.
SHOW BUSINESS
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER
1961.
Roderick Mann
Things happen when Sammy Jr.
reaches for his
TR SAMMY DAVIS
MR
JR. bent down
and carefully rolled up his right trouser leg as far as the knee.
watuke a look at that," he said. And 1 did. The burns were clearly visible.
What in heaven's name were they? Sceret brand marks et Frank Sinatra's Clan, of which Mr Davis is a devoled and long- tire member?
"No," he said. "That's where I myself in the leg."
He said it, I thought, remark- ably casually as though shoot ing oneself in the leg were no more remarkable one's hair cut,
six-gun..
"I made
that the day my child
he was born,"
Bald. "Around midnight, with some of the fellows. Laten."
He played the record through, moving about the room in fil stockinged feet, restless, Im. patient."
"You don't know how mar
Dan having dewghter, Tracy).
Leaping up w
We were sling in his sulte at a London hotel and as in
phone kept ringing with coils from Now York and Stockholm and people, kept coming In and going out and he kept leaping up and putting on records and mixing Bloody Mary and eat ing beer randwiches, it was fully 10 minutes before I got him back on the subject.
"I shot myself," he said, when Things had
quiefened down!, "while practising fust draws.
"Not many people know it, but I'm one of the fastest guns in Amerlen. 1 can draw, cock and fre in a seventeen-hun- dredth of a second; less than the time it takes you to click your fingers.
"Somebody tinted me with a clock and wrote thut I was un- doubtedly one of the fastest guns alive. I'm very proud of that article. I've got it frumed over my bar.
"But you have to learn fast draws the hard way, and that's how I shot myself by cocking and fring the gun before I even Jind it out of the holster,
"I inke It seriously, you sea, Those phuney draws and heroles on TV annoy me. I did a TV Western recently and was deter mined to make it good.
"If 43 bullet goes through yuu, it leaves a hole the size of a small saucer where it comes oul Well, showed that-and got felters from att over America congratulating me on the authenticity of the show."
He got up and put on a re- cord for me.
hind him,
born n
about having been Negro; moaning about getting help from people.
mo
"Yes, that accident changed What's more, it made me
a better artist."
When be opens in Ati Evening With Sammy Davis, Jr., London theatre audiencos will be able to judge for them- relves the talent of this self- styled "one-eyed Jewish Two backflips in A Touch of
Mink, with Burls Day.
And if you don't think that's so much-you try it.
Double
machine installed in the on- trance hall.
rlage has changed me," he said the married actress Mai Britt tast November; 110w has a Negro."
"I haven't I think they will like him. He been in a right club in America is a remarkable performer. And
"A present from "The Boys,'"' for nine months. Mc-the fol- I do not think he will have to
explained Mr Baker, whiosa Iow who used to live at night; draw n 45 to prove it.
tough screen personality is held sometimes walk into a
FOOTNOTE: What do you
in high esteem by some of restaurant with 17 people be have to do to join The Clan?
London's underworld operators. Accurding to singer Eddle
The machine, regrettably, had Fisher, a junior member, the TULES DASSIN'S small- to be removed later on in the
Never evening. ong of Shirley On Sunday wai booze from
It had been "fixed" too well, MacLaine's old slippers.
a troman- apparently. It wasn't paying dous box-office hit. So is out at all! Carl Foreman's epic, The -- Guns of Navarono.
One enterprising distributor Is My planning to book them both ano
and clay Navarone Sunday.
bill them simply:
"All that's changed. I got rid of the hangers-on, stopped the parties. And I love it.
"Now we just go out to gulet restaurants, the two of us. You never see us. I guess I matured, grew up. We're very happy.
Smashed
"It's the second great change in any life. The first was my neeldent seven years ago when
smashed myself up in an
first rule is to drink a quart of J budget picture
Good shape
SETOR fifty - seron,
Cary Grant is really in remarkably good shape," reports a Hollywood corros- pondent.
'I say he is.
Fixed
UOTE-from Mr Terry- Thomas, discussing Mits Tuesday Wold, who appears in his latest Hollywood film Bachelor Flat:-
"I liked her. I liked the way she cut
my lines. it made the whole thing seem so In his very first Hollywood
Stanley Boker's Wimbla- acting. If I were a film direc- handstand and a don house the other night, fore we started: flattened; I had no left eye; my Grant did n
tor I'd say to all my artists be- was smashed. And they backflip.
Now look tell me now it'll have to be Now, 30 years and 19 pletures guests were slightly
takan erece don't
toant any broken again because it's healed later, he does a handstand and aback to find fruit that acting nonsense.** badly.
automobile crash, My face was picture, This Is The Night, MA DINNER PARTY of spontaneous. Much better than
זי
lay there in hospital wondering what it was uli obonit: where I was going. Before that all I'd thought about was myself and my own pleasures. My family had been on relief for 20 years, see, so when I began to make money I went wild, Dozens of suits, shirts, cars, 3 was having a ball, und getling nowhere.
"That accident changed my life. I converted to Judaism. I began to think about other pro- pic, not just about myself.
"There are ten people who can take credit for whut I am today, and now I gladly ne knowledge all of them-Sinatra and Jack Benny among them.
"I wouldn't have done that before the accident. I was too concerned with myself, meaning
A British Crossword Puzzle
20
18 18
18
14
15 16
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
18 19
21
22
23 24
25
26 27
28
29
[30
31
32 33
34 35
36
37
38
39
40
ACROSS
DOWN
Rage at the weather?
1 Projectiles.
He's feeble-minded.
2 No waiter!
Bony Trul17
3 Considered,
10 Handi?
11 Issues,
12 Went first,
13 Short fellowl
14 Definite article.
10 Don't act dumbi
18 Comes after,
31 Air and graces,
23 Dog
20 Of the bačic.
29 Fine contradiction;
31 Afrinative.
32 Have Ute.
34 It may be dry? Nonsensof
36 Girl froen Dagenham?
** Enclorura.
38 Wax painted.
,38 Get ready to eati
40 City.
4 Thoyo bazy.
5 Fight.
6. Individual.
7 Shades of Communis
8 Inquisitive.
14. Make it snappy.
17 Courles salied in it.
10 Little mani
20 Health resort,
22 11's frozen stiff.
24 Pass away.
20 is active,
27 of corn..
28 Flower part.
29 Put on
80 There may be a catch in it.
33 Study.
30 Mineral.
YESTERDAY'S CROSSWORD --Across: 3, Classen. 7. Re- Ure. 8, Aspired. 9, Alma, 11, Svip: 12, Termo, 15, Tuge, 10, Rein. 17, Abets. 18, West, 19, Wads, 21, Trinket. 21, Retain, 28, Dredger, Down 1, Trip. 2, Atrange. 3. Cramp. 4, Lem. 5, „Blivered. 0, Sudden. 10, Listened, 11, Bub, 19, hussian. 14, BIE.
25; Tarted. 10, Water. 19, Were, 20 Plak."
0
THE LATEST FROM ITALY
• This is Miss Scilla (pronounced "Shello"") Gabel, 22-year-old
· Italian actress who has mado many pictures on the Continent.
She is now in London for hor newest
film, Village of Daughters, in which she stars with Eric Sykos.
Sho has
recently
completed a part in the epic Sodom and Gomor- rah.
of
-(London Express Service),
A spinster's choice-
ONE TO READ
AGAIN
love or duty?
GERTRUDE BELL, FROM HER PERSONAL PAPERS, By
Elizabeth Burgoyne, Benn, 45s.
ROBERT GRAVESIS any human force more formidable and niore
chooses Harriette Wilson's memoirs
FOR Day, naturally good
welting, and a bright light cast on the curtained corners of history -- | ra- Dommend Harriette Wilson's Memolo 1801-25). 1
This Mayfair watch- maker's daughter was, ni 10, inducted by an older sister Inte a select pro- fosslon: that of playfellow to the nobility, Black-eyed,
graceful, shrewd, well read, superbly humorous, 10 kept her heart free as air, though it always stayed warm.
unpredictable than the British spinster?
Think of Florence Nightingale, stood in the way of this vision Or Margery Fry. Or of Gertrude ruused her violent suspicion and Bell,
dislike. She was the daughter of a The French, who bad rich North Country icon audaciously installed themselves master. Sho wag brave in Syria, appear in her letters brave enough 10 moke des- as angels of darkness, For the perately dangerous journeys of Zionists, she had let exploration Into unknown parts and more contempt, of Arabla, She was a brilliant Arable scholar.
Invented
tancour
Then something happened to give her that extra degree of
With King Feisal she was on purposeful intensity which can the best of terms how good- lift a woman or a man out of booking he was, how charming, the ruck.
how willing to treat her os Gertrude Bell fell in love mistress of his household, The and felt that it was her moral tion tell how Gertrude, working happiest letter's In a collec- duty to give up the man she loved. She tried to forget her with the king, Invented new personal unhappiness in travel. all them.
ministries and found men to Then suddenly unhappiness turned into anguish. Her loyer, Dick Doughty-Wylle, was killed winning the VC at Gallipoli in 1915,
Intrigue
wasa
the
Gertrude Bell's masculine world of soldiers and administrators, Through
of her letters posses wonderful procession of Arab potentatea.
pages
#
The cyoa that saw them were sharp but tolerant, for out of
In her late forties, she plunged there ingredients she was mak- Into the Middle East world of Ing her new kingdom,
political intelgue, In Cairo and
Today
in Bagdad the kettle of history many
Half the House of Lorda courted her, and soon she, not her friand Beau Brum » mell, dictated London mate fashions. She deeploed borow, braggarts,
new alates were emerging. prudes, anobe, and all who tried to be pouséselva - even
*
Duke's heir, like Lord Wor- soster, who offered merri- 171.
Though merolleqsly - ox- posing the behaviour of mem and women in love," "Har- rietto never demoans' hér. elf with sax detalls, and han as good an amr far con. versation as Dickens.
Among her tamat wal » coms suitors was Welling. ton who, "when he wore hie broad red ribbon, looked 'ilke a very noble' rathat</
char."
• A selection from the mamējra ja available under the Utle Mistress of Many (Deels weller inbekry de, dd.).
that kingdom, like
the dignitaries she
was on the ball. Out of the descrilica, has turned to dust. rubble of the Oitoman- Empira Modern fray is a violent rejec
tion of the pro-British monarchy
One of them was to be Iraq, she set up.
and one of the makers, of Iraq But It is not likely that this was Gertrude Bell. She began result would have completely by being a British, officiat, an murprised her. For behind all her immensely rospooled authority affection for the Arabs was the on the Arap tribes and per- recognition that, after all, they sonalities. In the end it was were not Yorkshiremen, hard to say whore her first "You advised me once not to loyalty lay.
- put my heart into it,” she wrote to a friend, of course, I can't The letters, which poured home do anything else.". Her letters from her to her father and are not, therefore a record of a mother in England are. Irudia miaguided effort. In king-making, erect, lively and filled with far that has ended in-faliuro, but too many details about forgotten rather of a busy, brilliant womor problems and negligible men to enjoying an extraordinary life. be_always interesting to readers Then as how, the Middle East loday.
had the power to excite Britons AU the passion and to vivid oroso na well as quikotie vehemence of Gertrude Bell's policies, Bo this book is full of temperament were spent on the perceptivo and rendabile writing. task ut, making: an: Arab: stato A plly that, dealing with po in Iraq whicit, in * time, would much that forgotten, ite stretch through Byria to the interest for the generki render Mediterranean, Anything that in limitedi.
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