1960-03-12 — Page 13

TOP COLUMN - OF SHOW BUSINESS

Roderick Mann

MR. DAVIS KIM NOVAK AND THE GANGSTERS

SAM

AMMY DAVIS JNR-one of America's most celebrated entertainers---- is coming to Britain in two months' time to appear at a London theatre-restaurant.

It should prove an auspicious show-business occasion. For Mr Davis a one-eyed Negro now converted to the Jewish faith-is an artist of great versatility.

He is a close friend of Frank Kim and 1 were just good Sinatra, who, in the way of friends. It would have done close friends, rates him The nether of us any good to Kot Greatest." Ho commands up to married. We are both intelligent

week HK$100,000

for his people and know how stupid

such a move would have been. appearances.

And by virtue of his "For there's no way of telling friendship with Kim Novak which way the publle will react he is the centre of one of the to such a situation-except that the most extraordinary show bus- if the woman is coloured And high-riding Bernard Bresslaw will take the long rideries of the decade. A bias is not nearly so strong.

"We would have been stupid story which might well prove back. The moronic approach to the subject of a good fun to have even thought of such e humour that took him high on thriller. Preferably

starring thing. It could have killed my the ree-saw in "The Army Sammy Davis Jnr. and Kim career slone dead, and I'm cer Game" will also weigh him Novak.

gim- down, for the price of a mick can be painfully ligh. Private Popeye's party is over.

Yet

At one

her

The Not any more If you wait long

it will most certainly be in company with heart-throb Rossano Brez, One

Brazzi, although the star of the long-running "South Pacific," enough the balance may the discovered as a light-comedy is becoming a dated hero. again, as Mr Mason will tell

His sunve Latin charm will you, fast, actor in the Kenneth More- Three

Sly appeal

David Niven class,

His role in the new British Alm "A Touch of Larceny" has surprised Hollywood bosses who Novak have seen the film privately.

Up, up, up Roes Lee Reralck, the half-wanton, half-child stor of "Anatomy of Murder." oft- screen, Miss Remick. has the kind of well-bred, finishing- echool dignity with which Grace Kelly fascinated Hollywood.

A curious amalgam of custard- ple slapstick and siy sex appeal, this one-lime £40-a-week Yet 23-year-old Miss Remick Broadway understudy is already has tremendous sex appen?. an

Now for the three going down. E85,000-a-picture actress, Binalra's "Chu-Con" co-star, Jean Simmons, a cool, fashion- and on her way to being one of able beauty, is a Hak iri the legend of leading ladies that the biggest stars in the world.

Clara Bow Perhaps the most unexpected dates from

and Ellis of

James beyond. Almost inevitably as upswinger

MacLaine and friends For the 50-year-old Mist Mason.

grow in popularity the Sim- star, who built his success on

wway.

Men for man-size roles

IN

INNOCENT

LAURENCE

HARVEY

Bul twist.

to star with Richard Todd in the films version of "The Long And The Short And The Tall" in the role made famous by Peter O'Toole on the West End stage,

curious

to star in "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" exactly the klad of man-size role that. gave Harvey's career such a boost In "Room At The Top,"

hero's the O'Toole

骤

London Exprass Service).

MKAVEY IN HÖRENİLENT

KARMY

Three for HK readers

("The Typhoon's Eye" by Preston Schoyer. Jonathan Cape. 18/. All Booksellers).

PRESTON Schoyer is

a writer of consider- able ability. It is typical of Hongkong that he lived among us for years

subscribed way back in Ohio.

Obviously, as Mr Schoyer

while, his book, "The knows only too well, anyone

By John Luff

་ ་་ ་ ་ ་་་

What now? Do they ever see each other?

tain a brilliant actress like Miss their Novak would not sacrifice paint during

was openly career." friendship, hinted that Miss Novak and Mr Davis would marry. news shocked Miss Novak's studio, who felt (alas, rightly) that marriage to a Negra might

Sald Davies: "Publle opinion Bunshine pallet. prove a catastrophic blow to

being what it is, We can no her carefully-engineered career,

other even as One night, at the height of longer see each

friends without some pinkead The deep, blue sky and the warm the flap, Sammy Davis Jnr saying: "There they go agata!" Mediterranean aan are but part disappeared from Hollywood. Whatever you do, you can't beat of your joyous holiday among And the rumours began.

The ancient days the wheel,"

zone by the Gratian said,

golumns-tho Two gangsters, it was

Before we hung up, Mr Davis broken him late one told me he is now engaged to a had called on

rutted stones of Roman high. night and told him to drop Miss Canadian-born ringer, Miss Joan way and the samo golden cun Novak It he wanted to stay, Stuart. They hope to marry by that has warmed the hearts of healthy. They warned him, the end of the year.

"And don't ask me if she's further, to be out of town, by

white or coloured," he cracked, next morning.

"I haven't noticed."

FOOTNOTE: htr Davis wus recently asked by a golfer what his handicap was. Handicap? echoed Davis. "I'm a one-eyed Who had hired these strong-Jewish Negro. What more do arm boys to do the persuading? you want?” Who else but Miss Novak's studio, it was said. Appalled

A good idea

that their prize property should

Dirt with disaster, they had

Kallen back on Chicago methods,

Well, well!

MISS ZSA ZSA GABOR

bless her little heart-has

people for centuries, will warm your heart on your holiday In Bo for sun- the Mediterranean. abine fair, ty Swissair!

Catering from Hong Kong by Gadd!'!

Swissair has regular fightë from Hong Kong to Bangkok, Calcutta, Karachi, Calro, and Zurich with Immediata connectionE to all major European cities.

Today most people in Holly been decorating the Londen wood belleve the story. Every secare, ence morë. And, though Bwiss Quality worldwide! time I go there I hear it accompanied repeated.

Now that Mr Davis is on his

It I have made any attempt at way here, it seemed a good idea, all, as I see this book and the to lavestigate it. idea behind it, the Chinese are! where

by her current American fance, Mr Sidney Barlon, she has been detailing the problems of her love-Hile:

"There must be something terribly wrong with me," the says.

So I telephoned him in Las

"I am only attracted to they always were. A Vegas, where he is now appear- people interested in their own ing. And he talked about it men who don't really want a wile. When I was little giri community, and little else be freely.

and I went to a party, it most yond it. That external fouds "Oh, sure," he said. "I know of the boys made a fuss over and disasiers which

In turn all the rumours about the gang me but one didn't, I had to dance bring disaster to their own stars. But when I walked out with that boy or die. I have community are accepted philo of Hollywood it was my own been that way all my life" sophically, That in the end, a decision. I wasn't threatened. Mr Barton, graying, strong is one. That trouble, whether

and silent, sat there, making no it be the trlads advancing with

"if you can take a phrase fuss. the Boxers, the revolution of

London Express Service. Sun Yet-sin, or the complete which is so often sneered at,

Ringing of the Glass," walking about in Hongkong those who have come down Here follows the part I query. was in every bookshop with money to burn is apt from Shanghai, It is what In enriching the story, it is held domination of the Communists by the Chinese that this Chinese all are part and parcel of the of the English-speaking to get his fingers scorched world, but so modest is pretty quickly. Mrs Weitzel you call a "tou-shop" story, girl had a love affair with the same thing.

ane that is spicy in telling, Prussian would certainly have run

do- Berlin Mr Schoyer that few into trouble had she not and contains all those who met him associated met

fellow American, licato or indelicate asidos, Preston Schoyer with Tony Reston, an old China so tantalising in telling, and occasion of THE Preston Schoyer. hand who had long repineed beloved of the Chinese. to demand compensation,

The empharis of the story Inflict punishment upon the famine and disaster come and

2

that starry-eyed determina Mr Schoyer returned tion to be matey with the to Hongkong last Orient, for a more profound

baned Autumn, after placing approach his manuscript in the reality. hands of his publisher.

In his

Flay

upon

Count Waldersee in

The story goes on to the rising. the Boxer

Europe and the forers sent by

Heaven

Only the name is changed, And amid It all, the community and goes

on. cruelty, injustice, being placed at that point most authors of this anti-foreign out- go. But in the end, all is one. suited to the teller's tastes

burst.

Query

Now such a view will drive a In mad, for young modernist every revolution to be young is It is only when very heaven, Waldersec led the you get older that you find that

your youthful battle cries

are

Ask a Chinese about Sal-chin-

the hua. "Ah, she is

wormiarh who saved Peking from the foreigners," he will answer

Count proudly,

Ask another; his eyes will Prussian forces, and when they only echoes of a former genera-

at Peking and were "The Typhoon's Eye"

sparkle naughtily. "She is the arrived

Field about to indulge in further tion, and that all ideals lead to Sai- the lining of pockets. Only the appreciation of the courtesan who subdued

looting was reviewed in the first station. I found Mr Schayer's Marstal Count Waldersec

and destruction,

their names change.

So upon that nole of de- number of "John

And an extremely old Shang- chin-hua mot Waldersee, O' assessment of Hongkong and its

too young love affair was renewed, and

the pression, I introduce this book. influence quietened London" when that environment much more intell hai hand, while

to remember Sal her

It begins with the words, gent than that to be found in (possibly)

and I "Sha! Sha-ah! Kil! Kill The journal was resuscitated the usual American novel deal- chin-hua at the height of her wrath of the soldier,

Well, all this la true, In with China or the Colony. tome, would certainly know

tea-shop Boxers are afoot, and the Reed last Fall.

affair Village Binds Itself caught up in Nor does he hesitate to flay something of the legndary tales query merely the

gossip addition of the

massacre and pillage, knowing Preston Schoyer is an those who speak and act with surrounding her beauty.

beginning secretly. in Berlin.

Henry McAlcavy is known to nothing but the consequences of American who looks upon out thought, Take, for instance, Just one paragraph from page 24

many old Shanghailanders in death and misery, Hongkong as a comparative where Mr Schayer sums up the

It finishes with an execution the Colony, is translation is

under the Communists. None ly quiet spot in the centre of situation In the Colony, and

simply great. He avoids all the in the village know why the the turmoil of Asia, achieves more In one paragraph

How much is true and how flowery paths of attempting to old man, so young at the begin- prc- render Chinese idiom Into Eng- ning of the book, is to die. rather like the eye of the most writers get down in a

book.

much is legend, I am not

but sh word for word. Rather QUOSB, typhoon-thus the title

Then his dealing with the pared to hazard a

this remains true: Stripping does he give idiom for Idiom, They do not know what the book.

fact-finding missions whose de-

and direct statement for cireum legate spends two days shopping away ail the spley asides

of forcing Incution, and the result is the from the In Hongkong, and gathers all the romantic stress hts facts both of the matnload Bellon into facts, the life of this nest book to come art Hongkong in an hour be- remarkable woman makes one fore breakfast on the second of the most romantle stories of day. Upon which the delegato the world. Iefus to the States to mako

of

His main character is Caroline Weitzel, an Ameri- woman who has come

сап

to Hongkong to distribute

a fund that her club has

CHESS

by, LEONARD BARDEN

B

157837

Here is a position from actual play: Black to move and win. Loydon Espai Bernice

out a solemn report. :

Legend?

pen of a foreigner translating a For those foreigners from Chinese tale. I cannot begin to tell all that Shanghai who learned to speak suraming up and read Chinese, the story is happened, but

actionary meant.

TE

But in the alarmning vividly sketched incident of the execu- tion, their "ahs" echo the "ahs" of their forebears who'sighed so when the Boxers, pillaged the village.

Woe

But this is by the way. In quickly, Sal-chin-hua was born taken from the book published

It must rend with robust In the neighbourhood of Soò- there in 1935, the year before the two weeks the novel covers,

She was the beauty Sof-chin-hua, died vigour in the Chinese, and Mies we wonder through the familiar chow in 1874.

Chong has searched far and strests of. Hongkong, and get beauty, and was soon intro-, an ugly, hairless, old, hag.

Henry Medicavy knows China wide for English expreselor to caught up in the strange emo- duced to the high-class flower

ปี few foreigners do. His match the Calnego, and in her tional tangle of a lovely young bosta of the district.

While qualifying thus es a translation is an achievement, rubstitution, her pollte répontei Chinese refigre, Vicky Lowo

opithets become rather mono- and two Americana in love courtesan, she was of that class virgins. While who remaini

Anglo- tonous. A good old with her.

-Saxon cxpression toes: olong Mr Schoyer writes well, with ebout her profession, she met a

diplomat of the old "Fool In The Reeds," by Chen 'quito woll with colloquial considerable knowledge of Chinese

Rainbow Chi-ylug. Ile school; lose who qualified, for east.

Press. Chinese. Ilongkong and the

HES., All Booksellers.) 7

So, sad to say, "Fool In The knows its people at first hand, high office by the dtainment of qualification only.

Reeds" is a cavalcade of woo he observes and reports, and the academic retult is a really fascinating So struck was Hung Wenching 66 MOOL In The Reeds," but how true it la of China.

by Saf-chin-hua's banuty, that

The really clever point mode 1 Mia a Chinese book was much older,

by the book is, the ancient chant he married her, and euch was by Chen Chi-ying, translated of hatred tired by the Boxers her fasciantion that although by Elfoon Ching

needed, only the substitution of à noun or two to become the ("That Chinese Woman," (tans- she could qualify DS. D COT

lated by Henry McAlenyy. cubine only, to retained at Tule again is a tale I heartily chant of contemporary ihnen.

Chen, Chl-ylor, Anis philkowo- Georro Allen and Unwin, least part of the ceremony due recommend to those foreigners 18/-. Alf Books¿Hers.)

only to the first wife.

who really want to get under pher, pallently wailing for his Chini was opening up) Mr the skin of the Chinese and seo countrymen to realise that THIS is a story that is

the world in old order can ́ paM_AWAY, but "Hung, wen. sent to Berlin, as how they view L・ well-known to the Minister, not only to Germany, general and their own country, only when man has learned that i

man cannot live without pity. Chinese, more aspacially but several other courts as well. In particular,

atory of present-day Hongkong. nlthough he

the

Or persuaded.

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