THE CHINA MAIL. SATURDAY.:- -JANUARY
1958.
BEGINNING AN UNUSUALAND INTRIGUING BIOGRAPHY. THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE GIRL FROM HUNGARY WHO SET ALL BRITAIN TALKING
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF
Eva Bartok
• Eva Bartok's marriages, her divorces, her friendships, and now her baby are discussed throughout the world. What kind of a person is this woman whose impact far exceeds that of more successful actressos? Are there sadness and loneliness behind those smouldering eyes?
HEN she is angry or anguished, Eva Bartok's face is the most
W fascinating I have ever seen - dark, brooding, turbulent and beau-
tiful. I remember watching it, and marvelling at it, one night a few years ago in Venice. She was sitting at a corner table of a restau- One of her wrists was bandaged rant overlooking the Grand Canal.
where she had cut herself a few days before, and she plucked at it with restless fingers. She was very pale. Opposite her, a young Italian was talking to her in a low, tense whisper, and what he was saying was ob- viously neither pretty nor pleasant.
1 saw the storm gather- ing behind Eva Bartok's pinched, unhappy face; and A suddenly some word, or
from gesture,
her com- panion unleashed the fury. Without raising her voice, she began to talk back. The lips curled, the eyes glow- as if the ed, and it was man opposite her was sud- denly staring into an open furnace.
ANGRY EYES
HE drew back, faltered, and then rose quickly to his feet and hurried out And the in- of the room. tense eyes of Eva Bartok followed him. like flame throwers.
I don't think I have seen powerfully anyone mere beautiful, and frightening too, than she was at that moment, just before she bit her lip with her while teeth and begun quietly to
cry.
LEONARD MOSLEY
"I wonder what she said to him," my companion whispered.
I said: "I don't know what she
was telling him with her lips, but I know what her eyes were saying: I hate men, I hate men. I hate men!"
Last week in Munich 1 dined with Eva. Across the
of
to
it again there are plenty things I would try not repeat,
"But I didn't hate any one. All I felt was lost, disillusioned. bewildered,
young and very very alone."
asked. "And insecure?" 1 She nodded.
THE CLUE?
THE Incident in Venice
supper table I asked her if I had been right that night in Venice.
"It she said. "No,"
came back to me as I wouldn't be true to say I started to write this story, than ever it hate
more men. That is one and quality I have I think I seemed to provide the clue of Eva have never resented anyone, to the mystery
Bartok. not for long anyway.
"And I think, too, I have always been prepared to take my share of the blame. I have made a lot of mis- takes in my life, and if I had the chance to go over
I am one of those who have never thought of her ns just another fly-by-night playgirl. In spite of those well-publicised brawls with Curd Jurgens, the encod-
never
when she was still a young girl, I wage that she has trusted a single man she has ever met. kissed, or married.
Those childhood days were an with unsettling time for her, not only lings in night clubs the Marquis of Milford because it was war-time, and Budapest was under Nozi Haven; those awful hats, dómination: At home. too, t and the desperate (and 80 there was upheaval, far unsuccessful) attempts Her parents' marriage was to reach the top in films by not going well, principally ba any old trick, Eva Bartok cause of a clash of tempera- Evn's mother was a has still been for me a sad inent.,
colld.
home-loving practical, rather than
a bad
woman who wanted a. house of more her own, preferred to slay by is at her own fireside, knitting and
sewing.
nover
girl...and fascinating than she this stage in her life.
Here she is, al 28, the mother of a chla
And why, at this moment, did she choose to have 117
Whose child?_
It was in a fim studio in the forest outside Munich that I saw her the other day.
They tip-toed me on to a set made up to look like a make- shift doctor's dispensary. Stred ing in front of the clinical botlies red bandage boxes was Eva dressed in the uniform of a Russian Army doctor.
During the lest three days I to Eva and talkedi have seen Bartok almost continuously in the Studio,. In cers en drives into the country, in her hotel mik dreck her honey sulle as we ate together, or she ("the doctors say I must put on weight") and I my whisky and
soda.
crd
We have talked of practically everything the baby, her father and mother, her marriages, ho friends and enemies, and her sort of yearning for philosophy of le.
Personally I find it hard to be
#ome
without
antipathetic towards a beautiful woman who includes humility in her mtke-up, and the curious thing about Eva Bartok is that completely she
ilke
most crrogance. And members of the eeting pro- fession, she hardly ever talks about her performances.
she has She has polse and
сте cham. No wonder man attracted to her,
And yet how does she teel
I know,
From the Ume that something happened to her in Budapest
towards them? I feel now that
She could not understand the: effervescent character of her Eva's
# father, hausbond, journalist on a Budapest nows
Eva, a recent picture taken at a London, promicro after the birth of her baby.
publicity
W** to come later, Bho wandered around Londoa jooking, ip quote someone who know, her at the time, "like lille mouse from Manchester, You would noyer have guessed: there was Magyar gress, capable of drawing blood, lurking behind: that unhappy face. And then a doctor had.
drink, with a fripad of his, a thostre publicity agent named. William Wordsworth. "By the way," the doctor said, "I have been talking to a girl who lives in, this, block of data, a Hupe Harian. She is a nice kid but terribly lonely. I wish you'd. look her up and lake her out now and then"
Wordsworth half promised and then forgot about it. A couple of weeks later the doc- ter called again. "You haven't called the Hungarian girl I told you about-Eva Bartok. If you don't I've told her to call you."
NO HAT
THAT night Wordsworth went
down to talk to her.
She was in a deflated mood and he asked her to go out and have a drink. ("That's right" Eva re called. "I was deflated. If I had been a drinking
Woman
should have taken to drink),"
She put on her cont. "Na hat?" asked Wordsworth,
the said, never wear a hat"
al հատ looked Wordsworth
thni speculatively, taking in
Korda gave her
paper, Was gay, witty, and rather reckless. He would hand his coat and his money to a beggar on a corner. He loved the Bohemian cafe life of war- ume Budapest.
WAITED.
the country and it was IER mother moved with Eva really a separation, though her father came down to visit them pt week-enda. And, then, though Eva, who adored and. admired him, waited and wall- ed he did hot como.
"Something must have hap- pened to him." she told me,
and ho changed."
It
seems, though Eva does not say this, that he fell in love with Someone else and rad head-on into a great, emotional crisis.
"REMEMBER," SAID EVA. "THAT
VERY HE WAB YOUNG. НЕ MARRIED WHEN HE WAS 20, AND THE TEME ALL THIS HAPPENED HE WAS 21 AND I WAS ONLY SEVEN-TGO YOUNG UNDERSTAND."
a contract-
but no part
want her mother or herself to moment he had be arrested she should marry him.
Stuc was just 10 years old, She was frightened. She married him.
When the first Allied, troops arrived her husband was sent to a prisoner of war camp, and that was the end of her first marriage.
"If you can call it nge." sald Eva,
OLDER MEN
and
wonderful face, slowly iden began to circulato in hts agile pub- Ucist mind. I was, an ea which,
later, whs to get the head, And Eva
taco, hat of Bartok planted on the front pages of newspapers all over the world.
But Arst of all It began with
are berets. "Go out and buy you7 –
I helf a beret,"
She he said.
unpacked his
You said: bag. Ile not in love with me and am not in love with you. But went out and bought a dozen, you sign a contract with me for all different colours. ilms and I will and get you out."
marry
you
AROUSED
LIWORDSWORTH'S Interest In this girl, was aroused, ribw and the Interest was not entire
He professional,
began
From the start it was a mar- ringe for that purely practical purpose. Eva's friends main- marri- fain that she made it clear be
yond all doubt that it would ly bQ 12 loveless, kissiess mar- taking her to first nights and rlage, and Pool accepted the film premieres and triod, all conditions; whether they sails sorts of tricks to get her the al- ned him later on is something tention of the photographers.
Bikini He posed her in upon which he does not com mont.
lying on a white shawl with an inset of her as a baby lying Before Paal had been in on a white rug. She did the She fell in love Budapest week they were pin-up girl's round of the Zoo, with a map 30 years older than married. In April 1848 they stroking tigers and elephants London and took and feeding penguins while the He did something that was herself. She called him letvan few first to - unusual for him. He began to Bako, but that is not his real a fot off Baker Street, Almost cameras clicked.
drink.
at once the cold, practical mar- He did not drink any name-for he is still in Hun-
Slowly the
of Eva than the other young Hory.
ringe began heading for the Bartok began to become familiar He was everything she had rocks, driven there by highly whom he mixed, people with
the public. but it affected him more-as, built up as the image of her emotional quarrels and mis-
Rather less slowly Words- fine playwright and understandings every glass of wine he drank father, a was laced with a potent emo- poet. He gave her a job in the
*more
To
FTER that, almost as it she were still searching for her Isther, she cultivated a taste for older men
Paal would go off
tion that upset his balance theatre and taught her how to studio leaving Eva alone.
ΤΟ
10
name
to the worth was falling in love,, Eva to Italy to make She went
completely.
act.
could speak no English and The Crimson Pirate with Burt She was away 101 Evi was shattered by this
BECAME VERY only a little German, and she Lancaster. THEY change, this devastating flaw in CLOSE
time. She EACH OTHER, was bewildered by the size of a year and it was not a happy developed nn the man she had always wor- THEY WERE TO BE
MAR- London,
Sho shipped and admired.
knew no one to whom "obsession" for a man she met She IED
AND PLANNED TO LEAVE HUNGARY.
she could confide not until there. BUT AT
"I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE LAST MOMENT BAKO Paal, in an amuable mood after a temporary reconciliatlon, took SAID, "NO, I MUST STAY
SHE SAID, w HAD A AND SEE IT THROUGH, BUT her along to meet that fellow ON TOP OF THE WORLD," Sir Alexander HOLLYWOOD CONTRACT, I YOU YOU ARE YOUNG AND Hungarian YOU MUST GO AND FIND A Korda.
could not forgive him.
TOO LATE
By the time she grew up and
learned a little more sense NEW LIFE,"
it was too late. Her father had
She realised for her own sake
always been against Fascism, as well as for his that the ad-
and once ho was taken away
vice was good. She had to get
CHARM.
to an internment camp but cut of Hungery and she was VA was
E
later released. He.come back and resumed writing under an assumed name.
willing to try any wild scheme to do it.
By this time she was a
overjoyed to
to cover someone she could talk. Her
effect charm had its
WAS LAUNCHED AND ON MY WAY. BUT I WANTED. SOMETHING ELSE 80ME- THING REAL-AND I FELT THAT THIS MAN COULD dis- GIVE IT TO ME” whom
It didn't work out that way. potent
upon. And in her misery she wrote to 4 Wordsworth telling him every- beautiful, thing. When she came home intelligent again they decided to marry
Of that marriage all Eva will say 18; "You must ask · Words. I had told AT THEIR NEXT MEETING worth about that. HE ASKED HER TO TAKE A him everything that was in my Why didn't he tell me
In 1942 the Hungarian Naxis success in Hungary and the new Korda, always a man with
for Д took him away. He has never young hope of the Budapest weakness and been heard of since. Eva's theatre.
And then the blow charroing, mother has long since accepted fell. Her Arst film was banned woman. the fact that he is dead,
by the Communista, She know BUT NOT EVA.
she Elther IF the alternative, SHE LONGS FOR HIM TO must join the party, or go, RETURN, SO THAT BIIK
MISUNDERSTANDING,
Ag
She wrote
ta
HE THAT
MAKE PICTURES FOR LON-
And that was how she came FILM TEST, AND IT WAS BO hear
SUCCESSFUL CAN MAKE IT UP TO to contract the most peculiar of
On October 18, 1981, they MIKUNUR HER CHILDHOOD all her four and advels of GAVE HER A CONTRACT TO everything that was in hin
SIE matrimony.
at St Pancras register office. To the outside STILL HOPES, AND MAKES Alexander Paal, a man who had DON FILMS AT £20 A WEEK. were married REGULAR
INQUIBIER once worked as a photographer She got the cheque regularly world they seemed happy THROUGH THE INTERNA on her father's paper.
but the never made a film for first. Eva proudly displayed her TIONAL RED CROSS:
Paal was now producing in him. Instead she worked out only culinary accomplishment, She had a red Chevrolet car Hollywood, and Eva sat down her contract with Paal and and whipped him up a speciál Bec, and one day while she and wrote him a letter and made one film for him, The Hungarian soufle made with
sitting in she heard enclosed a photograph of her Tale of Five Cities, The mo the white of org.
WDS someone say, "What does it run self.
en? Blood?"
"Please, Mr Paal, ure your, Sho started the engine and drove it down to the Red Cross power and influence to get me an American vita," she pleaded. offices and handed it over, 45 a gift to their funds,
INSECURITY
ment it was finished the two of tham parted and there was
Eve WAD 20 years old divorce.
#
SHE LEFT
But the immigration list was now, with two marriages if BUT marriage, like a souffle, quickly ruined unless you full and there were no visas to you can call them that - and
:
be had. .Paal wrote and told a large bitter alleo of life be- give it your undivided atten her. so.
She sent hire more hind her, and she was so lobe- tion. This one had started photography of herself and a. ly, uncertain, and miserable that badly. It was not very leng be- And where stood Eva nowt AFTER the rift with her long letter imploring him to she felt like throwing herself fore Eva had left Wordsworth.
in the Thames. father, Eva developed her, higlia,
All her attempts to get parts More than ever sho felt that busic, sense of insecurity so far Faal, in a gesture that seems
alms fell through, and mon could not be thurstei es men were concorded.
to confirm the general ballef iu` in There were plenty of reasons Eastern Europe that all Hun- though the regular choque froin and she was still searching for dóps... not why the abould feel alone, un- gations are mad, wrote back: Korda was paying the rent the kind of perfect man who
There "You have only one chance of she had moved into a flat in (she now know)
not until the happy, and, persecuted: was, for instance, her first rast getting to Hollywood. If over North London her carour exist. It was
Wordsworth and long antör ringe The story has been told, I come to Budapest I will marry seemed to have stalled into a year after her marriage to
dead: und: that he was a Hungarian officer you.""
Noahe took mugh notice they had parted that she met mid married her i to give her. DID BE MEAN. IT. AB A protection, but the facts aro JUKET EVA, 17 YEARS OLD, of her. The flair for clethos and the Marquis of Milford Haven, somewhat differentia
DID NOT TAKE IT. THAT Pafter the arrest of her father, WAKING:BHE CABLED Bys Baseban mother were 16. DEMEUIATRIZY: “ALL RIGEET. dangergizana bha night a young TRADESPERA
she
wowskva-halk, muhim
tan many bocasions; before, and know that: hond aired - her Now he made a cold and hard
Not long afterwardì, shortly after fier divores from her armhurbando pogamani anai, Alexander 5: Paal? - arrived in
NEXT The friendship of the WEEK actress and the marquis