Finchs Quarterly Review Issue 7

Issue 7: Spring 2010

£10

Finch’s Ecce, mundus est

uarterly Review sordidus et olidus, sed etiam habet multas res smashingae

Lord Palumbo Jean Alesi on Charles Finch Peter Morgan André Leon Talley Count Rudi von on slippers a son’s moving a screenplay on being a movie star Schönburg on red wine tips(y) tribute pg 7 elegantly waiting pg 17 pg 20 & 21 pg 11 pg 29 pg 9

Charles Saumarez Smith on Van Gogh pg 30

Peter Finch in No Love for Johnnie

The People’s Choice With the UK facing a general election in the coming months, Nick Foulkes exercises his democratic right to deliberate over the demise of democracy, and suggests ways of making the ballot more entertaining for voters – some might say of sexing it up

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hat with one thing or another, the concept of exercising the democratic franchise, voting and all the other associated paraphernalia of living in a democracy has been occupying many of the editorial conferences at the global HQ of the FQR Group of Publications.

This is, of course, a time of year when the ballot springs to mind. It is the season of Oscars and Baftas and, therefore, a hugely busy time for our eponymous proprietor. In addition to the strains of running a multimillion-pound empire straddling numerous continents and time zones and organising pre-Bafta and Oscar dinners, he readies himself to receive the awards that will – in time, I am sure – be heaped upon him by a grateful industry… although quite which industry will be honouring his achievements in exactly what field is as yet unclear.

And so, while minds are being made up, we at FQR Towers have decided to institute our own awards, awards that will honour achievement in the things that really matter in life, such as the most stylish use of the doubling cube in backgammon, the most elegantly sewn buttonholes, the most beautifully finished shirt collar and the most highly glossed shoes… that sort of thing. We will, of course, be inviting the ballots of our readers and, should these concur with our own findings, we will, naturally, honour them. If not, we will quietly ignore the outcome of the vote and press ahead with what we know to be the right result.

The thing about democracy, the vote and the enfranchisement of those who have reached their majority is that we still manage to get ourselves into terrible scrapes. After all, let’s not forget that it was the exercise of the democratic principle that brought Herr Hitler to power. In the wrong hands, democracy can be a very frightening thing.

I have to say I rather admire Graham Greene, who once said, “I never found myself very politically involved in England. I have only voted once in my life.

It was soon after the war, when I cast a protest vote for the communist in the constituency of Westminster.”

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After making this statement, he then paused and added, “That was a joke.” Quite what the joke was – the communist in Westminster, perhaps – remained unclear, as the gnomic author doubtless intended. You see, the thing is that Greene was a very political animal.

“I find myself constantly getting involved in politics that really are a matter of life and death,” he later admitted, “as they were in the Far East and are in Central America.” He was speaking in 1984.

For those of us who live on the damp islands off the north coast of Europe this is an election year and, for the next few months, we are condemned to listen to the claims and counterclaims of our great political parties as they tell us what they think we want to hear.

Quite frankly, it has all been going downhill since the Great Reform Bill of 1832. I sometimes wonder if we at FQR are alone in feeling nostalgic for the days of the “rotten boroughs”, where the electorate might number fewer than a dozen.

It is, of course, William IV I feel sorry for. The Commons wanted reform, the Lords did not, and it was suggested by Lord Grey that William IV create sufficient new peers to push the bill through. Understandably, the monarch didn’t like it one bit and even asked the Duke of Wellington to form a new government, but in the end he had to recall the Grey administration.

Lord Brougham went with Lord Grey to see the King and Brougham recalled it as “one of the most painful hours I ever passed in my life, because the King evidently suffered much, and yet behaved with the greatest courtesy to us”. Although the monarch’s patience must have been sorely tested when, having at last agreed to create new peers if necessary, he was asked

by Brougham if he could have the promise in writing.

In the end the mere threat of an avalanche of new peers was enough to bring the Lords round to Reform.

Back then, politicians were impressive people: Lord Brougham would give his name to a carriage, while the dashing Second Earl Grey’s efforts to reform Parliament are largely forgotten and his immortality lies in the eponym he lent to a delightful bergamot-oil-infused

tea. However, since then I think that reform has gone a little too far without actually achieving its ends.

Let me explain. I was, of course, wholly against the reform of the House of Lords on purely sentimental grounds. While it was clearly incorrect by modern standards, I was rather proud of the fact that the upper house contained a number of people who sat there for no other reason than having had some ancestor who rendered service (or payment) to the nation – it was quaint, charming and altogether British, like our touching belief in the value of the British pound and our persistence in driving on the left-hand side of road. y memory may be playing tricks on me, but at the time there was a lot of noise made about how it was iniquitous that this state of affairs should be allowed to continue, that unelected people be allowed to have a role in government and all that. This all came back to me when I saw Baroness Ashton, who revels in the title of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU, answering questions about her role in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. While thrilled to have a Brit in the job of foreign minister of the EU super state, and while completely unperturbed by her membership of CND (I have to admit I was never that keen on nuclear weapons myself – nasty things), I must say that I don’t recall ever voting for her. Like I say, maybe I am forgetting something, but I thought all that had gone from Sir Charles Barry’s grandiloquent neo-gothic building.

Accordingly, I have asked the European editor of our sister publication, the political review FQR Democracy Today, to prepare a leader article explaining to me why I am wrong and why the rise of Baroness Ashton is entirely in line with the reformed Parliament and the spirit of the new House of Lords.

In the meantime, Charles and I have been kicking about a few ideas for electoral reform of our own. It struck us that the British electoral system appeared to be fundamentally flawed in that we simply do not have the election we deserve. Clearly the titanic clash of the

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two great rival ideologies of the ever-so-slightly right of centre and the ever-so-slightly left of centre is the single most important political and philosophical faultline of our times and, as such, we stand at an ideological crossroads unparalleled in our island’s history. Why, then, are we deprived of the full gladiatorial spectacle of the two most recognisable and characterful politicians of the age fighting it out?

In the interests of the democratic process and, much more importantly, voter entertainment, FQR and its sister publications call upon the leaders of both the Labour and Conservative Parties to step aside in order to allow the two great political characters of the age to stride to the centre of the national stage. Like it or not – and I am not sure I do – British politics is much more presidential these days, and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (BoJo) and Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the county of Durham (Mandy) are much more likely to galvanise the voters come voting time.

And given that Charles, Tristram and I, particularly Tristram, are concerned that democracy is seen to be done, we suggest that voters be allowed to vote by SMS, simply texting one word – “BOJO” or “MANDY” – or, of course, by phoning ruinously expensive hotlines.

Given that almost every other aspect of life has been distilled - or do I mean diluted - to the level of entertainment (and not always edifying entertainment at that), why should politics be exempt from the reductio ad absurdam “X Factorisation” of life?

Of course, as befits a true media baron, Charles is keeping his powder dry and The FQR Group of Publications has yet to decide which political party to back. And to this end I have a word of advice to any political leader reading this… a knighthood for Charles will deliver you the election-winning support of the entire FQR Group of Publications. A bargain, you have to admit.

Nick Foulkes is the editorial director of the FQR Group of Publications and Editor in Chief of Finch’s Quarterly Review

www.finchsquarterly.com

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The Prologue Nick Foulkes is editorial director of the FQR Group of Publications, ipso facto can’t be expected to know about high finance, nor what an IPO is – nor why, indeed, it’s not called an IPSO. Luckily, we have FQR’s revered proprietor Charles to do business. And that, as Nick chronicles, is exactly what he’s been doing…

Contents Adam Dawtrey on how the Academy gets it right and wrong. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Adam Dawtrey’s pick of Oscar-escapees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Charles Finch on winning and losing during Oscar season . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 & 8 Alex Gibney on winning the Academy Award for best documentary feature . . . 8 Mike Medavoy recalls his Oscar trifecta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Peter Morgan’s exclusive FQR Screenplay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Alfonso Cauròn on little gold stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Audie Charles on Douglas Hayward’s star quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Terry Haste on styling The Joker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Kevin McKidd on a playing Posedian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 André Leon Talley on The September Issue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Nick Foulkes reveals the talent behind the lens: Terry O’Neill . . . . . . . . 12 & 13 Charlie Gladstone on the adventures of inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Count Rudi von Schönburg on his life at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Kate Lenahan’s Travel Confidential: Jumby Bay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 FQR’s Pro Bono Pin-Up: Sophie Montgomery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Jeffrey Podolsky on his penchant for socks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Fiona Dreesmann on gentlemen’s slippers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 & 21 Lord Palumbo on needlepoint slippers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 & 21 Ruth Moschner on why a few inches make a difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis on stylish shades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis on Lent sacrifices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Count Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni on the Order of Malta in Kenya. . . . . . . 22 Matthew Modine explains why it’s brave going against the grain . . . . . . . . . . . 23 FQR’s Casting Couch: Emma Hamilton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Reza Rashidian’s hunting column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Hon. Harry Herbert on the Cartier racing awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Jean Alesi on red wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Maya Even on a favourite recipe for red meat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Charles Saumarez Smith on the Royal Academy’s Van Gogh exhibition . . . . . . 30 FQR Art Exclusive: Robin Rhode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

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egular readers of FQR – should such a body of eccentrics really exist – will have noticed that increasing reference is made to the sister publications of the FQR Group.

Already many of you are familiar with the intellectually robust debate in FQR: Democracy Today, and the stimulating issues of faith and religious belief that are aired in the pages of FQR: Faith (Formerly FQR Monotheism in the Modern World). And in this issue we are very proud to welcome a writer from another of the publications in our stable. Reza Rashidian is editor-at-large of FQR: Big Game Hunter, Game Shot and Conservation, and he pens his first hunting column for FQR. This month he talks about shooting deer, then butchering them on the spot and cooking up liver and bacon among the bluebells. We look forward to reading more of Reza’s Hemingway-like dispatches in his regular column, “This Quarter I will be Killing Mostly…”

But as well as imparting indispensable advice on how to stalk, kill, butcher and cook your quarry – in about as much time as it takes me to haul myself out of my day bed and meander over to the wardrobe to muse over which Charvet tie to wear – there is a grander design to Reza’s FQR debut and, indeed, to my mentioning the other titles in our formidable publishing group. These cleverly seeded mentions, so subtly subliminal that you would barely know they are there, are all calculated to bolster the image of solidity that our dynamic young company enjoys. You see, Charles is preparing the FQR Group of magazines, and our fledgling broadcast arm, for an IPO. Now, until Charles mentioned this airily to me while we were enjoying a cup of coffee outside Gino Macaluso’s booth at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, I wasn’t entirely sure what an IPO was. I knew it was something to do with high finance and left it at that, but, subsequently, my friends at Wikipedia have informed me that these three letters are short for Initial Public Stock Offering – in fact, it was a letter short. I would have thought that “IPSO” would have been more correct, but then I suppose these financial highflyers are so busy cooking up new schemes to separate us from our money that they have no time for that extra letter.

Anyway, Charles has been toying with getting some investment for our highly successful publishing group, enabling us to expand into new markets and, most importantly of all, purchase ourselves Bentleys. I have written a couple of books on Bentley Motors and I went shopping with Charles for his Bentley towards the end of last year. To my everlasting regret, I had to sell my beloved Turbo R a few years ago – it was costing me more than the school fees (and that was before I started the engine and drove into anything). As far as I know, Charles is now the delighted owner

Proprietor’s Spouse: Sydney Ingle-Finch Proprietor: Charles Finch Editor in Chief: Nick Foulkes Art Director: Tristram Fetherstonhaugh Contributing editors: Vicki Reeve, Simon de Pury, Tom Stubbs, Kevin Spacey, Emma Thompson Liberal at Large: Matthew Modine Literary Editor: John Malkovich Women’s Editor: Saffron Aldridge Managing Editor: Felicity Harrison Features Editor: Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis Film Critic: Adam Dawtrey Travel Editor: Kate Lenahan Cookery Editor: Maya Even Fine Arts Editor: Charles Saumarez Smith Racing Correspondent: The Hon. Harry Herbert Hunting Editor: Reza Rashidian PA to the Proprietor: Tiffany Grayson

Designed and produced by Fetherstonhaugh Associates (www.fetherstonhaugh.com).

The views expressed in Finch’s Quarterly Review are not necessarily those of the editorial team. The editorial team is not responsible or liable for text, pictures or illustrations, which remain the responsibility of the authors. Finch’s Quarterly Review is fully protected by copyright and nothing may be printed, translated or reproduced wholly or in part without written permission.

Next issue: May 2010. All advertising enquiries should be sent for the attention of Jonathan Sanders: jonathan@finchandpartners.com +44 (0)20 7851 7140.

of a fixed head coupé in navy blue. Tristram could certainly do with an upgrade from his Brompton bicycle, and I have always found that the world looks better when viewed from inside a fastmoving Crewe-built car. So this automotive element of our business plan is, for me, right at the heart of ambitious plans for the group.

It was to this end that Charles interviewed James Caan. I sat next to James once at a lunch and, not knowing much about high or, indeed, low finance or British TV reality shows, seeing his name card on the plate next to me, I fondly imagined that I would be sitting next to the Godfather actor… I did not know that there was another James Caan, who appeared on British television in a programme called Dragons’ Den – and I think I lost him when I started talking about Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit.

While Charles and Mr Caan got on famously, their personal chemistry did not blossom into a business relationship. And then earlier this year, Charles was laid up in bed with flu and, with the aid of nothing more than a few Beechams Powders and a BlackBerry, he contacted every single high-flyer in the world of arbitrage-hedge-fund-capital-asset-debtrestructuring-sovereign-wealth-fund-liquiditysurrender-value-IP(S)O-private-equitisation. The response was immediate and gratifying.

Apparently, many replied before Charles had even pressed the send button, clamouring to be allowed to move all their funds into the financial safe haven offered by the FQR Group; and I was on the phone to Jack Barclay to order my new Bentley Mulsanne. But Charles isn’t stupid; he wasn’t going to give up control of his empire for a few lousy billions. No. Instead, he invited them to purchase a small percentage for a small sum of money and regard it as the joining fee for a club.

I got back on the phone to Jack Barclay to tell the factory to down tools for the moment.

Of course, when word got out that FQR was seeking investors it made financial news around the world and if you look on the BBC website you can see how Robert Peston broke the news, winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Since then, of course, the offers have been flooding in. But unfortunately, Charles is a little busy to attend to them at the moment – you see, he is in the thick of the film-awards season and, for Charles, the film world is like a powerful drug.

He just loves it. Talk to him about anything other than movies and awards and the parties he throws and the posthumous Oscar won by his father, and you just won’t have his full attention. I know that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are keen to talk to him and the Chancellor has been on the phone about propping up sterling… but, I’m sorry, all these things will have to wait until at least a month or two after the Academy Awards, once he has had time to snatch a few weeks’ well-earned rest at the Bel Air. As, I am afraid, will my Bentley.

Nick Foulkes

The FQR Group of Publications including: FQR Art; FQR Style; FQR Living Well, FQR Big Game Hunter, Game Shot and Conservation; FQR Equestrian Life; FQR Ocean Wave incorporating Nautical Style; FQR Home and Hearth; FQR Paranormal; FQR Faith (Formerly FQR Monotheism in the Modern Age); www.finchsquarterly.com Chief Executive: Charles Finch Editorial Director: Nick Foulkes Creative Director: Tristram Fetherstonhaugh Commercial Director: Jonathan Sanders, Chief Financial Officer: Adam Bent

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FQR Oscar Focus

VISION ON – AND ON...

From the prevailing Zeitgeist to the “overlooked for too long” director, there are many reasons why movies win Oscars.

Here’s to longevity, and to the brave new films that are made without thoughts of winning awards, says Adam Dawtrey

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e don’t still believe the Oscars go to the best films of the year, do we? Good. Of course not. We’re not infants, after all. Neither do we believe in Santa Claus. But we get still get Christmas presents and, this March, we will suspend our disbelief once again and applaud as a lucky few get handed that golden statuette.

Oscars are won by making Hollywood feel good about itself. That’s pretty much exactly what one American producer told me about his reaction to first seeing Slumdog Millionaire at the Toronto Film Festival.

“It made me proud to be in this business,” he said, with a catch in his throat.

The Oscars are about the here and now, not about the judgement of history. They reflect a mood of the moment that often turns out to be fleeting. Quite how Crash beat Brokeback Mountain will baffle future generations. In fact, that decision was incomprehensible after only a couple of days.

Judging by the critics’ polls of the films of the Noughties, it has only taken two years for everyone to agree that There Will Be Blood, widely cited as the decade’s towering achievement, should have beaten the perfectly decent No Country For Old Men. Not that the Academy always gets it wrong. Slumdog may indeed turn out to be the greatest film of 2008, but as Zhou Enlai said about the impact of the French Revolution, it’s too soon to say.

You’d be hard pushed to find anyone today under the age of 50 who has even seen How Green Was My Valley, let alone who would place it on any list of all-time greats above Citizen Kane, the film it beat to the 1941 Best Picture prize. At least Kane did win for Original Screenplay. That was the

At Home with Oscar

Where our friends keep their Oscars Emma Thompson: “I keep my two statues in my downstairs loo.

I’m too embarassed to give them a more prominent place.”

Kevin Spacey: “One is being used a doorstop and the other one, which Al Pacino stole, is yet to be returned!”

Penélope Cruz: “I took it everywhere with me for the first six months, including the beach.”

Alex Gibney: “After some discussion with my wife, we decided to keep my Oscar in the downstairs washroom. Everyone can pick it up, look at themselves in the mirror and generally have their 45 seconds with it!”

Al S Ruddy: “When I had one Oscar, I kept it in my pants…

Now that I have two, it’s become awkward, so they are tucked away in a small niche!”

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only Oscar for Welles – nothing for The Magnificent Ambersons, not even a nomination for Touch of Evil – until his Honorary Award in 1971.

But this isn’t going to be one of those facile articles lamenting all the most egregious Oscar snubs over the decades. Of course Alfred Hitchcock never won Best Director; of course The Searchers, now regarded as the greatest ever Western, didn’t get a single nomination; of course 2001: A Space Odyssey deserved better than a single Oscar for Special Effects; of course The Third Man should have won for more than just its camera work, fabulous though that was. That’s not to mention all the extraordinary films in languages other than English which have been ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

All we can reasonably ask from AMPAS is that its choices should be interesting. Whether or not a film can be called the “best”, the winners should at least have some spark that burns for more than a few weeks.

In fact, looking back over the sweep of Oscar history, the Academy hasn’t done too shabby a job. What strikes you is how many great films did actually win Best Picture: Sunrise, All Quiet on the Western Front, It Happened One Night, Gone with The Wind, Rebecca, Casablanca, All About Eve, On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The Sixties were a purple patch for the Academy, with The Apartment, West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, Tom Jones, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, A Man For All Seasons, Oliver! and Midnight Cowboy. OK, there are too many musicals there, but with the possible exception of Tom Jones’s Zeitgeisty effort that reflected the newly liberated sexual shenanigans of the times, those are all films that still work and are still loved today.

The Seventies, too, delivered a pretty impressive slate. Both Godfathers, for a start, plus One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter and Rocky. Cineastes might prefer Taxi Driver to Sly Stallone’s boxing epic, but Rocky is one of those iconic movies whose status has grown over the decades.

The rot really started in the Eighties. I’m afraid to say the Brits had a lot to do with it. The Academy became fixated on some forced notion of class, or classiness. If you stumble across Chariots of Fire today, you’re struck by how odd and slight it seems, though that Vangelis score remains a marvel. And Gandhi can hardly hold a candle to ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. It’s as though the invention of the blockbuster (with Jaws and Star Wars in the late Seventies) led Hollywood to overcompensate for its rampant commercialism by resorting to middlebrow worthiness when it came to awards. Does anyone watch The Last Emperor these days?

The real hall of shame coincided with the rise of heavyweight producers and their Oscar campaigning.

The Oscars stopped being a bonus, and started to be the whole point, the reason certain films got made.

This makes for shallow work. Personally, I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love, for example, but it lacks the artistic bravura or the staying power of Saving Private Ryan, the favourite that it beat in a ferocious and, at times, ugly contest.

Too many recent winners have been notable only for the speed at which they have fallen out of critical favour, if they were ever in it in the first place. American Beauty, A Beautiful Mind, Million Dollar Baby, Chicago, Crash, The Departed. It took Peter Jackson three goes before the Academy was forced to acknowledge his extraordinary achievement with The Lord of the Rings trilogy. artin Scorsese’s win for The Departed underlines how creatively corrupting the obsession with Oscars can become. Since his début, Mean Streets, Scorsese was an honourable member of the club of the snubbed, making extraordinary movies with no regard for the tastes and sensitivities of the Academy. But in the Noughties the burden of rejection seemed to weigh upon him, and his films began to pander, to beg for recognition. The Aviator and Gangs of New York creaked under their yearning for prizes. The Departed was hack work by Scorsese’s standards but, hopefully, its Oscar reward will liberate him to return to his previous high standards of artistic fearlessness.

Last year’s Slumdog victory gives cause for optimism. This was a film made without calculation, for the sheer joy of its creation. Its very lack of cynicism was exactly what Hollywood loved about it. It reminded jaded film executives why they wanted to get into movies in the first place. There are signs that this year may go the same way. Whether it’s Avatar, District 9 or Star Trek; Precious, Up or The Hurt Locker, the race has been full of bold, vivid films that weren’t manufactured to win awards. That means they have a chance of still being worth watching for years to come.

Adam Dawtrey is FQR’s film critic

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And The Oscar Doesn’t Go To…

Adam Dawtrey’s choice of the films that got away I haven’t loved many films this year. But I’ve liked quite a few, some of which have been completely ignored by Oscar voters.

So here’s my alternative list of films from 2009 that are every bit as interesting, original and worthwhile as those in the running for Academy Awards.

Gran Torino. OK, this is a cheat. Gran Torino qualified for the Oscars last year, but it didn’t get any nominations. It’s the film Clint Eastwood made between Changeling, which got three Oscar nominations last year, and Invictus, his plodding contender this year.

Gran Torino is far more significant than either, not because it’s better than both (though it is), but because it’s the film where Eastwood consciously writes a coda to his own iconic career as an actor. Walt Kowalski is the last in Eastwood’s long line of laconic avengers. The manner of his exit gives a satisfying answer to all those ever troubled by his vigilante morality.

Funny People. The title is wilfully confusing. Funny People isn’t that funny. It’s the first “serious” movie from the Hollywood laugh factory of Judd Aptow. It’s a brave, some might say self-indulgent piece that, given its estimated $80m budget, takes all kinds of foolish risks with audience expectations. Maybe that’s why no one really got it. It’s a personal film with a very dark sense of humour, about an aspiring stand-up comedian who’s taken under the wing of a successful comic with a terminal illness, modelled closely on Aptow’s buddy Adam Sandler, and played by, um, Adam Sandler. Has anyone noticed that Sandler is a brilliant actor when he chooses to be? Certainly not the folks who hand out awards. He was extraordinary in Punch-Drunk Love, and he does exceptional work here too. But because he seems to be playing himself, he doesn’t get the credit.

Where The Wild Things Are. Who takes a classic children’s picture book and turns it into a film that’s too dark, scary and emotionally disturbed for kids? Spike Jonze, that’s who. Where The Wild Things Are even dispenses with the single most famous concept from Maurice Sendak’s book – when Max’s bedroom transforms into a forest of his imagination. Somehow Jonze uses the topsyturvy emotional logic of a troubled nine-yearold to propel the action in place of any discernible plot, and creates a masterpiece about the terrors and torments of childhood.

Me and Orson Welles. Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, The School of Rock, Before Sunset – Richard Linklater specialises in creating classic films that don’t win awards. Me and Orson Welles slipped between the cracks this year, but this entertaining portrait of youthful genius and those burnt by their proximity to it is a worthy addition to Linklater’s disregarded pantheon.

Christian McKay’s channelling of Welles is a marvel.

Cracks. The directing début of Jordan Scott, daughter of Ridley, drew some sniffs about nepotism.

But this psycho-drama set among the unhappy girls of an isolated Thirties boarding school is atmospheric, unsettling, gripping and gorgeously shot. Eva Green is fabulously deranged as the dangerous young teacher who leads her charges astray.

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Stardust Memories, Future Dreams

Faye Dunaway by Terry O’Neill, 1977

To Charles Finch, the Oscars not only evoke deeply moving memories of both his Academy Award-winning father and his dignified mother, but also cause him to celebrate presentday movies and to reflect on the future

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erry O’Neill’s famous shot of Faye Dunaway at the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel the night after the 1977 Oscars hangs near my desk at home in London. When I look at it I imagine what a night Faye must have had… She is like a victorious gladiator after an exhausting tournament. I find the image strangely inspiring, but also a poignant reminder that it was the year I lost my father… which, as fate would have it, was the very same year he won the Academy Award for Best Actor opposite her in Network…

The taxi booked to meet us at the Hotel de Suède on the Left Bank is on time at 6.45am. It may be winter, or summer, it matters not, but I remember the cold of the morning air, and the uninviting smell of the small Parisian driver. My mother sits next to me in her black fur – fragrant and, as usual, beautifully dressed in Dior. Her fingers covered in her lovely rings, and her dark glasses firmly in place; a scarf over her thick hair.

She is holding her hand to her nose and pointing

spring 2010

at the man’s head with a horrified expression. We both giggle. It begins to rain as we pull away.

The windscreen wipers beat time to the radio as we head towards the suburbs of Saint-Cloud. I am nervous and fidgety. At 13 years old, this is a momentous day. It’s my first exam of importance, vital for my entry to Phillips Exeter Academy – the feeding school, I am assured by my mother and her advisers, to Yale and Harvard and, of course, immortality as an international criminal lawyer or corporate raider! All I have to do is be in something called “the top three percentile”…

Sadly, this is unlikely for me, as the chimpanzees in London Zoo are more literate than I, and mathematics has been – since my prep school in England – a form of mental water torture.

The city is dark this early in the morning but the traffic’s light. Our fragrant taxi turns into the Concorde and bumps along the cobbled paving stones as it loops around the great fountains that face the Hôtel de Crillon and the Automobile Club of France. Dead ahead of us and over the river lies my future. My mother reminds me that focusing might be a good idea during the exam,

especially as I will only get one shot at this particular version of immortality; and focus, we have been told by several frustrated teachers, does not come naturally to me. We have seen several mock-ups of the exam. It is a multipleanswer puzzle of some kind. I make neither head nor tail of the thing when we have a go on the kitchen table. My mother is very good at it, though, but somewhat concerned for me… The reality is that it is already too late for me to develop a linear thought process. I choose the most interesting answers rather than the correct ones. After all, we have lived in France since my 11th birthday, up in the hills near Mougins, where too much rosé is drunk by too many idle expats and linear thought is frowned upon. School has been a mixed bag of Baudelaire and truancy. Tax has driven my mother here, where the sun still glints in the lonely winters, and no one seems to work.

I have graduated only from horse to my first motorbike, a Ciao, which, stripped bare and rebuilt, breaks every local Highway Code. I keep academic study to a minimum and spend great swathes of my time with friends in the forest hunting, or on the high rivers fishing for trout.

‘Peter Finch, l’acteur nominé pour un Academy Award est mort hier….’

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I have become wild, my mother tells me. I have found paradise, I tell myself.

As the taxi veers towards the Right Bank, I catch the first words of the news that will change our lives…

“Peter Finch, l’acteur nominé pour un Academy Award est mort hier…”

My mother’s French is perfect for a restaurant but not up to a taxi’s radio. I quieten her and, again, the radio presenter confirms the news…

‘Peter Finch, the actor nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Network, died yesterday afternoon at the Beverly Hills Hotel… ‘ I ask the taxi driver to retell me the news… I then retell it to my mother, and say it again to be sure. We sit bumping and jostling over those cobble stones as we digest the reality of the news.

Our very souls rattle. I am confused, astounded, unable to understand. We are on the other side of the country from my sister, who is 16 and staying with friends. Will she have been told? Does she know? Have were heard it right? We are abandoned in a sea of emotion, and yet we drive on…

I see now only the flashing lights of cars coming our way, a glimpse here of the river, and the grand façades of buildings. I feel my mother’s cold hand clasp mine, and sense the quickening of her breath.

I am drowning, and swimming, and the mist descends that will never lift again from that year. We stagger, and the two of us decide to go on to Saint-

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FQR Oscar Focus Cloud – to do the British thing and continue ahead like two little warriors, me armed with my pencil, she with her crocodile bag. After all, what else was there to do?

The American School of Paris is lit up for the exam. I walk the stairs with my glamorous mother and into the classroom full of students from the School taking the test. We exchange words with the examiner. The situation is made clear: I have just heard my father has died… and yet… and yet…

Phillips Exeter Academy will wait for no one. We are told this is the last slot for the year ahead.

Harvard and Yale so close and yet so far…

I take my seat and peer down at the presented paper. I am aware of the sharp pencils and the sweet and sour smell of school. I look out to the road from the first-floor window, out at a poster. It’s a movie poster of Raid on Entebbe – yes, indeed, it is starring Peter Finch, my very recently alive father. I begin to write… not write, but colour in those little black multiple-question divots. “How could you go on?” you might ask. Well, isn’t that the point? I go on because the exam is there, because I don’t know what to feel or to do.

I sit making tiny marks on this form and I can no longer dream, as I have secretly done, of starring in a movie with him… Instead, there is the hollow emptiness of his fame staring at me from the movie poster outside and the unknown

ahead for our small family.

With his death there is no will. The estates in We travel home by the Mistral train as the airports California and Jamaica, both in the name of my are closed. The taxi driver refuses payment as he stepmother, are untouchable. We are left penniless drops us at the gare. My mother and I sit facing each and out of touch, but as the Network campaign starts other in the first-class cabin and in earnest, none of that seems to we talk of my father, for the first matter. The Oscars are bigger time not as parent and child but than that and, as the journalists as friends… She tells me of their call, we are reminded again and time together. How they met on again that though my father is a beach after he walked back and no more, Oscar will be our forward in front of her and her family friend forever. family, surreptitiously admiring Here, as another award season her legs. She tells me of his love approaches, I can only give you letters, which now, all these years glimpses of what I felt back later, I have. Of how they would then, and these sketches are but dance and drink and travel. Of vague images from deep inside building Bamboo in Jamaica my consciousness. As I sit at my together, where they had their desk, my fingers refuse to search happiest times… She cries gently the net for images of my and I hold her in my small boy Peter Finch in 1954 Jamaican stepmother picking up arms and cry with her. I ask her a million questions the posthumous golden statuette for Best Actor my about everything and nothing… all to ask: why? father won that year. For far too many complicated Why did she not forgive him for his mistakes, his reasons to list here, I remain, then, ignorant of all hell-raising, his travelling off to “the wild wetter’s”, as but the most basic facts. I neither watched my he would say…? Why could she not just close her stepmother pick up the Oscar, nor make her eyes and let him back into our lives when everything statement – statement more than speech, I have is so dull out there in the real world, which is how she been told, and perhaps it is for the better that I did tells me she really feels… but those are questions for not – and so I cannot tell you if the crowd clapped her and for him only. enthusiastically that night, if Swifty Lazar’s party was

THE REALITY CHECK

Who better to document winning an Academy Award than Alex Gibney, who picked up the 2008 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature?

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inning an Oscar is, of course, a great moment in one’s life, but it needs to be put into perspective. When I won Best Documentary Feature in 2008 for Taxi to the Dark Side I can admit that it was an incredibly powerful experience for me.

Taxi to the Dark Side focuses on the murder of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base. The inspiration behind the film was primarily my father, who had been a Navy interrogator. He urged me to make this film because of his disgust at how the rule of law was being treated in the post9/11 climate. My father passed away before the film aired but I was able to dedicate my Oscar to both him and Dilawar.

I believe the film goes beyond interrogation techniques and is really a story about the abrogation of the rule of law. The United States claimed to be fighting a global war on terror to make the world safe from people who want to deprive us of our liberty, but there we were practising the most fundamental abrogation of it.

Through making the documentary, I learned that the interrogation techniques were a cowardly policy that actually resulted in getting terrible information, so that, even on a national security level, it was a bad idea. Throughout the filmmaking process I became haunted by the

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Scene from Taxi to the Dark Side when I actually met them, I saw that they were just young kids – haunted by what they had done - who had been cynically led to brutality by superiors who also used them as scapegoats when the story broke.

While I knew they must bear responsibility for what they did, I began to understand their actions in the context of war and the illegal orders they were bound to obey. Many of the soldiers were destabilized by their experiences and some, who I still keep in touch with, have been deeply scarred by the events.

When the murder was finally revealed, superior officers and policy-makers abdicated responsibility and blamed the front-line soldiers. Suddenly they were prosecuted as “bad apples,” to prevent anyone from concluding that the barrel was rotten. But we clearly established that torture was a policy.

Marcel Ophüls has said that every film has a point of view; it is showing how hard it is to come to that point of view that is important. I think what he was saying is that there is no such thing as objectivity, and that it’s not real life unless you show the different sides to the argument and different points of view. I had a political science professor who had a slogan that always resonated with me, and which I have learned to lean on as a filmmaker. He said, “Embrace the contradictions.”

I believe that my approach to documentary filmmaking is pretty eclectic. It draws from featurefilm techniques as well as documentary. Under the

question “Why?” There is a tremendous body of evidence that shows that torture or “enhanced interrogation” techniques don’t deliver reliable information. Sometimes you get the truth but very often you get half truths or lies. So why then would we pursue it? I began to accept that the policy was more about tyranny, that the people in power were using a technique that would give them the information that they wanted to hear. For me, that was the darkest, most terrifying idea.

Early on I knew I was making a film about the system but, to do that in a way that connects with the audience, I knew I needed to focus on the personal. Reports on the system almost always fail, in my view, because they are cold and bloodless.

To me, this story was a murder mystery. Who killed Dilawar? If you follow that story you meet a lot of interesting people along the way.

The beating heart of this story is really what happened in Afghanistan. It is not just a story about Dilawar – the young man who lived with his family in a tiny village, who barely had any grasp on modern life as we know it and who loses his life through no fault of his own – it is also the story of the soldiers who killed him. To make this film I had to spend some time in Afghanistan. I needed to interview the soldiers who had been at Bagham Prison and had interrogated and beaten Dilawar to death. Initially, I was not looking forward to doing that. I assumed these guys were rank sadists. But

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good as usual, or if Sidney Lumet was disappointed that he didn’t win for Best Director… What I do remember clearly from that night is how proud and generous my mother was about Peter, her lost friend and lover, the father of her children and of whom, to her great credit, she never, ever – not a single time – said an ill word. ears later, then, when the Academy became a little known to me, when the business of movies accepted me like a lost son and Hollywood – for all its complexity – became a town I felt comfortable in, only then did things become a little clearer. The Oscar became less and less about the past, and so one day when friends and movies I loved began winning, the night became a little mine too. When my mother died in my arms some years ago she made me promise to scatter her ashes on the Blue Mountains, have a baby and win an Oscar…

She sits in an urn in my study waiting for me to decide which Blue Mountains to scatter her upon.

My daughter catches herself in the mirror in the evenings as she brushes her teeth and pulls an “angry face” or a “happy face” – and she can cry on demand and recite and act out The Cat In The Hat. I know her grandfather is looking down and smiling on her, and I am smiling back at him. As for my own Oscar, we shall see…

Charles Finch is the proprietor of Finch’s Quarterly Review

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guidance of executive producer Martin Scorsese, I produced a series of documentaries called The Blues. It was the most important thing I learned about documentary making. It was directed by Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, Mike Figgis and others. The different segments were done with such personal style and such a high bar in terms of cinematic aspiration.

I believe that, when it comes to documentary, there shouldn’t be any rulebook except for your own aesthetic and instincts. There are some great people out there in the documentary world right now – people like James Marsh and Ari Folman, and Errol Morris, who, stylistically, is still so interesting. I thought that Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Freedmans was a particularly haunting film.

When I won my Oscar, it wasn’t my first time at the Academy Awards. I had previously been nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. That first time I walked down the red carpet feeling pretty self-important. I was ushered over by a photographer and I thought to myself, “Here we go, he wants a close up.” I was promptly told to get out of the way as Jennifer Aniston was behind me. I quickly learned my place in the pecking order! So when I returned to the Oscars a few years later for Taxi, my ego was in check. I was thrilled to win and that night we certainly lived it up.

Holding my statue in that town on that night is a bit like holding Gandalf ’s staff, although I did feel as though one could liken the statue to the ring and that if you hold on to it too tightly you could end up like Gollum.

After the awards I went to a big party on Sunset Boulevard. As I walked in they were playing Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones and there was Javier Bardem, belting it out, using his Oscar as a microphone. He did a pretty good imitation of Mick Jagger, I must say. The line “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name” with Oscar in hand had a special double meaning that night. I tried to wake up the next day and operate as usual. I had scheduled a really early flight the next day (my wife still thinks I’m insane for doing so but, of course, I was convinced I wasn’t going to win).

When I woke up to get my flight I wondered where I should put my Oscar statue. You don’t want to check it – so there I was on the Hertz bus, ridiculously early in the morning on the way out to the airport. I could see all these people looking at me thinking, “Is that an Oscar?” I don’t think an Oscar had taken a ride in a Hertz bus before! Now we keep my Oscar in the downstairs washroom. Slightly irreverent, we realise, but it means everyone can pick it up, look at themselves in the mirror with it and generally have their 45 seconds with it!

Alex Gibney is an award winning documentary film director and producer

spring 2010

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Mike Medavoy, the legendary studio chief, reflects on his long relationship with Oscar

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started my career, like many other people who started their careers in this business, in the mid-Sixties in the mailroom of Universal Studios. I spent 10 years as an agent and then, in 1974, I was senior vice-president of United Artists. There I was privileged to be part of a team that had significant success with the Academy. My first relationship with Oscar Night was when One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won for Best Picture in 1976. Winning the top five awards, it swept up that night and I’ll admit that this was a little bit of a surprise to everyone because the picture had been submitted to every studio and had been turned down by everybody.

My history with Cuckoo’s Nest is an interesting one. I had gone over to meet Kirk Douglas, to discuss representation with him. He was a real gentleman when he turned me down, at the time, saying he wasn’t going to sign with me because he didn’t think I would be an agent for very long. But while there, we discussed a play he had bought, entitled One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He then gave the script to his son, Michael, to produce, and he corralled Saul Zaentz to co-produce with him. It was after they had hired an ex-client, Hal Ashby, then got rid of him and hired Milos Forman that it came back to me. I worked hard to try and make sure that United Artists got the movie and, obviously, I had to get the blessing of my boss, Eric then Pleskow, to get the deal done. Without any of those people involved, it would never have got going.

It is always amusing and instructive to look back and see that a film that had such a shaky start would go on to clean up at the Oscars and is also viewed as a classic in American filmmaking. ` To us at UA, the win for Cuckoo was the first of three successive wins. Rocky won the following year and after that it was Annie Hall. All three films have a special meaning to me but I must say that first experience is like your first love – it is the one that you always remember, so I have a particular fondness for Cuckoo’s Nest for that reason and because all the people I worked with on that film are just great. Michael Douglas was terrific, Saul Zaentz was a wonderful and entrepreneurial producer – as I see it, Milos Forman was the heart of the film and went on to win another Acadamy Award with us for Amadeus.

Jack’s performance was spectacular, as were the rest of the cast’s – who will ever forget Nurse Ratched?

It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for everybody involved in it.

Rocky was also another monumental experience – the movie no one believed in. Two very good producers named Winkler and Chartoff and a writer/star combination that came out of nowhere.

Again, this was a film that nobody wanted to do.

Even my company was nervous about it. The cost to make the film was US$1.2m, which at the time was not a significant amount to invest in a film.

Boxing wasn’t necessarily popular, either – it wasn’t something that many people went to see. The first poster that we put out was of a boxer with his hand on a girl – we were obviously trying to sell it as a love story, which isn’t exactly what it is. The second poster was of Sylvester with his hands clasped up, jumping, on the steps in Philadelphia, which is a much more iconic reference for the film.

Then there was Annie Hall, and I don’t think

spring 2010

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anybody expected Annie Hall to win. Woody Allen wasn’t even at the award ceremony. I think he was playing his clarinet in New York at the time it was announced. I thought we almost got four in a row with Coming Home, but it lost out. In fact, we had a lot of nominations in those years – Apocalypse Now, Bound for Glory, Raging Bull and Network, to name a few.

It’s hard to define exactly what makes these films unique, and what made them winners. Obviously,

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all these years and not have things go wrong. In fact, I have learned more from my mistakes than I have from the things that I apparently got right. The truth of the matter is that making movies is a team sport; no one person deserves to get all the glory. Often, one, two or three people might get a lot of the credit but, really, there are always many more people who are responsible for the success of any film, giving their enthusiasm and creativity to the project. We work in a creative endeavour where one has to deal with imagination, passions, common sense and, maybe, a sense of gambling. here are lots of aspects about the movie business that I really enjoy. I am currently chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures, and we have a wonderful, big film coming out, entitled Shutter Island. It’s Scorsese at his best and Leonardo DiCaprio, who I believe is a great actor, in one of his greatest roles. Ben Kingsley is also fantastic, as are Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo and the rest of the cast.

I left Orion Pictures in 1990, having been involved with Silence of the Lambs and Dances With Wolves. In 1990 I went to the Oscars with my new employer, Sony, and we had just made a wonderful movie called Bugsy that had won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. So there I was with Sony people, who were hopeful for another win for Bugsy, and on the night it was the Orion picture Silence of the Lambs that won. I quickly realised that I had conflicting loyalties, but not sympathies, and it was nice to be thanked by Jonathan Demme for having given him the script to direct, but I was happy it all had a nice ending, making two good films.

I am getting to that time in my life where I am being recognised for what I have done – that happens when you get older and are lucky enough to have done some good things.

Mike Medavoy is a film producer and executive. He is the current chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures.

I am getting to that time in my life where I am being recognised for what I have done – that happens when you get older and are lucky enough to have done some good things

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the subject matter has something to do with it, as well as how well they were made and the passion that brought them to the screen. But it’s always a mixture of factors. I believe that the key ingredients for a good film are a great script, a really good director who loves the script and the subject matter (because he will be spending a year on it), the appropriate cast who have a passion for the project, and the right budget so that it fits the subject. Whilst there is risk in every movie, a realistic budget will take out as much of the risk as possible. I don’t think anybody in their right mind goes out and says, “Hey, I want to make an Academy Award-winning kind of movie.” The ideal is to think that you have made a good movie and a movie that has also made a lot of money. I think, hopefully, that those two things go hand in hand – the ultimate nightmare is to do a bad film that makes no money.

Of course, over the years I have made many mistakes too.

No one can be in this business

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Peter Morgan is an English screenwriter

Y Tu Mama Tambien, 2001

From Mailroom to Movie Mogul

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Prizewinning wisdom

Filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and multi-award winner Alfonso Cuarón recalls the award ceremonies of his childhood

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rowing up as a child in Mexico City, I attended a kindergarten at which they used to award well-behaved children – or those with the best drawings – by sticking little gold stars on their foreheads (there were silver stars for second best and a blue or red star for third place). I was never a big fan of this “reversed scarlet letter”, probably because I seldom received any, but also because I came to the conclusion that the awarded drawings were not necessarily my favourites.

I also soon learned that sticking a star on my forehead didn’t make my drawing any prettier, nor was my drawing any uglier if I failed to earn one. What I did learn was that the stars made my mother happy, so I kept an old star and, once in a while, I recycled it, sticking it with the aid of some spit on my forehead.

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FQR Oscar Style Special actors that Doug was often referred to as the “showbiz” tailor.

It is Oscar time again and we have been honoured to have many an Oscar received with the recipient sporting a Hayward dinner jacket. It always gave us a thrill. Every aspect of the film industry was represented: the producers Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley for The Deer Hunter; directors, Sydney Pollack among them; the composer John Barry; and an impressive list of actors, including Sir Michael Caine and Sir Anthony Hopkins, to name but two. I wonder if Her Majesty realises that so many on bended knee were in Hayward morning coats receiving OBEs and knighthoods?

We witnessed so many important markers in our customers’ lives when a new suit was called for – weddings and special occasions – that the relationship became very close and often involved the entire family.

I have also witnessed worlds collide on this shabby sofa that perhaps never would have without the common ground of the a World tailor: Champion racing driver Michael Caine in The Italian Job, 1969 chatting away to a paediatric surgeon; a tycoon of industry sharing football talk with Doug’s close chum, the photographer Terry O’Neill Douglas H ayward, M ount Street (resulting in the commission of several portraits). Of course, the liberal sprinkling of gorgeous women who regularly popped in were extremely welcome and it was fascinating to see the change Audie Charles has great memories of working in body language of the guys when they did appear. with the late Douglas Hayward, who was It has been an era of rakish, funny, charming, mischievous and incredibly perfectly cut out to be the tailor to the stars and stylish men of a particular calibre, and the most fun one could have and still whose eponymous company is measuring up for call it work. I am convinced there is a Harry’s Bar in heaven with Mark Birley, Doug and a heavenly host of characters – at the best table, of course, on the the future best cloud, muttering disapproval about the renaissance and change in hen on a seemingly endless motorway journey, after many hours Mount Street. It is reassuring to see the fresh energy and wit that has come of that long, straight road, the exit signs to the slip road suddenly to the street in the past two years and absolutely wonderful that Hayward is appear. When this road is leading you somewhere completely new part of “the new”. It is one of the few remaining companies in the street that it can bring a sense of excitement and trepidation. For the past 25 years I are part of Mayfair’s heritage. I raise a glass and toast a welcome to the next had been Doug’s co-driver. He passed away in 2008, but such is the strength era and hope it proves as fascinating as the last. of his reputation and the affection for the little shop on Mount Street that Audie Charles is the jane of all trades at Douglas Hayward on the company lives on under invigorating new ownership and we are looking Mount Street, Mayfair forward to the future and pastures new.

Hayward’s has been a “salon” and a sanctuary to so many for 40 years that often the ordering of a suit or a fitting seemed secondary to the tea and sympathy, the outrageous gossip and accompanying giggles. One morning, it was quite a day for knights when Sir John Mills, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud all appeared, by chance, at the same time. They were all by now around 80, and were in town for yet another memorial service for a fellow thespian. Gielgud remarked that it was hardly worth going home, such was the frequency of these events. But even at their great ages, they sparred Robert Redford, Sir John Mills, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Sir like young bucks, anxious to know who was working on what with whom.

Michael Caine, John Cleese, Terence Stamp, Anthony Andrews, Nigel On his visits to London Tony Bennett would always fit in a lunch with Havers, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Tom Wilkinson, Clint Eastwood, Noël Doug and, when he opened the door to number 95, it became a ritual that Coward, Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Charlton Heston, we all burst into singing “I left my heart in San Francisco…” Generously, he Bob Hoskins, Tony Curtis, Tony Randall, Anthony Quinn, Richard always managed to feign amusement.

Dreyfuss, James Coburn, Warren Beatty, Charles Bronson, Lord Olivier, The well-worn sofa has been like a psychiatrist’s couch with many a trouble David Niven, Sir Rex Harrison, Lord Lloyd-Webber, Sir David Frost shared or a problem aired – often with Stinky Bert, Doug’s bald, one-eyed, bad-tempered Jack Russell-ish dog in attendance. In fact, with Doug living above, the shop became an extension of his flat and so the clean lines of Ciancimino’s original interior soon blended with the eclectic mix of whatever Sir Noël Coward, Fred Astaire , Ira Gershwin , Leo Robin , Robert took Doug’s fancy. His famous chestnut leather armchair is still in residence, Donat , Gary Cooper , Sir Ralph Richardson, Lord Olivier, Sir Carol though it still feels that it’s taking a liberty to sit in it. When Doug was still Reed, Douglas Fairbanks Sr** (**hosted very first Oscars ceremony), alive, on the rare occasion I did sit in the chair, he would pull me out by my Cary Grant, John Huston, Trevor Howard, Kirk Douglas, Otto ears with an “’Ere get outta there!”

Preminger, James Mason, Katharine Hepburn, Kevin Kline, Bernardo Maybe it would be easier to think about who has not passed through this Bertolucci, Sir Alec Guinness, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Liam door than who has – an extraordinary mix of characters with their quirks Neeson, Randy Quaid, Tom Hanks and eccentricities. One kept his supply of whisky with us and would appear around 11.30am to drink it with his New York Times crossword until it was time for lunch at Scott’s, and another chap would appear after lunch at Scott’s Dirk Bogarde, Katharine Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Elizabeth Taylor, for a post-prandial cigar and a kip on that same sofa.

Vivien Leigh, Humphrey Bogart, Rudolph Valentino, Bing Crosby, On reflection, we have had a remarkable generation of creative men who Clark Gable, Peter Sellers, Lord Olivier, Gregory Peck, Douglas have left an impressive body of work behind and who leave their mark on our Fairbanks Jr, Peter Ustinov, Paul Newman lives today. Artists, designers of interiors, gardens and yachts, restaurateurs, hairdressers, kings – and some “queens” – sportsmen and, of course, so many

Suits You, Sirs John, Alec, Michael etc

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Getting their measure...

Awards tailoring at a glance Hayward

Anderson and Sheppard

Huntsman

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Nutter Dresses Joker in Haste The cut-above tailor Terry Haste recalls dressing Jack Nicholson for his role as the Joker in Tim Burton’s Eighties Batman movie

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ommy Nutter was commissioned to make the garments that Bob Ringwood, the costume designer working on Batman (1989), had designed. At the time I was working for Tommy and we made suits for lots of actors and pop stars – Mick Jagger, Elton John, Ringo Starr, the list goes on… For Batman we were mainly asked to make garments for Jack Nicholson’s character. We made about 54 suits for him for around five changes of costume. A lot of them got ruined. For the first scene, when he falls into the acid and becomes the Joker, we made four outfits. The scene is very short but I think they all got ruined nonetheless. We also made a couple of outfits for a few other characters but, as the costume budget was fairly small, we worked mainly on Jack’s. We made a suit for Robert Wuhl, who plays the reporter, as well as for Commissioner Gordon and a couple of others. There is a scene in which they’re all sitting in pinstripe suits around a table with bright white waistcoats and they all get burnt; we made those too. I think the budget was supposed to be £35 an outfit, and I can’t remember the deal they struck with Tommy. At the time we charged about £900 a suit. We would have done them a deal but, nevertheless, you can imagine this must have blown their budget to pieces, even though they hired a lot of suits and bought some stuff second hand.

Initially, they gave us all the measurements so we could start making Jack some suits. Our first meeting happened later when we flew out to LA to meet Jack at his home for his first fitting. He is really friendly and funny. He welcomed us into the house and told us to feel at home. He was incredibly easy to work with – something I’ve generally found with the very big actors. It’s the smaller ones who are tricky and feel the need to show you how important they are. Jack was getting excited and really into the part whilst trying on the clothes. The hairdresser and, I think, the makeup artist were there too. Jack had just finished shooting The Witches of Eastwick and showed me some of the props and garments he’d worn in that film.

The problem when you are working on a film is the lack of time. We basically had just that one fitting with Jack. Then when he was in London he came into the shop to try everything again. He’d obviously put on a bit of weight and said, “I haven’t put any weight on, have I?” It was only a tiny bit, though – I don’t think we had to alter the suits at all.

Everything was especially made for the film. Jack’s buttons, for example, were the four card suits: diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades. They were actually cuff links that Bob Ringwood sourced and had made into buttons. The cloth for the buttons was especially made in a small mill in Scotland.

Then, of course, during the shoot the garments would be brought in if alterations were needed. I think the suit worn in the final scene where Jack is holding Kim Basinger’s arm over the ledge and then his hand falls off while she is still holding it needed some changes. We had to fit a longer sleeve in for that scene.

Terry Haste is a legendary British tailor and former head cutter at Huntsman

spring 2010

Actors’ Studio

Kevin McKidd in Percy Jackson & The Olympians

Kevin McKidd on playing Poseidon to Sean Bean’s Zeus; on moving from Scotland via Rome to LA; and looking for haggis in America

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moved to Los Angeles two years ago. I had finished the BBC series Rome and, for the first time ever, I had a whole lot of offers in my lap to play leads in TV shows. My wife and I sat down and talked at length about whether we should take the opportunity. Our kids were young and at a certain stage in their schooling, and we recognised it would be quite a big transition for them. But together the family decided, for better or worse, that we would move to LA and see where it would lead us.

It has been an interesting two years, let’s put it that way. The kids, who are seven and nine, are more settled now. One of our favourite LA haunts is 25 Degrees, the burger bar in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. It’s right at the front of the hotel as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, which

isn’t far from where I live, and it’s open 24/7. It has red leather seats and red velour wallpaper and serves what I believe are easily the best burgers in town. They do nice cocktails too and the sweetpotato fries are amazing. Life in LA is very different to life back home and we are still just taking each step at a time. Touch wood, things seem to be going well. I feel very blessed with the opportunities I have had – to work with the incredible cast in Grey’s Anatomy and to be a key player in a feature film like Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

Percy Jackson is a kid’s movie, and I play Poseidon, God of the Sea. It’s based on Rick Riordan’s novels about a teenage boy who finds out that he is a demigod, the son of Poseidon, and that the Greek Gods still exist in modern-day

America. When I learned classics at school my teacher was so arid and stodgy. I believe this film is actually creating a really entertaining, digestible outlet that kids can take in and learn from. My nine-year-old son has now read five big hardback books. A lot of the acting work I have done in recent years has been quite dark and intense, so to be involved in a children’s fantasy film was a nice change. It’s great that I am in something that my kids can actually watch!

I was approached by the director Chris Columbus, who asked me to be involved in Percy.

It was one of those things that happen so rarely in this business – where a director sends you a personal letter, nicely typed out. Chris said he enjoyed my work in Rome and on HBO and asked whether I would consider taking on this role.

Game, Set and Ensemble to André American Vogue’s editor-at-large André Leon Talley says there was no acting up – just his usual dressing up – during the filming of the documentary The September Issue

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t was easy for me to play me in the documentary The September Issue.

R J Cutler, the director, allowed true cinéma vérité. He was granted total access by Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, who allowed him to follow the entire staff around for months. All he wanted to do while we were filming was to make me feel comfortable with his cameras and boom mics. Every time he wanted to shoot a scene, he would say, “I want it to be a part of your life.” In other words, we didn’t have a script.

There was a moment when we had to bond. I took RJ and his crew to lunch at L’Avenue, my favourite restaurant in Paris. It was during the haute couture season, and we had just come from a great Chanel couture collection by Karl Lagerfeld. It was the first week in Paris, and RJ’s crew had been eating out of the back of the vans all week, due to the busy schedule. Over that lunch, we all became friends.

The tennis scene didn’t happen until months later, in Los Angeles. I was there on a business trip and RJ wanted to film me doing what I do, without being at a desk or writing e-mails. I had taken up tennis earlier in the year in Paris. Back in Los Angeles, I played at public open courts – nothing fancy like the Beverly Hills courts – with my tall Austrian coach, Alexander. RJ made an appointment to meet me, and I crawled out of the car and onto the court in the sun and tried to hit the ball. Everything I wore that day was what I would normally wear when playing tennis. For me, it was more an exercise in getting dressed than getting efficient on the

spring 2010

courts. I loved all the extras: the Vuitton tennis-racquet cover, the gym bag, the Vuitton tennis towel, and knitted cap and, of course, my Piaget watch and the Vuitton water-bottle box. (As I like Marc Jacobs and virtually everything he has done with Louis Vuitton, I am a big client of that house.)

My approach to tennis practice is the same approach I take to every day: get up, get dressed – and make sure you are turned out as well as you possibly can be. o, there we were at the courts – and nothing… No directions were given by RJ’s cameraman. That is how we were all filmed for this extraordinary glimpse into the world of Vogue. We just carried on doing what we do. We were never told to stop and start over again.

Sometimes, when they felt there was a good line, they would say, “Would you repeat it?”

I really loved that tennis moment – I felt that it was one of my best scenes. The scene visiting Vera Wang, where I say something about the “famine of beauty” and how “my eyes are starving for beauty” at the fashion tents during New York Fashion Week is also a good scene. But there were, of course, many other scenes that were condemned to the cutting-room floor – so many! Don’t ask what they were. Well, I do think those Avenue lunch scenes were great, but they were cut.

The September Issue DVD will be released with outtakes. Stay tuned.

Andre Leon Talley is American Vogue’s editor-at-large

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When you get a letter like that as an actor you jump at it, especially when the letter is from someone as accomplished as Chris.

Chris really created the Harry Potter franchise, directing the first two films. He set the tone for that and he seems to be somewhat of a franchise builder and that is the hope for Percy Jackson. The entertainment industry is always a gamble every single step of the way so I don’t hold any stock by anything any more. But with something like this you get a sense that you are in safe hands. Chris knows what ingredients it takes to create something that people want to come back to. ost of my scenes are with Sean Bean, who plays Zeus. I had never worked with Sean and it was an interesting experience as, initially, he comes across as reserved. Our first scene was at the top of the Empire State Building and I had to walk up to him (we play brothers in the film) and say, “Zeus”, and he turns to me and says, “Poseidon.”

For some reason, on the very first take, these two lines seemed to tickle us and we just couldn’t get through them – there was just something so absurd about Sean Bean and me pretending to be Greek Gods, so it took us quite a while to get started. He is much more of a giggler than I would have imagined! Sean is from the North of England so it was quite amusing to have a Scotsman and a Northerner playing Greek Gods in an American blockbuster shooting in Vancouver.

When you get a bunch of British actors together there is a feeling that you could all be doing a play in some dodgy theatre above the pub. Everybody falls back to that same attitude. None of us works behind a desk for the very reason that we wanted to do something silly for a living. It’s always a laugh, and you are not allowed to take it too seriously.

There is a Scottish tradition called Burns Night (on January 25). The first year we arrived in LA we celebrated it, and it was fantastic. But we all drank far too much whisky, obviously. We didn’t celebrate it last year, so I decided to host a Burns party this year. The problem with Burns Night is that you have to be pretty organised as New Year is over and the last thing anyone is in the mood for is another night of indulgence. But this year I cracked out the guitar and there was singing and poetry. I even put on my kilt. In Scotland I come from a place called Elgin, which is real whisky country. At Christmas I went back there to visit my Mum and Dad and I was able to load my suitcase with enough haggis to keep all my guests happy. That is one downside of being in LA – it’s hard to find a good haggis!

Kevin McKidd is a Scottish actor who appears as Poseidon in Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

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FQR Photo Opportunity

Terry’s All Gold Despite recognition as a master of his art and mixing with the famous and the feted, celebrated photographer Terry O’Neill is that rare thing: a legend with absolutely no side.

Nick Foulkes talks to him about his career to date

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he past, as dear old LP Hartley has been telling us for quite some time now, is a foreign country and, as countries go, it was not terribly well served by airports. Not so long ago, when people said “London Airport” they didn’t mean some far-flung spot halfway up the M1 or out near Cambridge, they meant Heathrow.

And there wasn’t any confusion about terminals either – there was only one.

It probably wasn’t the most convenient of arrangements but, back in 1959, it suited the 21year-old man with camera. The snappily dressed youngster was a trainee in the technical photographic department of BOAC (while the past only had one airport, it had at least two national carriers – the other was BEA). He didn’t really want to be a photographer. In fact, he was a rather accomplished jazz drummer and he had taken any job that was going at BOAC in the hope that he

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would be promoted to the cabin staff on one of the transatlantic Stratocruisers and be able to travel to New York regularly enough to play in the clubs there. But here he was, stuck at London Airport, taking photographs as part of his training. And then he saw it, or, rather, him: an immaculately dressed older man fast asleep surrounded by a crowd of African chieftains.

As soon as he had taken the picture, a newspaper reporter asked if he could buy the image: the sleeping man was Rab Butler, Home Secretary in the Harold Macmillan administration. And the jazz drummer with the camera? Terry O’Neill, whose life had just changed.

Terry O’Neill is a legend, which is a term we bandy about rather a lot at Finch Towers, but Terry has done it all – or, at least, most of it. He has married at least one beautiful Hollywood star, having photographed her the morning after she won an Academy Award (you can see the former Mrs O’Neill by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel with her Oscar on page 7). He has hung out with The Rat Pack. He photographed Bardot when she was beautiful, The Beatles before they had released Please Please Me, and snapped The Stones in moody colour when they were probably still too young to shave. He more or less invented the Swinging Sixties. All right, all right, he was one of the inventors of the Swinging Sixties, along with Burton, Taylor, Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy, Mary

Quant and the miniskirt… all of them captured by his 35mm Canon.

But the most endearing thing about Terry is the lightness with which he wears it all: a trim, compact septuagenarian with all his own hair, it is still possible to see the young jazz drummer manqué who just happened to find himself with his camera in the right place at the right time – time after time.

The England in which he had grown up, the England of Macmillan and Rab Butler, was a place where, as he puts it, “All the well-brought up people were in charge of everything, and all the Cockneys and Liverpudlians, we were the workers. And then, suddenly, we got a chance to have a say in a creative way, and that was the great thing about the Sixties.” owever, while he enjoyed the times, he could not bring himself to take them seriously. “You always thought, ‘This is all very nice, but it is all going to come to an end’.

My mum was desperate for me to work in a bank.”

And who knows, had Terry gone to work in a bank he might have been able to avert the global financial crisis. But instead he has bequeathed us some truly memorable images that could only have been taken by him at that time.

His work recalls an era before agents and marketing people determined who had access to whom and for how long. Do you think that he would be allowed to lurk around behind the arras in Dean Martin’s dressing room today? Not a

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chance… but what a great picture of a man and the tools of his trade lined up before him, an image of obsessive neatness that peels back the on-screen image of benign inebriation to reveal the obsessive professional. And the candid image of Sinatra – at the time the world’s biggest star – strolling down the boardwalk… Today there would be a cavalcade of SUVs with blacked-out windows and a phalanx of minders.

It would be impossible to have a career like Terry’s today. There are, of course, famous photographers, but today’s star photographers are all about elaborate effect and the controlled image.

By contrast, Terry’s pictures were spontaneous, ad lib, which, by the way, was also the name of the club where he used to hang out with The Rolling Stones, and where late at night, after a few drinks, they would wonder about what they would all be doing when they reached 40....

Nick Foulkes Terry O’Neill: New & Unseen is at the Chris Beetles Gallery, 8/10 Ryder Street, St James’s, London SW1 (020-7839 7551; www.chrisbeetles.com) until March 10.

Clockwise from top: Rolling Stones, 1963; Bowie and Taylor, 1975; Sinatra in Miami, 1968; Orson Welles, 1967; Paramount Pictures, 1987; Harold Robins, 1975; Dean Martin, 1971; Robert Redford and Richard Helmes, 1975; The Beatles, 1963 Opposite: Raquel Welch, 1971

spring 2010

FQR Travel

The great-great-grandson of PM William Gladstone recognises how lucky he is to have inherited four large houses with land.

However, it hasn’t exactly been the easiest legacy, says Charlie Gladstone

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am a shopkeeper and an organic farmer, and I grow lots of trees. I also inherited a lot of land and, with it, four large houses. Inheriting four large houses might sound like a good thing – and in many ways it is. But it hasn’t made my life simple…

First, there is Hawarden Castle. This was the Welsh seat of my great-great-grandfather, William Gladstone, four times Prime Minister and a man who dominated the 19th century like no other British politician.

Hawarden is a lovely house, built in 1752 and, most relevantly, in fantastic condition. We live there when we are in Wales, which we are every fortnight. On its doorstep we have a farm shop, a pub and a warehouse for our mailorder business, Pedlars. And several other ventures, too. I grew up there, and it still feels like a home.

Then there is Fasque, in Kincardineshire, an hour from Dundee and Aberdeen. Fasque is a vast Georgian summer palace, built by the Prime Minister’s father to satisfy – in the grandest possible style – his desire to become a Scottish laird. It was here that the Prime Minister, who loved rough shooting, blew off his finger. Fasque is huge, ridiculously so. And it is also ridiculously ugly and very badly built.

When I inherited it, it had lain unloved and unoccupied for nearly a century, and it was in very bad nick indeed.

Three generations of Gladstones lived at Fasque, including one of my favourite ancestors, Robertson, who grew up there before moving to Liverpool. I love Robertson. He was a superb businessman; but, most importantly, he was a huge man who travelled to and from his office in Liverpool in a carriage drawn by eight large sheep and who, in an attempt to look smaller than he was, ordered his milliner to make him a series of tiny top hats. Robertson had eight sons, all enormously tall and famously eccentric, and none of whom married.

Anyway, back to Fasque. Owning it was a nightmare, draining me of money that I didn’t really have and proving endlessly demoralising.

And so I sold it. It was snapped up by some developers who tried to sell it on to some football agents from Manchester (you couldn’t make this up). Despite having no previous experience of this sort of project, they wanted to invest €40m in the place and turn it into a luxury country club for their friends. But then the crash came and the agents stayed in Manchester; and Fasque stands empty. And I am thrilled that it is no longer my responsibility.

The third of my large houses is Glen Dye Lodge in Kincardineshire,

40 minutes from Aberdeen. Despite being the least grand of the houses, particular care and attention, of course, and we found some of it is my favourite. My wife and I and our eldest son moved there from Europe’s best lime-wash specialists in Poland. The original walls used London – where I worked for Warners Music, signing new talent – horsehair to bind the lime wash, but our specialists opted for yak hair about 20 years ago. It is a beautiful place, built very early in the 19th which is, apparently, easier to come by and just as effective. Electricity century, and perched on the top of the steepest of banks slap bang had been introduced into the castle in the Forties, and updated once above the River Dye, overlooking some of the tallest trees in Britain. or twice since, so we rewired it, and The Great Hall now benefits from We have brought up our six children at Glen Dye and, although we light, music and gentle heat (it also has what is the most efficient fireplace we have ever encountered). spend as much time in London, France and Wales, it is our home.

The Georgian wing sleeps 13 and is decorated with Farrow & Ball’s We’ve invested a lot of energy in Glen Dye. When we arrived there, fresh from our small terraced house in Wandsworth, we had no idea best colours, all of the family portraits and much of the furniture I removed from Fasque (Christie’s quite what we had taken on. The sold the remainder, with house had no heating and no safe consummate skill and flair, in wiring. And when we tried to 2008) before the developers draw the curtains, they came apart moved in. And so the house has in our hands. Glen Dye was the Minister’s brother’s some lovely antique stuff, but it Prime also has plenty of new pieces too; shooting lodge. The family would classic Tolix stools from Burgundy, decamp there from Fasque each Armlite lamps, a sparkling new summer, complete with servants, kitchen and bathrooms, and some furniture and a carriage full of comfortable beds. It is grand, but vegetables. It has lots of bedrooms, a large kitchen and a vast drawing room; the perfect never- not stuffy; we designed the vast dining room table in The Great Hall to withstand a bout of late-night dancing. too-big/never-too-small house – a rare thing indeed.

We now have what must be one of Scotland’s loveliest holiday We knew it would make a perfect family home, and set to work installing heating, wiring and over a mile of sash cord for the windows. homes, complete with its very own eight-hectare lake teeming with Soon the house was habitable and we focused our attention on the trout. There’s also a 16th-century dovecote and a perfect 1955 lovely but dilapidated late-Victorian stable block behind the house. Airstream caravan in the garden. And – although early attempts have These stables now offer shelter to our six horses and an office for been frustrating – we are trying to recreate Robertson’s sheep-drawn around 25 of Pedlars’ core staff. We have what we think of as the best carriage for exclusive use of our guests. Watch this space.

Charlie Gladstone is a retailer, an organic farmer and landowner, who walk to work in the world.

The final of the four houses is Balbegno Castle, a fine L-plan fortified runs Balbegno Castle (www.balbegnocastle.co.uk) castle, built in 1561 with a handsome Georgian addition. Its finest feature is its Great Hall, with its unusual groined ceiling decorated with the coats of arms of the original Scottish peers. My family have never lived in Balbegno, preferring to rent it to the tenant farmers who occupy its farm. The same family had occupied the Georgian wing for MAKERS OF THE FINEST over a century, but the castle – listed as an Ancient Monument – S P O RT I N G G U N S & R I F L E S I N T H E W O R L D A N D S U P P L I E R S O F was not part of their lease and had S H O O T I N G A C C E S S O R I E S A N D C O U N T RY C L O T H I N G fallen into a state of complete disrepair. Indeed, a favourite pastime of the last farmer’s son was to send his friends into the castle to flush the resident pigeons from the broken windows of The Great Hall, while he stood on the lawn and shot at them with his father’s 12 bore.

In 2005 the farmer retired and applied – as is his right – to pass on the lease to his son. I spotted an opportunity and asked the newly married son if he would surrender the house in return for a shiny new, all-singing-alldancing house elsewhere on the farm. He accepted and we built a house a few hundred metres away.

Balbegno was ours again.

Balbegno will make a perfect house for one of our children one day, but that day is some way off.

And so we set about renovating it with a view to renting it as a holiday home, to be managed by our burgeoning business Pedlars (a lifestyle brand including five shops selling homewares, various catalogues and websites, a food shop, a Christmas-tree farm, an organic farm, café, pub and 3 3 B R U T O N S T R E E T, L O N D O N W 1 J 6 H H now… a castle for rent).

TEL: 020 7499 4411 e put a new roof on GUNROOM@HOLLANDANDHOLLAND.COM the castle, and it has new windows too.

W W W. H O L L A N D A N D H O L L A N D . C O M The pigeons have been relocated.

An Ancient Monument requires

he travelled to and from his office in a carriage drawn by eight large sheep

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The Great Hall, Balbegno Castle

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spring 2010

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Good Things Come To Those Who Wait FQR Travel

Count Rudi von Schönburg recalls his pre-Marbella Club days as a humble intern at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel

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ver since the Badrutt family started the world-famous skiing resort in the Engadine Alps, German and Austrian aristocrats have felt strongly attracted to this winter-sport paradise and particularly to the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel. My family has also spent many happy holidays at the hotel enjoying the excellent service and the distinguished clientele.

Once Europe had recovered from the wounds of World War II, Andrea Badrutt – the eldest son of Hans Badrutt, founder of the Palace Hotel – turned the Palace into the mecca of international winter-resort hotels. He was able to do this thanks, in no small part, to his professional skill mixed with an inborn style and sense of elegance. To me, the hotel was a real “Winter Palace” like one only expects to find in a glamorous Hollywood movie.

I also admired Andrea for his personal welcoming of every guest and his ability to allocate the perfect instantaneously accommodation to each customer. He checked every detail and knew how to combine a sporty daytime atmosphere with impeccable elegance in the evenings, when men would change into their dinner jackets and the ladies wore glamorous evening gowns. It was unthinkable that anyone would have dared to break this dress code! I perfectly remember Andrea after a hard day of work cheerfully standing on one side of his famous lobby dressed elegantly in black tie and greeting his cosmopolitan guests – many of them old friends.

All these impressions from my stays as a young guest were enriched during the days of my internship as a waiter at the hotel years later. At the time I had begun studying hotel management at the famous Lausanne Hotel School, and I desperately wanted to do the obligatory internship at the hotel I loved so much. It wasn’t easy to get employed at the Palace, however. Neither Andrea Badrutt nor the restaurant director could imagine how a former guest and personal friend of many of the VIP guests could suddenly work there as a waiter. All the other waiters thought I was totally

cuckoo when they saw me waiting on my friends instead of taking advantage of my connections and obtaining a better position. The situation became even more bizarre when my dearest cousin, Princess Antoinette zu Fürstenberg, a most attractive and rich girl, came to stay with her father at the Palace. Obviously, she wanted to see me and chat with me “off duty” and asked me to come to her room without realising that this was a totally unusual invitation. When I entered her room, she offered me a seat on the bed next to her.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and a waiter brought in drinks, which she had ordered without realising what an embarrassing situation this would be for me. The expression on my colleague’s face seeing me on the bed next to her was something I will never forget!

The expression on my colleague’s face seeing me on the bed next to her was something I will never forget!

Fortunately, I was soon upgraded to serve as a commis waiter in the famous Grill room, where three of the five tables I served were usually full of old friends and famous names. One night Stavros Niarchos was giving a dinner for the crème de la crème of St Moritz: the Livanos Group, Baron Thyssen, Theo Rossi, Prince Fürstenberg, Giovanni and Ernesto Stagni, Prince Constantin von Liechtenstein etc, etc. As well as the tycoons, Niarchos had assembled some of the most beautiful girls in fashion, dressed in the season’s glamorous empire-style evening gowns. The table was beautifully set, originally for 14 but, by the time dinner started, the host had asked to squeeze in six more guests. A nightmare for us waiters! On top of that we had to serve à la française, meaning that the waiter, instead of serving each guest directly à l’anglaise, has to present the silver tray

with his left hand to each guest around the table and let them serve themselves holding the right hand behind his back. A drama happened at the beginning of the dinner… We had to serve a large The beauti Ambassado ful Brazilian silver tray with “Charcuterie du Grison” decorated ress in Pari s artistically with little onions, olives and cherry tomatoes. When presenting a tray to one of the ladies, one of the olives started rolling towards her (particularly beautiful) décolleté. The waiter serving her tried to stop the “intruder”, following the olive unconsciously with his hand into her décolleté. Screams and complaints filled the room protesting against this unadmittable impertinence.

The poor waiter got punished but, in the eyes of his colleagues, he became a hero – Don Juan.

Some of the highly appreciated hotel guests were – and still are – the family of Prince Bismarck.

Prince Otto and Princess Ann-Mari, a very elegant Nordic beauty, spent every winter with ntado, Ducesa Infa their younger children Maximilian (from left) hal and Rudi (Pong), Gunilla and Leopold and their Frau Westp respective nurses at the Palace. While Princess Ann-Mari was skiing every morning, stopping at the Corviglia Club for lunch, the children were having lunch with his wife M every day at the beautiful main dining arie Louise of Pr ussia room of the Palace. I had been working there for the first few weeks of my internship and was required to serve the Bismarck children. ne day when the snowy weather made skiing impossible, Princess Ann-Mari came to lunch with her children, who had told her a lot about their “amusing waiter”. When I approached their table, Countess Gunilla screamed: “Mama, Mama, here he comes our beloved waiter – I am so happy that you will finally meet him!” Princess Bismarck looked at me very surprised and laughed: “But that is Rudi, our dear nephew, Count Schönburg. How come I didn’t know he works at the Palace?” This was the beginning of a long and excellent friendship, which became even closer when we convinced Prince Bismarck to build a summer residence in Marbella, just next to the Club.

Count Rudi von Schönburg is the legendary director of the Marbella Club

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Kate Lenahan’s Travel Confidential - Jumby Bay, renovated and renowned

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n invitation to escape the snow, strikes and general malaise of London in winter to review the newly transformed Jumby Bay in Antigua could not have been more gratefully accepted. I had never planned to revisit Antigua after a less than memorable visit a while back, when we stayed in a rather mediocre hotel that shared a long stretch of beach with other nondescript hotels and where I vaguely recall a lot of midday rain showers that failed to turn my pale skin bronze.

Jumby Bay, however, is a whole other story, much assisted by the fact that it’s a spectacular island

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two miles off the coast of Antigua – an eight-hour flight from London and four hours from New York. It reopened after a major facelift in December 2009. Interior designed by Miamibased IDC, the property has 40 of the prettiest British Colonialstyle guest rooms – 28 new and 12 updated suites. It is part of the Rosewood collection and very efficiently run by Andrew Hedley, formerly the GM of Carlisle Bay. It’s a 10-minute boat ride over to the elegant dock where the guest-relations team whisk you off to your beautifully airconditioned suite (or private villa, should you choose to take a property with its own pool and beach). The suites are enormous and extremely private, each one overlooking the Caribbean Sea and twinkling lights of Antigua across the bay. The four-poster beds, protected by mosquito nets at night, are officially the most comfortable beds I’ve ever collapsed into.

As the choice of dining is so amazing in the three dining areas scattered around the island, and as no cars are required on the island, I took to trying to lose some pounds by bicycling everywhere – scary at first, as I hadn’t balanced on two wheels since I was 12 – and stopping off to doze in one of the many hammocks scattered around the beach, or continuing down to the spectacular

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open-air Sense spa for incredible treatments carried out with background sounds provided by the crashing sea surf.

The rates start at an all-inclusive $1,500 plus tax, which is exceptional value but does not include spa treatments, though all water sports are included and – good news for peace and quiet – no motorised water sports are allowed. The private properties to rent are extremely secluded and one cannot squeeze any names of well-known guests out of the extremely discreet staff, which adds to the guaranteed security one has by staying on the private island. The service is exceptional, and I tested it frequently when, in a jet-lagged haze, I failed to master the simple art of working the Nespresso machine and the amazing plasma screen controls.

Comfort, luxury, sunshine and elegance are daily experiences here and the word “no” does not seem to exist for anything one requires. You never bump into your neighbours and, if they are here, you won’t know because there is so much space to move, swim and cycle around. Returning home via blizzard-prone New York. www.jumbybayresort.com Kate Lenahan is FQR’s travel editor

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FQR

A NEW DIMENSION OF STYLE spring 2010

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FQR Pro Bono Pinup

The Art of Bravery

The artist Sophie Montgomery, who suffers from a degenerative eye disease, faces up to the challenge of continuing to work creatively with her fading eyesight – and of fundraising to seek a cure

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t has surprised me how vividly I remember the first hint that all was not well with my eyesight. It happened 10 years ago when I was walking home at night. I tripped over a kerb and the road seemed to open up; it felt like one of those dreams where you keep falling and then wake with a jolt just before you hit the ground. In the following months there were incidents that, taken singly, could be put down to clumsiness or distraction. Like banging my head on cupboard doors or falling over toys. Although I’d grown up with a mother who was slowly losing her sight, I wasn’t making the link.

The moment of revelation was trying to get into a taxi and not being able to find the door handle.

This, understandably, irritated the driver, who wouldn’t buy my protestations that it was too dark to see the handle. It was this exchange that made it impossible to ignore the problem. The next day I went with a sense of dread to the optician for a field test. This involved pushing a button every time I saw a flash of light appearing on the screen.

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Again there was something of farce with the optician remarking good-naturedly whether he would have to wait until Christmas before I pressed the button. At this point he was unaware of the implications of my slowness to respond.

The problem was I hadn’t seen any lights appearing on the outer reaches of the screen.

When the computer printout, a map of my field of vision, rolled out, there was no doubt that something abnormal was going on. Strangely, I was the one who volunteered the diagnosis: I had retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The optician looked horrified and asked how I knew about this debilitating degenerative condition that starts with poor night vision, leading to a loss of peripheral vision and then to complete blindness. I told him my mother had it but, somehow, at 35 and with few symptoms, I thought I’d got away.

Ten years on my sight has deteriorated significantly. However, the initial feelings of panic, fear and self-pity have diminished. I try and take a more philosophical approach – similar to the acceptance of the inevitability of death. Although there are days when I don’t want to project. One of the worst aspects of this degeneration is not knowing how quickly my sight is going. When am I going to lose my independence? When will reading become a problem? When will I not be able to see my children? When will I not be able to appreciate art? When will I have to stop painting?

The irony is that my whole life is visually orientated. I’m a painter and art dealer. Both

disciplines are integral to my wellbeing. I need these creative and commercial outlets and, without them, I wither. I’m learning the piano, and I spend time listening to classical music in a vain hope that music might be a substitute.

I grew up surrounded by paintings. My father – a talented draughtsman and enthusiastic art collector – encouraged visits to galleries and museums at which I was exposed to a huge range of visual material. This lifelong immersion has left me wondering what life will be like without shape or colour. Some of the definition has gone already but, despite this, my own painting has matured and, so far, my reduced vision hasn’t had a negative impact. The general consensus is positive – and the paintings sell. I’m reassured that many of the great masters had poor sight, and I intend to keep going until the lights go out. There is now a sense of urgency, not knowing how long I have left is a big motivator. Curiously, I need more time to achieve the same results and the conditions have to be just so – too much light and I can’t differentiate shapes and colours, too little results in a repaint after examining the canvas outside the studio.

One of the strategies for pushing away selfabsorbed misery has been to get involved in the research-based charity that specialises in this condition, RP Fighting Blindness.

As a trustee of the charity, I try to make a difference with fundraising initiatives, organising classical-music evenings at home and exhibitions of contemporary art. The incessant pressure for donations from other worthy causes means every pound has to be fought for. Ever more imaginative ways of telling people about the charity’s needs must be found. I have also made my home available for presentations and meetings on the purely research side. The two key words for our programme seem to be vigilance and momentum.

We need to constantly identify the best work coming out of medical and academic institutions, wherever they happen to be. With research moving ahead, the good will and support of MPs has to feature in our thinking and to this end we are forever making contact with members interested in health matters.

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There are 25,000 families affected by RP in this country. Our family carries the dominant gene and one my greatest motivations is that my own children – three girls and a boy – stand a 50/50 chance of developing RP. I’ve decided not to have the children tested, preferring to live in blissful ignorance until there’s a treatment. That doesn’t stop my heart from sinking when the children tell me of falling down steps in the playground or missing the ball when it’s been thrown high or wide. aving said all this, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Long term, there is hope. Whilst there are no treatments available, the research has resulted in a startling step forward, with solid success, much beyond mere “proof of principle”. The completion of phase-one clinical trials in gene therapy this year resulted in the restoration of some vision in one of the patients being treated. RP Fighting Blindness, set up in the mid-Seventies, is responsible for most of the funding. Grants are allocated to the most promising research applications and the bulk of funding comes from voluntary donations. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking when the charity has to decline an application because of limited resources.

In the great scheme of things, the families affected by RP do not constitute a vast number.

Individually appalling to cope with, we cannot hope for huge sums of public money to be diverted into national research initiatives on our behalf. The medical profession has always struggled to get these so-called “orphan diseases” recognised at government level. But in the case of RP one of the most exciting developments is that the gene-replacement techniques that have been behind this success should be able to transfer to a whole spectrum of other conditions.

I comfort myself with the knowledge of these advances. I do believe that, even if my sight can’t be saved, then my children’s will be. This thought keeps me going.

Sophie Montgomery is an artist and a trustee of RP Fighting Blindness (www.brps.org.uk)

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FQR Step into Spring

He’s a sole man In praise of the humble sock, Jeffrey Podolsky sniffs out the best pairs and lays down the law for putting one’s best feet forward

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ost men groan when they see the perennial gift of socks under the Christmas tree. I relish it. You see, socks are the most under-appreciated item in a man’s wardrobe. But they are a true statement and can actually change the way people look at you from head to toe.

Nothing beats great hosiery. There are, of course, the practical benefits: they provide comfort (if your feet aren’t happy, you’re not happy) by preventing chafing inside your shoe; and as the foot’s 250,000 or so sweat glands produce about a quarter of a pint of perspiration a day, decent socks are essential so that you – and others around you – don’t notice. Thom Browne, the current men’s fashion arbiter, favours brogues worn sans socks – and I imagine his clients must be prone to blisters and bunions, and – dare I say it – scaly and smelly feet.

So what’s the best material for your feet?

The Ancient Greeks wore socks of matted animal hair for warmth, but today some pick cotton, while others swear by wool. In the end, it boils down to personal preference. I favour the feel of a fine Sea Island cotton over a good merino wool, both of which, since the invention of nylon in 1939, now come in synthetic blends. Nylon, of course, is to blame for many a decline in Western civilisation, including the disappearance of a garter to hold up one’s socks properly (my father

favoured garters, but then he was that rare American who also preferred a pair of long socks with his Bermuda shorts, a practice I briefly adopted, much to the abhorrence of my girlfriend – then again, I have better legs than her).

And when it comes to cable-knit or, better yet, cashmere, they’re great for a winter weekend (preferably with colour-capped toes and heels which many a woman will appreciate when you undress). And nothing equals the look and feel of a silk black stocking with a dinner jacket.

But socks are also hidden aesthetic weapons, on an equal footing with great shoes. Assuming you take some care in ensuring that the colour

of your socks matches the colour of your suit or trousers – as I’m sure all readers of FQR take great care to do – they not only complement your wardrobe but can also add a dash of whimsy and a twist to your appearance. Hence the importance of thinly striped socks (preferably by Paul Smith, who far and away boasts the most imaginative and colourful stripes around), which should pick up on some note or tone in your outfit, not unlike the subtle reference of a nice pochette. Try Argyle, which has had a reverse-chic renaissance of late, but they’re not for everyone.

Boldly coloured socks – nicely paired with, say, a charcoal grey pinstripe suit and some black cap-toed lace-ups – speak of confidence

Slipper snapper Fiona Dreesmann explains how – and why – the house shoe appears to have taken over her life

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hen writing of gentlemen’s slippers I am, of course, referring to the Albert slipper or a variety thereof – not the fluffy version that has had the misfortune to enter our lives. It is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as follows: “slipper: a light shoe of some soft material for wearing about the house”. The slipper has been around for centuries; the word is first recorded in English in 1478, derived from the verb “to slip”, the notion being that the footwear is slipped on to the foot. And it’s not to be confused with “slippering”, that bedroom punishment enjoyed by the mischievous.

This wonderful piece of sartorial elegance has given the most classic of gentlemen a chance to show their slightly daring side. As most sophisticated men will tell you that a gentleman should only wear black or brown

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and a touch of extravagance in your “sole”.

Nothing beats a flash of a striking pair of Turnbull & Asser burgundy or deep lavender socks when one is crossing one’s legs.

As for white socks… well, they’re called athletic socks for a reason – and are to be worn with sneakers on the tennis court and nowhere else unless you want to look like a tourist at Disney World. And, please, with the exception of casual socks on the weekend, don’t even consider anything less than calfhigh (Englishmen, take note) – it’s best to stick to showing some skin only when in the bedroom.

The American WASP has always been something of a connoisseur when it comes to showing off a little ankle. Thanks, in large part, to their ancestral love of sailing (Jews like myself are not known for being nautically inclined and are far too clumsy to spend time tying knots other than in their shoelaces). The late William F Buckley, the quintessential American prepster (with a brain, to boot) carried off rumpled khakis and Top-Siders with unequalled panache and then donned a single-breasted blazer and sockless penny loafers for cocktails.

Nowadays, a pair of suede Belgian loafers or slippers from Stubbs & Wootton (the mustvisit Manhattan emporium for those in the know) are a stylish alternative to the traditional Top-Sider, which has made a vigorous fashion comeback (see John Varvatos’s scruffy, laceless variety). Chic Euros – eg, Italians – long ago adopted the American nautical tradition with their Loro Piana deck shoes worn on a magnificent Riva or Camper & Nicholsons boat (NB: when going sockless a proper pedicure is de rigueur). But you don’t necessarily have to be summering in Palm Beach or Capri. There’s a certain best-dressed Englishman who’s made an admirable fashion statement by wearing the eternal boat shoe with a shirt and jacket around town. I wonder who?

Jeffrey Podolsky is a freelance writer

The World Memories, beauty, romance, harmony…

Lord Palumbo’s bespoke needlepoint slippers bring him the ultimate pleasures

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everal years ago, the British Museum held a fascinating, beautifully presented small exhibition of 20th-century drawings, using material from its own collection, or so I seem to recall. The drawings of my old friend Jim Dine stood comparison with the very finest in the show, and endorsed what I had always thought, namely that he is a supremely gifted graphic artist of the first order.

Like these drawings, the making of a pair of needlework slippers is also no mean achievement – but the surprise factor in the gifting of bespoke items is difficult to maintain, particularly when the fortunate recipient is required, well in advance, to pay a visit to the shoemaker for the purpose of taking a careful template of his feet.

The gaff, as they say, is blown as a consequence.

Surprise apart, there are, however, two other problems. The first, which I rather like, is the fact that anything in life that is truly worthwhile takes time to complete. In this age of instant gratification and hustle and bustle, this is a refreshing change, and only serves to endorse the 18th-century habit of sending one’s cabinets to China for lacquering/painting, a process that could take seven years to complete, counting the sea journeys to and from China. Even longer was the dynastic tendency to plant oak trees for the benefit of generations to come, which could take 10 times as long to bear fruit, as it were, particularly if there were casualties along the way. But all this waiting was part of the sport, the pleasure, and the philosophy of those times, which I, for one, applaud. The time spent in the making of a pair of gentleman’s slippers, by comparison, is positively picayune – three or four months waiting at most, which is hardly waiting at all, even for those with a restless spirit.

The second difficulty relates to the very different techniques employed by painters and experts in the art of needlepoint. The palette of a painter can be extraordinarily complicated and difficult and sometimes virtually impossible to translate into needlepoint – and there is nothing to be done about it. A painter cannot be expected to think like the expert in needlepoint, particularly in areas involving chiaroscuro.

Despite all this, it is astonishing how much can be achieved by experts in needlepoint, who are, of course, artists in their own right;

The Soft Shoe S

shoes, these wonderfully comfortable slippers allow one’s forbidden adventurous side to be expressed. The question is: should they be velvet, linen or embroidered? The answer is: any of these and more.

The slipper was always traditionally worn in one’s own home with a silk dressing gown or smoking jacket and never worn outside – think Prince Albert, Sir Noël Coward, Sir Winston Churchill. But, no longer bound to the constraints of the drawing room, today the slipper has left home! Brad Pitt was seen wearing his rather safe “BP” slippers at a premiere of Inglourious Basterds in San Sebastian following in the footsteps of the composer Hans Zimmer, who wore a pair on the red carpet at the Golden Globes a few years ago.

Feeling rather bored with the constraints of the very conservative black velvet slipper with gold monogram, I

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decided to sniff out who was wearing what. The passion has turned into an obsession and the uncontrollable urge to write a book on the subject. In this quest I have unravelled an eclectic collection of secret slipper wearers: Jools Holland with his piano keys, Barry Humphries with his flowers, and Rocco Forte with his acid rainbow and beaded “RF”, to name just a few. The classic slipper has evolved and in this world of conforming to the norm one of a kind is the way

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FQR Step into Spring

at His Feet and the results can be simply spectacular. Every stitch of my pair of slippers was lovingly needlepointed by my wife, Hayat. She and Jim Dine decided that the subject matter should avoid monogramming, bunches of grapes, basking or racing hounds, the flight of pheasants, or another of the thousand and one interests of the individual wearer.

Instead, Jim chose Night and Day, the title of a mesmerisingly romantic song with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, written for and performed by the incomparable Fred Astaire. Cole Porter himself is said to have been influenced by the melody of the muezzin’s call to prayer that he had heard whilst travelling in Morocco. He then wrote the lyrics lying on a beach in Newport, Rhode Island. What a man!

And who remembers the song I Got the Sun in the Mornin’ (and the Moon at Night) from the musical Annie Get Your Gun? I was privileged to see a London production of it no less than 16 times (often from the gods), since I was smitten by the actress Dolores Gray, with whom I came face to face in the South of France, several years later – when the torch that I had been carrying for her all that time was extinguished for good!

The principal images of my slippers are those of a burning sun representing day, and a crescent moon with stars, representing night.

As much to the point for a man of my – shall we say – mature years, was the image of the passage of time from the energetic, effervescent, flowering of youth (the sun), to the onset of middle, and finally old age (the moon), when the tempo of life slows, and the pastel colours of childhood turn to the more sombre tones associated with God’s waiting room. Nothing looks more absurd than an old man wearing the trappings and apparel of youth, searching vainly for the unattainable elixir of life. From another perspective, the sun and the moon are objects of coruscating beauty and power that hold and capture the imagination, and both have been worshipped for the qualities that they bring to the life of the world since the beginning of time.

The point of all this is that the choice of image chosen by Jim and Hayat was perfect from my point of view, since it can be interpreted in any number of ways, and any number of variations on a theme, according to the mood of the hour or the moment. And with two such talents working together in harmony, how could I possibly fail to be utterly beguiled by the result?

Lord Palumbo is a Former Chairman The Arts Council of Great Britain, Chairman of The Serpentine Gallery and winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture.

huffle

forward. There are no boundaries. The pairs that aren’t pairs are fun, each foot having a different design. I rather like “Old” and “Git” from New & Lingwood, “Screw” and “U” (an image of the metal variety, rather than the five-letter word) from Stubbs & Wootton in New York, and “Night” and “Day” embroidered for her husband by one of the talented ladies at my sewing circle.

I started tapestry at a very young age under the guidance of my mother, who was convinced I was far too impulsive and would never finish anything. Quite a few years later, in between having triplets and looking after my patient husband and long-suffering pug, I have managed to make eight pairs of embroidered slippers. Unleashing my creativity, I’ve moved on from the classic initials to more opulent seashells and lobsters –sparsely beaded for that bit of extra sparkle – all under the watchful eye of the ladies of Tapisserie, the needlework and tapestry shop in

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For a Few Inches More

In the first of an occaional series, Ruth Moschner reflects on how different life might be with just four more inches…

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ecently, I went on a shopping trip to London – as I always do, twice a year, with my friend Betty. We’ve known each other since we were six years old. Of course, we haven’t been doing this since we were six, but we started it when we were allowed to fly alone, and we’ve never stopped.

Now I am a little bit older, presenting shows on German televison, writing books and collecting shoes. Shoes are my passion so, naturally, I always buy shoes when I’m in London. This time I got a wonderful purple leather pair with four-inch heels. What can I say? It was a revelation! When I put on my brand-new “super trouper” shoes and looked in the mirror I saw what I’ve been trying to ignore all the years before… (OK, I am a woman, and women are not very good at ignoring their imperfections, even if they are perfect, but to be realistic: my legs are really too short.) When I stood in front of the mirror in these new shoes, it was the first day in my life that I liked my legs. Suddenly, my figure was well formed. Then, my brain began to work – which was the second surprise, as we all know that good-looking people (even it is only because of their shoes) never have working brains – and I thought that many problems in the world might dissolve if there were four inches more.

For example, in a football match, when Rooney kicks the ball; if the goal were four inches wider on the left? Or on the right, depending on where Rooney is at this moment. Or, if you are in the city looking for a parking space, and everywhere there are only those tiny little spaces that are always four inches too small. Or if you are out with a man whom y ou really adore, and you invite him home and offer him a drink and then – no, I’m not talking dirty about other things that could be the wrong size – his drink is already empty before you’ve kissed him.With four inches more in the glass, there could have been a kiss!

Katie Price? She might have been much happier if she’d had four inches less under her blouse, because then Peter André might not have fallen in love with her so easily and they wouldn’t be in such a mess with each other right now. And I don’t even want to think about if there were four more inches between David and Victoria…

Ruth Moschner is a German daytime television presenter

Chelsea, whose hand-painted slipper designs are unrivalled.

Why has the slipper taken over my life? I have amassed a collection of which most shops would be proud, and it never seems to stop… Only this morning my latest samples arrived – in gold leather with turquoise coral – and, as this goes to print, a child’s pair in navy velvet with initials are in production. When they have been perfected, these will hopefully be produced to sell in a children’s shoe shop in the autumn of this year.

But back to the book, which will have a brief history of this majestic footwear and its heritage and about 60 photographs of slippers and their owners ranging from royalty to rebel – feel free to apply if you fit the description! So that’s one Christmas 2010 idea already solved.

Fiona Dreesmann is the author of The Gentleman’s Slipper, to be published in the autumn

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Ruth Moschner, photo by Manfred Baumann

What’s on Finch’s Feet Charles Finch reveals his slipper collection (sadly, no glass ones)

Shipton & Heneage black patent leather Loro Piana black cashmere George Cleverley crocodile-skin slippers Leopard slippers Black velvet slippers from Belgian Shoes, NY

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FQR Princess Diaries

Princess and the Pucci FQR’s über-stylish Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis tells why she always prefers to be in the shades and how she struggles to live up to the demands of Lent

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he worst thing about European winters is the lack of light. Even medical research backs the theory that this lack can seriously affect one’s mood. For me the matter is a lot more dramatic, however. Sartorially, the absence of sunlight has a trail of devastating consequences. After all, a pair of beautiful sunglasses can make or break an entire look. Even if I’m just wearing my gym gear, a good pair of shades immediately lends an air of old-school glamour and sophistication (well, at least I’m convinced they do). Of course, sunglasses are also one of contemporary life’s last shields behind which I’m safe. They give me the illusion of privacy and separation in a city that Hoovers up any corner of personal space.

As far back as I can remember I have been enamoured of glasses. Back then, in the good old Eighties, my mother worried about exposing our fragile little pupils to the ravenous effects of UV radiation. Hence she decked us out with a pair of mini Vuarnets each. Prancing along the Côte d’Azur in legendary French mountaineering attire made me feel like Reinhold Messner after summiting Mount Everest. It was then that I made a mental note: sunglasses are mood altering! My love affair continued to flourish and the functional was replaced by the downright superfluous. A huge pair of mirrored golden Chanels, covering my entire face was the way forward. Back then my nights turned into days and my eyewear served primarily as a curtain from the brutal honesty of the real world.

So where does that leave me today? Well, aside from a rather vast collection of valuable jewels and plastic junk, I am still very much in love. As soon as the first rays of sunlight brighten London’s malnourished winter streets I pull out my dashing amour.

Recently I have gone back to my roots and retro. A current favourite is Oliver Goldsmith, the celebrated supplier to European film stars. His great-granddaughter now creates a whole new range based on many of the archive classics.

For Christmas my mother surprised me with a huge pair of original Puccis from the Sixties. Admittedly, their size and trademark psychedelic pattern evoke loony bin more than Swinging Sixties glamour – but so what?!

In the end, sunglasses are like any other mask: you can choose to hide behind them. You can play coquettishly in them or safely gather your lost marbles in them. Now what other single accessory can keep up with that?

Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis is FQR’s features editor

Don’t give up on Lent

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or most people, Lent is not much more than an antiquated practice vaguely remembered from one’s childhood days. For me, a good Catholic girl, Lent has always been as much a part of my life as Christmas and Easter. The idea behind it is quite simple: the faithful are called to join Jesus’s 40-day fast in preparation for his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Of course, we are not expected to fast with him for 40 days. Rather, we are asked to give up one thing very dear to us. For most of my life this has been sugar. In the weeks leading up to Lent, my siblings and I would stuff our faces with chocolates, candy bars, cakes and biscuits until we went green in the face. As we looked into the gloomy future I clutched at the only straw I could see for miles: Sundays. Sunday is resurrection day and, therefore, a feast. In Lent’s sandy Sahara, Sundays make for a welcoming oasis. Yes, it is a bit of a copout, I agree, but I didn’t make the rules. In case you didn’t know, the best thing about Catholicism is its number of loopholes. On paper it’s a very strict religion, certainly, but there are countless back doors that let you off the hook.

The only days we truly ever fasted were Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. By fasting, I mean satisfying our hunger with just one meal. This practice never struck me as particularly hard and each year I find myself quite motivated by the idea.

The day before “the big starve”, various family members make promising announcements: “I won’t eat anything tomorrow,” my brother might say. “We will only have one simple meal,” my mother will respond. Then the next day I am quite likely to find at least one of them in the kitchen happily nibbling away. The others can be found gorging on our one “simple meal”, ie, a huge Parmigiana di Melanzane that could feed an entire army. See what I mean by Catholic loopholes?

This year my plan is to give up smoking. Ever since my trip to Argentina I have been in constant cigarette relapse. I have found it impossible to stay off tobacco for more than a few weeks. At the time it made perfect sense to light up that very first cigarette after a feast of Asado on a breezy night in Buenos Aires. I hadn’t smoked in over four years; what could possibly be wrong with having just one cigarette? Fast-forward a year and here I am still happily puffing away on my Marlboro reds. I could have given up smoking a few weeks ago on New Year’s Eve but, come on, that’s beyond naff.

New Year’s resolutions? No, to me this gruesome, self-inflicted torment is right up Lent’s alley.

So is there a benefit to Lent aside from liberating my poor lungs from a bit of tar, you might wonder? Yes! Any new-age guru, therapist, nutritionist or healer will agree that abstaining from certain vices is not only healthy, it is also liberating. Chopping off the dependence, even for a mere few weeks, creates a bit of space in our hustling and bustling lives. Who knows what can grow in this newfound corner: creativity, serenity – or, maybe, just a new vice?

God’s man in Africa

HE Count Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni, Ambassador of the Order of Malta to the Republic of Kenya, explains how catching the bug for Africa as a young teenager led to his current philanthropic ventures

M

y love affair with Kenya began in 1975 as a prepubescent 13-year-old. Tucked up in bed in Chelsea, I was summoned by my mother, who was dining nearby, to say that she was sitting next to a man she thought I ought to meet. Immediately. I duly dressed and presented myself at said dinner to be greeted by a crazy-looking man with wild grey hair and fire in his eyes. Lorenzo Ricciardi. Lorenzo was living my dream; he’d worked as a journalist and white hunter in Kenya and now lived in Kilifi, a beach paradise. I hung on his every word. He invited me to spend a month with him over Christmas. I spent the next few weeks pleading with my mother to agree. The plan was that I’d help him on his Arab dhow off the Kenyan coast. My favourite programme was Cowboy in Africa, so I thought this a splendid idea. Hence three months later I found myself travelling alone from London to

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Mombasa armed with a scuba tank, camera bag, rucksack and Lorenzo’s telephone number.

After a hiccup in Nairobi, where I missed the connecting flight and spent the night in the ‘69er Hotel’ (quite an eye-opener for a 13-year-old!), I arrived in Mombasa. To my amazement, Lorenzo was not the only person with an Arab dhow – there must have been 250. I therefore spent the best part of a day searching for the correct one.

The next two weeks were blissful – we took the dhow to Kilifi where I met Lorenzo’s wife, Mirella (the famous photographer), and his two teenage daughters, the eldest of whom was blonde and beautiful and seemed to have mislaid any clothing she might have owned and paraded around the house naked. Soon after this I was adopted as gofer to a team of Italians who were making an underwater documentary and we sailed the dhow down the coast from Somalia to Zanzibar.

I was in heaven and, as anyone who has ever visited will recognise, Africa got well and truly under my skin. I returned on a regular basis for the next 20 years, being fortunate enough to travel to all parts of this wonderful country.

Fast forward to 2002, when my social conscience was niggling me. My life was comfortable: I was successful in business and in a very happy marriage with the arrival of my first child imminent. However, I was looking for a new challenge. Without seeming corny, I wanted to give something back. I began to look for a niche that was challenging and rewarding and where I

felt I could make a worthwhile contribution.

My family had been associated with the Order of Malta for centuries. Due to the nature of the Order, it encompasses many areas and its reach is broad; from Sovereign State to NGO, the UN in New York to the slums of Nairobi. I felt somewhere in there must be an opportunity for me, and so began my devotion to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

My first port of call, after being made a Knight, was to visit the Grand Chancellor in the headquarters in Rome. I explained I was living in South Africa and my work took me to Kenya and Sudan. Our discussions led to diplomatic relations in Africa and the surprising lack of relations with Kenya. Soon after, I began the process of negotiating a bilateral agreement between the Order and Kenya. Finally, in 2007, we closed the agreement and, soon after, I was invited by Rome to become the first Ambassador for the Order of Malta to Kenya. On 9 July 2008 I presented my credentials to the President of Kenya.

What I did not realise at the time was that the real challenge had only just begun! Now, put all images of sumptuous ambassadorial residences out of your mind – there was no infrastructure whatsoever, and a fast-track course in patience, diplomacy and negotiating began. The reality had set in. Now what? It was a question of starting from scratch but, due to the generosity of friends in Kenya, we are now beginning to establish ourselves slowly but surely. The ‘Embassy’ is a desk

22

in a friend’s office, and the ‘Ambassadorial Residence’ is a small guest cottage on a plot belonging to some old friends. However, none of that side of things is really important. The mission of the Order of Malta has changed little over the past 950-plus years, and we remain true to the inspiring principles, summarised in the motto ‘Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum’: ‘Defence of the Faith and assistance to the poor and the suffering’. These principles become a reality through our work of humanitarian assistance and medical and emergency relief, operations that go on worldwide 24/7.

The Order of Malta has been present in Kenya since 2001, treating TB and HIV patients in the Nairobi slums, with a catchment area of 1m people. My role is to support this initiative and help with the funding and diplomatic support of these efforts. I’m also anxious to identify other areas in which to make a long-term commitment, our focus being primarily healthcare, children and education.

It was only since I began in this role that I have experienced what it is to be a beggar. Historically, all Embassies of the Order have been funded entirely by the Ambassador himself, but, unfortunately, my pockets are not quite deep enough to realise my full ambition for the projects.

I have many anxious moments sweating over where the next penny will come from; but I have never been disappointed and the generosity of family, friends and acquaintances never ceases to amaze me.

Count Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni is an Ambassador of the Order of Malta in Kenya

spring 2010

FQR Liberal at Large

Sometimes, all it takes to get something to change course and move in the right direction is the power of one – just one voice that’s brave enough to speak up, says Matthew Modine

F

ree-thinking individuals, people who stand alone against a sea of troubles, women and men who show courage in the face of insurmountable odds - this is the stuff of great drama. These are the kind of roles that writers, directors and actors love because they find juicy tofu – er, meat – to sink their capped and wellpolished teeth into. These are the roles that spectators love to see because these are the types of characters audiences aspire to be like and through whom they live vicariously.

One thing this class of firebrand character tends not to be is conservative. How could they be?

They’re rabble-rousers. Mavericks. Rebels. A guy like Voltaire, who gets thrown out of countries because he chooses to thumb his nose at power.

These self-reliant types stand alone on the bare stage of life, naked - so to speak - with their avantgarde, new-fangled opinions for all the world to hear, see and judge. Sometimes it’s an embarrassing display but at other times we glory in their originality and take pride in their courage.

Naturally, these rabble-rousers become more accepting of alternative ways of life and lifestyles – it’s hard to look down on someone when you’ve stood naked in front of them.

It’s difficult to find a lead in a great play, film or novel where the protagonist is conservative. The stick-in-the-mud, buttoned-down, middle-of theroad, unadventurous, conventional, reactionary traditionalist is generally the butt of a joke and a character whom one has to get around or overcome.

Audiences love to cheer for guys such as Sidney Poitier’s character in 1967’s In The Heat of the Night – a lone black man in a small Southern town filled with prejudice and a racist, Sheriff Gillespie, played by Rod Steiger. If you’ve ever heard Mr Poitier’s response to being condescendingly referred to as “Boy!” you will never forget his defiant “They call me Mis-ter Tibbs.” Please note: it was Mr Steiger who was nominated and won the Academy Award for his portrayal of a conservative, ignorant, white-trash police officer.

At that moment in American history - during the heated Civil Rights movement - many actors might have considered playing the role of a bigot dangerous to a career. But Mr Steiger’s character is not a one-dimensional caricature. It is through the intelligent, progressive black man from the North that the Southern sheriff sees or, rather, discovers his own racism and is transformed. When Mr Steiger received his Academy Award, he pointedly thanked Mr Poitier for “…his friendship, which

spring 2010

gave me the knowledge and understanding of prejudice in order to enhance my performance.

Thank you. And we shall overcome!” It’s poignant to note that Dr Martin Luther King Jr would be murdered a year later in the Southern city of Memphis, Tennessee, by the bigoted James Earl Ray. Spartacus is another film that demonstrates the power of one. The title character, portrayed by Kirk Douglas, is a Thracian slave forced to become a gladiator. Sickened by the inhumanity and brutality he sees and is exposed to, Spartacus leads a revolt against his Roman oppressors. Sadly, his fight was short-lived, 73BC to 71BC. Crassus defeated Spartacus and then crucified him - and all 6,000 of his followers - along the road from Rome to Capua. One of the legendary scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s film is when the Romans are trying to identify which of the gladiator slaves is Spartacus. The Romans offer leniency to them all if only one will stand up and identify Spartacus. A grim-faced Mr Douglas realises he must sacrifice himself for the many. He begins to stand, knowing this means his death and, as he does, Antoninus, played by Tony Curtis, leaps to his feet and shouts, “I’m Spartacus!” At that moment, one by one, the field fills with escaped gladiators who rise up and announce to all that they too are “Spartacus!” It is this self-sacrifice to which humanity aspires. This show of camaraderie brings tears to Spartacus’ and the viewers’ eyes.

Progressives have a history of fighting for what they believe in. They are the heroes of our collective, sometimes fictional, history. They are the radical, don’t-do-things-the-way-they’ve-beendone, forge-a-new-path, disregard-for-tradition kind of gals and guys who have collectively pushed civilisation, society and culture forward and away from our mostly oppressive past.

With thinly disguised updates, Hollywood has been recreating Greek epics since movie making began. We have been fed a steady diet of strong, outcast, mis-understood protagonists: Al Pacino in Serpico; any James Stewart film; Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. And it’s not just film. From the Themusic of of The Rolling Stones to the glorious anthems of U2 is come the a rebellious soundtracks for nonconformists the misunderstood and self-righteous.

In fact, almost all Mostof the best rock’n’roll music is an absolute battle cry against the status quo. and the demons that all mankind is confronted with.

Czech poet, and future president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel’s counter-culture revolution was inspired by the music of Frank Zappa, and Lou Reed’s band, The Velvet Underground. Some believe that it was Radio Free Europe’s broadcast of rock’n’roll that was instrumental in bringing the Berlin Wall down.

Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Goin’ On is a soundtrack for the confusion and enlightenment of the Sixties.

Perhaps audiences love the “cowboy” character because as civilisation pushed its way West and into the unknown, it needed inspirational stories about individuals with strong personalities, problem-solvers with an attitude and an independent approach to life. These types of individuals became our heroes because they see

how far we can go to become free from the shackles of irrelevant or outdated traditions. These rough-hewn characters showed us what was right about doing right and why it is wrong to do wrong. We admire a character such as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird because it is through his lens of life that we see why racism is not just inhumane, but unsuitable and inappropriate for human development.

It’s not unusual for actors to become changed by the noble-minded roles they play. After playing Charly in the film based on the book Flowers for Algernon, Cliff Robertson discovered producer David Begelman was forging his name on cheques. Mr Robertson was begged by friends not to make an issue of Begelman’s crime. He chose not to listen, and brought the case to court.

Robertson won, but then struggled to find work for more than a decade.

Many believed this was punishment for whistleblowing in an industry known for unusual bookkeeping. Begelman’s punishment was a short spat of community service. In the film Charly learns that he has been the stooge for his coworkers, delivering stolen bread and returning the money to them. Charly, like Robertson, was unwilling to let this thievery go and made it known. Charly’s co-workers, like Begelman, aren’t really punished. Charly and Robertson both did what they thought was right and are punished for it. Mr Robertson may have already possessed this noble trait, but was it enhanced by his experience and portrayal in his Academy Award-winning role? As an actor, I venture to say, most definitely yes. It’s interesting to note that in 1995, Begelman shot himself and Robertson continues to work to this day.

While filming Spartacus, Mr Douglas was exasperated by the hypocrisy of the heads of studios and chose to take a defiant stance and flout

Mr Douglas demanded that screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted writer of Spartacus, be placed in the credits

23

Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Republican Senator from the state of Wisconsin, and his edict of not employing people on his infamous “blacklist”. Mr Douglas, at the height of his influence in Hollywood, called a meeting with the heads of all the major studios, talent agencies and trade papers.

He told the assembled that he was happy they had come to be witness to a historic event, “Today is the day we end the blacklist.”

Mr Douglas stated that screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted writer of Spartacus, must be placed in the credits. At that time, no blacklisted writer was allowed to have their scripts produced or to show their faces at studios. Many of the blacklisted writers used an alias while the heads of studios looked the other way. Mr Trumbo refused to answer questions submitted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and as a result spent a year in jail. While incarcerated, Trumbo wrote about 30 scripts using different names and won Oscars under these assumed names.

After Mr Douglas said, “Today is the day we end the blacklist”, half the people he’d gathered got up to leave. He asked them to sit down. He then instructed the studio heads to take out ads congratulating Trumbo on a terrific screenplay.

A few of the assembled said they wouldn’t, and Douglas said, “Yes, you will. Because I’m going home and I’m not coming back to work until you do.” The film was a very expensive production, and his choice to go home, shutting production down, was going to cost a considerable amount. After a few weeks of this forced shutdown, the producers acquiesced. The blacklist was finally broken.

It’s interesting to note that Senator McCarthy died at the age of 48 of acute hepatitis exacerbated by alcoholism. Today, Mr Douglas is 93 and writes a blog.

There are times when actors who play these laudable roles attempt to mimic the traits of their scripted characters. Sometimes they discover it is much more difficult to be a hero when there is no scriptwriter to create carefully structured scenarios, dialogue and prudent speeches. But this is a trait of being a rebellious maverick. Saying what’s on your mind. Self-expression. Getting outside of the box we are all too often forced to try and fit into.

Matthew Modine is FQR’s Liberal-at-Large

www.finchsquarterly.com

FQR

Emma Hamilton discusses her role in TV hit The Tudors, a weird audition experience – and her ability with a broad sword – with Felicity Harrison photo: Fetherstonhaugh YOU ARE AN AUSTRALIAN ACTRESS LIVING AND WORKING IN LONDON. WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT HOME? My family. I have been here for six years but I still miss them. I am very close to them.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT LIVING IN LONDON? I love the theatre in London and the sense of artistic community here. And my friends, of course.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR THREE YEARS AT RADA? Intense. They were really good times and really

spring 2010

challenging times. I learned so much and I met amazing people, many of whom are now good friends.

THEY

CAN MAKE YOU DO PRETTY CRAZY STUFF

AT DRAMA SCHOOL .

DO YOU HAVE ANY AMUSING ANECDOTES ?

We had to do an enchanted forest exercise, which was pretty strange. It was a Laban study exploring movement, although I don’t really know what it was exploring as it was very weird!

ANY WEIRD AUDITION STORIES? I once had to pretend that I was being sick in the corner of a room. That wasn’t a highlight.

WHO

ARE SOME OF THE DIRECTORS YOU

ASPIRE TO WORK WITH ?

There are so many: Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Duncan Jones and Dearbhla Walsh would be at the top of the list, along with the Coen brothers and Jason Reitman. At some stage I really hope to work with Sir Peter Hall and Nicholas Hytner.

DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE FOR FILM AND TV OVER STAGE?

I love both screen and stage, and find them both challenging in different ways. When you live a part on stage you get to really explore it on a deep level, whereas on screen you need to deliver on the spot.

ANY HIDDEN TALENTS? I love weaponry. I am quite mean with a broad sword!

HAVE YOU EVER FALLEN FOR A CO-STAR? In my experience on-screen/on-stage romances are never as exciting in real life!

WHO WOULD BE YOUR PICK FOR AN ON-SCREEN ROMANCE, THEN?

I could only hope to work with someone who is professional, open and fun to be around – probably someone like Paul Rudd or Alec Baldwin.

SO THOSE ARE THE TRAITS YOU LOOK FOR IN A MAN?

YOU HAVE FINISHED SHOOTING SERIES FOUR OF THE TUDORS. TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE ROLE YOU GET TO PLAY. It’s following the life of Henry VIII and his wives. I play quite a unique character in that she is not one of the wives and she is not a lady-inwaiting, either. She is her own woman, she is quite powerful and she creates all sorts of mischief. It’s a great part to play and I get some pretty diverse acting experiences. I had to give birth in the last season! It was amazing. We did lots of dancing this year, and I love the costumes we get to wear.

25

Sure: humour, confidence, intelligence!

FAVOURITE INDULGENCE? Mmm, let’s see… A bath. I love baths. I don’t have one in my flat at the moment so when I get a chance to have a soak, it’s a real treat.

BEST ADVICE YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN OR A MOTTO YOU LIVE BY?

I’ve been given a lot of good advice, but I always think the two things to live by are to be true to yourself and to treat others as you would like to be treated. Hopefully, the two won’t conflict!

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This Quarter I’ll be The Oscars Killing mostly... of Racing Roebucks Harry Herbert FQR’s hunting and shooting correspondent Reza Rashidian can’t wait for the roebuck season to start in April

T

he conclusion of the bird-shooting season at the end of January gives sportsmen a chance to rest tired shoulders and tired guns. The more enthusiastic and peripatetic amongst them either travel to faraway lands in pursuit of adventure and melted barrels or console themselves with the humble yet spectacular wood pigeon at home until next season. For the big game hunter, however, this time of year heralds an excitement beyond comparison. For it means that the roebuck season is only two months away. These two months, as I shall explain below, are an extraordinarily important period for the serious roe stalker.

Any big game hunter worth his salt will agree that the roebuck is a very special quarry. He is a secretive, almost magical creature in that he has almost phantomlike qualities in his ability to appear and disappear within an instant. He is a selective browser and lives in enchanting surroundings. The roebuck is a game animal for the connoisseur.

The two months before the season opens is an extremely exciting time for the roe hunter. Roe deer shed their antlers and regrow them annually, so every new season means a new landscape of trophies. The end of bird shooting in earnest allows deer to settle down. This is simply due to the fact that they are not being chased around by dogs or beaters, nor disturbed by the sound of a line of guns at the many commercial and private shoots in Britain. This gives the roe stalker an opportunity to achieve two important tasks. The first is to stalk the roe doe as a means of population control, and the second is to scout for quality mature bucks to shoot when the season opens (in addition to the roebucks that are shot as a means of population control).

I like to hunt roebuck in early- to mid-May. My reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the antlers that have regrown have usually by this time shed all their velvet-like coating and a hard, well-coloured antler is now atop the buck’s head. Secondly, truly nothing compares to the feeling of walking through a field or a forest at the crack of dawn in Britain in mid-May. And how does one explain shooting a roebuck in the morning and then having fresh liver cooked with bacon over an open fire amongst bluebells in the woods? It sure beats breakfast at The Wolseley.

Another great time to hunt roe deer is during the rut. This occurs, depending on various factors, in mid- to late-July and peters out by mid- to lateAugust. During this period the roebuck can be coaxed towards the waiting hunter by means of a contraption that replicates the presence of a female.

I guess women are the death of us all, in any realm…

For those of you who shoot, hunt or fish, this article will resonate on some levels. For those of you who haven’t experienced the great outdoors in our natural capacity as hunter/gatherers, I have to declare unapologetically that, despite all deference in terms of food production to modern civil society, shopping at Waitrose just doesn’t do it for me. My freezer is ready for the venison I will harvest myself. And my soul can’t wait for the feeling I get when I run my fingers along the fresh dew at the break of dawn with the wind in my face.

Reza Rashidian is Finch’s Quarterly Review’s hunting and shooting correspondent

K

celebrates the Cartier Awards, the jewels in rd and Alice Bamfo nthony Bamford A r Si , er the crown of the rg be Arnaud Bam racing gongs, and impressive group of people who have all looks forward to the received in person the stunning gold trophy. These include HM The Queen, Sheikh Mohammed bin excitement of another season

T

he end of Europe’s flat-racing season is inevitably marked by a number of awards ceremonies but none can compare to Cartier’s annual dinner, which, held at Claridge’s last November before an invited audience of 200 guests, can be compared to the Oscars of racing.

The late Wing Commander Tim Vigors started these awards with Cartier 19 years ago and it was then that he invited me to compere the inaugural dinner. I must say that working with Cartier’s managing director, Arnaud Bamberger, and his team has been an absolute joy and it has been amazing to see how these prestigious awards have developed into what they are today.

There are eight equine awards – Two-Year-Old Colt, Two-Year-Old Filly, Three-Year-Old Colt, Three-Year-Old Filly, Sprinter, Stayer, Older Horse and Horse of the Year. There is also one award for a human, the Cartier/Daily Telegraph Award of Merit, which goes to the person who, in the opinion of Cartier’s 20-strong jury, has done most for European racing and/or breeding over the past year or, indeed, over a lifetime. The Award of Merit has been won by an immensely

Rashid Al Maktoum, HH The Aga Khan, Prince Khalid Abdulla, Lester Piggott and Frankie Dettori, to name but a few.

Last November’s awards were dominated by the exceptional racehorse Sea the Stars, who was named Cartier Horse of the Year and Cartier Champion Three-Year-Old Colt. He swept all before him as he won each of his six races in 2009 – all in Group 1 company. After clinching the Derby, Sea the Stars dropped down to 10 furlongs for his next three starts and emphasised his dominance against the best in Europe with triumphs in the Coral Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, the Juddmonte International at York and the Tattersalls Millions Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown. This remarkable racehorse then emulated his mother with a victory in Europe’s top middle-distance race, The Qatar Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe over 12 furlongs at Longchamp in October. No horse before him had added Arc success to wins in the 2,000 Guineas and Derby, and that victory stamped him as one of the alltime great champions – indeed, some have called him the greatest ever racehorse. Owner Christopher Tsui flew into London to accept the

Johnny Na JP Magnie gle, Arnaud Bamberge r r, Lucy Nagl e,

awards and it was extremely moving to hear him dedicate one award to his mother, Ling. He said, “This award belongs to somebody else, and I am collecting it on her behalf. This person is my mother Ling. I am so proud of what she has achieved. Against all odds, with only one mare she was able to make dreams come true.”

There were other worthy winners on the night.

Sir Anthony Bamford collected the Cartier ThreeYear-Old Filly Award on behalf of his wife Carole’s Sariska, and JP Magnier represented his parents, John and Sue, as Yeats won the Cartier Stayer Award for an unprecedented fourth time.

Now, of course, it is time to look forward to the next flat season and, as I announced St Nicholas Abbey as the Champion Two-Year-Old Colt, I couldn’t help thinking that just maybe we had seen another champion in the making.

Meanwhile, the jumps season – despite the appalling weather – has thrown up some truly memorable performances, most notably from Denman, who carried top weight to victory in The Hennessy Gold Cup, and Kauto Star, winner of the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day by 36 lengths and for the fourth time in a row. Needless to say, everyone in the racing world is licking their lips at the prospect of these two mighty warriors once again doing battle in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham on March 19.

Harry Herbert is FQR’s racing columnist

Da Finchey Ode VI Oh, whoa whoa whoa!

The ho ho ho, Of last Xmas The bitter snow, The frost, All that money lost In market compost!

I dream of a farm, Somewhere warm, With olive groves, And tomato bread with garlic cloves.

A hacienda tickled in sea breeze, The afternoon under shaded trees.

see how much we’ve changed

I walk through terraces of vines, Ancient earth tilled under clear blue skies By the fingers of sleeping Gods, And dancing Señoritas.

Instead.

Back in the real world to dread…

Fickle politicians And plebs.

Imperfections.

And infections.

A cough like an ape, and work too late.

George In gle-Finch Gentlemen!

Fight back Against the inevitable heart attack!

Less port and oyster, Slow gin and bitter.

At the five star and friendly Athenaeum, we’ve undergone a visual transformation...inside and out. Now our look is absolutely fabulous.

But, rest assured, we’re still just the same at heart.

Shoot and fish, Climb the Hindu Kish And ride across Spain; Ignore the rain.

Pass me my pick, George.

There are mountains to climb – Not for us to whine.

They smile and walk on towards the mist.

AD K

D

Finch & Co

www.finchsquarterly.com

116 PICCADILLY MAYFAIR LONDON W1J 7BJ T +44 (0)20 7499 3464 F +44(0)20 7493 1860 INFO@ATHENAEUMHOTEL .COM WWW.ATHENAEUMHOTEL .COM

–Unknown Sherpa

26

spring 2010

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FQR Food and Drink

He’s Still Gotta Lotta Bottle

A legend in the world of Formula One, Jean Alesi tells what drove him to become a winemaker

W

hile I was still racing in Formula One a few years back, if someone had told me that some day I’d be making my own wine, Clos de l’Hermitage, I would have laughed it off. Honestly, it came as a big surprise to me.

I was born in Avignon but, as a Formula One driver, I left my hometown to travel to the 201 Grand Prix in which I competed during my career.

My passion took me all over the world. I was still very young when embarking on a life on the road but I always knew that, eventually, I wanted to own a home in Avignon again. I asked my parents to keep a lookout for a suitable property for me to live in after my retirement. Finally, they found a

piece of land with a beautiful Provence-style house quality. Mature plants of 70 or 80 years make for on it. In front of the house was a vineyard. the best wine. We grow three different types of At first, the idea of owning a vineyard did not grape and we only make red wine. appeal to me at all. What I had in mind was a nice The only reason I began selling our wine was house where I could spend a few months a year, because our average production is around 12,000 seeing my friends in Avignon and enjoying the bottles. To drink that many bottles yourself you South of France. I certainly did not want suddenly need to be a professional party animal! I am not a to become a wine specialist by any winemaker. But when means; I could not taste I met the property’s the difference between a vintner and he began bordeaux from Graves or explaining how from another region, but I and beautiful can tell you whether a exceptional it was to wine is good or not. My be living and working vintner has a lot to live up with a vineyard, I to, as I tend to be very caved in. I would give picky when it comes to it a try, I thought. quality.

1. The company All I told him was The wine business has a 2. The glass (Riedel’s are fantastic). that I wanted to make short season. From now 3. The wine temperature (18°C). a good wine. That was until April there is not 4. The food most important to much happening as the me. When I first wine is busy ageing in bought the property tanks at the château. It’s all in 1994, the vineyard was not in use. The former about waiting. Then it gets busy and I try to be owner had no interest in making wine, and simply involved as much as I can. Checking on the sold off the grapes he harvested. I replaced what correct choice of barrels is essential for a good was needed for production and bought a few more turnout. plants. My journey into making vintage wine I wanted to give our wine a new look so I had a could now begin. Most plants on the vineyard friend redesign our labels. I wanted something fun already had an average age of 30-35 years. This is and a little crazy-looking and I think the big letters what makes for our top quality. When plants are and scribbly font work well. The wine business has too young production is very high but is lacking in become a real hobby of mine, and I take immense

Jean’s Top Four Essentials for Enjoying a Great Glass of Red

pride in the quality of our wine.

I was not that involved in the actual production at first. I live in Geneva, where my children go to school, so really we only spend the holidays in Avignon. Then one day my winemaker rang me up to tell me that Robert Parker himself had given us 95-100, placing us at the top end of his world wine list. This, of course, was fantastic for me and made me realise how right we had been restarting production in the first place.

Jean Alesi is a former Formula One racer turned winemaker

e e B f s U ’ t p e L BEEF FILET (serves 10-12) This recipe should be started anywhere between 24 hours and four days beforehand, since the beef needs to marinate. That being said, the timings are very accommodating and the recipe extremely simple. If you only have a day before your lunch or dinner, that will do – though the longer the marinating time, the deeper the flavour of the beef will be. The other advantage is that everything can be made well in advance – there is absolutely no last-minute prep.

A whole beef filet – approx 1.5kg-2kg , 2 tsp good salt, 1 thumb of fresh ginger (about 2in) – finely chopped, 4 large cloves garlic – peeled and finely chopped, 1 stick lemon grass – finely chopped about four lime leaves – crumbled, 2 large handfuls fresh coriander – chopped, 4 small dried or one medium (about 2in long x 0.5in thick) fresh red chilli pepper – finely chopped, 6 tablespoons honey, 200ml soya sauce, a splash of sake, mirin or white wine, 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil, freshly ground black pepper

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sk your butcher to trim the filet so the tough sinews are removed. Pat the beef dry and rub with the salt. Combine all the marinade ingredients in a longish shallow dish that is just big enough to hold the filet. Stir them well to dissolve the honey. Put the meat in the marinade and rub it into the filet vigorously. This is messy, I know, but it is effective. Cover the dish with clingfilm and leave for anywhere between 24 hours and four days in the fridge. Turn over the meat once or twice during this period to ensure it is marinating evenly.

Take the filet out of the fridge about an hour before We’ll all turn into you are ready to cook it. Heat either a barbecue or a Beefeaters if we follow large, heavy skillet. You don’t need oil. Ensure the Maya Even’s latest pan or barbecue is very hot. Take the meat with your hands, raise it out of the marinade and, still over mouthwatering the dish, sluice off the liquid and all the bits, – and simple – recipe again with your hands, so it is not dripping. nce, some years ago, I was taken to a You do not want the filet to sauté; you lunch in Scotland. Our hostess’s house sat want it to sear. on the far bank of a small burn over which we were neatly hauled in a suspended wicker basket like so much flapping laundry, and deposited at the front door

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Put the filet in the pan or on the barbecue and leave it to brown well on one side. This will probably take 2-3 minutes per side, depending on how hot your pan is. Repeat this on the three other sides, propping up the meat if needs be. You are trying to caramelise and darken the surface of the beef, which the soya and honey will do quite quickly. You do not want to cook the meat inside – much of the centre should remain quite raw but it should lose its coldness. If you feel the need, you can test it by inserting a knife and checking. The timing will also depend on the thickness and size of the filet.

Give a bit more time to a bigger cut, as well as to the thicker end of it (put the thick end on the hotter part of the pan and shift the thinner end away from it). If the meat is blackening too quickly, lower the heat slightly. and into the embrace of our When it is seared fairly evenly on all sides, remove the extraordinary chatelaine. filet from the pan and transfer to a board to rest and There are images, words, cool almost completely. This can take about an hour moments that can generate lifelong or two. Do not cover. resonances – and this was to be one of To serve the beef, find a large serving plate. Slice them. I stepped into a room that would the meat. We use a big mechanical rotary cutter, become an indelible memory – a place that but a very sharp knife will do. Slice it very finely I would long to recreate, a dream. To call it a – I try to keep each slice under an eighth of an kitchen would have been to miss the point, inch thick but never more than a quarter of an like calling Moby Dick a big fish or foie gras inch. It ought to be thicker than carpaccio, but not chopped liver. It was a room for eating, by much. Arrange in overlapping slices on the cooking, living, talking, sleeping, and serving plate. You can prepare the dish several hours possessed of a beauty and warmth that only ahead up to this point. Cover with some clingfilm if some genie of domestic heaven could you are not serving it straight away – and keep in a conjure. cool place – but try not to refrigerate it. Serve with Our hostess produced a lunch of a sharp green salad that has been lightly dressed with luscious but simple grandeur. There was a olive oil and balsamic vinegar or olive oil and beef filet. There was a Tarte Tatin. We ate lemon, but not with wine vinegar. Grind some and drank and sang and played black pepper on the meat and sprinkle a little good backgammon on exquisite needlepoint salt, if it needs it, but I find it usually doesn’t. An backgammon boards. We stayed till dark. I additional accompaniment could be boiled new could not recall anything of our journey potatoes, tossed with some warm butter and home – I was too drunk, too tired. But what chives. And if you care for it, you may give was distilled from that day was the glory of the your guests a truffle mayonnaise; I have setting and the food. provided the recipe on our website.

Reproducing a dish without a recipe is not Maya Even is FQR’s gastronome always straightforward – there is much guesswork and taste often resists replication. I think, by now, my own version has wandered far from the original. But it has become one of my favourite ways with beef.

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spring 2010

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FQR Art

Van’s The Man

If you think you know Van Gogh, think again, says Charles Saumarez Smith. As the latest exhibition at the Royal Academy shows, his work displays far more than a wild genius gone mad

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fter an autumn during which the Royal Academy was full of the works of Anish Kapoor, it is now the turn of Van Gogh.

The queues are lining up in the courtyard, fortified by mobile cups of coffee, for an opportunity to see and study Van Gogh as an artist with a much greater focus and concentration than, in my experience, has ever previously been possible – certainly in Britain, where we have not had a major Van Gogh exhibition for 40 years.

The exhibition is an astonishing opportunity to consider Van Gogh in depth. Some people were sceptical that it was a good idea to exhibit works of art alongside letters – in truth, it is a very old-fashioned idea, long ago dropped by the National Portrait Gallery, that the hand of the artist would somehow lend authenticity to the works. But it is what is special about this exhibition. Instead of being looked at just as an art exhibition, it has become an exploration of his state of mind through the writing of the letters to his brother, Theo, and, even for those who do not actually read the letters in situ (and I am confident that most of the visitors do not read Dutch), it lends a different aura of concentration to the way people are looking at the exhibition: they are not just looking at the works of art as aesthetic objects; they are studying them biographically as evidence of his long search for an appropriate way of expressing himself artistically. The letters are surprisingly intense documents in their own right, including sketches of what he was working on at the time and descriptions of what he has seen, as when he writes of the view out of his window in The Hague: So you must imagine me sitting at my attic window as early as 4 o’clock, studying the meadows and the carpenter’s yard with my perspective frame – as the fires are lit in the court to make coffee, and the first worker ambles into the yard. Over the red tiled

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roofs comes a flock of white pigeons flying between the black smoking chimneys. But behind this is an infinity of delicate, gentle green, miles and miles of flat meadow, and a grey sky as still, as peaceful as Corot and Van Goyen.

This is a very characteristic description: at once intensly and precisely observed, he also makes reference to the works of art he had been studying.

The second aspect of the exhibition that is special is that most people associate Van Gogh with the 14 months he spent in Arles right at the end of his life, when he went mad, was confined to a hospital in Saint-Rémy, and painted hot, intense, slightly wild views of the surrounding fields and mountains. But there are at least three rooms that show his apprenticeship, emerging as an artist, trying out different styles. This work is much more unfamiliar and fascinating in showing him as a visual autodidact. In fact, one of my favourite works in the exhibition is a very early drawing, which has been borrowed from the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa and consists of little tiny flicks of the pen over the paper describing a flat but atmospheric marshscape in southern Brabant. There is also a whole room full of drawings of heavy peasants working the fields in clogs – work that is obviously inspired by the work of Jean-François Millet. Even when Van Gogh moves to Paris in February 1886, his touch on the canvas is curiously uncertain, sometimes applied in dabs and sometimes in much lighter, almost pointillist strokes. It would be hard to guess that his view of the Terrace in the Luxembourg Gardens and the immediately adjacent Vase of Cornflowers, Daisies, Poppies and Carnations are not the work of a low-grade Impressionist.

So, it was only in the hot sunshine of Provence that Van Gogh emerges as an artist with his own strong and highly individual artistic personality, painting a portrait of Joseph Roulin, the local postman, and an intense self-portrait, looking, as he described the portrait in a letter to his sister, “quite unkempt and sad”. But then he adds a reflective comment about the difference between painting and photography: “And you see – this is what Impressionism has – to my mind – over the rest, it isn’t banal, and one seeks a deeper likeness than that of the photographer.”

Van Gogh emerges as an altogether much more interesting artist – and person – than the mad, untutored genius of cinematic legend. In fact, he appears as something of an artistic

chameleon, as opposed to always having his own authentic, and totally original, artistic style. He

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is more thoughtful than one would expect; highly literate; a student of English literature, including the works of Dickens; and capable of extremely beautiful descriptions of what he has seen and is doing. One walks round the exhibition as if in the company of Van Gogh himself, guided by how he was choosing to describe his state of mind.

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters runs until 18 April 2010 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (www.royalacademy.org.uk).

Charles Saumarez Smith is Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy

A gripping portrait of a national sporting obsession

‘A witty chronicler’ Andrew Roberts Out 13th May 2010 spring 2010

Image courtesy Robin Rhode 2009.

FQR Art Exclusive

Robin Rhode says that his motivation for creating art is not only to change his audience’s perspective on the world but further to bring both the audience and himself to a sensitive conclusion. For him, art is a tool influencing the way we experience life in an ever-changing world that all of us share. spring 2010

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he artist is usually visible in his images. He uses public walls as canvases, drawing, painting and interacting with them and thereby manipulating the way we perceive our surroundings. Some of his walls are very visible to the public, others can only be found in abandoned areas and people’s backyards. He is interested in sharing a wall’s anonymous history and narrative with his own narrative by creating an artwork with it. To him this process gives birth to an ephemeral relationship.

In the past few years, the South African artist has had solo shows

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at the Hayward Gallery in London and Haus der Kunst in Munich.

His next solo exhibition starts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 11. He lives and works in Berlin.

The above image, a still from a work entitled Necklace, 2009, has both an abstract and an otherworldy quality to it. Rhode elusively floats through his canvas which silently tells a story without the need to brashly manipulate or convince the viewer. Rather, it draws you in through its simplicity and honesty.

Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis

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