Page B
THE CHINA MATE
MONDAY, OCTOBER - 8^ ~ 1960. ^
-the quiet
man of the Ginger Group
VAIAFIJ
THOMAS
WISEMAN'S
LIMELIGHT-
In this
Reporter Hoskins beside the grave of Mrs Edith Marion Rosse in Bisham Church-
She bequeathed £18,600 to Maundy Gregory. yard, near Maidenhead. story Hoskins will tell of the strange circumstances of her death,
ALBERT FINNEY
"What'll do tomorrow > I't decide Lomorrow."
IL is said that all along On a wave of expletives and WITH the arrival in
these young they can whisky,
per- Shaftesbury-avenue the West End of be heard preparing for the formers, from Salford, from their aitches Ireland, from the East End of Albert Finney, an event future, dropping
London, have risen to power Hke hot potatoes, that has brought the The theatrical Ginger Group in a revolution that may have has cer- superlative back to led on the acting side by been
"bloody"-less. dramatic criticism, the Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, tainly not been
long-established James Booth, Joan Plowright Even Posh Accents of the and Albert Finney-has in the terms of theatrical enticorment "Deah boy"!
bloodless but
such
theatrical establishment past two or three years chang- as "Dahling" and
o the look and sound of the are being superseded by "male"
are in full retreat.
English theatre.
After 30 years as one of Fleet-street's most
distinguished crime reporters... PERCY
HIS is the story of a man who
THIS
in his day was a confidant of kings, a guardian of State secrets, royal convicted trafficker in honours, and a suspect in a strange and still unsolved death-riddle.
He was certainly the most intriguing and colourful figure in the crime history of his generation.
John Maundy Gregory, though his unfamiliar to the general name was public, was well known in the higheat places in London in the post 1914-18 war period.
His cirele of nequaintances was select and it embrace a host of the must notable people of the day, Princes and prelates, peers and distinguished commoners, statesmen of high rank. lenders of the arts and of the sciences all dike came within his ambit. He was
on the closest terms with men, and
women whose names have
HOSKINS
NOW TELLS:
The best Untold
Mystery I Know
organ, Maundy Gregory receiv
been household words for ed many famous people. These two decades or more.
was
a man u To most he mystery. Exactly his position in the scheme of things no one really knew. By some he was
included civil servants of high position, imiversity professors, members of the Diplomotle Service, and, foreign royalties.
I
remember visiting these
assumed to hold high position, offices and being struck by the m the British Foreign Office, grave atmosphere, of decorum. By others he was regarded as On entering one was received the head of the Secret Service by a belabbed attendant, looking und, again by others, to have not unlike a messenger some undefinable influence in Government departmen!. affairs, an influence us power-
Mysterious lights would
in
#
sh
ful as it was qufully exercised, on desks indicating that Maundy Our saw him in Whitehall Gregory was free to receive his entering his palatial offices in vialtors, most of whom had been. Parliament-street. His distin- kept walling with the apology that "the chief has just popped guished, almost arrogant, over to No. 10 for a moment."
the eye prosence would catch
Then, ushered through double at once,
doors, one was shown Into lofty apartment, furnished with distinction. The patrician gure of Gregory occupied a large crimson upholstered In
Decorum
The diamond chain displayed chair.
sult of subtle
on
#
was of the blood: royal
that
the blood of eight kings of England beat in his heart, Ths! John of Gaunt, "Time Honoured Lancaster. Harry Hotspur, and the Black Prince were among
ls forebears.
What the lineage chart did not disclose was that his 80-year-old mother was still living in poverty in a Winchester almihouse.
and "cock."
for Finney, so
the least known member of the Ginger Group, may well be the first lo arrive in a really big way. He has already
Arst played his
M188 NANETTE NEWMAN is the beautiful 24-year-old actress wife of Bryan Forbes, who has become one of the two Mr Forbes or three highest-pald scriptwriters in Britain.
in aleo an actor, and rarely neglects to write a role for himself In any film ho la scripting: League of Gentlemen, Angry Bilence, Baby and the Battleship, Wan Monty'e Double. But Mr Forbes does not write roles for his wife, and she is having to make a career for herself without the benefit of any At present she is appearing string pulling on her behalf. with Tony Hancock In The Rebel.
Mis Newman says that if she were to appear in her husband's filme (he is also a producer) there might be aries of "Favouritium" from other actresses. She to anxious to avoid this. There !, in any case, little necessity for her to work. Mr Forbes's Income from film scripting enables them to live in near-Hollywood splendour just outside London in a house with six bathrooms, three gurage», a gardener, a mald and a nannia.
starring role in a Alm, Satur deal he wishes to know nothing dacer of McClory's limited ex-
perience. day Night, Sunday Morning, about.
and advance reports
indicate
tomorrow.
I understand that McClory 143m no good at organising that he has given a brilliant
myself," he says, "Can't ever could have set up the film hdd performance.
seem to arrange anything in be been prepared to accept the rale of associate One thing which all these advance. What'll I do tomorrow? subsidiary
decide appear to have young actors
Maybe producer. But McClory would
not work on those terms. in common, fr addition to I'll go out and buy a book.
Hia - brother. Desmond talent, is a sense of insecurity "I'm afraid of being trapped
O'Donovan, has hind a similar that finds expression in heavy by routine. I don't want to be drinking, and in outbursts of tied down to a group or a style high-spirited tomfoolery,
or an approach. I don't want to be tied down. I'm still trying out different things.
for instance,
"I don't know where
for acing. my talent
i gol
I'm
So formal... THERE WAS,
the night of a very formal out consciously in the mind and Welsh ball when Richard Har- then does 11. I go by the feel
F
not somebody who works things
LO me.
set-back. He has also lost his case - Moscow. "angel." In his I am told that the £2,000,000 Anglo-Soviet production, Opera 1xz lecbreaker has finally fallen through.
BREAK-UP.
I would appear that the Miller - Monroe marriage
An end. I omA
It's in no position to judge how
both
RE kept interrupting the of It has to feel right. I speeches by shouting, "What use everything in acting that has come to
and Irish, then?" about the
ever happened also insisted on dancing all callous in a way. It sunnebody painful this may be to evening with Peter O'Toole, told me my best friend had concerned, but I cannot help
Miller has every Finney is the quietest and dropped dead, one part of me feeling that, as a writer, Mr chance of most inhibited of the group I would be feeling the pain of benefiting from the break up. had lund with him on the but the actor part of me would
Since he married Marilyn in be watching and talding notes four years day
trlumph
has after his
ngo, Miller Billy Lar at the Cambridge and saying, 'So that's how it
+ind neted with great dignity he feels. You con use that. You has somehow Theatre; characteristically
managed to re taln his own personality. But had called off the celebration can use that in a performance,'
Caprice, which
It is by using what has hap- the harsh fact is that in this party at the
has not had one new was to have followed the first pened to them in life. rather time he
than in previous plays that play performed.
This year night, and went instead to
Linney and the Ginger Group be det something he far less smart restaurant with the director of the play, Lind- have been able to make their vowed he would never do: he wrote n film script for his wife. pro- distinctive impact. Anderson, and the that IL was then
Gregory ducer, Oscar Lewensiein.
He met me for lunch wearing created the Ambassadors Club, "a diplomatic and social centre, cord Jacket, and he was tie- with 10,000 tied names on its less.
He has the look of a inembership list and private sensitive Teddy Boy and his telephone lines to the House of manner, his talk and his move- Lords and House of Commons. ments smack of the street corner To run the club Gregory em- rather than the stage door. One
actor by profession, ployed the dapper, suave. Peter is surprised that he should be an Mazzino, the maitre d'hotel of the Carlton.
say
the
And as a direct consequence the theatre has been compelled to acknowledge that life does exist beyond South Kensington,
had
Marilyn is a lightweight actress and Miller's script, how- ever brilliant, must inevitably be a lightweight effort. It would have been tragedy it Miller, one of the outstanding talents NO ANGEL'
of the American theatre, had degenerated into being Marilyn Kite, CLORY the quin EVIN MCCLORY the quick-
To have won the love of this film maker, seems to have lost
phenomenal but emotionally His life began, insuspiciously his "angel." in Salford 24 years ago. He was
Millionaire Ivor Bryce who unstable creature must have Years later before he hanged the son of a bookmaker. A put up the money for McClory's been engemotely flattering- himself club in which he school he sat twice for the Brst film production, The Boy on the most simple level — øven falled and The Bridge, has now with to a man of Miller's sensibilty had invested and lost £170,000 School Certificate,
and intellect, out of five drawn his backing, I am told.
But to retain What of the man himself?
-Mazzina showed me menus first time in four
As result, it seems unlikely the love of a myth is clearly a The son of the vlear of St and table plans of fabulous subjects and the second time in
of present that McClory will be full-time job, one which would Michael's, Southampton. Maundy lunches used as a bait for the ave out of five subjects,
He does not consider himself able to set-up his ambitious make considerable inroads on Ütle seekers. Gregory was educated locally,
uneducated, though he hardly £800,000 James Bond film anybody's creative talents, and afterwards became an un- Some bore the autographs of ever reads a book unless he which he had been planning. Mr Milier may have lost •
gludent Ex-King George of Greece attached
a former Colonial Secretary, the thinks there may be a part in was his especial care, The ex- where he remained for five or tale J. H. Thomas, and many il for him. He is content that and The Bridge, the major film surprised if in the process he king cume to London a fugitive six years. Later he went on the other leading Influential poli-there should be great deal companies are understandably has not gained at feast one impoverished.
Maundy stage, and after some experience leions and men of power.
such outstanding play. gamble that he knows nothing about, reluctant to
great large sum of money on a pro- B main us on actor launched himself as was one of his Gregory
-----{London Express Servicek. supporters in there days of producer in the West End of
Al many of these functions He finds that there is London.
Jake Gregory would stage a adversity.
arrival. "Heid up at Bucking- He took the New Theatre in ham Palace" was the invariable and after a few weeks trans-
Maundy Gregory
And
st Oxford
•
1908 for a revival of "Dorothy." excuse. Ancestry
the . Much the same can. be. sald ferred to
Strand. His
Such was Maundy Gregory's
purple leather. On the massive writing Was in keeping with
his table before him were tele- aristberatle features. Within his phones. witches, bell pushes, offlcea, where he edited
end small coloured ilghts which of the Montenegrin royal theatrical experiment was not status when, in February 1993, periodical Diplomatic Service ealled the Whitehall Grizette, and made to look like an official
TALKING
POINTS
The rond to ruin always in good repair.
THOMAS FULLER.
fasbed from time to time.
He always used black blotting poper. "You canhot hold that up to a mirror and see what have written," he would tell his visitors.
The set-up
Also gracing the table would be important-looking despoten is boxes similar to those used in the Foreign Office and other Government departmenta.
and
he loft
Value
⚫ family. Dispossessed
their Anancial success of by country
Servia, Prince theatre life. Danilo and his wife entrusted what remained of their fortunes Gregory, to whom they granted a power of attorney.
Subsequently, he ran a de- what Was
the tective agency, hle plan being origin of this man who to collect information concern- exercised so much'influence ing undesirable guests for hotel-
keepers. over kings and statesmen?
Now
came the first hint of catastropbę with the bland announcement that a summons had been issued at the instance of the Public with Prosecutor charging him
an offence under the Honours
Act (Provention of Abuses) an Act passed in 1026 to stamp out any traffic in honours,
Great concern was causedt «Im Court circles by the amount of To anyone who raised the This he was doing when war goalo which then spread like the country. Allegations were made that question, Gregory would produce broke out in 1914, Auparently Wildfire around
the Government considered the recently-bestowed titles, includ- a pedigree four feet long, an authentic document compiled knowledge and experience thus ing peerages, had been bought by the College of Arms, which accumulated to be of value, for for sums involving hundreds of
back to It was then that he gained on thousands of pounds. Such was the elaborate traced his ancestry
Edward 11.
introduction to Whitehall.
London Society sat back and set-up in which was staged. “[Zink by link, it connected some of the greatest con- kings, princes, dukes, and earls His, subsequent delivities are welled its lips in anticipation of fidence tricks of all time.. who died in battle, strife, and less certain. He claimed he was the scandal of the century.
even ignominy centuries ago engaged in the work of counter- employing so'm'o In the disturbance which with the present day. And this espionage, destroyed the foundations of was the last entry; "Arthur John thousand agents. But, whether
Continental many
countries, Maundy Gregory of Abbey thin be true or not-and I can There are thrós faithfal
Maundy Gregory found hla Lodge, Abbey-rond, Bt John's flad ng proot of it there can friends, an old wife, an old greatest oppert inities. Wood, London, born at July, bo no doubt that his tactful and imposing. Thanner Ingratiated. Sovereigns and rulers driven by 1877," revolution Into exide found In And tala oniry suggested that him in the opinions of men of him a counsellor and friend, Grogory, through his mother, experience "and" probity,
cannot
21
Àg Boon as you, keep anything. from
woman, you love her.
-PAUL GERALDY,
etus
dog, and ready money.
DENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
London Harprsen Kervice),
Thursday:
TRAFFICKER
IN HONOURS
a
After the failure of The Boy wife, but I would be extremely
“undi
Have you been dying over Cape Canaveral