What can an author say to women who hound him?
LAURENCE DURRELL'S highly spiced books, which are a wild-flowing mixture of exotica and erotica, have turn-
ed their author into our newest literary star.
His four novels known as the Alexandrian quartet com- prise a kind of encyclopaedia of sexual practice, and inevitably Mr Durrell has been taken up"-by the movies, by the cele- brity collectors, and,
with reservations, by the critics,
He was celebrating his 49th birthday with a bottle of chum- panne when I called on him at
als London hotel the other day;
I is here to re-write his script
of the -fated Cleopatra.
Fan mail
"You should have heard se laughter at 20th Century Fox. he said, "when I fuld Ühea I could only spend
six weeks CIF the script because I har to go back to writing my verse play."
A small man with the look of a sophisticated elf, he accepts
his sudden celebrity with non- chalance.
THE CHINA MAIL,
MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1961.
Thomas Wiseman's LIMELIGHT
He set the im rights of his "I've got a simple cholce. tour invels for the very modest Either I'm not lonely and 1 sum of HK$272,000. He could don't have a career, or I'm lone- now get four times that amount ly and I have the affection of for his books, but isn't per- those thousands of girls who turbed that he didn't.
"I am not proposing to change my life in any way," he said. "The great danger of having money is that it enables you to pay people to do things you would be much happier doing
"I get the aust extrudinary yourself. fan mail," he said weyly, "One lady wrote to say that I had "For example, one uf ету been her lover for the past six pleasures is buikling
N
come and see me or buy my re- cords, I'd rather be lontly.
"The way I look at it. In few years thuse girls will be okt enough to get married, and then they won't feel so bad about me getting married, too. But while they stay single, I've got to stay single too."
months metaphorically speak around my house in Provence. No hardship
ing.
"Another asks for an inter- New and mentions the dates when her husband will be out of the country.
"What is one to reply without
wouldn't dream of employing somebody to do tit. That
would be no fun at all.”
Cliff Richard's
seeming rude or unappreciative? secret... Before you fe well known women want to sleep with you bernuse they like the look af
you; the consequence of literary THERE
Selebrity is that
women wil
to sleep with your books, which is sourcely possible."
But fame has come to Durrell sufficiently late in life not to disturb the equitibrium of his
Hfv.
"Of course one has to guard against inflation of the ego." he suld, and sometimes you have to shove a chloroform task on the blasted thing to keep it in
hand.
No delusions
"Fortunately I am beyond the slage when I want to be invited tea by thichesses. 1 hut all that when I was working in the Foreign Dalee, really don't think in very vulnerable the fatlery of fame.
RE is more to being pop singer than just singing. To maintain a hold on the fast-shifting offec- tions of the teenagors, you must be not merely a per- former, but a ment.
wish-fulfil-
Cliff Richard, who at 20 is a veteran of two-and-a-half years standing in the business, has found what seems to be a suc
cessful formula.
Associated British Pictures are
Mr Richard says that he does not and maintaining the Illusion of his loneliness a particular hardship.
Like most pop singers, he as- serts that what he really enjoys is guing home to mum and
NEW
WALK
WHEN she was Yvonne Warren, she appeared on television in Children's Hour. Since changing her name to Yvonne Romain, she has been in a circus horror film, was the fostor-mother of a werewolf in another production, and has just been elevated to leading lady (opposite John Gregson) in The Frightened City. "You can't," said Miss Romoin, "expect to get on when you've got a name like Warren,"
PICTURE DY MICHAEL WARD.
watching television, and that he is tooking for a nice quiet giri
one of his fans- just like whom he will one day marry.
He is not bured: he has a HK$04,000 car, the other day he went out and bought himself eight shirts, and life is one con- tinuous whirl.
**This Is Brien's gulez vezet al
the store,"
Be
COMPLAINTS
BOOKS
MUSIC
I didn't like the ending!"
T
WHOOSH
PATON.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
YORK NEWSLETTER from Jean Campbell
down Wall Street today and you will find big smiles and plump pockets. Not for 27 long years has the
Wall Street in a frenzy... and
the
young man from Somerset cashes in
risking something like 180,000 American stockbroker young
to a Blm starring Mr Richard;
when you consider that the time between the inception of a m and is completion and release may be as much as a year (more than the life-span of many pop sugers) you will appreciate the extent of the risk.
But Mr Richard believes he knows the secret of hanging on to his public.
"I failure I was always pre- pared for success; und as n sue- cess I prepare for failure. The
"You've got to be lonely," he whole thing is such
4 roulette wheel; when you're on a winning explained. "all those girls that streak you must never expect it cise to see you and buy your recards, they Uke tô think of a singer as somebody they might took for marringe. So you've got to be available.
to fast,
had it so good.
Ever since a goggle of exceu- their misdeeds, and la, the tives from General Electric American Corporate's Image Is 30-day prison sen- cracked for ever.
That wonder instrument of the New York Stock Exchange, the Big Board's high-speed were given ticker fell 18 minutes behind tence there has been writing on the activity on the floor. For the glant Corporation's wash- neither man nor machine could room walls. keep up with the frantic buying
Never close
misses be divided into people who had who English nannies and the people feels a who didn't."
Although she sorely Tape music plays all the hit
twin tunes the atmosphere is her
sister Davina, never sombre, Imagine my sur- lives in London, she prise one morning at 4 am a wide occan is a good thing to hear a clipped English voice put between grown-up twins. coming out from 'under a drier. "We depended loo much upon
each other," she explains.
Linda loves her, New York
*
INCIDENTAL INTELLI- GENCE: Dial the lettera NERVOUS on your New York telephone and
It was none other than Nika, X7OMEN readers, should the black-cycu, jazz-loving sister life, where she works as an in-
need
She is, terlor decorator, She lives in a your hair of Lord Rothschild.
A whirl of salety and light seeing you're given the correct she explained, essentially dressed during the night in night person and lives across people of every nationality, but time. New York, there is a merry
the river in New Jersey with 20 she says "I think the world can
London Express Service). establishment in mid-town fat Siamese cats.
and selling of the last 10 days. It is said that these executives
What is it all about? Change will be given back their jobs you brings challenge, and this Ken- after the jail sentence. But I nedy administration is changing is the mote in the eye of the so much so quickly that many executive in the next-door office
are buying hope while people
others are selling stocks in fear.
passionate tear.
stocks that makes him blink a com- Manhattan which keeps
open-house round the clock,
“I don't delude myself; there are books twice as good as mine which don't sell 400 copies,"
The great business barona
I was a little surprised to see Buzz-buzz go the computers, "I had a girl, I'd have to
tele like Gould and Harriman never 11 telephones on the wall above Having lived most of his life keep it secret, because my fans ring-n-ting-ting go the quite happily
the manageress's counter. un very Bttle wouldn't like that. Marty Wilde phones, while the stockbroker, pretended that business was a money. he is remarkably castial got married
hoorse and he'd be the
frum orders, stays Sunday school picnic. about the duanelal rewards now first to admit That it did him studiously at his desk studying dangled before him.
But in these inst 30 years the market research and sipping barm,
Meiracul (the slimming drug) American big business has taken splleed with vodka. It's any the notion that all that is good time for the middle SP F for the Corporation is graced
by Heaven. Rnance.
Just arrived
1960
GILES
ANNUAL
$4.50 per copy
Obtainable from
In a whirl
Just Fancy
That!
INDA METCALFE, the
fun-loving twin dough: | TWINS were born 25 miles apart to the French family Phibout I asked my hairdresser what
fato "Fruitic"T" "We cater for tor of the they were for.
recently. First a boy, in Baccarat, then a girl - after do as you showgirls and,
know, Matcalfe—best friend of ambulance had taken the mother to Lunaville. be available at they have to
the Duke of Windsor-is
* * all times," she said.
now living permanently in HE sign outside the 1,800-your-old guardroom of the Emperor.
THE Only five assistants work New York.
Hadrian's villa at Tivoll near Rome read: “Archaeologists at The English love Wall Street. This myth endured, until these through the night, but you can
work-keep out!" Thousands of tourists iptoed by, not daring to from 1 is to them "adventure land" men
Generál Electric get sandwiches, hamburgers und
Linda is tall, thin and viva- | look in. But police did and found an illelt mushroom farm. pleaded thui they and many a bright young man
were only all kinds of alcoholic drinks clous, and she is blessed with Black humus covered the historie Roman pavements. Now police
the their Cor- while waiting your turn-some-
uncanny charm comes out here from home with doing the best for
of her are hunting the farmer, they committed times you wait two hours,
grandfather, Lord Curzon.
London Express Service. green alien immigration card poration when In his pocket to seek a stock
selling job.
The most
successful young found is Derek Holcomb in
man I have Crewcock from Somerset,
He left England with no espl- tal in 1040 to seek his fortune In the U.S.A. For a time ho worked with American Express, Now he runs the foreign depart- ment of the second largest Blockbroking Brun in America and his income ranges from
£30,000 to £40,000 a year.
Derek's ambition is to go home and buy a farm. But in the meantime, like a salmon in a searchlight, he is held en- thralled by what he calls, with an almost spiritual reverence, the "creation of money."
Aunt Sally
TTEIGH HO for the Aunt The
Holly stails.
"American" television quiz Kings and Queens came tumbling down from the high shelves of public estoom last year.
Thoir. quiz shows proved to
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, LTD. begged and rotten, but now
HONGKONG
KOWLOON.
another kind at crockery la being washed into smithṣerveni, It is called the American. Corá purado Moni.
**Our captain says go tell your skipper that those damn tickets for the Scottish Boat Show in Glasgow don't entitle you to a free inspection of our ships.""
London Express Bervice.