1961-11-11 — Page 17

17

business

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1961.

Patricia Lewis

The state of

my marriage

MAY

BRITT TALKING

To see

them together is almost like playing gooseberry on a couple of young lovers.

I'm glad for both their sakes. Because when Sammy Davis Jun. came to London last August. for a 10-week stay he arrived alone. And rum- ours began that all was not well with his marriage to Swedish actress May Britt.

May's arrival in London 10 wards the end of Sammy's en- Ragement 3con showed that this controversial marriage is a great success

catch-

There are private phrases which render them buth helpless with laughter.

shared There are

memories communicated by 1 glance. There is not only tremendous warmth and affection in their mutual behaviour, but admira- tion, understanding, and fun.

A crowd

Suminy and May flew home to America three weeks ago but came back to London for the Royal Variety Show, in which

O

Srimay appearedi, on November

bret:

+1}

1 has me for both of them.

exhausting

I went out to the airport le meet them. Saminy as usual was surrounded by a crowd of felends and associates, and when

Tour

Now

Leslin Blair,

and Bricusse, Lionel Bernard

began dis- Delfont cussing a film project, May and I moved to another table

be

"You know why I didn't want lo give any interviews bere*** she asked, and went on without pausing for me to answer

"Because I have been so bored The past year with these endless questions about race.

But I'm happy I came over. It was

time outside my first London and I was interesting fo

Technical know-how - it's what makes the best thrillers so convincing

THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY. By Gavin Lyall. Hodder

and Stoughton, 15s.

MAY BRITT DAVIS-THAT'S HOW SHE SIGNS HERSELF NOW

see places like Manchester and Liverpul"

teeth whiter She laughed. than ever without lipstick against the remnants of a Paville Coast tan

A film

"I just like being on the road, I guess. But must say I long

to see my baby now.

Many people thought that May Britt, un

#nished star, was became May Britt when she Davis-and this, incidentally, is how she signs her name.

But while in Britain she was teetering between going home or accepting a firm in Spain.

"It meant 10 weeks there, sc I would have had to bring over the baby and the nanny," she said, with a shrug.

school-age,

"The problem was not so much Tracey-It's not until they "Not Teenuse Tracey will miss аге older, almost

that children how can she at three

change in but because 1 miss months

Sammy.

hr so much."

G

Mr Reed has that teenage feeling

HE

E has a huge head matted with long, heavy hair. His eyes are big and grey and brooding.

His mouth remains un-

amused for so long that whatever small stretch of neck exists between it and 2 patr of threatening shoulders sinks gradually from sight.

It is only you feel, a ques- tion of the right moment before he bops you one.

As an actor Oliver Reed looks every solid inch the perfect casting if someone were to turn the story of Neolithic Man into a film.

Bul ag pop singer he comes as a complete surprise. Yet the most unsuitably named Mr Reed is, in his early twenties, B veteran villain from Hammer Films Chamber of Horrors and with hls first record, "Lonely For B Girl," a

"We've only been married a year and it's not good, these constant separations.

"Look what happens! Both their careers parties continue

and they never ace each other. How can a marriage, survive?"

It was my tura to shrug. "No, I've been very content the last year," conuer Max "I like very much being at home.

"Work? I haven't missed it, but I've been busy having the baby. And there have been no offers since until the Spain

get upset by a environment-but thing"

DISTURBING-THIS NOVEL ABOUT A TOP TORY

NOW for another disturbing novel. It is THE MINISTER (Hamish Hamilton, 16s.) by Maurice Edelman, the suave, culture-loving and luxuri- antly good-looking M.P. who represents the car- workers of Coventry North. Mr Edelman has himself made an intense study of British political novels.

brother To literary societies he has loved by his own

languorous tones and perhaps by other friends about John Gall, who wrote as well.

The Borough (subject: political

A reservation

She looked across the airport restaurant at her husband who, sensing something, glanced up from his business conference and blew

Mrs

kiss.

A smile

Davis Jun, responded with a smile, and I noticed fo the first time that they wore identical wedding rings.

"He never stops, does he?" I said. "I marvel how you can cope with the pressure... flying to New York, then on to Los Angeles today home, when we're waking up here, and then to Las Vegas tomorrow for

success

on

quick-climbing the Hit Parade.

"You've got to know where your bread and butter comes from," he explained. "And it comes from the tecnagers today.

"My ambition is to walk out of Wimbledon Town Hall and have all the kids rip my clothes off for sou venirs-because ++11 show I've arrived.

When I sing the beat affects me more than the words and I feel a part of the teenagers and the way they act. It's reat. And

oclors aren't real.

"They're a bore when they insist on. Hving off a ham roll for their so-called 'art.'"

well-

The well-spoken, born Mr Reed (his uncle is Sir Carol Reed) scowled as I started to laugh. I quickly coughed instead,

"If I can't make a living as an entertainer and I don't mean just acting, but singing, dancing, throwing knives, the lot then 'îl accept and give up," he declared fervently.

"I guess there must be at least 50 or more great themes

I was among them,"

told by Kay Swift, a close friend of the Gershwins and a composer her- self.

"Ira and I went through them one day and I played for many hours until any Angers, were numb; they were exciting, original, and beautifuly

had the capacity to write anything from an opera-Porgy and Bess-to jazz, and his notes show he

beginning was only when he died."

STACCATO

on

She spoke in the nervous, staccato vulce of someone whom such memories--both pre- clous

and

painful weigh heavily like a duty until they are salved by speech.

"I would love to arrange the tunes into songs if Ire would only do the lyrics with me," she went on, more, strongly.

"But he's so reluctant to work that I gave up nagging him, "I did persuade him to do 10 num- bers, though they were snap- ped up for a The Shocking Miss

Pilit was such hard going I went off to concen- trate on my own work."

Miss Swift was silent a moment, then spread her arms The smile this time

was wide

in a gesture of helpless inner honesty, frustration,

more cabaret."" prompted by an and a little sad.

"He must steep.. I really must make him sleep.

"But it's not easy. You know,

weeks' rest before he came he was supposed to have three here? Well, it was all business conferences, television appear- ances, and record sessions. But that's the way he is."

"The thing that worries me;" she sighed, is realising the notebooks may be lost to us for ever

fra.

If anything happens to

It worries me too. And i wonder how when the standard of modern music is so impover ished-Ira Gershwin can feel justified in depriving the public of such, a treasury. JOHN CASSAVETES, whose first directorial effort "Sha said dows" won such acclaim, did not attend the London pre- miere of his second film, "Too-Late Blues," as planned.

Again her gaze wandered across the room. Sammy waved "He's really a great man--you

us to come back,

and jobbery) in 1832, and about A. EW. Mason, best-known for The Four Feathery but also Set against this theme is the

as a person," she The Turnstile story of how Melville, having know, the author of (based on Mason's own brief said: "I want the African to softly as we walked over.

be my brother." adds in an indiscreet whisper,

as Liberal M.P.

for

my brother-in-law."

IN trains or planes, in punts or deck-chairs, in hoarding house bedrooms or hotel lounges, or anywhere else where holidaymakers are fighting' off their annual boredom, a good thriller can be a lectured in godsend. And The Wrong Side of the Sky is a

as they say, good thriller, action-packed. placed in a most convincingly realistic setting.

Jack Clay is a commercial And it does come to that and a very good one if a great deal more. But through-

career pilot, and

"Darling!" called Sammy. not quite so good as his friend, out the usual excitements of a

Coventry).

"but not "We've got thousands of films good Ken Kitson.

its yarn, with whizzing

to do-one for both of us and Now, in The Minister I be- And to explain why, although bullets, Its blinding storms, its

He now has a major assign- he is so good, he is flying beat- Greek Islands and forced land-lieve that Edelman has pro

The pretty lady at whom the one for me,

voice ment directing Judy Garland indiscretion is directed is the "Oh, Gahdi, his up Dakotas on charter work for ings, its tough villains and desir- duced a novel which itself de-

the Shakespearian and Burt Lancaster in “A” a phoney

mistress of an Opposition Lead changed to able Swiss

girls, there runs a streak of serves a very high place in- company, we

of political er. Duly circulated and printed actor register. "It's all too, too Child is Waiting." have to go back several years to that technical expertise which deed in the roll

best thrillers to action. anchors the India.

in the Press, it stirs riots in much In those panicky days rich reality.

It is certainly the novel Africa and almost wrecks Mel- Mr Lyall evidently knows well which I have enjoyed most in

ville's career. Muslims or Hindus finding them-

and 1961, selves on the wrong side of the the seedy world of bars

Why do I call the novel dis- rooms In which the new boundary line were paying hotel

It is not because of It tells how Melville, a Tory Edelman's approach

turbing? anything to be flown to safety, transient plints pass their days.

to morals Mnister, achieves the aim of and the commercial pilots were and once in the cockpit both he

He be- which unlike Miss Murdoch's working overtime with a very and they definitely know their every Tory Minister.

comes Tory Minister. But his is both adult and real. lucrative sideline in terrying out stuff. the portable fortunes of the rich

pubile triumph is hollow since No, the disturbing thing about he has Princes.

simultaneously dis The Minister is that, far from covered that his plain -but

It too often being artificial, well-loved wite has

also rings frighteningly true. allowed herself to be well

No malice

the partition

were

Both

Clay and Kitson there, got into politics trouble over it, and lost their English licences. So Clay is now a Swiss national and Kitson a Pairistani. Kitson is, in fact, private pilot to a very rich Nawab who had a small part of his fortune pl- rated during the troubles, and is now. trying to

to trace it. The small part of a rich Nawab'e fortune entirely 'in precious

Richard Lister

London Express Service).

THE BOOKS YOU ARE READING

For it portrays. a Tory leader ship whose alm, above all, is to be free from any supposedly. naive,

old-fashioned notions about patriotism or Empire or

A leader national greatness." ship which thinks

It

As the laughter died down, Mrs Davis juh, spoke up.

That's fine" she said. "As long as there's some time left

High

for us to have another baby." cost of

Which, I would think, is all

state of Sammy Davis, jun's marriage to May Britt-

anyone needs to know about the a Cossack

ALBERT FINNEY'S next

THE epic story of "Taras

Balba,

sixteenth- move after "Luther" will be century Cossack, will be A film for Tony Richardson filmed in the harsh-living at Woodfall Productions: He

will niay the "Tom Jones of Batcho region of the Ar- the title in a costume piece. gentine with Yul Brynner, Tony Curtis, and "" Sam Wanamaker making like the Steppes lead to their own front floors.

The

H from booksolierg all CONTENT by John Steinbeck furia Atecul ma erueni reluctant

188,),

stonps-represents a pretty large ERE based on reports- THE WINTER civilised and to be sum for a displaced pilot, and chance puts Jack Clay on the over the country, is my NON-FICTION:

about everything. trail of t

does not Socialist Edelman list of the week's best EXE OF THE WIND by Peter

this portrait present

with sellers-

Scott (Hodder and Stoughton, political malice. Indeed, 11 FICTION

ANZIO by Wynford Vaughany connections the Melvi

dear that, despite his Coven A SEVERED HEAD by Iris Themes Longmans; 308.): Murdoch (Chatto and Windus, TUDOR TRAGEDY by

attitude is his attitude tab.

18.).

Lacey Baldwin Smith (Cape, But I must draw atte SATURN OVER THE WATER 352)

NOT A CROOK

Clay is a dier not a crook but, in the half world of shady deals

•and cut rates into which he has beti forced cha knows the score,

Be reward from 18

and I not bove demanding a byd. A Priestley (Heinemann, RING OF BRIGHT WATER thi

"high percent

*

possessions, and by

of extorting AP

share to the point of a Beretta

If it comes to that her word

by Gavin Mexwell (Longmar, novel inavolaine JASON by Henry Treece · Z51.)

(Bodley Head, 18 INCREDIBLE JOURNEY by

Hodder aand

ANDA Shala Burnford DECISION AT DELPHI : SLOWUNION 13: B00OM Helon Macianes (Colleu, LBR

Gershwin

J. Lee Thodipson ("The Guns of Navarone"); directing, ex- plains the oddity of the location like this: "If you put ■ man on a borse the United Stater It costs £30 HERE'S Bfortune the horse has to gallop rathering dust in a W£68. Should the rider be

resto required to fall of the pric Mork apartment,

goes up to £100, and 11 atunt- ng to Kraiding is needed it rockets, të

$250 rother of since the fint involves £3,000,

Invand

Gega

Lahore, the budget de Bouch

Ameries comen, mit at nearly Phalf what it would have been

Dorth of the borderSLAT

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