1956-06-12 — Page 4

Page

THE CHINA MAJL

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1956.

BY VE PERRICK

Will

success

spoil Oreste

Kirkop?

"S

London, blazoned from all the buses

you made it?" and poster sites under a pic- said I to Mr ture of Mr Crosby and the Kirkop. "Well, I mensago: "Remember the guess 80," said Mr Kirkop, name you'll never forget the singer reluctantly the voice."

known as Oreste. "Now I suppose you're going to say. that I've gone Hollywood on you."

'Only the clothes," said I, taking in the light, loosely cut sports jacket, pale tie, light tan shoes, all in the typically Californian style. "Back in

the Bayswater days your sober."

Buit

was more

It was our second meet- ing. The first one took place two years ngo in a basement bed-sit. in Bays- water, whither I had gone to see Oreste Kirkop, the Covent Garden tenor who had just been offered 11 Hollywood contract.

guess.

1956: A SUITE AT THE SAVOY

"I settled for an Olds whole year to keep it, and I mobile. Apparently in almost won too. Hollywood today you don't "Then the commentator I recalled the scene then. have to have a Cadillac to at a premiere had trouble The shilling-in-the-slot gas- This unilluminating fire had not been lit, not be get by-all that "making-a- with it, and that was that. snatch of dialogue started cause Mr Kirkop had run big-show' stuff went out a The next morning the studio the table talk over lunch in out of shillings but because few years ago. Something publicity people said: 'You

telévision, I see we told you so.”” the Savoy suite of the man the gas fumes affected his to do with from Malta whose name voice.

"And that," concluded Mr (at least half of it) is being

"But you do have to have Kirkop, "is how. I lost my a car to get around in. You name at least half of it. know, back home in Malta, After a struggle they let me 1 would have got such a keep the Oreste. I suggested There was a hired piano kick out of driving around I could be known as Oreste in the corner of the small in a big car, but in Los Kirt, but they said that room and a gap in the rail- Angeles it's merely a neces- sounded Scottish, and who'd ings over the area, where sity and a bore." some of the spikes had been removed to get the piano in.

|POCKET CARTOON

by OSBERT LANCASTER

Hired Piano

We had spoken of many things, but mainly of Mr

"And

the

pool ?"

swimming-

"Found I didn't want one,

swim in, but

Kirkop's hopes about his after all. My, iden was to coming life in movieland. have a pool to As I remembered It, he had in Hollywood

made three wishes--to keep his name, a Cadillac, and a swimming-pool.

Surprisingly, as it turned out, not one of them had come true.

Ω

used to serve by."

they're just the Martinis

"About the name," I in- terjected.

Mr Kirkop sighed a great big sigh. "I fought for a

The "Geneva" Collection

by

OMEGA

A series of original designs

created for «Montresuet Bijoux »

the Geneva watch fashion salon.

at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire

Geneva

This exquisite Collection will

on view

INGENOHL LTD", Gloucester Arcade

From to 2016 June

over heared of a tenor com- ing from Scotland?"

I did my best to console him with the promise that to mo he would always be ) just plain Mr Kirkop,

"Happy about The Vaga- bond King?" I inquired.

"I hope it's going to be all right.

"Funny thing about the music, though. Hermember when I told you that it probably wouldn't have a single note above F in the whole ECOLO,

and hardly worthy of an opera- tia voice? X was "quite right"| But they've had it scored up for me."

coffee

We had reached the stage. (Oreste Kirkop, Jate of Malta, less lately of Bayswater, hnd smoked salmon and Allot steak but no potatoes "Musin't do a Lanza with my weight,")

Big And Small

He was saying "When I wo trying to make my name, as an opera singer I mact a lot of people in the business. The big the lesser ones. I stars and learned that the really big

people never believe their own publicity so they manage to stay put as people

and as stars I inust always remember that,"

The title of a play now run- ning in New York flashed into my mind: "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?"

Will success spoil Oreste, with or without the Kirkop added?

All I can Bay is he hasn't changed much in the two years between the **Before" and "After" pictures.

ETIQUETTE by Hugh Gadikell

1. IT IS HOT DONE

TO

INSULT, A GUEST BEFORE THE FISH COURSE, A GUEST'S SPEECHE 2SHOULD BR

HECKLED AT LEAST 10 SECONDS AFTER T "START.

3. IT IS BAD FORM, TO

FORGET TO KICK

SPYING ON BEHAL SHIPP

WAS CRABB

gad, -six, the Primo Minister's no gentleman!" London, Express Service

✰✰ The excitement

mounts line by line

SHOTS FLY IN DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER by IAN FLEMING

THE MAD RACE

. JAMES BOND, secret service agent who hus infiltrated a diamond smuggling gang called the Spangled Mob, has been found out by the boss of the American setup, Mister Spang, He la beaten up by gangsters In Spectreville, the gang's H.Q., which is a millionaire's replies of a Wild: West town complete with perlod locomotive and private railway. Tiffany Case,

As

★ beautiful member of the gang, Is-

forced to watch the beating up. Bond comes to she is there

*

CHAPTER NINE

OMETHING had got him by the

arm. What the hell?

"James.

James." She took her mouth away from his car..

This time she pinched the naked, bloodstained arm as hard as she could, and at last Bond's eyes opened between their puffed lids and he looked up at her, from the wooden floor and gave a shud- dering sigh.

She tugged at him, terrified that he would slip away from her

DRAWING, BY

ROBB.

TO DISASTER

'seen

them without those Bond held his fire. Only hoods on," she said truth. bullets and ho laww, when

would go... fully. "They do the strong-

arm work and special under-

*

And then, 20 yards nway. the

cover jobs. They'll be after Aring engine, thundered into the sam

carve and took the siding with ,us now."

a lurch.

and

She looked up at him Bond's gun shouted its four again and her eyes

were wards, There was a. lightning. shining and happy. "I got impression of a white face your gun. I collected it then the great engine was past jerked up towards the sky and after Spang had gone to hurtling towards the bed." She unbuttoned her shadowy wall of the Spectre shirt and dug into the Mountains, the beam of its waistband of her slacks.ness ahead and

pilot-light scything at the darkn Its automatio Bond took the Beretta, feel warning bell clanging dadly am, ⚫ing the warmth of her on ding-dong, ding-dong

dong.

the metal, and flicked out. the magazine. Three rounds

left. And one in the breech.

Bond's scalp tingled."D'you'

see anything back there?" BOND slowly tucked the

Beretta into his trousers

"It's the locomotive.” said and stood looking aster the Tiffany flatly. She gave a sharp, coffin of Mr Spang, and the trail twist to the accelerator and the of smoke drifted over his head handcar sped on again,

and for a moment put out the TOO...

For 15 minutes they sped

από

along in silence

And suddenly there was Bond could clearly see the great great tongue of fire and pilot-light of the engine cutting terrible iron crash as it'o bugi through the night, not mora ship had run on a reef And again. He seemed to under- back. "It's what they use whoosh of flame

than Ave miles away, and almost

on then i muffled clinging stand and he rolled over for inspecting the line. And caught as he threw himself angry fountain above 11. from recmed to come from unde and struggled on to hands I work ft. And I backwards on to the little the wood sparke flaming out of their feet. And, Anaily, a deep;

the gocat dome of the smoke distant boom. •• and knees his head hanging shifted the points. Hurry." platform of the car. Bub stacks.

then "My God, you'ro'a girl," clutch and the handcar the girl let in the whispered Bond. "But hell

down towards' the ground like a wounded animal.

the station. Do you hear mo, James?" She reached out and brushed the damp, sticky hair away from his

forehead.

"Have to crawl," Bond., "Follow you.”

can

him. The

breath came fast through "Nothing broken," said his teeth as he turned away. Bond. He grinned painfully from her and focussed on "It's better being kicked the allont, tinder-dry build- than being shot.”- said

ingo.

Bond-ficaved a deep sight ds. if he was just waking up. that was the, end, of, onia) of "We're in the waiting of a noise when we start started down the line.

Spangs. room, whispered the girl. that thing. Wait, Gol an He put an arm round THE handcar runs out of

petrol. The locomotive gets a "Let's get away · from here, We must get to the end of idea. Got some matches?" her shoulders, and shonourer.

But Bond and Tigany Tiffany. Case, “sald - urgently turned and smiled into his find a branch line. They set to "I've had enough of this. Half his pain had fallen eyes. away from

I work to switch the points over. It took them an hour and a Millimetre by millimetro the half and, by the time bus showed a crack and then a collapsed in the dirt beside-the widening gap is Bond strained cement, highway," Bond" was and jerloed at the lever. deilridus. It was the girl who

had got him there. - And then it was done and w The girls face cringed, with his head down, fighting the ma

Bond knelt on the" ground "I just had to sit there and dizziness that throated to "The girl got to her feet and pushed, open the door.

pretend that I didn't care, drown him, Spang stayed and listened. But then there was a glare of A her geat and tucked in her AN hour later she jumped to Bond gritted his teeth and✨ crawled out on to the moon- BOND lurched over to the and watched me. Then they light on the ground and Tiffany shirt and went and stood in the Cado's arm round him, he started opening them and room and everyone wply to the car and the whole air was dancing, hare, which hid the lt platform. With Tiffany row of petrol tins and slung you into the waiting tugged at him and he was or he middle of the road. A low, black happily to led. I waited an limped along boards, to where they sloped the wooden walls and plate hour in my room and then clanging of the warning bell, c down towards the ground form: When he had emptied got busy. The worst part the grout beside the gleaming rails. half a dozen cans he wont was, trying to wake you up" come-rossing towards them. m. back to her.

*!

AND there, in the single

linealding, was

way handcar.

Bond, stopp

at it ""Petrol?" varibly;

Get her going. He bent agonisingly, down and...

feet again and tumbling back car was coming out of the

flaming Iron beast it rolled to a stop just its front of ber and a hawk-like "Get down and don't move, straw-coloured hair, stuck

face" under an untidy, mop-of shouted Bond.

Salt Pout.of the window, Kemi roy Then he imped quickly toy this gyes briefly, "loolood her over alde of the track and drew his They glanced at the; prostrato

belde "the road and,

Then in

the cabin.

“Lelier" Maʼati "Art:

flash arid the trailet) bit

picked up a crumpled news BOND tightened his arm gun and stood sideways on with fun of the man to rall paper from beside the ralls round he shoulders. "I'll his pistol arm up lite, a quellist, to: There was the angry who tell you what I think of yell "hut" Something, whipped by p of the self-starter and then when I can't hurt so into the ground, beside him, and and gazed the ilus two-stroke engino much. But what about you, there was a pinpoint flesh from, draw), the de

he said caught and started hammer Tiffany? You'll be in a jam.

*ing bually.

w if they catch up witlus Gries And who mo those two men ahoti Tiffany Case restured to-Bond flicked the lighter in the/hods: Wint, and Brus à row of cans against The plica of paper flared and Kidd zz4. The girl giar

station wall. "Just filled he flung it away from him aldaways at the grimy

among the petrol, cam) › Tho; the BriefUpaz

the

Į