The reclusive widow of Lord Lucan is set to give her first
in depth documentary interview since her husband's disappearance 43 years ago.
The Countess of Lucan is set to speak about how her husband
tried to bludgeon her to death and murdered the family's nanny, in a
documentary exploring the mysterious peer.
It's the first time the 79-year-old has ever agreed to take
part in such a film and she is understood to be receiving a £56,000, according
to the Sunday Express.
Lady Lucan has been seen in front of cameras at various
London locations, including the church in Knightsbridge, where she first
married the 7th Earl.
The widow has also allowed the cameras into her rented flat,
near the house where she nearly died on 7 November 1974, after being repeatedly
hit over the head with lead piping.
Lady Lucan had appeared at her local pub, covered in blood,
crying for help and saying the family's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was dead. She
told police her estranged husband had attacked her and 29-year-old Ms Rivett.
The Lucans had been locked in a custody dispute over their
three children. Police concluded Lord "Lucky" Lucan, a professional
gambler, had murdered Ms Rivett in the basement of the family's townhouse,
after mistaking her for his wife.
The Lord had left a trail of debt and the mystery of his
whereabouts led to decades of speculation. Police believed Lucan, a German
speaker, had fled to Nambia, a former German colony.
But Lady Lucan, known as Veronica, believes he threw himself
off a boat in the English Channel the morning after the murder.
The couple's children, George, Camilla and Frances, who were
sleeping upstairs at the time of the murder, continued to live with their
mother after the attack.
But when Veronica suffered a breakdown, custody of the
children was passed to her sister Christina Shand Kydd. Lady Lucan has not
spoken to any of her children since.
A death certificate was not issued for Lord Lucan until last
year. It was only then that his son, George Bingham, 49, could inherit the
family title.
A friend of Lady Lucan told the Sunday Express her decision
to work with the filmmakers was partly motivated by money, but principally for
"revenge against her son".
The friend told the paper: "She knows George will be
angry when he sees the film."
In a 2013 ITV drama, Rory Kinnear portrayed the earl as a
reckless gambler who was prepared to stop at nothing to get custody of his
children.
Lady Lucan has said privately she has no wish for a
reconciliation with her children and has not met her grandchildren. George is
married to Anne-Sofie, the daughter of a Danish industrialist.
The couple had a daughter last year. The present Earl is
unlikely to be happy about his mother's participation in the documentary.
He is said to have burned all his father's papers and
photographs in a bid to get on with his life.
Lord Lucan’s death certificate granted after more than 40
years
Lady Lucan: I'm 'deeply sad' my marriage caused the nanny to
die
The wife of the late Lord Lucan has issued an extraordinary
apology over the murder of the family’s nanny, saying she is “deeply sad” that
her own marital problems caused her to die.
The Dowager Countess of Lucan, who was attacked on the same
night as Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death, said she is “very sorry” about
what happened, and works to compensate by ensuring she is not forgotten.
Lady Lucan is to be interviewed as part of an ITV
documentary entitled “My Husband, the Truth”, which investigates what really
happened on the now-notorious 1974 evening when both women were viciously
beaten in the family home.
Mrs Rivett, nanny to the three Lucan children, was killed in
the basement with a lead pipe. Lady Lucan was also attacked, running into a
nearby pub covered in blood screaming for help.
Lord Lucan, the 7th Earl, disappeared and has never been
seen since, with a formal death certificate allowing his son to inherit the
title finally issued last year.
His wife, now 79, will be interviewed on screen about their
dysfunctional relationship, bitter custody battle and her own depression.
“I am deeply sad that my marriage caused Mrs Sandra Rivett
to die,” she said.
“I am very sorry about that. But I cannot alter it, except
not to forget about her – and I don’t forget about her.”
Michael Waldman, the programme’s director, told the Radio
Times: “She feels that she does have an extraordinarily clear recollection of
facts and feelings...she has given her truth unabashedly.”
Lady Lucan has been estranged from her children, aged
between 46 and 52, for 35 years, admitting she “could have been better” as a
mother.
Asked what happened to her husband following the attack, she
said: “I would say he got on the ferry and jumped off in the middle of the
Channel in the way of the propellers so that his remains wouldn’t be found – I
think quite brave.”
In a bleak insight into their marriage, she claimed her
husband would beat her with a cane when she became depressed, to get the “mad
ideas out of your head”.
“He could have hit harder,” she told the programme. “They
were measured blows. He must have got pleasure out of it because he had
intercourse [with me] afterwards.”
Lord Lucan: My Husband, the Truth, will be broadcast
on Monday, June 5
“I said to him, ‘Please don’t kill me John,’ And then I
asked, ‘Where’s Sandra?’ And he said, ‘She’s dead. Don’t look.’” – Lady
Veronica Lucan
Lord Lucan's wife speaks on camera for the first time in 30
years and reveals intimate details of her marriage to the infamous aristocrat,
in a brand new ITV documentary.
The wife of the Earl, whose disappearance in 1974 remains
one of the most enduring and iconic mysteries in the public consciousness,
offers a vivid account of what happened before his flight and her theory about
what became of him.
The film, Lord Lucan: My Husband, The Truth which is
produced by Brook Lapping, includes previously unseen family archive footage,
showing Lucan with his family and friends, living the high life across Europe.
It includes the earliest known moving footage of Lord Lucan.
Despite the couple's outwardly lavish lifestyle, Lady Lucan
says their relationship was strained.
She says: “He talked to me more before our marriage than he
ever did afterwards. He said, ‘That’s the point of being married, you don’t
have to talk to the person.’”
Lady Lucan is interviewed in her mews house, close to the
former family home where she describes how their nanny, Sandra Rivett, was
brutally murdered in the basement by the Earl, having mistaken her for Lady
Lucan.
She goes into detail about how Lucan’s gambling had led to
heavy debts in the lead-up to the attack, their custody battle for their three
children which the Earl lost, and his subsequent disappearance days later.
Lady Lucan also offers her own suggestion of what became of
her husband, with no trace of him ever confirmed despite myth and speculation
building up in the aftermath, and in the decades that followed, as claimed
sightings of him were made and multiple theories about what happened to him
were put forward.
Since Lucan’s disappearance, his wife has remained largely
silent, but now she talks openly about their troubled and tempestuous marriage.
Her vivid recollections and the archive footage offer a unique and previously
unseen insight into one of the most notorious figures of the twentieth century.
Douglas Frederick Cornelius Hayward (5 October 1934 – 26
April 2008), was an English tailor, who dressed many famous people during the
1960s. The inspiration for customer Michael Caine's characterisation of his role
in the 1966 film Alfie, he was also the model for client John Le Carre's Harry
Pendel, aka The Tailor of Panama.
Born in Kensington, West London, Hayward and his brother
grew up in Hayes. His father cleaned heating boilers for the BBC and worked a
second job cleaning buses in Uxbridge; while his mother worked during World War
II in a munitions factory. Hayward won a scholarship to Southall Grammar
School. He had had a trial at inside-left for the Middlesex county football
team, but lost out to future England captain Johnny Haynes who was also a left
footer.
An unfocused rebel, Hayward left school at 15, looking for a
white-collar job:
“We didn't have a careers master, but I found a booklet
which listed possible occupations. I went down the list and when I got to T for
tailor, I thought: "I don't know any tailors. I can't ever be judged as
being a bad or a good one, so I'll be a tailor." ”
Apprenticed to a Shepherd's Bush Green tailor who visited
the flats in Cadogan Square, where his uncle was a caretaker. During this
period he worked a summer in Clacton-on-Sea as a Butlins Redcoat, and after
finishing his apprenticeship served his National Service in the Royal Navy, an
experience he later admitted got him focused.
Returning to civilian life, he continued working for his
original employer, but also started after hours work on his own creations.
Early clients like Peter Sellers, Terence Stamp and lyricist Herbert Kretzmer,
came through his excellent theatrical links at the local theatre, the BBC's
Lime Grove Studios, or through his first wife, Diana, sister-in-law of film
director Basil Dearden.
Unable to gain a cutters job on either Savile Row or even
Oxford Street due to his accent, Hayward then joined fellow showbiz specialist
tailor Dimitrio Major, based in Fulham. It was here that he developed a service
mentality, driving his Mini Countryman estate car to allow him to attend
customers wherever required, including Richard Burton at the Dorchester Hotel.
Hayward first set up on his own operating out of a small
room in London's Pall Mall, before moving to 95 Mount Street in Mayfair in 1966
where he lived above the shop which soon became a club for his famous clients.
In the rear was the cutting room overlooking the Mount Street Gardens.
His weekend home was on the Oxfordshire estate of client and
friend Lord Hambleden, near Henley on Thames); Described by many as like a
gentlemen's club, the shop acted as a hub for all of Hayward's clients when in
London. Tea or something stronger was often served and the coffee table was
littered with autographed copies of books written by writer clients including
Joseph Heller who wrote Catch 22 Doug's favourite book. There was also a
collection of teddy bears, a gift from his client Ralph Lauren, whose later
Purple Label line was inspired and advised by Hayward. but Hayward's best pal
was his Jack Russell terrier Burt who had his own made to measure suits. Client
Michael Parkinson said of the shop:
“ Hayward
ran the best salon in London. Anybody who's anybody was there. It soon became apparent
in the 1970s that everyone that was in town to do the show would visit there. I
met Alec Guinness there and Tony Bennett. He had this great ability to treat
everybody the same. ”
Hayward's client list included: actors Clint Eastwood, Sir
John Gielgud, Michael Caine, Terence Stamp, Ray Austin; film director, then
renowned stuntman and 1966 World Cup England captain Rex Harrison, Steve
McQueen and John Osborne; actor Tommy Steele; singer Tony Bennett; newsreader
Tom Brokaw; footballer and 1966 World Cup England captain Bobby Moore; Formula
1 world champion Sir Jackie Stewart; and businessmen Lord Hanson and Mark
Birley. Female clients included Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Jean Shrimpton and
Sharon Tate. His design of suits for singer Mick Jagger lead him to designing
the wedding suit for Bianca Jagger, and later many of her iconic white
jumpsuits. His film credits included Caine's suits in The Italian Job, and
Roger Moore in James Bond. Actor James Coburn called Hayward "the Rodin of
tweed". Many of his clients became close friends. An early friend was
Ralph Lauren, who met Dougie in the early 80's on one of his first visits to
London. Ralph realized that Hayward's approach to his clients, and their
corresponding support of his style and tailoring, was very similar to his own
and exactly what he envisioned for his eventual entry into the London market.
Dougie recognized Ralph's ideas and talent and became a great friend and
supporter. In his approach to his clientele as a complete source of style, Hayward
sold hand-made shoes, and his own line of watches and leather luggage. He
lectured at the Royal College of Art on tailoring, placing emphasis on cutting:
"You can't do anything unless you can cut." Pragmatic and undemanding
of his clients body, Hayward believed that any one could be made to look
sleeker:
“ People
always wanted to know who had been the tailor to Cary Grant or Fred Astaire.
But what I'd want to know is who was Sydney Greenstreet's tailor? He was a
large man in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, who always looked good. ”
Every week until her death in 1984, he visited his mother,
Winifred. Each time he would present her with a £1 note, to pay for her Meals
on Wheels. He also gave her regular sums of money, always in cash. Convinced
that her son was running either a brothel or a game of chemmy, she kept it all.
After her death, the family found it beneath her bed in 15 empty ice cream
boxes, with a note: "This money is to get Doug out of prison when they
finally get him."
While Sean Connery had the consistency of being dressed by
Anthony Sinclair for all six of his James Bond films, Roger Moore was fitted by
three different tailors over his seven Bond films. Cyril Castle, Roger Moore’s
tailor throughout The Saint and The Persuaders, dressed Moore for his first two
Bond films, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. Italian tailor
Angelo Vitucci of Angelo Roma dressed Moore for The Spy Who Loved Me and
Moonraker. The famous Douglas Hayward came in to dress Moore for his three
1980s Bond films: For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill, and
Hayward went on to dress Moore until the former passed away in 2008. Moore’s
three tailors each gave him a unique look, from the ultimate in fashion to
understated elegance. Vote at the end of the article for who you think dressed
Moore best.
Cyril Castle was a neighbour of Connery’s tailor Anthony
Sinclair on Conduit Street, though his cut was more flamboyant and focused on
fashion trends. Building on the first major* foray into fashion Bond took in On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Castle dressed Moore in tailored clothes that
took hints from the fashions of the early 1970s. He introduced Bond to flared
suit trousers, though they are more of a subtle bootcut than a bold flared leg.
The lapels are of a classic width in Live and Let Die but widened to a trendier
width in The Man with the Golden Gun. Castle also introduced the
double-breasted suit to Bond, though George Lazenby previously wore a
double-breasted blazer.
Though Castle cut a jacket in the English tradition for
Moore with soft shoulders and a full chest, the small details also fascinated
Castle. The cuffs of most of the jackets are notable for their flared shape
with a kissing link fastening. The silk ivory jacket in The Man with the Golden
Gun dispensed with the link cuffs for gauntlet (turnback) cuffs, a classic
Edwardian detail that also featured on Connery’s early dinner jackets. The
English details were important to Castle, and they also included deep double
vents and slanted hip pockets.
Castle mostly made clothes for Moore in the classic Bondian
blues and greys but also included brown, black and olive suits. Connery had
previously worn the first two of those three. Castle more prominently used some
of the flashier fabrics that Connery wore on occasion in his Bond films, such
as mohair and silk.
Angelo Roma is the tailor Roger Moore is more usually
associated with due to the bold 1970s look he gave Moore. Angelo Vitucci’s
suits are beautifully cut in the Roman style with straight shoulders and an
elegant clean cut. For The Spy Who Loved Me, Vitucci widened the already wide
lapels that Moore previously wore in The Man with the Golden Gun, and he also
widened the flared trouser legs for an update look.
The details of Vitucci’s clothes included flapped breast
pockets on some of the sportier jackets and front-pocket-less trousers. But he
normalised the jackets an ordinary four-button cuff and used a regular width
for the pocket flaps so not to overwhelm the front beyond the oversized lapels.
Vitucci dressed Moore in one blue suit and one grey suit in
Moonraker, but his most infamous suit for Moore is a rich brown silk suit in
The Spy Who Loved Me. Though the colour could not be more flattering to Moore’s
warm complexion, and it’s worn appropriately in the Mediterranean, the shade of
brown is unfortunately most associated with 1970s fashions. Vitucci also
modernised Moore’s blazers with four-hole metal buttons rather than the more
traditional shanked style. Following Bond tradition, Vitucci used silver-toned
metal rather than yellow-toned metal, except on the double-breasted blazer in
Moonraker.
Though Vitucci’s look was only featured in two films, Moore
will forever be notoriously remembered for wearing these fashionable 1970s
clothes, despite the many positive traits of these clothes.
Douglas Hayward is the most famous of Roger Moore’s three
Bond tailors for his work on many films beyond the Bond series and celebrity
clients such as Michael Caine and Terence Stamp. Of Moore’s three tailors,
Hayward gave Moore the most classic style appropriate for the 1980s without
worrying too much about 1980s fashions. Hayward brought back a more traditional
English air to Bond, with soft shoulders punctuated by roped sleeve heads.
Hayward narrowed the lapels for For Your Eyes Only, and then even more for
Octopussy so they were back down to a balanced, timeless width. The trousers no
longer were flared but featured a straight leg, which also got narrower from
For Your Eyes Only to Octopussy.
Whilst Hayward was not into gimmicks, his jackets feature a
very low button stance that was a hallmark of 1980s and early 1990s tailoring.
Apart from this, the suits would not look at all dated today.
Hayward tailored suits mostly in blue and grey flannel
solids and chalk stripes for city wear along with an appropriate tan or light
brown gabardine suit for the sunnier locales in each film. For evening wear,
Hayward tailored beautiful dinner jackets in black and midnight blue wool and ivory
linen, with either peaked or notched lapels. He also gave Moore a variety of
navy blazers and understated tweed sports coats for more informal occasions.
Each of Moore’s three tailors offered the Bond films
something special. Cyril Castle brought a unique creativity to Bond’s tailored
wardrobe. Angelo Roma made Bond look current, and despite the clothes being
some of the most dated in the series, they still look fantastic on Moore.
Douglas Hayward returned Bond’s wardrobe to the classic elegance that defined
Sean Connery’s Bond wardrobe, but he did it in a way that was appropriate for
an older Moore. Which approach do you like best?
Designing 007: James Bond's style
celebrated in Barbican exhibition
Barbican showcases costumes and props from the films'
50-year history, from suits and swimwear to gadgets and diamonds
James Bond exhibition
Thursday 5 July 2012 15.39 BST First published on Thursday 5
July 2012 15.39 BST
The Chesterfield coat and hat Sean Connery wears in Dr No
for his first meeting with M; Roger Moore's yellow ski suit and red backpack
seen on the slopes in The Spy Who Loved Me; George Lazenby's kilt donned in On
Her Majesty's Secret Service; the Brioni suit Pierce Brosnan wore to drive a tank
in Goldeneye; and Daniel Craig's infamously snug baby-blue swim trunks of
Casino Royale fame. All are featured in the Barbican's blockbuster summer show
Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style, which opens on Friday
Every aspect of this extensive retrospective of the Bond
films has been carefully thought through. It is as camp and fun as it is
nerdishly packed with facts, production sketches, storyboards and costume
drawings. Film screens playing classic clips are dotted throughout, with scenes
relating to the paraphernalia, from clothing to props, gadgets to 25-carat
diamonds.
The opening scene of Dr No, the first Bond film, featured a
close-up of a turned-back silk cuff on a tuxedo jacket designed by Anthony
Sinclair for Sean Connery. The tailor's involvement in shaping the look of Bond
is integral to the character's image. A three-piece grey-check suit by Sinclair
is worn by a Connery-lookalike mannequin leaning on a DB5 Aston Martin in this
show.
Bronwyn Cosgrave, fashion historian and co-curator of the
exhibition, says Sinclair's designs are the male equivalent of a Chanel suit.
Its athletic cut, she says, inspired designers such as Hedi Slimane, Tom Ford
and Thom Browne.
Ford's mohair and cashmere tuxedo, worn by Craig in 2008's
Quantum of Solace, also puts in an appearance in a section of the exhibition
dedicated to Bond casino moments.
As well as Craig's trunks, there is a recreation of
Connery's Thunderball shorts, which Bond costume designer and Oscar-winner
Lindy Hemming – the exhibition's other key curator – asked British brand
Sunspel to recreate. Such is the power of Bond – Cosgrave says many fashion
trends have been inspired by the fashions of this franchise – that Sunspel, who
also created clothes for Craig's Casino Royale wardrobe, has launched a new
swimwear line.
Designed to take visitors on a Bond-style narrative journey
– there are rooms dedicated to M, ski slopes and foreign locations. Cosgrave
says the show aims to reflect all 23 films. Visitors walk through a
bullet-shaped entrance covered with stills from the films, before arriving in
the Gold Room, which features a revolving circular bed complete with white
sheets and a gold-painted female body – a nod to the classic scene from
Goldfinger.
Pussy Galore's gold waistcoat and Scaramanga's golden gun
are displayed in glass cases alongside black-and-white footage of Connery
arriving at the premiere of Goldfinger and being mobbed by fans. "The film
Goldfinger made Bond a pop-culture phenomenon rivalled only by the
Beatles," says Cosgrave.
Other costume highlights in the exhibition include Ursula Andress's
Dr No bikini, which was created from the actor's bra and some bottoms found
locally during filming, alongside designs by Prada, Gucci and Versace.
In 2002's Die Another Day, Halle Berry's Jinx Johnson paid
homage to Andress by emerging from the sea in a similar bikini. But it is
Berry's Versace evening dress that is one of the exhibition's standouts. It is
a typically flesh-revealing gown in a pinkish purple and featuring glittering
jewels across the top section. Alongside the dress are the original sketches by
the designer Donatella Versace.
Similarly eye catching is a canary yellow Roberto Cavalli
affair which is slashed in the front and splattered with Swarovski crystals
around the bust. This was worn by Ivana Milicevic to play Valenka, the girlfriend
of Casino Royale's villian Le Chiffre. There is also the red silk georgette,
one-shouldered dress worn by Eunice Gayson to play Bond's girlfriend Sylvia
Trench in Dr No. This dress was apparently bought by the actor herself from an
inexpensive shop near Pinewood studios following the film director Terence
Young vetoing costume designer Julie Harris's original choice.
In a section dedicated to Bond villains and enigmas,
Madonna's fencing ensemble from Die Another Day and Jaws' metal teeth also feature.
"It's the longest running and most successful film
franchise of all time – and the most glamorously made," says Cosgrove.
"Nothing can touch it. That is why Bond and his sidekicks are
inspirational to people all over the world and to all ages."
Doug Hayward's distinctive sense of style came out of his
working-class childhood, a world where men like his dad, who had laboured all
week in mucky boiler suits, went out of a Friday night scrubbed, shining and
metamorphosed by their best - their only - suits, pressed to perfection. He
shared the satisfaction of the better persona that a man puts on with proper
tailoring, and for almost 50 years, until his death at the age of 73, he suited
blokes like himself, only with more money - movie stars and footballers and
snappers and hacks and even Americans. He upheld the centuries old British
tradition in which male style ascends, and transcends, classes.
His anecdotage and attitude were the source for the
character Harry Pendel in John Le Carré's The Tailor of Panama; his charming
manner, though not his emotional history, was the model for his mate Michael
Caine's 1966 performance as Alfie.
That remembered childhood had been in Hayes, on the edge of
London: his Cockney father stoked boilers at the BBC, his mother was recruited
into wartime bullet manufacture, and Hayward was bright enough to win a grammar
school scholarship, which was followed by an apprenticeship to a Shepherd's
Bush Green tailor since he did not have the accent to crack Savile Row. The
social ease began with a holiday gig as a Butlin's redcoat and national service
in the Royal Navy, another environment where working-class men appreciated cut
and finish of kit, and technical expertise outranked background.
Hayward's early clients, including Peter Sellers and Terence
Stamp, were acting at the local theatre or the BBC at Lime Grove, or came
through his first wife, Diana, sister-in-law to the film director Basil
Dearden. Then he joined Dimitrio Major in Fulham, also a specialist in showbiz.
Hayward was, and stayed, so driven that he attended customers wherever wanted,
arriving by secondhand Mini for fittings with Richard Burton in a suite at the
Dorchester.
His own first premises were a niche in Pall Mall (10 fearful
days passed before a single customer called), and then business was sound
enough for him to move in 1967 not to Savile Row - wrong, Victorian, vibes, too
many portraits of the Queen Mum - but to a house at 95 Mount Street, Mayfair.
He lived upstairs during the week; his cutting room overlooked the back garden;
in the front room, with its grey flannel walls, were sofas and armchairs.
Nobody glared at potential customers; they were poured tea or champagne, and so
were their girlfriends ("I get a lot of birds in"). Attendees felt it
was like a gentleman's club, but it was more liberal, never silent, closer to
an 18th-century coffee house, liquor welcome and parties liable to break out.
Hayward's services cost a fortune, but his patient ear for clients' troubles,
his advice, his contacts, and the therapeutic effect of a visit were thrown in
for free. The photographer Terry O'Neill, a regular on the sofa, especially
after a long mutual lunch at Langham's Brasserie, called him "the Buddha
of Mount Street". The premises got tatty with wear, and their suavity was
not improved by Hayward's Jack Russell terrier molesting the besuited teddy
bears supplied by customer Ralph Lauren, whose Purple Label line is homage to,
and was advised by, Hayward. They were still just right, though.
The clothes were just right too, even if Hayward was heretic
over details of Savile Row dogma - he did not disapprove of machine-sewn
buttonholes - shock, horror. He was pragmatic, undemanding of a body beautiful
beneath - any man could be made to look sleeker; he said people always wanted
to know who had been the tailor to Cary Grant or Fred Astaire but "What
I'd want to know is who was Sydney Greenstreet's tailor? He was a large man [in
The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca] who always looked good." Hayward was a
careful observer of hands shoved in pockets, shoulders braced or slumped, legs
hitched or crossed, and he structured to allow for the way that the repertoire
of Anglo-American gesture became more expansive and relaxed in the 1960s. He
didn't do tight - a female client who demanded a constricted elbow complained
that he tried to get her to swing her arms up as if she were about to shoot a
grouse to test the roominess of the armholes. The Hayward cut flattered stage
and screen: Caine, Roger Moore in his final, non-Austin Powers, James Bond
mode, Sir John Gielgud, John Osborne, Tom Brokaw, Tony Bennett, Clint Eastwood,
even the Zen cowboy James Coburn, who called him "the Rodin of
tweed". Rex Harrison gave him the ultimate establishment nod of approval.
He tailored sportsmen, too, including Bobby Moore, thought
him a classic neat dresser, same as his football. The game was Hayward's real
love (he had a trial as an inside-left for the Middlesex county team, but the
follow-up letter never arrived), and he easily persuaded his pal Steve McQueen
to stand in the London rain watching footie of a Saturday afternoon. His eye
was for the movement of a match rather than a particular team, although he was
fond, if not a fan, of Fulham and Arsenal. He had his own team, the Mount
Street Marchers and Social Club, fielding Richard Harris and Tom Courtenay.
Kickabout venue Hyde Park, Sunday mornings.
His second wife was the journalist Glenys Roberts, with whom
he had a daughter Polly (she took over the business in 2006); that ended in
divorce in 1978. None of his flings lasted, though Janet Street-Porter kept the
full length double cashmere coat he had made for her back in 1973: she had to -
despite their tendresse, she had only wheedled a small discount. His mother was
his definitive woman; she had suspected when the money rolled in that he was
running either a brothel or a chemmy game, and kept the hard cash he gave her;
one of his stories was that after her death the family found it all stashed
beneath her bed with a note: "This money is to get Doug out of prison when
they finally get him." He didn't intend to end in the nick, although he'd
have done something sharp yet casual with the uniforms if he had; but he always
anticipated that the party would be over soon.
· Douglas Frederick Cornelius Hayward, tailor, born October
5 1934; died April 26 2008
The Volvo P1800 received prominence in the early 60's when a
white 1962 Volvo P1800 with number plate ST1 was driven by the character Simon
Templar (Roger Moore) in the hit TV series The Saint (1962–69). When asked to
name his favorite "movie car" many years later, Moore said it was the
Volvo P1800, commenting: "I have a great affection for the Volvo P1800,
as, of course, I owned one, as well as used one in the series. It’s a beautiful
car and I still drive a Volvo to this day."
Two new cars had been introduced at the Geneva Motor Show in
1961, a Jaguar E-Type and the Volvo P1800. Jaguar was first offered the
opportunity to provide an E-Type for the TV series but declined. Volvo accepted
and offered a P1800, leading to increased sales. Initially, Volvo lent two cars
for the series, one for static studio shots and the other for moving shots.
When the P1800S came along, one of the earlier cars was cut up to allow better interior
shots. When the series Return of the Saint was created in the 1970s, Jaguar
offered the then-new XJ-S for the series.
The Volvo P1800 is a two-passenger, front-engine, rear-drive
sports car manufactured and marketed by Volvo Cars as a coupe (1961–73) and
shooting-brake (1972–73).
While the P1800 was more of a stylish touring car rather
than a sports car when it came to its speed capabilities, the P1800 first
became popular when it was featured as the main car driven by Roger Moore in
the hit television series The Saint which aired from 1962-1969. The P1800
featured styling by Pietro Frua and mechanicals derived from Volvo's Amazon/122
series.
The car was marketed as the Volvo P1800, 1800S, 1800E and
1800ES.
In 1998, an 1800S was certified as the highest mileage
private vehicle driven by the original owner in non-commercial service — having
exceeded three million miles (over 4.8 million km) as of 2013.
The project was originally started in 1957 because Volvo
wanted a sports car to compete in the US & European markets, despite the
fact that their previous attempt, the P1900, had failed to take off with only
68 cars sold. The man behind the project was an engineering consultant to
Volvo, Helmer Petterson, who in the 1940s was responsible for the Volvo PV444.
The design work was done by Helmer's son Pelle Petterson, who worked at Pietro
Frua at that time. Volvo insisted it was an Italian design by Frua and only in
2009 officially recognized that Pelle Petterson designed it.[9] The Italian
Carrozzeria Pietro Frua design firm (then a recently acquired subsidiary of
Ghia) built the first three prototypes between September 1957 and early 1958,
later designated by Volvo in September 1958: P958-X1, P958-X2 and P958-X3
(P:Project, 9:September, 58:Year 1958 = P958, X: eXperimental.).
1957 Prototype P958-X1
In December 1957 Helmer Petterson drove X1, (the first
hand-built P1800 prototype) to Osnabrück, West Germany, headquarters of
Karmann. Petterson hoped that Karmann would be able to take on the tooling and
building of the P1800. Karmann's engineers had already been preparing working
drawings from the wooden styling buck at Frua. Petterson and Volvo chief
engineer Thor Berthelius met there, tested the car and discussed the
construction with Karmann. They were ready to build it and this meant that the
first cars could hit the market as early as December 1958. But in February,
Karmann's most important customer, Volkswagen VAG, forbade Karmann to take on
the job.[citation needed] They feared that the P1800 would compete with the
sales of their own cars, and threatened to cancel all their contracts with
Karmann if they took on this car. This setback almost caused the project to be
abandoned.
Other German firms, NSU, Drautz and Hanomag, were contacted
but none was chosen because Volvo did not believe they met Volvo's
manufacturing quality-control standards.
It began to appear that Volvo might never produce the P1800.
This motivated Helmer Petterson to obtain financial backing from two financial
firms with the intention of buying the components directly from Volvo and
marketing the car himself. At this point Volvo had made no mention of the P1800
and the factory would not comment. Then a press release surfaced with a photo
of the car, putting Volvo in a position where they had to acknowledge its
existence. These events influenced the company to renew its efforts: the car
was presented to the public for the first time at the Brussels Motor Show in
January 1960 and Volvo turned to Jensen Motors, whose production lines were
under-utilised, and they agreed a contract for 10,000 cars.[citation needed]
The Linwood, Scotland, body plant of manufacturer Pressed Steel was in turn
sub-contracted by Jensen to create the unibody shells, which were then taken by
rail to be assembled at Jensen in West Bromwich, England. In September 1960,
the first production P1800 (for the 1961 model year) left Jensen for an eager
public.
P1800
1963 Volvo P1800
The engine was the B18 (B for the Swedish word for gasoline:
Bensin; 18 for 1800 cc displacement) with dual SU carburettors, producing 118
hp (75 kW). This variant (named B18B) had a higher compression ratio than the
slightly less powerful twin-carb B18D used in the contemporary Amazon 122S, as
well as a different camshaft. The 'new' B18 was actually developed from the
existing B36 V8 engine used in Volvo trucks at the time. This cut production
costs, as well as furnishing the P1800 with a strong engine boasting five main
crankshaft bearings. The B18 was matched with the new and more robust M40
manual gearbox through 1963. From 1963 to 1972 the M41 gearbox with
electrically actuated overdrive was a popular option. Two overdrive types were
used, the D-Type through 1969, and the J-type through 1973. The J-type had a
slightly shorter ratio of 0.797:1 as opposed to 0.756:1 for the D-type. The
overdrive effectively gave the 1800 series a fifth gear, for improved fuel
efficiency and decreased drivetrain wear. Cars without overdrive had a
numerically lower-ratio differential, which had the interesting effect of
giving them a somewhat higher top speed (just under 120 mph (193 km/h)) than
the more popular overdrive models. This was because the non-overdrive cars could
reach the engine's redline in top gear, while the overdrive-equipped cars could
not, giving them a top speed of roughly 110 mph (177 km/h).
1800S
1964 Volvo 1800S
As time progressed, Jensen had problems with quality
control, so the contract was ended early after 6,000 cars had been built. In
1963 production was moved to Volvo's Lundby Plant in Gothenburg and the car's
name was changed to 1800S (S standing for Sverige, or in English : Sweden). The
engine was improved with an additional 8 hp (6 kW). In 1966 the four-cylinder
engine was updated to 115 PS (85 kW). Top speed was 175 km/h (109 mph). In 1969
the B18 engine was replaced with the 2-litre B20B variant of the B20 giving 118
bhp (89 kW), though it kept the designation 1800S.
1800E
1970 Volvo 1800E
For 1970 numerous changes came with the fuel-injected 1800E,
which had the B20E engine with Bosch D-Jetronic fuel injection and a revised
camshaft, and produced 130 bhp (97 kW) without sacrificing fuel economy. Top
speed was around 190 km/h (118 mph) and acceleration from 0–100 km/h (0–62.1
mph) took 9.5 seconds. In addition, the 1970 model was the first 1800 with
four-wheel disc brakes; until then the 1800 series had front discs and rear
drums.
1800ES
Volvo introduced its final P1800 variant, the 1800ES, in
1972 as a two-door station wagon with a frameless, all-glass tailgate. The
final design was chosen after two prototypes had been built by Sergio Coggiola
and Pietro Frua. Frua's prototype, Raketen ("the Rocket", on the right),
is located in the Volvo Museum. Both Italian prototypes were considered too
futuristic, and instead in-house designer Jan Wilsgaard's proposal, the Beach
Car, was accepted.The ES engine was downgraded to 125 bhp (92 kW) by reducing
the compression ratio with a thicker head gasket (engine variant B20F);
although maximum power was slightly down the engine was less "peaky"
and the car's on-the-road performance was actually improved.
Back on the road, the 1962 Volvo
driven by Roger Moore in The Saint which was found rotting away on a farm 22
years ago
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 01:57 BST, 23 September 2013 | UPDATED: 15:57
BST, 23 September 2013
It was found rotting away 22 years ago with the engine on
the back seat. Today it looks as good as when The Saint last stepped out of it.
The iconic original Volvo P1800 coupe driven by Roger Moore
as Simon Templar in the 1960s TV series has been fully restored by car
enthusiast Kevin Price.
It went on public display at the weekend for the first time
since he finished the labour of love.
Mr Price found the car on a farm in North Wales in 1991 and
persuaded the owner to sell it to him in 1997. He spent ten years collecting
parts and another six on the restoration.
In The Saint, which featured Moore as a suave modern-day
Robin Hood-style adventurer and was screened by ITV between 1962 and 1969, the
car bore the number plate ST1.
Although four more P1800s, one of which was used by Sir Roger personally, were later supplied by Volvo, Mr Price’s vehicle –
registered as 71 DXC – is the original.
It was displayed at the Footman James Manchester Classic Car
Show.
Mr Price, 57, who founded the Volvo Enthusiasts Club, drove
it there from his home in Bewdley, Worcestershire.
He said: 'I fell in love with the shape of the car and it
became a quest to find one.
'After I’d set up the club I was approached by a guy from North
Wales who said he had the original car from the The Saint.
'I went to have a look and it was just sat next to the barn
covered in brambles and nettles with the engine on the back seat.
'But when he finally agreed to sell and I got it home it was
in surprisingly good shape considering it had been there so long.
'As much of the original car was retained as possible and it
drives beautifully. You wouldn’t think it was a 1962 car.'
Show organiser Andy
Rouse said: 'The Saint car is a project we’ve been aware of over the years and
it’ll be great to see the final results of Kevin’s incredible hard work and
dedication.'
The car needed extensive rust removal to its panels, wheels and
front axle and it’s body shell had to be rebuilt.
Further work to the gear box, rear axle and engine, which
included a conversion for unleaded fuel, was also undertaken to make it
roadworthy.
Once asked to name his favourite movie cars, Sir Roger said:
'I have a great affection for the Volvo P1800, as, of course, I owned one as
well as used one in the series. It’s a beautiful car and I still drive a Volvo
to this day.'
But Sir Roger and The Saint producers had initially wanted
to feature a Jaguar E-type.
But Jag were inundated with offers and declined to take part
so the P1800, which was first-built at the Jensen Motors factory in the West
Midlands before production was switched to Sweden, was used instead.
Sir Roger’s performances as Templar pre-dated his role as
James Bond as he was reportedly asked to play 007 at least twice during the
series but had to turn the role down both times due to his television
commitments.
Sir Roger Moore, who
has died aged 89, considered himself to be only the fourth best actor
to have played Ian Fleming’s secret-service agent James Bond on
screen: in his estimation, he came in behind Daniel Craig (whom he
called “the Bond”), Sean Connery and George Lazenby. Though Moore
was rarely regarded as the best or most definitive Bond, his
inimitable humour and panache made him many viewers’ favourite. His
tally of seven films – beginning with Live and Let Die (1973) and
ending with A View to a Kill (1985) – equalled that of Connery,
though Moore occupied the role for a longer consecutive period. He
was eloquent on the distinction between their portrayals. “Sean
played Bond as a killer and I played Bond as a lover,” he said.
Only on Fridays did he resemble a cold-blooded mercenary: “That’s
the day I received my paychecks.”
His casting was
sometimes erroneously considered to be the catalyst for a new-found
levity in the series; in fact, the two films prior to his arrival (On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969, and Diamonds Are Forever, 1971)
had already tipped the tone towards silliness. What Moore did very
cannily was to underline the absurdity of Bond himself. “My whole
reaction was always – he is not a real spy,” he said. “You
can’t be a real spy and have everybody in the world know who you
are and what your drink is. That’s just hysterically funny.”
Irreverence and
knowingness were integral to his interpretation. But he also seemed
far more plausibly endangered as Bond than Connery had ever been.
Part of the viewer’s affection and even concern for him could be
attributed to his advanced age: Moore was already 45 when he was cast
as Bond, whereas Connery made his debut at 32 and Craig was 37. This
contributed to the sense that Moore’s wellbeing was actively at
risk on screen. Subjected to punishing levels of G-force on a flight
simulator in Moonraker (1979) or dismantling a bomb while dressed as
a clown in Octopussy (1983), he looked uniquely vulnerable.
Clambering up the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge in A View
to a Kill seemed inadvisable behaviour for a man of 56.
His range was
modest, as he was the first to admit. He credited his success to “99%
luck”, and singled out the 1970 supernatural thriller The Man Who
Haunted Himself, in which he played a businessman who appears to be
living two lives, as “the only film I was allowed to act in”.
Such self-deprecation only encouraged critics to contribute their own
jibes: Anthony Lane of the New Yorker said that Moore “needed a
stunt double for his acting scenes” in the Bond films.
Moore became an
object of mild mockery after the 1980s satirical TV show Spitting
Image featured a puppet of him that expressed its emotions solely
through its eyebrows. The joke proved robust, but not everyone
realised that Moore had cracked it first. “The eyebrows thing was
my own fault,” he said. “I was talking about how talentless I was
and said I have three expressions: eyebrow up, eyebrow down and both
of them at the same time. And they used it – very well, I must
say.”
He was born in
London, to Lily (nee Pope), a housewife, and George Moore, a police
constable whose responsibilities included drawing accident scenes to
be used in evidence in court. Roger himself had artistic ambitions
early in life. He left school at 15 to accept a job as a trainee
animator at Publicity Picture Productions, but was sacked a few
months later when he neglected to collect a can of film.
Tagging along with
friends in 1945 to auditions for film extras, Moore was picked to
appear in a non-speaking role as a legionnaire in Caesar and
Cleopatra, starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. The film’s first
assistant director, Brian Desmond Hurst, took Moore under his wing
and encouraged him to audition for Rada. When Moore was accepted,
Hurst paid his fees. He left at 18 to become a supporting player in
the repertory company of the Arts theatre, Cambridge, before he was
called up for military service. Posted to Germany, he succeeded in
getting a transfer to the Combined Services Entertainment unit. In
1946, he had married Doorn Van Steyn, a fellow Rada student.
After three years in
the army, Moore returned to acting, landing small roles in theatre
and film, as well as appearing as a model for knitting patterns and
in photo stories. He moved to New York City in 1953 with his second
wife, the singer Dorothy Squires (Moore and Van Steyn had divorced
earlier that year), and began getting acting work on US television.
He signed a contract with MGM and was cast in a series of unmemorable
films, including The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) and Interrupted
Melody (1955). Returning to Britain, he took the lead in a 1958
television adventure series adapted from Walter Scott’s novel
Ivanhoe.
Other regular TV
roles of increasing size followed, including two western series, The
Alaskans and Maverick, before Moore finally became a bona fide star,
playing the crime-fighter and playboy Simon Templar in the popular
television crime series The Saint. Produced by Lew Grade, it ran from
1962 until 1969. Moore, who also directed nine episodes, brought a
suavity to the part which makes it a clear precursor of his work as
James Bond; even his habit in early episodes of looking directly at
the camera prefigures the later Bonds, where he all but winks at the
audience.
Two years after The
Saint ended, Moore was cast once more as a playboy adventurer in
another Grade TV series, The Persuaders!, in which he was teamed with
Tony Curtis. The odd-couple pairing (Moore, as Lord Brett Sinclair,
was dapper; Curtis, playing Danny Wilde, was a ruffian) and the
action staged in glamorous locations made the series a hit. Moore
also directed two episodes. During this period, he was appointed the
head of Brut Films, an offshoot of the cologne manufacturer. He tried
unsuccessfully to entice Cary Grant to make his acting comeback in a
Brut production, but succeeded in recruiting him as one of the
company’s advisers. Moore was also instrumental in the making of A
Touch of Class, the 1973 romantic comedy for which Glenda Jackson won
her second Oscar.
His brief tenure as
a mogul was abbreviated when he signed a three-film contract to play
James Bond, a part which demanded no adjustment to the persona he had
already established. Live and Let Die, an attempt to modernise the
series with gritty blaxploitation trappings, still had its share of
daftness; in one scene, Bond escapes across water using a row of
alligators as stepping stones. Moore’s performance here and in his
second outing, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), was cool and
confident.
But it is his third
Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), which is rightly considered
his pinnacle. The writing, direction and production design were
impressive, the action more than usually taut, and the balance of
comedy and suspense acutely judged – as in the iconic opening
sequence in which Bond escapes falling to his death by opening a
parachute emblazoned with the Union Jack. (The film was released in
the Queen’s silver jubilee year.) Moore appeared relaxed but never
complacent. He even came up with some of the movie’s nicest
touches, such as the moment when Bond, emerging from an underwater
drive, deposits a small fish out of his car window.
In between the Bond
films, Moore moonlighted in other roles, including Gold (1974), a
mining adventure shot in Johannesburg, the romantic comedy That Lucky
Touch (1975) and the war movie Shout at the Devil (1975), co-starring
Lee Marvin. But nothing came close to eclipsing his day job.
Outside the Bond
series, he rarely deviated from action, appearing in quick succession
in Escape to Athena (1979), North Sea Hijack and The Sea Wolves (both
1980). The Wild Geese (1978), a clunky, crypto-racist thriller about
ageing mercenaries, was unusual in showcasing a more brutal side to
Moore. Though he was seen pushing villains to their deaths in The Spy
Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only (1981), nothing compared to the
opening scene of The Wild Geese, in which he kills a drug dealer by
forcing him to ingest large quantities of cocaine at gunpoint.
Moonraker (1979),
among the silliest of the Bond series, was rushed into production to
capitalise on the Star Wars-inspired craze for all things
space-related. Moore had a gas playing a mummy’s boy who believes
himself to be Roger Moore in the US ensemble comedy The Cannonball
Run (1981), before returning to Bond in the comparatively sober For
Your Eyes Only and the positively quaint Octopussy. Moore bowed out,
not before time, with A View to a Kill, where he looked
understandably wary to be sharing the screen, not to mention a bed,
with the ferocious Grace Jones.
Though the producer
Albert R “Cubby” Broccoli suggested in his autobiography that
Moore had refused to accept that his time in the role was over, the
actor later denied this. Once free of Bondage, Moore lost his
appetite for acting and took on only a handful of roles, few of them
distinguished. He had been due to return to the stage in Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s Aspects of Love in 1989, but dropped out shortly before
opening night, blaming inadequacies in his singing voice.
He joined his friend
Michael Caine in Bullseye! (1990), a pitiful Michael Winner comedy in
which they played two characters apiece. He also appeared in The
Quest (1996), directed by its star, the action hero Jean-Claude Van
Damme, and in the Spice Girls’ vehicle Spice World (1997). He had a
supporting part in the two-hour pilot for a new series of The Saint
(2013), but the show was not commissioned. In 2012, he undertook a
highly successful UK stage tour of An Evening With Roger Moore, in
which he reflected on his life and career.
Moore devoted much
of his time to being a goodwill ambassador for Unicef; it was for
this humanitarian work that he was knighted in 2003. He had left
Britain in the late 1970s to avoid what he considered the prohibitive
tax rate for high earners, and took homes in countries including
Switzerland and Monaco. Money continued to be much on his mind: his
2008 autobiography, My Word Is My Bond, is peppered with variations
on the line “a rather nice deal was agreed with my agent”.
Moore admitted to
being a lifelong hypochondriac; among those to whom he expressed
thanks in the acknowledgments of his autobiography are five GPs, four
cardiologists, two dermatologists and a proctologist. He visibly
enjoyed his time as Bond and expressed only occasional regrets about
his career. “I spent my life playing heroes because I looked like
one,” he said. “Practically everything I’ve been offered didn’t
require much beyond looking like me. I would have loved to play a
real baddie.”
He is survived by
his fourth wife, Kristina Tholstrup, whom he married in 2002, and by
three children – Deborah, Geoffrey and Christian – from his third
marriage, to the actor Luisa Mattioli, which ended in divorce.
• Roger George
Moore, actor, born 14 October 1927; died 23 May 2017
Sprezzatura is an Italian
word originating from Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, where
it is defined by the author as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal
all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and
almost without any thought about it". It is the ability of the courtier to
display "an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides
the conscious effort that went into them". Sprezzatura has also been
described "as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one
really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent
reticence and nonchalance".
However, while the quality of sprezzatura did have its
benefits, this quality also had its drawbacks. Since sprezzatura made difficult
tasks seem effortless, those who possessed sprezzatura needed to be able to
trick people convincingly. In a way, sprezzatura was "the art of acting
deviously".[9] This "art" created a "self-fulfilling
culture of suspicion" because courtiers had to be diligent in maintaining
their façades. "The by-product of the courtier's performance is that the
achievement of sprezzatura may require him to deny or disparage his
nature". Consequently, sprezzatura also had its downsides, since courtiers
who excelled at sprezzatura risked losing themselves to the façade they put on
for their peers.
The Book of the Courtier (Italian: Il Cortegiano) is a courtesy book. It was written by Baldassare Castiglione over the course of
many years, beginning in 1508, and published in 1528 by the Aldine Press in
Venice just before his death; an English edition was published in 1561. It
addresses the constitution of a perfect courtier, and in its last installment,
a perfect lady.
The Book of the Courtier is an example of the Renaissance
dialogue, a literary form that incorporated elements of drama, conversation,
philosophy, and essay. Considered the definitive account of Renaissance court
life, it is cited frequently along with Stefano Guazzo's The civil conversation
(1574) and Giovanni Della Casa's Galateo (1558). They are among the most
important Renaissance works of the Italian Renaissance.
The book is organized as a series of fictional conversations
that occur between the courtiers of the Duke of Urbino in 1507 (when
Castiglione was in fact part of the Duke's Court). In the book, the courtier is
described as having a cool mind, a good voice (with beautiful, elegant and brave
words) along with proper bearing and gestures. At the same time though, the
courtier is expected to have a warrior spirit, to be athletic, and have good
knowledge of the humanities, Classics and fine arts. Over the course of four
evenings, members of the court try to describe the perfect gentleman of the
court. In the process they debate the nature of nobility, humor, women, and
love.
The Book of the Courtier was one of the most widely
distributed books of the 16th century, with editions printed in six languages
and in twenty European centers. The 1561 English translation by Thomas Hoby had
a great influence on the English upper class's conception of English
gentlemen.[2]
Of the many qualities Castiglione’s characters attribute to
their perfect courtier, oratory and the manner in which the courtier presents
himself while speaking is amongst the most highly discussed. Wayne Rebhorn, a
Castiglione scholar, states that the courtier’s speech and behavior in general
is “designed to make people marvel at him, to transform himself into a
beautiful spectacle for others to contemplate." As explained by Count
Ludovico, the success of the courtier depends greatly on his reception by the
audience from the first impression. This partly explains why the group
considers the courtier's dress so vital to his success.
Castiglione's characters opine about how their courtier can
impress his audience and win its approval. Similar to the Classical Roman
rhetoricians Cicero and Quintilian, Castiglione stresses the importance of
delivery while speaking. In Book I, the Count states that when the courtier
speaks he must have a “sonorous, clear, sweet and well sounding” voice that is
neither too effeminate nor too rough and be “tempered by a calm face and with a
play of the eyes that shall give an effect of grace.” (Castiglione 1.33) This
grace, or grazia, becomes an important element in the courtier’s appearance to
the audience. Edoardo Saccone states in his analysis of Castiglione, “grazia
consists of, or rather is obtained through, sprezzatura.”
According to the Count, sprezzatura is amongst one of the
most important, if not the most important, rhetorical device the courtier
needs. Peter Burke describes sprezzatura in The Book of the Courtier as
“nonchalance”, “careful negligence”, and “effortless and ease.” The ideal
courtier is someone who “conceals art, and presents what is done and said as if
it was done without effort and virtually without thought.” (31).
The Count advocates the courtier engage in sprezzatura, or
this “certain nonchalance”, in all the activities he participates in,
especially speech. In Book I, he states, "Accordingly we may affirm that
to be true art which does not appear to be art; nor to anything must we give
greater care than to conceal art, for if it is discovered, it quite destroys
our credit and brings us into small esteem." (Castiglione 1.26) The Count
reasons that by obscuring his knowledge of letters, the courtier gives the
appearance that his “orations were composed very simply” as if they sprang up
from “nature and truth [rather] than from study and art.” (1.26). This much
more natural appearance, even though it is not natural by any means, is more
advantageous to the courtier.
The Count contends that if the courtier wants to attain
grazia and be esteemed excellent, it would be in his best interest to have this
appearance of nonchalance. By failing to employ sprezzatura, he destroys his
opportunity for grace. By applying sprezzatura to his speech and everything
else he does, the courtier appears to have grazia and impresses his audience,
thereby achieving excellence and perfection. (Saccone 16).
Another feature of rhetoric which Castiglione discusses is
the role of written language and style. Castiglione declined to imitate
Boccaccio and write in Tuscan Italian, as was customary at the time; instead he
wrote in the Italian used in his native Lombardy (he was born near Mantua): as
the Count says, “certainly it would require a great deal of effort on my part
if in these discussions of ours I wished to use those old Tuscan words which
the Tuscans of today have discarded; and what’s more I’m sure you would all
laugh at me” (Courtier 70). Here, the use of the old and outdated Tuscan
language is seen as a form of excess rather than a desirable trait. Castiglione
states that had he followed Tuscan usage in his book, his description of
sprezzatura would appear hypocritical, in that his effort would be seen without
a sense of nonchalance (Courtier 71).
Federico responds to the Count's assessment of the use of
spoken language by posing the question as to what is the best language in which
to write rhetoric. The Count’s response basically states that the language does
not matter, but rather the style, authority, and grace of the work matters most
(Courtier 71). Robert J. Graham, a Renaissance literary scholar, notes that
“questions of whose language is privileged at any given historical moment are
deeply implicated in matters of personal, social and cultural significance”,
which he states is the primary reason for Castiglione’s usage of the native
vernacular. This also illustrates the Count’s response on the relativity of
language in Latin. With the role of language set, Castiglione begins to
describe the style and authority in which the courtier must write in order to
become successful.
The Count explains, "it is right that greater pains
would be taken to make what is written more polished and correct…they should be
chosen from the most beautiful of those employed in speech" (Courtier 71).
This is where the style of which the courtier writes encourages the
persuasiveness or successfulness of a speech. The success of a written speech,
in contrast to the spoken speech, hinges on the notion that "we are
willing to tolerate a great deal of improper and even careless usage"[8]
in oral rhetoric than written rhetoric. The Count explains that along with proper
word usage, an ideal courtier must have a proper sense of style and flow to
their words. These words must be factual yet entertaining as the Count states,
“then, it is necessary to arrange what is to be said or written in its logical
order, and after that to express it well in words that, if I am not mistaken,
should be appropriate, carefully chosen, clear and well formed, but above all
that are still in popular use" (Courtier 77). This form of emphasis on
language is noted by Graham as; "Although the Count is aware that more
traditional aspects of the orator (appearance, gestures, voice, etc.)…all this
will be futile and of little consequence if the ideas conveyed by these words
themselves are not witty or elegant to the requirements of the situation”
(Graham 49).
What was once called sprezzatura, a wonderful word coined by
the sixteenth-century writer Baldassare Castiglione, is a kind of graceful
restraint that is an elemental characteristic of true civility. It helped
define Western ideas about the gentleman, and it helped strangers to manage the
slow transition to friendship.
Castiglione was an advisor to Popes Leo X and Clement VII,
and to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier
appeared in 1528, but it has surprising freshness today. It was considered
revolutionary in its time, and yet Castiglione’s take on manliness owed much to
Aristotle and Cicero. The ideal courtier was to have Aristotelian arete, which
is to say excellence. An aristos (whence our word aristocrat) was educated in
the best ideas and tempered by training to possess the best impulses, martial
and artistic. He was, in Jacob Burckhardt’s phrase, engaged in
“self-fashioning.” For Aristotle — and for men of the Renaissance such as
Castiglione and Shakespeare — the standard for self-fashioning was the “golden
mean,” the center between extremes. As Peter Burke explains: “Courage is
defined as the mean between rashness and cowardice, liberality as the mean
between extravagance and parsimony, and so on.” From Cicero, Castiglione took
the Stoic concept of neglentia diligens (studied negligence), an obvious
precursor to sprezzatura. And like many writers of his period, Castiglione
respected Ovid’s famous observation, “Ars est celare artem.”
The purpose of art is to conceal itself.
Castiglione advocates such “art” in the formation of the
gentleman, but his critics say he means pretense or dishonesty, and
Castiglione’s courtier has come down to us as a superficial fellow content to
fake it if he can — so long as the deception is shrewd.
Sprezzatura in Practice
No one is born a gentleman. Becoming one is a matter of
education, and Castiglione’s “art” is really the practice of the principles
that when finally internalized create the man whose urbanity, wit, athleticism,
and restraint have sunk into his sinews.
A gentleman practices sprezzatura so that he can get it
right. Confucius said that “although the gentleman may not have attained
goodness, he acts in such a way so that he might become good.”
Developing sprezzatura is a worthy challenge in a culture
that discourages and is suspicious of discretion and restraint. Many people are
simply aghast at taciturnity. We tend to distrust anyone we suspect of not
being “open.”
But the whole point of restraint, and the etiquette
supporting it, is to give us a chance to negotiate slowly and carefully the
difference between being strangers and becoming friends.
The handshake developed as a way strangers could show
themselves unarmed. It was a sensible and cautious first step towards
friendship. We do well to remember that intimacy must be a process, a
negotiation, and that who meets a stranger and jumps quickly into bed, so to
speak, has a better than even chance of waking up next to an enemy.
The ability to pause before acting and then to act sensibly
is manifest prudence, which is the first among the cardinal virtues.
A man who has sprezzatura is content to keep his own
counsel. He not only does not need to have his motives understood, he prefers
that they not be understood. His actions, including his carefully chosen words,
speak for him. It is not necessary for others—save his intimates—to know more.
Although it is not specifically a reason for embracing
circumspection, it so happens that a discrete gentleman amasses, over time, a
tremendous edge in the affairs of this world. He hears things that others do
not, because people of all sorts confide in him, knowing that he will not
betray their trust. The knowledge of the human heart that the compleat gentleman
thus develops can be a burden, but it is also something of a liberation. It may
call upon every bit of his strength to restrain himself from saying or doing
more than he ought with knowledge gained from friendship, but there it is.
The art (and depth) of sprezzatura is defined by a man’s
power: the stronger and wiser he is, the gentler his manner and the more
circumspect his speech; the more, in other words, his true self is hidden.
Of course there is more to sprezzatura than just restraint.
There is the quality people refer to when a man is called suave. Cary Grant was
usually a gentleman in his film roles because he seemed able to do difficult
things with ease and because he seemed a “man of the world,” not only suave but
urbane as well. One could not imagine him saying anything inappropriate, and it
was inconceivable that he would blurt out an intimacy, perhaps not even to an
intimate friend. He knew the difference between a true friend, an acquaintance,
and a stranger.
Implicit in sprezzatura is not only an effortless elegance
but also a strenuous self-control. In the end, to be a gentleman is to hold
Stoically, quietly to the conviction that he not be seen doing his “gentlemanly
thing.” Silence really is golden. As Cervantes has Sancho Panza put it: “A
closed mouth catches no flies.”
Intrigued by the concept of sprezzatura? Want to know more
about the virtues and attributes that every man should seek to cultivate? Enter
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Chivalry. Mr. Miner reaches back in time to recover the oldest and best ideals
of manhood. The book explored the roles every man should embody: warrior (a
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wants to be) and monk (a man possessing true knowledge).
Brad Miner is Senior Editor of The Catholic Thing and was
the founding editor of American Compass: "The Conservative
Alternative," which was formerly a division of Bookspan, a joint venture
of Bertelsmann and Time-Warner that operated most of America's commercial book
clubs. His Compass Points blog received recognition in the 2007 Webby Awards.
He is the author of five books, including The Concise
Conservative Encyclopedia and The Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to
Chivalry. With journalist Charles J. Sykes, he co-wrote and edited The National
Review College Guide: America's 50 Top Liberal-Arts Schools. His most recent
book, Smear Tactics, was published in November by HarperCollins, and will be
released in paperback this August. A new edition of The Compleat Gentleman was
published by Richard Vigilante Books in 2009.
He has managed bookstores in Columbus, Cincinnati, and
Dayton, held senior editorial positions in New York with both Bantam Books and
HarperCollins, and from 1989 until 1992 was Literary Editor of National Review,
America's leading journal of conservative opinion. As a book editor, he has
published the work of a diverse and distinguished group of authors, including
Sidney Hook, Evan S. Connell Jr., Hal Lindsey, Mother Angelica, and Chuck
Yeager. He is the author of scores of magazine and newspaper articles.
He has been a John M. Olin Visiting Professor at Adelphi
University.
Mr. Miner has appeared on many radio and television shows
and has been quoted in articles appearing in The Washington Times, The New York
Times, USA Today, Columbia Journalism Review, The Los Angeles Times, Newsmax,
The Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post, Newsday, and The American
Spectator.
