Tage U
Thomas Wiseman's
Ambition: to be the world's greatest star
TISS Melina Mercouri, who might be described
MISS
as a sort of Grecian yearn, finds herself today one of the most sought-after actresses in the world. This is almost entirely due to the extraordinary success of Never on Sunday, cheaply made film that is now breaking records all over America.
#
For some years now Miss Mercouri's fiery personality has been appreciated by the sort of people who go to art-houses to see Continental films, but until she made Never on Sunday for American director Jules Dassin she remained a strictly local conflagration. Now Hollywood has appreciated her box-office appeal and she is offer- ed twenty times her former salary.
"In the last year," said Miss Mercouri when I saw her in London the other day, "I have been offered about twelve scripts, all of which I have turned down. In ten of them they want me to play the whore. Of with the golden heart.
"Because in Hollywo
if you once play a whore
in lm that is sureeRK =
ful, they want you to go on playing the "whore."
گاریم
Miss Mercur: has not Turned down these parts because she is confèrup- tuous
the kind of international fame that Working in Hollywood Can bring. Thu! is .precisely what she wants, and she is remarkably in describing her
frunk ambitions.
'The greatest'
"I want." she said. "to
be the greatest står m the world. Afler all. there is nu point in wani- ing to be the secondl
greatest star,
"I do not believe
anything by halves.
course,
Melina has a
problem-she
doesn't like herself
ա. Վար
in doing 5. ut I am not a phenomenon,
Of coure
I adore to be recognised-1 love work."
the fame. Every actress who hos She
e It was necessary
to
is now starring with
version of Phaedre, and the Jules Dassin.
"I He tells me something I got, I say to ilfe. No, it is not. I do not like the way I look. How could I?
dream always to be Garbo how can I be happy with myself? I am ambitious to be
THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, AUGUST 1; 1961.
LIMELIGHT
For the film version of jean Anouilh's
Waltz of the Toreadors the very DANY ROBIN
French story has been totally
Anglicised. The general, played by Peter Sellers, is now British instead of French, and a traditional English fox-hunt has been thrown in for good measure.
In fact, the only French thing in the whole film is Miss
Dany Robin (above), who plays the girl the general -
has always loved. Presumably, this was the one character the producers felt could not be Anglicised. PICTURE BY MICHAEL WARD
Nobody could uncork a cham- restaurant or even uncorked a pagne bottle with quite such champagne bottle. I hadn't been able to afford it. There was expertise, nobody could order a
the least smooth mekl with such gentlemanly nothing in authority or seduce a beautiful about me. woman with such finesse,
During the late Forties he was the perfect model for any intelli- wanted to gent schoolboy who grow up to be a Casanova.
Mr Douglas, who is now in Loudon
la play a arizzled old satlar in Peter Ustinov's produc- ties of Billy Budd, met me for
'Snobbery'
"In those days when you sign-, a Hollywood contract, the studio owned you body and sout.
"Lift
to gravitate cerned
and hotween the sludin
I say Muggeridge has gone too this time
by
far
Percy Howard
CONFESS that I am not among those who ure pained by the very thought of Mr Malcolm Muggeridge. Unlike many of my friends, I do not wince, as if I had tasted something sour, people whenever that familiar action and respect. face, lisping, self-satis fied, and primly cada verous, smirks from the television screen.
for still showing blon
In the belief that there are Americana who arc thirsty for opportunities to gloat over the
Anoposed humiliatione of medern Britain, It presents Win- ston Churchill-a man who WBS Instrumental in saving the en-
I suffer no spasm when tire civlised world-us 眩 that familiar neck gives on pathetic totem, foolishly ro- odd but characteristic wrig. vered by the decaying of their as a symbol gle and a question is pecked glory.
at
hol
KO
British former
badly-timed
ан Interviewce — who,
The author of the article"? ncedless to say, is promptly Mr Malcolm Muggeridge. interrupted by that familiar Now let me say at once that voice for a 10-minute sup. I would not condemn anyone, the plomontory before the first even Mr Muggeridge, for
meri act of criticising a British question is answered.
political leader. Far from It. I t oven sickened by Even the biggest men need the Muggeridge voice itself criticism. It is a good which which, by some miracle, auc can make them stli) bigger- eeeds in being both unpleasantly although I would have thought precious and nifensively rasp not only that Churchilli hud ing at the same time.
endured enough crittelam in his When, for a handsome fee. time, but that his time for Mr Muggeridge published his criticism ended when he went Butorious personal nungk on into retirement six years ago, the Queen in the 'American
Yet, whether Post 1 Was Saturday Evening
ullerly embittered against him as most people-- although I was angered that his 6,000-word article
with have exactly coincided
Queen's four of North the
Like many others, I belleve Muggeridge's article that the Court should not be American public above criticism. I believe pas- The Totemisation sionately in the merits of being Winston Churchill." outspoken and candid,
But I still fancied that there Mukkeridge begins with an something peculiarly account of Sir Winston arriving degrading In a preminent British in the Riviera. He writes: public figure choosing that very
glazed man.nt to plek on, our hard-
it might be working and conscientious Head of State an he made her way among the American
and lo prople
tampoon her appearance. dress, tests and Ideas in an American magazine in return for a lavish helping
America.
was
the
ca kiss somebody film is again being directed by a Cleopatra, an Aphrodite-how dinner the other night, sporting Swhaming pool. There was also
the wish to be a big star is an Tony Perkins, in a modern-dress exhillumnist.
"It you! with all the world wateling. If you can show your heart on the screen, you must be an exhibis tionist."
What is the satisfaction Miss Mercouri derives exhibiting her Mouri trà world?
Necessity
"have a soul," said
Mercouri,
"and she
and promptly
dis-
An a terrible muney snobbery, can 1 bear to look at myself a two-day growth of stubble (for in-collar-a-day, extra couldn't Thench transposed
the lo
thing that the tim) But there is one
afford to be seen eating with a world 12 morlert" Greek ship- Miss Mercouri deeg quite like usioned me about his career 12-callor-a-day extra.
It was as the screen's best mannered a Mullifying existence." ping millionaires, the role still about herself. "As an actress." that enauins
Juicy dramatic she said. "1 am not at all bad. ** tlas"
rakte. from elements that tempted actresses
the like Sarah Berndt to play The man who hated gas tit Hasselberg: and
Phaedre in the original,
be
Mixe
Hollywood
Douglas coes have some pleas- Fo the thing his name isn't ant recollections of Hollywood-- they nehide making Ninotchka, furthermore, he hated his Holly in which he played opposite
much wood career Joy
of the Garbo. Bme.
"Garbe," he recalled. "was During the past ten years he very humourless, Rather dour, has not made one filin Instrod. She was certainly not heautiful he has re-established himself as in the convertioual seose She
! Broadways one
most fund a pour figure and hated formidable actors,
appearing in a swim suit, "When 1 first went to Holly-
"But when vm played a love wood," said Douglas, "and was
scene with her you could feel called upon to play all these Die extraordinary erotic quality sophisticated roles. I don't think that she could radiale." decent esten in a
In her termination to The world's greatesį star,
Merenuri is tied with one difti- rally She does not like herself
The samething like 50 Holly Miss nearly as much as everyone else
In fact, she posi- wood ms (in which he played must be seems in din.
opposite actresses like Garbo, 4 is for the sails Uvely dislikes herself.
I want "My problem," she said. "is trich, Norma Shearer, Gloria Suction of my soul that
that I don't like me. There is Swanson, Ava Gardner) Melvyn nothing about me that I like. I Douglas built up an image of s not 1ke my character. I am himself as the smoothest, if not
The greatest, lover on the screen. I had ever
satisfied.
to be a great star. 1 have
worked for H.
"Bardet is a phenomena
she did not have to work for a terrible pesshukst.
SKIPPER SAILS
ON ICEBERG
THROUGH ARCTIC
'SHIP' MELTS BENEATH HIM POSITION: 73 degrees North 157 degrees West, -Temperature: freezing, sometimes down to 40 below zero. Rank: senior U.S. Navy scientist.
Job: Skipper of an ICE- HERG.
That, in a nutshell, sums up Max C. Brower, 37-year- old
and father of four holder of one of the world's most unusual missions. Daily he pins his trust in a huge lump of ice floating through the thawing Arctic.
This is his command - his "sida" for as long as Nature ollows.
His purpose is to chart the
Arctic
THE WORLD
OF SCIENCE
Peter Fairley
reports
from America
With him, Brower han a team atomle Aubmarino channels.
of 17 acionista whose homes for immediately authorised erection
the next four months will be a of a camp.
collection of Euls pitched near
the leoborg's highest point
43 feet above sea-level.
Desolate
With the all of tong sf eqttip-
Hot water airlift
Fourteen profabricated huts
ment und instruments they will were flown in on to a hazardous aludy, measure and chart one of landing strip, followed by the the most desolate regions or the reientists. The huts have now Earth,
heen Atted on to sleds to allow
I have just spoken to Dr movement across the
Brewer, during one of his brief
ncoded.
ben: it
hope back to the American main- Dr Brewer explained: "During land and civilisation. His reason, the hut auminer the top of the for doing the job? -
iceberg enn melt down five test, "The Jelen
pioneering Bul the huts get left behind fascinated ine," he said, "I find on pedestals of ice which they
of
it a great challenge trying to have shielded from the aun. necompilsh good work under new "This can affect our scientific and difficull conditions,"
calculations. I also makes
110W
Dr Brewer motted the berg- Olmeule for the occupants to omelally known as Arlls get out. So we keep moving Two (Atlantic Research Laborn them on rauners—a little tory Ice Station) last year during week."
each
a reconnoinfance fight over the He added: "Sapu we hope to Polar region,
fly out a hut water jet BU
that
It measured two by four miles the huts enn be left in the same and julied auf of the nea an epot all the year round.↑ average of sight feel-with four- The mirface of the les Island fifths of ita inass below the is strewn with bouldors and rock surface.
debris relion of the passage of The V.S. navy Dow inten- some irresistible glacier, Bome sively surveying the Arctic for mesture 10 fort serves. possible shipping routes
The scientista rook by bollied
K
and
chate from a light airplane.
-Landou Express Kornire),
Although Arlis Two melts very slowly for its size-lt loses about a foot a year, on average, but has probably existed as a lump 30 and for anything between
Bel
of American menes.
Nevertheless 1 nccepted Me
| Muggeridge's excuse that he bad no intention of cımbarrassing the Queen at such a time. I accepted his explimation that the article had been written and bought many weeks previously, and that. In his iniscence, he had no Inkling. of its
being used during the Queen's vi
I now regret that I was go
tolerant.
-I have been reading the June issue of the American magazine Esquire,
Arwah Be general publie Esquire is noted for its titillating pictures of undressed women und for its risque jokes.
Among writers (It costs 4s, Od.
or not. Muggeridge's attack is hardly political. It is spito- fully, and almost pathologia- ally. personal, I have read nothing like it since the sick invective which dribbled from Josel Goebbels.
18
for the entitled
of Sir
as he enters the Commons, Mug- geridge continues;-
+
What is it about him which make him, even la nis decrepitude, still tower above the others and hold thơm in tar 31 No1 warmth ef character be
Father horrible....
(Yes, that is what Muggeridge scinally prints.)
6
Not past services — in the House of Cummans, of all' places (10 UBC a phrase Shakespeare pute Into the nwuth of Tiniun of 'Allions)
bur their mon
doors beforo the sailing suti. Not furmous arutions-like all rhetoric, his wear badly. Few today can Isten without squirming even to the wortline speeches, which were so stirring at the lime, about blood, wweat and tears, and lighting ▼ or the benches....
For those who can get past that observation undazed, Mug- gerlige proceexis to give his explanation of why Churchill 19 so admired:-
05
He has become a kind of totem.. Hig continued existence provides a link with departed glory. Though his sut may have set, still, as long he is there, some glow lingers about the western sky in which others participato, He is produced, as totems are, keep up tribal murale, which
sagt otherwise would under the weight of unfamiliar circum- disconcerting
stances. Britannia
the waves,
no longer
Churchill was
and
uyes faded
His Ince is vacant; mensely old or just barn-the and watery, the
Anci
$11-
rules
when
Lord
of the
features muzzy, somehow just out
photo- of focus, like a graph when...
Admiralty...
the comern, has
but did
First
But what does all this clever
Just moved 12 Is ilusion to suppose thai those really add up to? Is there any who cling tenaciously to life sense in it at all? necessarily want to go on liv-
a talk of loterns and totemisation
Duke of
ing. They often long to dic,
Was the great and, like Lear, hate those who wellington a tolem providing a would upon the rock of this link with departed glory? tough world stretch them out ved to a great age. At 80 he
longer. Their survival
be
due to some reflex action
Muggeridge continues:—
He
may was cheared and pointed out to
small children-just ns Church- il is today. And when Welling- „ton died, though it was scores At of years after his victory
the country
WDS
He can still go through the Waterloo, motions of responding to stunned with grief. applause. Cheers penetrate his Was that because the deafness (which he resolutely
alleviate with refuses to hearing ald) when
•
a
Victorian regarded him as substitute for declining Empire? Or was it because they honoured greatness—ROÛ Laughi thetr
children to honour it too?
1
words cannot..
Next follows an account of a
a copy) i la noted for fees Churchill visit to Parliament:~~~ which con amount to several hundreds of pounds for a really sensational article.
Vindictive
gas and see by electric light, Dr Brewer, "but sometimes the
small diesel winter blackness dis-oriuntutes 300 years-it could come to an generated by engine.
They spend three some of them. We have an end any day. months in winter, and then four emergency procedure to evacuate In summer, without any relief anyone who camoi stand The Chief danger is grounding. If excupt for mall and newspapers strain, r falls it,"
this happens, the iceberg storis dropped twice weekly by para- The iceberg travels between to break up quickly. It hap
ww and eight miles a dry. pened to an ice-Bloc previously blown along by winds of up to "piloted" by Dr Brewer. How do they tolerate the 35 mph. Is there danger? monotony which treludes "No more than there is to "We are prepared to stay on several minths of unending anyone who spends months in this one." darkness with little to remind an isolated region of the world," where I takes us for as long as u man which should be brunit- explained De Brower, "nature keeps whale.
There fast and which dimart
bear. is an awful lot of Aretle for us slonally we see a Palar
on him to chart," There is plenty of work to But If you don't pick
age. -tierulus Express Service). keep everybody coupled," said he will usuality not pick on you.?
he added
"and go
Such an article appears in this isque. It is a scathing and vindictive attack on Sir Winston Churchill. It giggles and jeerz at Churchill's infirmities in old It mocks at the British
BY STANDING FIRM WE HAVE SAVED. BERLIN...
Bondar Bryter Arteta.
From time to time, Chur-
What would the Victorians
chill monages to and his have done with Muggèride? way, alone and unaided, into
the House of Commons... There
wore profcasional
W. B. Clibert men
"The idiot who praises in
enthusiastia tone
"All centuries, but this and Every countdy but his own.”
Then, after some long-drawn- detractors in their days too, of oul by-play with his handker- course, chlet ar a throat lozenge, he tioned:- Jeans across to ask a neigh- bouring M.P., in a sepulchral whisper, what the business is before the House, and who the Member is (pointing at him) on his feet. It may well be. Macmillan or Galtakell wham he cannot identify. His eyes seldom intimate rocogallion and, when they do, it is from
recollection
The the recent pust prosent and are hidden from view un- dor thick clouds of forgetfulness.
So curious
is
Yet did the detractors ever
thay prosper as much as
the doing now? For this curious thing about Mr Mug- guildge. He is frightfully upset won a bold and
Yet, even if we accept the when having accuracy of Muggeridge's oc- lucrative reputation for attack- count (and it is for from a ing hy own countrymen, he curate); even If we overlook Ands that his countrymen the fact that Churchill at go back.
usually seems more genial and
BLO--EVON if we accept this, iconoclast.
hit
ta
virtio than Muggeridgo at any He glories In being
But he expečta what does Muggeridge's criticism havd his own portrait among the leons. He is eager for the
amount to?
Only Thie that Winstons fame of Diogenes, the sharp.
and cynical 4 Churchill In 1001 is guilty
of tongued
philosopher who lived in pever-
the crime of being old.
That is all that is left if we ly in a tub.
trip away the balanced ndjer-
tives and the carefully manner.
He wants to be Diogenes, but
ed phrases which are character- ho doesn't want the tub.
itle of a wrlier who seems to
have been born with ancer in his mouth.
o aliyor
"Churchill in old” — that in what he is saying over and over again.
Is there not something nasty, something almost depraved and obscene about gloating over may person's mẞritten-even if it were not a man to whoin the whole world over so much?
'What is it'
And so far he has succeeded. As Britain's jeering and #slf-appointed - obituariat America, Muggeridge splendidly rewarded. If he rejected by otin British left- vision programms his superlės and patronising death's-bond amile in promptly fed falo the cameras of another.
:
For my part, however, I will now switch to another pro4: Kramnic AY o Malegin Muggeridge appears un the peroon. When his name appairs over a magazine article, ["shalt. ask my newsagent to give sie.. BUT Muzzeridge la not merely a different magazine...
concerned' jith - Churchi.
And I hope Í um He turns his attention to those who admire Churchili, Having only one to do so, ‹ described the Lush of attention
not ow
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