1958-10-09 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1958.

HAVE YOU NOTICED THE LATEST LADDER

SUCCESS?

OF

BY SARAH ROTHSCHILD

NOT long ago an in- £10,000 for

terior decorator was

a man with a ladder and a pot of paint. The only way he could get into an Englishman's castle was

a complete over- too plus) married beiress Bobu Sigrist.

4 lut

of

"We've had quite those lately," said John, with real British understatement. Mr Siddeley-he is the lion, John, son of Lord Kenilworth

in succeeded has

making a "socially

through the tradesmen's inteilor decorating

acceptable profession.

entrance.

Today, the interior decorator. By marriage

in Savile Row suit arki TWITS

cur, gel the front-door treat- Other interior decorators, who ment. It is the doorway-paint- do not have Mr Siddeley's nd- ed just the shade. the decorator vantage of being born on the ordered-to The Englishman's right side of the castle door, get castle, home-and money.

there by marrying

the How has the interior decora- aristocracy, or at least marrying Fomebody who can afford a castle, even if not an inherited

tor reached this topmost run on the ladder to success?

Big ideas

one.

into

Mr Slux-Rybar, the New York decorator, married Alleen Plunkett, the Guinness heiress

a castle. And Mr Gre with Fornasetti. Italian Dlor of Juarez (Murlon Brando com- the decorating world. Since the gained that his decorating

spoku to

Signor Pern

war he has made a fortune by

decorating furniture, trays. Bereens, and china with his -

realistic designs.

Now he has decided to go in decorating. Why?

for interior

"It is not for the money," said Signor Fornasetti, "I'm tired of creating little things. I want to create big things."

has Signor Fornasetti

Just erealed for himself wa very big things-a couple of castellos

(the equivalent of the English- on Lake Como. mon's castle)

"One for summer, the other for winter."

He then showed me his latent design

in interior

his dream room.

"Cook, 110

decorating

windows," sold

Signor Fornasetti, "just doors,"

Signor Formaselli's driam

room is what he calls

n mela- not

physleni room--"certainly

to be lived in. It is meant to be more hall or a dressing-room,“ he said.

The walls of the room

aru

entirely painted with pictures

of walls. It gives an atmosphere

of being inside and outside

the same time."

fl

One person who does not en- tirely egree with Signor Fornasetti's view on firelor de- corating is his wife. She looked wistfully at the dream rim. "It would be nice to have a litle furniture."

possibile" "Non € Signor Fornasetti.

Unfortunately not many in- terior decorators have wives to criticise their dreum rooms. But

replied

I have found some of the excep tions. For instance, thero is the highly successful young decorn- tor John Siddeley,

"Jacqueline looks business side,"

tactfully,

after the

he, explained

"John has 30 Idea about money," sald his pretty French wife.

But this couple have not much to argue about with the money rolling In

It does. John Siddeley charges £25 for advice. "Just suggestions about caluurs and that sort of thing"-to

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was

The

As a last resort, thuse decora- tors who have not succeeded In capturing the lady of the castle lake the castle by storm.

devorator and his interior minions move in and begin over- hauling the old family seat. "That wall Tit KU" "Guardsman rod

simply immi you"... "Pelmets ore OUT this year" ... "Dragged paint 1 IN"

"Let's press

real butterfles into the bathroom wally."

Their clients regard them with the same respect as a patient regards a Harley Street doctor suggesting a mujer operation.

Touchy point

Felix Harbord, who recently "eld up the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava's house, put

is finger on the problem when he told me: "People don't mind being called ugly or stupid. But there's one thing they can't bear --and that in to be told they have bad taste,"

So it is that tho Interior decorators, no matter who wears the coronet, are fast becoming the kings of the casties. Perhaps that in why the humbler Englishman

for going in

decorating in

Do-It-Yourself such a big way.

Is

home is his own.

At least his

ROUND

UP

Army's Museum

COM

YOMING into being at Sand-

hurst is a National Arny

Museum following an appeal

last April for any old uniforms, medals and anything else of his torical military interest, The appeal was made by the Army Museum's Ogilby Trust of which Marshal Sir Gerald Templer is a trustee. There has

Field

DOROTHY

"It's agreed them, gentleman, that next year we'll get de Havillands to design one and this young fella Moss to sail hor."

DON IDDON'S

DIARY

NEW YORK, TUESDAY ·

TRANSATLANTIC LINK-UP

Miss Parker

PARKER,

the wit of the 20's und 30's, has now become the sage of the late 50's.

In between Wag the wilderness, when Holly- wood, and to some extent Broadway, shunned her be cause she was "a Liberal."

I have been talking to Miss Parker in the hope that she might make some astringent comment on the morass the men, particu- larly the statesmen, are making of the world.

I hnd never met her before, but I remember some of her bon mots, particularly "Men seldom make pusses at

and but

been a big response-including girls who wear glasses"

regimental coloura, pieces of ness silver, uniforme, head-| (now desses, painted armaments.

out-dated),

battle scenes, "Candy is dandy, swords and belts. liquor is quicker"

Of bells, the Sandhurst collec-will be out-dated),

Von includes the original fenther

by General Sum

Then there was the

(never

fumuus

sighs for

the stars

NOT THE HOLLYWOOD TYPE, BUT THOSE

THAT LEFT SEX TO THE IMAGINATION

belt designed. Browne V.C. One piece of occasion when, sick of solitude mess silver, valued at £2,000, in the office of the New Yorker conselous. I couldn't shows men of the 18th Hussors wearing the uniforms of Water- word "Men"

too. Woen

museum's

erUimated,

SI 500,000.

+

Often,

"Oh, I couldn't possibly do is shown in present-day novels, amazingly youthful considering

I'm. far too self- fis practilluners are so comerci- the years of late nights, that.

face an fully articulate about it. Before however, he lunches alone; but uther person or machine.

the actual consummation, after yesterday, when a flock of auto- mogazine, she

Bingle had the

Ji, and, worst of all, during it, graph hounds-all girls-am- pointed on the

"I'm living in this

curious they

discuss und analyse and bushed him, he bought drinks glass door. The male members

colony of writers and artists in debate and question and com- all round, the completed, collection,

of the staff, thinking they were Saratoga Springs-free because pore and prophesy and remi- it da

fur

some kind gentleman was inter- nisce. D will be

worth heading

14 created to,

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washroom,

It's agony now

the

ab-

an

this American Perhaps surplion with the past, and with arts and be- queathed writing and read- "And so any Joy is talked out past stars 4 shining, is ing and thinking. Then I will of the window. There is no attempt to got away from the move into my small hatet in more cruel destroyer et exclte- dreadful realities of the present. New York, and go on writing ment than painstaking detail. and reading and leking"

"Can you remember, the days when there used to be rows of asterisks? How hose utle stars twinkled and gleamed, and how warmly they shone

NEW Look" trains are to run on London's underground railways. Twelve prototypes Durothy has put that sort of erdere will have an all-silver gay antle behind her. Today exterior, larger she is modest, and i felt, a windows, mure space round the rifle melancholy. doors to aid rush-hour moves

rubber ment,

springing and

upon the imagination." The First deli fluorescent lighting. veries will be by the end of 1930.

London Later this year Transport is placing a £4,500,000 order for the traction motors and other mechanical and electrical equipment needed for renewal programme.

Warship Names

ATEST idea for lorries by a 4 London firm is to give than warship names. Some were to be seen at the Commercial Motor Show. A 16-tan eight-wheeler bore the name "Cachalot" after one of the Navy's new sub- marines. At the Millwall.depot of the Arm there are lorries with names such as Warspite, Revenge and Concord painted on the front of the vehicles, Lorry drivers, it was declared, know the history of their "ships." They are fold about them when they are named.

Big Sharks

ARGE sharks have been

Lvating the Yorkshire const recently. A school of about nine has been close inshore at Staithes. One of the sharks, measuring about 20 feet, passeri under the coble of Mr George Horrison, of Stalthes, who was alone in the bout at the time. It was longer than the boat and had it surfaced might easily have overturned the craft. It is thought the sharks have been attracted by herring or mackerel, Reports of large sharks swim- ming off Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay have been received,

I told her: "My editors in London say you are writing more brilliantly than you ever did. What do you say?"

Miss Parker "said: "That's the nicest thing I've heard for a time. Writing for me is long ageny. I sit in front of a blank sheet of paper in my typewriter for hours, and then struggle with the words. I never think much of anything 1 have writ- ten".

"Why don't you dietate?".

ZANIES

I can remember.

The Dorothy of the biting tongue, sometimes

wounding

Lost stature

I have to report a profound President disappointment with Elsenhower's leadership, and an almost total recoll from. Mr John Foster Dulles's brinkman-. ship,

CHARLES BOYER making news with another velaran CLAUDETTE COLBERT

"What about Hollywood?"

Dorothy blazed bricily: "'1 shall never go back to Holly- wood. I have said that before, but this time I mean 11, things they did lo me because 1 And the was mildly Liberal, Hollywood attitude is still much the same. I was blacklisted as

most frequently heard so many olliers were."

and even merciless, has always sentence round town and round

the highost councils or at least been a gentle woman.

the country' when, polities are

kelping maka "But didn't you amass a for-

the phrase When Scott Fitzgerald, who discussed lo, "Ike should never restrained from

have run again."

the great decisions, tune-forgive

bumed himself out with drink there?"

More and more he speaks out and delusion, was buried In I believe that Mr Elsenhower Miss Parker laughed. "Money Hollywood only Dorothy turned himself now believes that, Only independently. out there, as you probably up. The stars, the producers, another liness could get him

And, am I being too cynical Quiów, melts like snow. No for- the colony of hangers-on slayed out of the White House and off when I say that his "indigna

tune, just debts. I tell you sway. Scott was finished long the hook. His appointment of

where I would Ble to

go before he died. Why go to the Jerry Persuits, 62-year-old tion" over the revelation in the

England. I haven't been there funeral since before the wur.""

would

SUSE I urged her to coin at once back.

but

she

pleases

few persons

Perлons.

has-been of a

who Southerner, to replace Assistant State Department that the pub- Jic's letters are running Avo- Sherman make a come President

Adama never

to-one against the Government's except

valley towards the off-shorq islands in the Formosa Stralt from

on the moment's spur Parker

I am happy to report on the epigram,

44 Bald:

curious that Vice- further pulls the rug 1 find it new success of Dorothy Parker couldn't. In any case, a lot of in the magazines and on the President Richard Nixon, elec- under Mr Dulles? the so-called witticiams attri- book-stalls. Curious, but it is ted by all the people of the buted to me were dreamed up the old names which are mok- V.S. and anxious for a closer by others.

Too detailed

M didn't mind

sa long

ing news here.

attachment to the White House, ls not given more responsibili ties by the President.

For

I regret

Afler Parker, we have the

One final noto in the interesla Veterans Claudette Colbert and

My friend Miss Charles Boyer opening in a new

months, in feel years, of accuracy. as play, "The Marriage-go-Round," we have been fed the fancy Elsa Mexwell was described in Colten and food that Mr Nixon is being my shipboard column from the they were good, but often they We have_Joseph"

United States as having "lost, starring in groomed and trained to succeed weight but not enough." Actual Francis wero fecbla You'll have to Arlene

"Once More With Feeling" and the President... accept me as I am."

ly radiood: "Mits Maxwell has Tallulah

Estelle Bankhead,

Yet I have the strong impres-lust weight but not energy.“ Miss Parker has, however, Winwood.

Blondell in Joan

sion that the two men are not And the error occurred xx some salty views about the sub- "Crazy October." ject which interests most of us

54X

4 close. Nixon rarely, ever, transmission. Don Ameche, sick to the plays cards or golf, or fshes atomach of being perpetually with Eisenhower., "Sex, of course, is as old and called "the man who invented prevalent as tho weather.... the telephone," stars in Goldi-

should one

never lock. Maths Certainly

complain about zox itself, but I think we all have a legitimato I often ace Ameche in Toot grievance in the fact that, as Shores restaurant. He remains too impatient to be kept out of well? Thank you, Eisa.

That's the least I can de fon Miss Maxwell, who wrote in her Nixon had no love for Adams syndicated column this weeks —and he is not exactly a fi. "Don is young but doesn't-misa of Foster Dulles. He is Wo a trick and he's always fair to young, too eager, too ambitious, us." Young, at 40, Miss Max