we adore her!

"Gay guys like a certain kind of woman. They like a flamboyant woman that's broken. They like a balls-to-the-wall woman, motherly but not; sexual but not. Gay guys are like this: they either love you or they don't even know you're on the planet. Once you have them, you have them."

Amen.

Many happy returns, Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian, 20th May 1946)

Flott has flown

Sad news today. The utterly delightful, the sublimely talented soprano Dame Felicity Lott [known to all her friends by the affectionate nickname "Flott"] has traversed the proscenium arch for the last time, and joined the celestial choir of Fabulon.

Esteemed music critic Barry Millington in his obituary in The Guardian said she:

...enchanted audiences with a succession of Strauss and Mozart roles that she might have been born to sing. The mellifluous tone with just a hint of metal to give it that lustrous gleam, the effortlessly floated high notes, pin-sharp diction and captivating stage presence all combined to make her one of the most endearingly popular sopranos of her day.

I agree with every word. Here are just a few examples:

Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen - Waltz Duet [Lehar: The Merry Widow, Royal Opera House, 1997]

Felicity Lott - Ah que j'aime les militaires [Offenbach: La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein]

Felicity Lott and Ann Murray - Rule Britannia [Last Night of the Proms, 1994]

And finally - an old favourite:

Felicity Lott - A Bar on the Piccola Marina [Noel Coward]

RIP, Dame Felicity Ann Emwhyla Lott (8th May 1947 - 15th May 2026)

Whom no man will ever possess

And so, farewell to that most waspish American of film critics and television host Mr Rex Reed, who has swished off up the glittering stairway to Fabulon. Who? I hear you say...

Largely an unknown quantity over here in Blighty, Mr Reed's controversial and much-vilified take on movies, the arts and the cult of celebrity did not exactly endear him to generations of film-makers in the States [he was once described as "the hazel-eyed hatchet-man"]; and he certainly rubbed the braying "Twitterati" up the wrong way on many an occasion [no bad thing!]. His nearest British [albeit somewhat more high-brow] counterpart might have been Brian Sewell. I am certain we at Dolores Delargo Towers would adore him.

It is also the perfect excuse (if any were needed!) to wallow in the man's most - ahem - famous [and rare] on-screen appearance: as "Myron", Raquel Welch's male alter-ego, alongside an idiosyncratic cast that included John Carradine, Kathleen Freeman, Tom Selleck, Jim Backus, Farrah Fawcett, John Huston... and Mae West - in the camp cult classic Gore Vidal adaptation, Myra Breckinridge!

A tribute to Myra Breckinridge

Rex Taylor Reed (2nd October 1938 - 12th May 2026)

Myra Breckinridge, dissected

Sweetie, darling!

...it's Dame Joanna Lumley's 80th birthday today!!

All hail!

Many happy returns Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946)

[More here]