ROUGH EDGES

I was rather heartened by the news that retired Pope Benedict XVI, President Obama and LibDem leader Nick Clegg enjoy an occasional cigarette – beneath the veneer of perfection they have their little shortcomings after all. Well, smoking is the tiniest of vices, unless you are a health fanatic or Green – though precisely what Green policies are could not even be articulated by the Green Party leaderene Natalie Bennett in her “excruciating” interview two days ago.

We are none of us perfect and we all have our rough edges. It is part of life, an unavoidable factor in la condition humaine. Most of us strive to be good, kiss babies, listen to the wife and pat the dog, but Old Nick is not easily repelled and we are fatally prone to get out of line from time to time. The Book of Common Prayer makes us confess that we err and stray like lost sheep but goes much too far in characterising us as “miserable offenders”. We are actually blithely happy offenders savouring what Dr Johnson called “the gust of sinning”. 

We know we do wrong but our civilisation has long ago found ways of skating over this sad fact. Our media is often consumed by hypocritical bouts of morality and expects an unrealistic perfection from those in the public eye. We like to draw a discreet veil over our peccadillos, and discreet veils are necessary, but they are ripped asunder. We need to sweeten the pill with white lies, and white lies are civilised devices, but they are exposed. We commit follies, and our follies are endemic, but the world believes it has the right to know about them. I cannot believe our lives should be judged by the inconsistent standards of the Press.

Which brings us back to politics. Malcolm Rifkind has made a fool of himself and probably broken parliamentary codes by allegedly offering to help a bogus company gain access to the powerful in return for a fat fee. He was taken in by a media “sting”, has damaged his Party and will resign. I hope that will be the end of the matter and he will not be pursued any further. In these cases a certain generosity of spirit is called for to forgive a false step. I do not expect, nor want, my politicians to be without a few jagged edges, to be smooth and blameless and probably useless. I want them to be blood and flesh sinners, like everyone else. 

An old song tells us we should avoid anything if “It’s illegal, it’s immoral or it makes you fat”. I naturally go along with the illegal bit: immorality is a regrettable mistake but unless it is of Strauss-Kahntian magnitude, it is a private matter and, as the man said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. I am sure eating cream cakes makes you fat and is imprudent but how much innocent pleasure is dispensed by that delicious first bite!

It makes you fat (and happy)

SMD.
25.02.15.
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

DEBORAH KERR and AUDREY HEPBURN: Celebrities of Stage and Screen (21)

        [This is a series describing British artistes who found fame on the stage or in the movies]

This piece recalls two beautiful and sensitive women who illuminated the stage and screen from 1940 onwards, whose showbiz lives were relatively normal, who set fashion standards and acted out their privileged existences with admirable modesty and discretion.

Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr (1921-2007) was born Deborah Kerr-Trimmer in Glasgow and spent her first 3 years in the charming nearby town of Helensburgh. Her father Arthur, who lost a leg at The Somme, was a naval architect and civil engineer and her mother Rose, (née Smale), had acting contacts. Deborah was educated privately at schools in Bristol and Weston. She first trained as a ballet dancer and made her debut in the Sadler’s Wells corps de ballet in 1938.

Considered too tall for ballet, she changed to acting in 1940 and soon appeared in the popular British films Major Barbara and Love on the Dole, both in 1941. A larger role in melodrama Hatter’s Castle (1942) opposite Robert Newton and James Mason confirmed her status and ushered in an association with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and starring roles in their off-beat classics The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and Black Narcissus (1947).

Kerr's triple roles in Colonel Blimp

Unstable Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus

 

Kerr switched between the stage and screen, scoring a success in the West End with Shaw’s Heartbreak House in 1943 and touring the provincial theatres with Stewart Granger.

From 1945-59 Kerr was married to RAF pilot Tony Bartley and they had two daughters but the marriage was troubled as Bartley was jealous of his wife’s success. Kerr was no angel having affairs with Michael Powell, Stewart Granger and screen-writer Peter Viertel, whom she later married.

Kerr appeared in a number of popular films like King Solomon’s Mines, Quo Vadis? and The Prisoner of Zenda and made her Broadway debut in Tea and Sympathy in 1953 an enduring hit for her, playing a housemaster’s wife seducing a shy teenage pupil. Usually Kerr’s screen and stage persona was a rather prim and ladylike English rose, but she tired of this typecasting and revelled in the role of the adulterous officer’s wife in the 1953 Pearl Harbor block-buster From Here to Eternity – her scene cavorting on the beach with sergeant Burt Lancaster amid the waves became iconic.

Kerr unladylike in From Here to Eternity

 In 1956 Kerr won over a global audience playing a lively Anna opposite excellent Yul Brynner in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I even if her singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon.

Anna in The King and I

In 1957 Kerr played the part of Terry McKay, the singer who has a perfect shipboard romance with suave playboy Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember. The lovers promise to meet again 6 months later at the Empire State Building after they have sorted out their lives. Both rush there but Kerr is knocked down and crippled and they do not meet. She refuses to tell Grant of her handicap. Much later they meet and Grant realises why she is lying on a sofa and discovers her wheelchair and they end up in each other’s arms. This heart-warming romantic weepie is a landmark in the history of this kind of cinema.

Kerr and Grant reunited in An Affair to Remember

Kerr made The Sundowners in 1960, with longtime friend Robert Mitchum, a much admired saga with an Australian sheepfarming background – they had co-starred respectively as a nun and a US marine, marooned in the Pacific, in popular Heaven knows, Mr Allison in 1957.

Kerr’s great days were coming to their end. She made a few films in the 1960s but later limited herself on work on TV. She lived mainly in Klosters, Switzerland and Marbella, Spain with Peter Viertel. She became frail with Parkinson’s but was able to pick up a special Academy Award in 1994. She returned to England to be near her daughters and died in deepest Suffolk, aged 86, in 2007.

Kerr had won some terrific roles and hardly ever gave a dud performance. Her professionalism and inner dignity made her a greatly esteemed artiste.

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Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993) was born Audrey Ruston in Ixelles, a suburb of Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of an Anglo-Austrian business man Victor Rushton and a Dutch aristocrat Ella van Heestra. Victor had been honorary British consul in Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) where he and Ella married, both for the second time. They lived in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. They separated in 1936 and Victor went to London, later appearing in Dublin. Both Victor and Ella were supporters of the British Union of Fascists, Victor keenly, Ella more tepidly, but it did not protect them in Nazi-occupied Europe.  

Audrey stayed with her mother and in 1937 started her education at a small (14-pupil) school in Kent. When war broke out in 1939 Ella thought she and Audrey would be safer in the Netherlands, neutral during WW1, and they moved to Arnhem, where there were family connections. In 1940 the Germans occupied the Netherlands and 4 years of mounting privation followed. Audrey was educated in Arnhem, learned the ballet but witnessed the murderous German deportation of Jews and the starvation of the Dutch people in the hard winter of 1944. Audrey herself suffered from malnutrition and this childhood experience had a profound influence on her later life.

Audrey Hepburn in 1954

Hepburn did not have overt sex appeal, like the Hollywood sirens, but rather a delicate elfin quality, with her prominent eyebrows, slim frame and a gift for comedy - all carried off with enchanting style and elegance. At the end of WW2 Hepburn studied ballet in Amsterdam and in 1948 moved with her mother to London and joined the Ballet Rambert. She was told she did not have a strong enough physique for eminence in that art and she instead turned to the theatre. She played in the chorus of several shows and bit parts in a few films until she met by chance the French writer Colette who was looking for the lead in her play Gigi. Colette took to Hepburn and she made her Broadway debut in 1951. She had arrived.

Quickly taken up by Hollywood, Hepburn starred in two classics, Roman Holiday (1953) with Gregory Peck and Sabrina (1954) opposite William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. For the first time Hepburn was dressed by her couturier and devoted later friend Hubert de Givenchy.

With Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday

 

Bogart, Hepburn and Holden in Sabrina

   

In 1954 Hepburn married the established American actor Mel Ferrer, who in effect became her manager. Ferrer was a controlling type, a latter-day Svengali, whose own career faded and he became jealous of Hepburn’s success. They had a son, Sean, but Hepburn miscarried three times. They acted together in the rather ponderous 1956 version of War and Peace but Hepburn as Natasha was a delight and all who saw her will remember her charm as she danced to the lovely strains of “Natasha’s Waltz”.

Ferrer and Hepburn in War and Peace

Hepburn also sang and danced with Fred Astaire (30 years her senior!) in Funny Face (1957) with songs by the Gershwins, but it was not a great success, though it did demonstrate that Hepburn could sing well enough.

Fine films rolled on. Hepburn was sympathetic in The Nun’s Story (1959), mainly set in the Congo, with Peter Finch and she was lovely as Holly Golightly in the much-bowdlerised version of Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). She wore her sleeveless “little black dress” designed by Givenchy, imitated the world over.

Audrey Hepburn at her most elegant

The 1960s saw Hepburn busy in films. Charade (1963) was an amusing thriller with Cary Grant but her great opportunity came when she was cast as Eliza Doolittle in the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady (1965) opposite Rex Harrison. Hepburn, dressed by Cecil Beaton for the Ascot and Ball scenes was sensational though she was mortified that she was not allowed to sing and her voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon.The film was a huge international success.

Hepburn as Eliza in My Fair Lady

She teamed up with Albert Finney for the romantic comedy Two for the Road (1966) and her affair with Finney finally triggered off her divorce from Mel Ferrer. In 1969 she married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, but his infidelities were serial and their unhappy union lasted until 1982, although they had one son, Luca. Her final substantial film was the thriller Wait until Dark, (1967) which won her several awards, her acting ability proving she was never just a clothes-horse but an intelligent artiste.

Fired by her experiences in the German-Occupied Netherlands, Hepburn had done some work for UNICEF since 1956 but in the 1980s her commitment became her driving force. She toured famine-ravaged Ethiopia, Turkey for an immunisation campaign, Central America, Sudan, Vietnam, for a water purification push and anarchic Somalia. She was showered with honours for her humanitarian efforts. She had been at last living happily since 1980 with the Dutch actor Robert Wolders in Tolochenaz, Switzerland. She contracted a rare and inoperable form of appendiceal cancer and died there in 1993 aged 63. 

Audrey Hepburn was an enchanting screen presence and an admirable person who is much missed.

SMD

24.02.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE CUTS A DEAL

It has been a roller-coaster few weeks for the Greek public – optimism, fear, despair, anger and finally relief - as a rather provisional and fragile deal has been struck between the new SYRIZA Greek government and the Eurogroup. The negotiation has been divisive, wholly lacking in the much-vaunted communautaire spirit and may yet unravel; the Greeks have been given at best a 4-month reprieve and in the current parlance, “the can has been kicked down the road”. A new arrangement will need to be put in place by 30 June 2015, no doubt revisiting much old ground – not an exciting prospect!

Varoufakis plays his weak hand well

The Greeks have had a desperately weak hand to play. 5 years of austerity have shattered the ever-tenuous economy. Help from the EU, ECB and IMF has allowed the French and German banks greatly to reduce their exposure but given little to Greece itself, now burdened with new debts she has scant chance of repaying. The new government, only in office since 25 January, was plunged into discussions with the Eurogroup and it asked for ambitious changes, debt write-downs, new bond substitution and the end of the austerity programme in the name of “humanitarian” relief. They came away with only minor changes. Write-downs were totally rejected, bond discussions are deferred and when the European finance ministers were asked to consider Greek “humanitarian” aid it is said they fell about laughing – shameful if true. The Greeks were allowed to retain VAT at the existing rate, to run a primary fiscal surplus of 1 ½% rather than 3% and to redraft an unpopular property tax. Otherwise they have to stay within the previous EU (failed) programme and must present their own programme for the approval of the Eurogroup within 3 days. The implicit Greek threat of leaving the Eurozone was not emphasised, as SYRIZA had promised the electorate Greece would remain inside.

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, is a highly energetic, persuasive and intellectually gifted academic economist. He has charisma, charm and an enviable command of Greek and English. Like many Greeks he probably talks too much and his method is direct. His inexperienced delegation leaked documents and briefed against opponents.  During heated discussions, he called Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of Eurogroup, “a liar” and apparently the two statesmen squared up for fisticuffs but the weedy Dijsselbloem thought better of it! Varoufakis has a very prickly relationship with German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (but who would not?) and he is by no means a typical finance minister, with his informal attire, maverick notions and forceful manner.

At Brussels, Greece was beset by enemies. Her fellow PIGS (Portugal, Ireland and Spain) reckoned Greece should swallow austerity as they had and not get some better deal. Another Northern group, which I christen the FANGS (Finland, Austria, Netherlands, Germany and Slovakia), all within the German orbit, took their lead from Schaeuble and injected their poison by deriding Greek promises and trying to humiliate Greece at every turn. 

Tactless Wolfgang Schaeuble

Wolfgang Schaeuble is no doubt a doughty and locally popular fighter for the German economy. A tax inspector by training, Schaeuble has a rigid world-view seeing his world as governed by its own immutable rules, demanding obedience. As the BBC pointed out, Schaeuble takes a puritanical view of amassing debt. In German, Debt translates as Schuld which also means Guilt, implying moral turpitude. He is a fervid Hellenophobe and enemy of the Left – so SYRIZA is a double nightmare to him. His problem is, as Adenauer said of his finance minister Erhard, that he is no politician. He does not have the subtlety to finesse a situation, to compromise or to settle for less than 100%. He must dominate and micromanage other countries’ economies. He easily earns Germany the hatred of his weaker victims and one day he will come unstuck when a stronger opponent stands up to him.

Greece did have some allies. Surprisingly, the Commission was helpful: notably Jean-Claude Juncker and Pierre Moscovici, both of whom smoothed the jagged path between Greece and the Northerners. Michel Sapin of France and Matteo Renzi of Italy showed at least some Mediterranean solidarity. While Schaeuble, egged on by his ministry’s advisory committee, claimed indifference to the potential exit of Greece from the Eurozone, the political decision was taken, after a meeting between Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande to keep Greece afloat.

Many pseudo-classical allusions have been made during this crisis: Schaeuble described the original Greek submission as “A Trojan Horse”, newspapers warned Greece against accepting a punitive “Carthaginian Peace” and I would trot out the old favourite “The Achilles Heel” of the Eurogroup position is that they had bigger fish to fry with civil war in the Ukraine and ISIS expanding its influence into nearby Libya.

Schaeuble and Varoufakis will spin the outcome of this negotiation to suit their respective electorates. Whatever, I hope the new Greek government can demonstrate a better level of competence than its predecessor. Already it has published proposed new laws to stimulate tax collection (a perennial Greek problem) involving up to 100 instalments and big discounts for immediate capital payments. I guess taxes will flow in strongly, helping to reverse the recent serious capital flight. The government also promises a crackdown on tax evasion and corruption in high places, a large-scale Greek activity, to which New Democracy and PASOK shamefully pandered for fear of upsetting the powerful local oligarchs’ networks and compromising their own friends. Progress on this issue is vital and maybe only SYRIZA can deliver it. 

Assuming the new deal actually flies (we will know by Wednesday 25 February) Greece may look a better place after 4 months of vigorous rule and better able to arrange a sustainable deal within the euro. Alternatively, and what I think is more sensible, politicians could arrange a “friendly” Grexit, as ex-President Giscard d’Estaing advocates, with an IMF plan allowing Greece to devalue and rebuild, thus regaining her nationhood and independence.

Finally, let the UK thank her lucky stars she is not in the Eurozone. Can you imagine making common economic cause with 19 disparate nations or having to go cap-in-hand to Mr Schaeuble?

SMD

22.02.15.

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015.

A GOOD TIME

In my view “Having a good time” implies an enjoyable activity in the company of others. I think our parents, grandparents and earlier ancestors were better than we are at having this valuable “good time” as their expectations were simpler and above all they were much more sociable than we are. For example, it is surely a sad sight to see young people now hunched over their Smart-phones, playing entertaining games perhaps, but essentially isolating themselves from their surroundings through the unshared nature of their pleasures. The American Constitution sets out three abiding principles – Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness – and the third is in some danger of slipping through our fingers.

Naturally much has changed since the 1920 - 1970s period, no doubt mostly for the better. We are much wealthier and amusements are now served up ready-packaged and instantly accessible; music in abundance, food at the click of a mouse, travel to exotic destinations as easy as any other web choice. Yet the very convenience of it all is at the root of my unease. Our forefathers made their own music, tinkling on the family piano or learning the rudiments of the fiddle, accordion or (here in Greece anyway) the mandolin. They would sing too without self-consciousness and a gathering of family and friends could represent a genuinely “good time”, some shining, others admiring, others stimulated to contribute more next time round.

Communal eating was another “good time” – Sunday family lunch was an unbreakable date which married children were often expected to join with their spouses in tow. Every day saw the family eating together, maybe in no great style, but a shared moment with conversation and gossip flowing. For many families, indispensable Mother would take much trouble baking a crusty meat pie or perfecting a stew, with delicious aromas filling the home, rounding things off with a tasty dessert. How many families eat communally nowadays? It is surely not blind nostalgia to say that something important has been lost.

A Family Picnic

Travel too was once an adventure. How much we looked forward to the summer picnic, all cold chicken, that tantalising Thermos, fizzy drinks, boiled eggs and sandwiches! On Sundays many families “went for a run” in the car, often recently acquired and proudly driven. We did not expect to see the Cote d’Azur, rather a local beauty spot, maybe somewhere to stop for that scrumptious ice-cream cone and to play a juvenile I-Spy in the back of the car with Mother and siblings. This was another “good time” – maybe easily enough overshadowed by a lavish trip to the Galapagos – but still fun and memorable (and much cheaper!)

The oldies’ pleasures were varied. They loved to dance, a most sociable pastime, and mastered the steps of the latest craze. They played cards, Bridge, Canasta and all manner of variants, Pontoon, Newmarket, rummy and played the old games Halma, Mah-jong, Monopoly, draughts or Scrabble. The more erudite played chess, but nobody was ignored or left out. They would go to a live theatre performance, seeing real artistes in all their splendour or vulnerability. They would play football, go hiking or hare coursing and retire to a comfortable public house probably drinking a tad too much bitter. Indeed they had “a good time”.

The present generation too often retreats alone to a darkened room to surf the web, to send messages or contribute anonymously to FaceBook, to download movies to “have a good time” in cold isolation. The young have their own TVs and a myriad of other gadgets. Their contact with their families can be spasmodic and irregular. Parents are at fault too – Fathers work excessively long hours, Mothers work, as is their right, but children are starved of that human contact which civilises, informs and broadens the horizon of young minds. I was always taught to converse, to connect – may that motto resound through the 21^st Century – we will have our “good time” together, striking sparks off our companions in mutual love, respect and understanding.

SMD

16.02.15

Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015