My Week with Marilyn (43 page)

1900 – 96. British musical comedy star, chiefly on stage.

It never did.

They did get the Jaguar, but it was unreliable and I don't know if they took it back to the USA or not.

Peter Pitt-Millward owned a castle called Paco da Gloria in northern Portugal. I had spent the previous summer there. In 1978 Peter died, and I acquired the castle and lived there, off and on, until 1987.

Alan, my older brother.

Actually she had turned thirty in June.

1931 – 87. With his older brother Albert he went on to make a number of acclaimed documentary films (
Salesman, Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens
etc.).

i.e. back projection.

Bumble Dawson had provided three identical white dresses.

In fact she was only eighteen. She had appeared with William Holden in
Picnic
.

In 1911, when my father was eight, he met Empress Eugenie in Menton. She invited him to kiss her, but since he had never kissed anyone in his life, including his parents, he turned and fled.

I later learned that Susan had just been jilted by Richard Burton, who had been her lover. She wrote in her autobiography that she had been thinking about jumping off the cliff. Quite a compliment to my company!

b.1921. Her many films – not all of them ‘B's – included
Fanny by Gaslight, The Wicked Lady, The Rake's Progress
and Rattigan's
The Browning Version
.

(1897 – 1983). Irish actress who specialised in warm-hearted maternal characters.

Nowadays it would be more like three hundred.

(1931 – 67). Her films included
The Pickwick Papers, The Cruel Sea, Tom Thumb
.

Actually Dr Hohenberg was a she.

(1923 – 92). Distinguished stage actress whose occasional film appearances included
The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Our Man in Havana, The Trials of Oscar Wilde
. She was a great friend of Vivien Leigh.

Dominic Elwes is now dead, alas, and did indeed turn out to be an expensive flatmate. I was entirely mistaken about David Tennant, however. He more than paid his way before he sold me the lease of the flat and left for the USA. (They were both actually quite big – ‘Little' was a nickname.)

Mr Bonsack had a very expensive bathroom shop, and Mr Fowler was the partner in Colefax & Fowler.

(1887 – 1964). Poetess, public figure and celebrated English eccentric. She had met MM at a Hollywood tea party in 1952, and invited her to come to tea in London.

Edith's younger brother (1892 – 1969). Poet, novelist, biographer, autobiographer. Rennishaw Hall was the Sitwell family home in Derbyshire.

Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in the US under the title
Pursuit of the Graf Spee
. Tony Bushell was one of the principal actors.

Durable British comic actor, 1918 – 2010.

The Bolshoi Ballet was visiting London for the first time since the war. My father had a box for the opening night as he was on the Board of the Royal Opera House. I had taken a beautiful young actress called Maureen Swanson (now Countess of Dudley) but it had been a total failure, which is why I didn't mention it in my diary.

b.1933. Her English-language films included
Manuela, The Trial, Marco the Magnificent
.

Eton slang for desk (‘bureau').

In fact his next project was to be one of the most unexpected and significant stage performances of his career — as Archie Rice in John Osborne's
The Entertainer
at the Royal Court, directed by George Devine.

Katharine Hepburn had been a witness at SLO's secret marriage to Vivien in California in 1940. In 1973 she and SLO made their only acting appearance together, as the ageing couple in
Love Among the Ruins
, directed by George Cukor for American television.

Play by Jean Giraudoux (1882 – 1944). It was filmed in 1969 starring, coincidentally, Katharine Hepburn.