This fortnight’s issue of Bali Advertiser falls on the very last day of the year, so it is a perfect time to spare a thought for some of those whom we grew up with. My list runs in order of departure, January through December and is a personal one, honouring for the most part the men and women of the generation before mine that one way or another caught our imaginations back then.
George McDonald Fraser, OBE (82), b.1926: Scottish soldier, journalist and author, who made his fortune bringing pleasure to millions with his series of a dozen Flashman novels through 1969-2005. Fraser’s brilliant conceit was to recount the later adventures and military career of the caddish, cowardly yet somehow appealing Harry Flashman of Thomas Hughes’ “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”. As well as a a rollicking read the books were well researched reflecting Fraser’s love of military history.
Edmund Hillary, (88), b. 1920: The unassuming 6’2” Kiwi beekeeper and mountaineer who captured the world’s attention when on 29th May, 1953 he and Sherpa Tenzing were the first men to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. The feat, coming just four days before the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth II caught the imagination of the world. Austerity Britain saw it as the dawning of a new Elizabethan Age and the new Queen’s first public act was to dub Hillary a knight. A modest man Sir Hillary refused to say which of the two reached the summit first until Tenzing’s death in 1985. He never forgot Nepal, returning there 120 times working tirelessly over 54 years too improve medical and education conditions for Sherpa families. I remember the stunning film “The Ascent of Everest “ was released, soon after but have never been able to track down a copy since.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, (91), b. 1917: The media’s Giggling Guru of Beatles fame, who brought transcendental meditation to the West. A disciple of Brahmananda Saraswati 1941 to 1953 Maharish Mahesh was disappointed when passed over as his Master’s successor and so took his message to the world with a world tour in 1953. A tireless self-promoter, it took a decade before the Maharishi “made it”, when in the latter Sixties the Beatles, Mia Farrow, Donovan and others all paid highly publicised visits to his ashram. Maharishi went on to create a spiritual empire based on TM and promoting world peace. For an interesting inside account of Maharishi’s rise to fame read “Call No Man Master“, by Joyce Collin Smith, who helped put him on the map.
Jules Dassin, (96), b. 1911: American film director, of Russian-Jewish parentage, became one of America’s leading directors known for his filme noire (Brute Force 1947, Naked City 1948) before falling victim to the Hollywood Blacklist, when he relocated to France in 1954. Dassin’s most influential film was the heist movie “Rififi”. He was most famous for his film “Never on Sunday” (1960) with a glorious Melina Mercouri, whom he married. He went on to make a stunningly stark “Phaedra” (1962) with Mercouri and Tony Perkins, a full-colour caper movie “Topkapi“ (1964,) with Mercouri, Peter Ustinov and Maximillian Schell , before reverting to form and black & white with a hilarious send-up of the Greek Junta “The Rehearsal” in 1974. A Philhellene, Dassin’s Greek films are forever associated with the music Mikis Theodorakis.
Arthur C. Clarke, CBE, (90), b. 1917: British science fiction writer, inventor and futurist, most famous for the novel “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Stanley Kubrick’s film of the book. Was an early proponent of satellite communications in 1945, nominated for a Nobel Prize for Peace, fought for the preservation of the lowland gorilla and won a UN prize for the popularisation of Science. He emigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956, where he lived until his death and was knighted by the Queen in 1998.
Paul Scofield, CH, CBE (86), b. 1922: Probably the most intelligent UK stage actor of the post -Olivier/Gilgeud era, noted for his distinctive voice and delivery. Gave the seminal rendition of “King Lear” for his generation with Peter Brooks’ 1962 production and most celebrated for his stage and screen portrayals of Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons”. Other original stage productions in which he starred included, Peter Schaffer’s “Amadeus”, Charles Dyer’s “Staircase”, and John Osborne’s “Hotel in Amsterdam” . In addition to “A Man for All Seasons” he appeared in numerous films.
Joan Jackson (née Joan Hunter Dunn, 93), b. 1915: The muse of Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate 1972-84 in one of his most well-known poems “A Subaltern’s Love Song”, a paean to tennis parties and the Home Counties world of gin and lime on long afternoons, written in 1940 at a tennis match where he fell in love....
Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carefulness gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.
The love was undeclared, but the two did meet later in 1941 and become fast friends. She was, he wrote to the artist Roland Pym in 1943, “a girl to lean against for life and die adoring”.
...And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one.
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
Bo Diddley, (79), b. 1928 Mississippi, USA: American R&B, Blues singer-songwriter and musician, known as The Originator because of his key role in the transition from blues to rock & roll, he introduced hard driving rhythms and a hard-edged guitar sound, influencing almost all the early rock greats including Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, not to mention the Beatles and Stones. There’s hardly a rock artist of any note who’s not performed his songs or used the Bo Diddley beat.
Yves Saint Laurent, (71), b. 1936 Oran, Algeria: French fashion designer who was considered one of the greatest figures in French fashion. Hired by Dior in 1950 by 1966 YSL went out on his own, his first customer was Catherine Deneuve. His designs freed up fashion from stultified Parisian couture and democratised fashion, making ready-to-wear exciting and acceptable.
Humphrey Lyttelton, (86), b. 1921: Unlikely but hugely talented jazzman, trumpeter, and bandleader “Humph” was an upper crusty Englishman, educated at Eton and cousin to 8th Viscount Cobham. He started playing trumpet at Eton, influenced by Louis Armstrong and 1930’s British jazzman Nat Gonella. Commissioned into the Grenadier Guards he saw action in Italy in WW2. After the war he worked as a cartoonist for the Daily Mail and started his band in the late 1940’s. He typified mainstream jazz in Britain in the 1950’s and 60’s, very much in the manner of US trumpeter Buck Clayton. His most memorable works were his hit “Bad Penny Blues” and a signature “Whistlin’ Rufus”. Along with Chris Barber, he defined an age of British jazzmen.
Paul Newman, (83), b. 1925, Westport, CT: Award-winning and 7-time Academy nominated American actor, film director, entrepreneur, political activist, philanthropist and racing car driver, Newman was the American renaissance man. He first came to note as a young method actor in the early 1950’s with some great angry performances, especially the adaptations of Tennessee Williams plays. These included the movies: “The Long Hot Summer”, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” 1958, John O’Hara’s “From the Terrace”, “The Hustler” with second wife Joanne Woodward (1961), “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962), “Hud” with Patricia Neal (1963). His notable films mid-career were “Hombre” (1967), “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid” (1969) and The Sting (1973), in an iconic partnership with friend Robert Redford.
Levi Stubbs, (72), b. 1936 as Levi Stubbles in Detroit, Michigan: Stubbs was the lead voice of the 1960’s Motown super group the Four Tops, who along with Wilson Picket and James Brown defined the age when disco was disco. Pity about the rather 50’ish formation strut stuff tho’. Whatever. Who of the time does not resonate to the first chords of “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” to this day? Their string of hits included: Baby, I Need your Lovin’, It’s the Same old Song, Standing in the Shadows of Love and Bernadette.
