1959-03-21 — Page 14

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Page 14:

LIMELIGHT

*

Young Mr. Acting Lark

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH -21, 1959,

y THOMAS WISEMAN

Wilde And The

BY setting their growing pains to music, more and more teenagers with fast pulse beats and loud voices are taking the well-trodden short-cut to success.

Making the most of their lack of years and their lack of experience, they tend to become idola before they have become adults. It is a somewhat drastic re-arrangement of the usual chronological order of things.

The mind of such a pren- tice idol may need some searching for, but once dis- covered it can be interesting to explore.

Mr Marty Wilde is, I am told, a teenage idol. His manager tells me his client may be hired for £1,000 a week or £200 a night. Mr Wilde sings.

As from this week, he also acts. He has been given i purt in a film called Jetstream which also has Dane Sybil Thorndike in

the cast.

are

Mr Wilde's manager tells me that lots of other Gitn .companies

after his client and there seems to be a possibiliy that he will get the star role in the film of Expresso Bongo,

Born Smith

I saw Mr Wilde this week after his first day as an actor. I visited him at his home in the Woolwich Road,

who was born with the rather square name of Reginold Smith, stands before the fireplace in his braces, the mallards Aying

behind him and the Hi-Fi re-

on

that money will spoll my per- fr'instance, in her neid she's the ernality.

big besi, just the greatest.

"I can't stand

Massacre In The Mud Who

Holds The Blame?

BY MILTON SHULMAN

In Flanders Fields. By Leon Wölff. Longmans. 251.

Robertson, Joffre and Nivells well-meaning but unirbaginative -baffed by a war where the horse was useless the bullet was .aupnome, victorise were „Impor~

elble, and wishful thinking

the backbone of avéry strategie»* al plan, dan

On the other hand

the minds whose advice.

JMAZAA

NOT least among the debris washed up by the Lord George, contemplunds of

aftermath of war are the sad skeletons of shattered ideals and men's reputations.

With the whitened bones of the Second World War almost picked clean by the memoirs and the historiea, it was perhaps only natural that writers. would turn again to the First World War for a masochistic re-examination of man's idiocy to man,

he had to take, but too limpotent to override their more suicidal adventures, without jeopardizing his political career.

ton to master his scruples.

In the end, be allowed imbi Step by step, this book leads us along the chain of ration alisallons that brought needles death to so many. Was blood-

letting pa auch n zorla the only' why to win, this war? ...

Without exewing the follies of Baig, it should be remembered that Ludendorf in 1918 did not

in Flanders in 1917. His fing Jeden much "Trond" the 'masSACTO offensive, which lost the war, cost the Germans no Cewer than 888,000 men in 15 wooks.

NOTHING.

-X. there Is any meagre,¡-Curie solation to be `gleaned" out of this horrible, inventery of crim- son bhundar; 16" in that it left the world no longer in awe of the omniscience of the military

mind.

Ten million men died; lis war that, "had medot Kothing, solved nothing in and

proved nothing." Life was still cheep in the Second World Serbut not that cheap.

London Express Service),

BOOKSHELF. BRIEFS

In Flanders Fields is a brilil- and tumbled. In their fear of

the ant analysis and superbly writ- drowning beneath

dilme ten descripilon of the relentless they tried to grip the lean o Inevitabilly by which 125,000 their comrades, who struggled up the contemporary wallpaper heads, I wouldn't want to be-

soldiers died in a few to break free," come a big head. Lots of peoplo "She's on to a very class sort British

General Sir Launcelot Kiggell, tell you how marvellous you are of a thing but she's worth any months of 1817 trying to win

miles of worthless. Haig's Chief of Staff, paid his • SMALL TOWN DA. Robert osrtain processes of the Ameri- corder going full blast and, and all that, but you got to amount. I aven't actually seen on four

first visit to the battlefield, after Travek. Faber.

Robert can legal system. making the plaster nymphs the mantel rock and roll a little. it's true.

delve into yourself to decide to great lody. I know and she terrain near Passchendaele.

irested me very nice”.

Walking les

the fighting was all over. liquid mud kneo-

As Traver is the pen name of the What anally emerges is the When I told him that Dame high, waves

his staff car lurched through the American judge of British troops

and former extreme undesirability of mok- The idol's mum brings in tea

carn Sybil didin't

swampland, £1,000 a clogged doggedly towards the ghastly

Kiggen District Attorney who wrote the ing the post of public prosecutor and biscuits; the pubilelty man who has brought his wife

erest-fallen. week, Mr Wilde was positively German trenches only to be burst into tems and muttered, best-selling documentary novel a

political appointment "But she's like decimated by raking machino- "Good God, did we really send Anatoray of a Murder.

especially at election time. along just for the ride lights

dedicated in't she? That don't gun fire before they had moved men to light in that?" The man everybody's cigarette and Mr

boside him replied tonelessly pay Wilde turns down the -Fi this earth,

so much bein' dedicatod a few yardy,

"It's worse further on up.” but she does preity good."* Ettle to make himself heard.

Marty Wilde will be 20 in "Singin' it gives you April with adult life almost sell, you get kicks, it's like a upon him, drug like when you're out there on the stage and the kids are screaming for you, it's like, a drug. It's like you can really let go

"Bein' an actor-it's just great," he says, "I'm goin' to in for that lark in a big way.

Hic considers seriously problem of whether or not it is cry to have any training

to be an actor,

the

"I wouldn't say I need to have didn't What I'm goin' to ave Irsson, and I wouldn't say I

is some elocution lessons to make me spzak prop'lly.,

I can put on a posh voice if I want to, but I want to pro- Bounce beiter, you know? Not inh-di-dah or that, but just so s I speak clear, you know? Seein' I'm goin' to be in the films now.

"That's where the money in- #ms. That's goin' lo be my East Greenwich, where he's goin' to knock qut all the

biggest source of income now lives with his parents. His others.

Yer, that's right, I father drives a number 70 make around a thousand quid a bus from Eltham to Vic-week now. toria.

"What do I do with H at Well, It just seems to go. You Opposite the house in now ow it is. I don't live a the Woolwich Road where grand sort of life. I don't like The teenage Idol lives to escape from the sort of boy I was. I still need my parents' success" "unspoilt by

guidance."

are two vast posters. One says in black lettering, "The Wages of Sin Is Death"; the other one, in blue let- tering, urges Forward in Freedom with the Con- servative Party.

The publicity "prev.ngly.

fu move into

man

"Maybe in another two years the fans bother with me none but I'd wouldn't want to still go on 'cause if I couldn't sing I wouldn't want to be On

"Fr'instance if you're unhappy you can let it ail go in the come up to that. Can't say musle. I imagine love must it does as I never been in love, but that's what I imagine.

Starlets-No!

"Most of the giris I know to go out with are in show- business, but I don't go for these sterlet types not for keeps. Oh they're great to go out with and they're not dumb like people say.

But the sort of girl I'd go for is un ordinary girl like a girl i saw ut the studio who brought the leo, a girl like that. I don't have much time to date but if I did have time that's the sort of girl I'd go for, not actresses. They're too tult of themselves."

I asked Mr Wide whether he thought he deserved to

£1,000 a week. He shifted his smfics elbow from the mantel to the top of the tiny bar which had been erected in a corner of the sitting room. His framed, photo- graphs stored back at him from all around the crowded room. 47 make people happy,"

he "and that's worth any-

"I wouldn't want a flat of me own," he says, "I wouldn't want

class Wouldn't feel at home there. area.

But I'd like a nice bathroom. In the living room of bla "Money is

well It's sold parents' house young Mr Wilde, prestige. What frightens me is thing, It's like Dame Sybil

The problem for someone like him is that whereas teenage stars don't necessarily grow up, their public sooner or later docs,

-{London Express Serýlce),

As the British walked, BOMO seemed to pause and bow their heads; they sank carefully to their knees; they rolled without haste and then lay In the soft, almost quietly caring mud," writes Mr Woin. "Others yelted when they were hit, and grabbed frentical- ly at limbs or torso, and rolled

JACKY'S

DIARY

BY

弟弟

JACKY MENDELSOHN

AGE 3%1⁄2

BAFFLED

Posterity has already cono a long way towards apportloning the blame for these events which

Mr Wolff cays will

He uses the same formula la his new book a collection of documentary short stories or, as he puts it, my experiences and observations, in court and cut, during my 14, tumultuous years as D.A.Z

• THE TANGERINE, Christine de Rivorre. Hart-Davia, 18. This frothiest of French confer- llons (told in the first person by a young married woman), pro- ceeds with abandon from Arat sentenco ("Love mokes mu

ILME 201

----(London · Express Service),

the

The stories are gay, dramatic, for sentimental. As before, law and ever haunt Westem elvilisation. sex combine to make easy read-hungry") to virtually the lat

On the one hand were the ing. Once again English readers ("I'm starving") military troglodytes like Haig, will raiso their, eyebrows at

LAST NIGHT THE TEMPER TURE DROPPED BUT DID. INT HEAR ANY THING AS

WAS A SLEEP

GRASH

DADDY SAD LETS GO EYE SKATING IN THE LAKE SO MOMMY BUNDLED ME UP ONLY IN STEAD OF PAPER BAGS SHE USED CLOTHE

معمولة

Leere

IN THE MORNING WE GOT A REAL BUZZERD

HAD MY 1ST TASTE OF SNOWG

PS: IT DONT TASTE BAD IF YOU PUT SUGAR LON IT BUT STILL LIKE EYE SCREAM BETTER

WHEN WE GOT THERE THE WHOLE TOP OF THE LAKE WAS FROZE STIFF EVERY BODY WAS RUNNING AROUND ON IT LOOKING FOR HOW TO GET IN THE WATER SO THEY COULD) GO SWIMMING &

BOOK

Even Havelock THE was jealous in the end

By George Malcolm Thomson

HAVELOCK ELLIS. By Arthur Calder-Marshall. Hart-

Davis. 30s.

SEX

was a Victorian invention. Before that it was called Love and was deemed one of the more amiable of frailties. Then Havelock Ellis arrived.

PAGE

trophy for profit and discovered that, he was really Georg.you Weissenfeld who had fled from Gisemany after forging cheques.

Do celices tracked him to house In Cambridge where, behind a secret panel, Weissen- Lelu tap disclosed, a revolver.in his hand.

A detective struck the weapon from his grasp and in less than a minute he was hondcuffed. Then he asked for

a glass of water, took one sip ond fell dead,

Bills always thought that the publication of his book was the

one disinterested set in this crook's life but "Ellis was the

He was

typical Victorian since one of these "casts" might rebel, brave, high-minded, an- be a policeman in disguise. cere and decient in 'humour. It was, in fact, Fome ume

One day in Australia, where before, sex Was

respectably grapher."

pornographic publisher's dress) 'of an author, a man so pure at heart that he could provide the impure with fore for richer than that of a conscious' porno- The sentimental life of this

votes for women, birth control. might expected. Ha'attract- pacifism, and other progressive ed Olive Schreiner, a novelist activities,

he had gone as a youth, the re-established as a movement along prophet was as unsatisfactory velation came to him that he with Socialism, vegetarianism,

'should become a doctor,

By this the young man, son of 0803-captain and an all-too- affectionate mother, meant that he should devote himself to liberating mankind from ancient prejudices about sox.

to

"who never needed. 10-drink In the process, it became

because she was always in the science a bogus science the get into after a bottle of cham- sort of state that other people prestige of which was kept aliva by cach practitioner

pagne." quoting Obviously the affair wea Industriously from the works of

nol likely the others.

prosper. Then he was married, uneventfully, to The authorities viewed the Edith Ellls. At last, to his own Havelock had been reading whole business with suspicion. Ereat surprise, he found tulnt- the work of a "shifty prophet" The climax arrived in 1998 when

James fumed

Hinton who George Bedborough was charged preached free love and practised with publishing an obscene libel,

Dangerous

what he preachet! -

It might be thought that

Havelock was hardly

the man

a book by Ellis..

One sip

Bedborough put all the blame

ment

with Frenchwoman nansed, Francolic.

The trial-comedy of Ellis's

Marshall with imunense Lack and humour. Ila most. wryly amusing: tath occurred when Francolse took another lover, Hugh de Selincourt, and Ellis,

love life as told by Calder-

to don Hinton's mantle for no was to put it moderately-şiət one of the world's great lovers. Dr Roland de Villiers of the the apostle of tree love, behoved However, owing to his dis-so-called Watford University like any: normal; Jostoje malo. Ebility, of which Calder Press, a large, gentle, fleshy Havelock Ells was neither a Marshall gives a kindly but ex man with somethingof, the Bgure of fun nor a charlatan, plicit account, Eilis proved to be aspect and the coliby trean or but he narrowly escaped being s soures of comfort and strength ♬ cat"

both. Calder-Marshalive viewa to many more babbels had been dubious about him with good-natured detach The mor dificult _ceres...ɔho hlm. The police were not. Thoyment, and presonis him as sent on to bli friend" Edwärd" baleved that he was simply convincing, it purding oddity, Carpenter. :: A dangerous game, interested in peddling porio London Esprite Baroler),

SO GOT A CHANCE TO FINE CE TURNS VERY SLIPPERY ILY USE MY EYE SKATES THAT IN THE WINTER WHETHER SANTA CLAWS LEFT ON XMAS

THEY WORKED EVEN BETTER THEN ON THE RUGG

WHICH IS LIKE SHOES WITH A KNIFE ON THE SOUL

DADDY SLIPPED & FELL IN A SNOW BANK WHICH IS A PLACE WHERE THEY

KEEP SNOW IN STEAD OF MONEY SOTHEN WE WENT HOME

HARD ALL SO

GUESS

THERE WAS A MAN WHO WAS DOING HIS LESSONS BY WRITING 8S ALL OVER THE LAKE HE COULDNT A FORD A HOME WORK BOOK

*World rights reserend

THINK DADDY MUST BE PLAYING ADD ENDIAN IN HIS ROOM AS HES RAPPED APP VIGE FOR NA BLANKET & HIS FACE IS ALL CHILDRENS RED ONLY MOMMY SAYS CANT WHEN YOU GO EPE SKATING PLAY WITH HIM BECAUSE HESA CATCHING

YOUR NOSE GETS RED YOUR HANDS GET WHITE + YOUR APS