The Secret Garden (1993) - Original Theatrical Trailer

Reviews

The Secret Garden

Roger Ebert August 13, 1993

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-secret-garden-1993

 

Like all great stories for children, The Secret Garden contains powerful truths just beneath the surface. There is always a level at which the story is telling children about more than just events; it is telling them about the nature of life. That was the feeling I had when I read Frances Hodgson Burnett's book many years ago, and it is a feeling that comes back powerfully while watching Agnieszka Holland's new film.

 

Some "children's films" are only for children. Some can be watched by the whole family. Others are so good they seem hardly intended for children at all, and "The Secret Garden" falls in that category. It is a work of beauty, poetry and deep mystery, and watching it is like entering for a time into a closed world where one's destiny may be discovered.

 

The film tells the story, familiar to generations, of a young girl orphaned in India in the early years of this century, and sent home to England to live on the vast estate of an uncle. Misselthwaite Manor is a gloomy and forbidding pile in Yorkshire - a construction of stone, wood, metal, secrets and ancient wounds. The heroine, whose name is Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly), arrives from her long sea journey to be met with a sniff and a stern look from Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith), who manages the place in the absence of the uncle, Lord Archibald Craven (John Lynch). Mary quickly gathers that this uncle is almost always absent, traveling in far places in an attempt to forget the heartbreaking death of his young bride some years earlier.

 

There is little for Mary to do in the mansion but explore, and soon she finds secret passageways and even the bedroom of her late aunt - and in the bedroom, a key to a secret garden. She makes friends with a boy named Dickon (Andrew Knott), whose sister is a maid at Misselthwaite, and together they play in the garden, and he whispers the manor's great secret: The aunt died in childbirth, but her son, now 9 or 10 years old, still lives in the manor, confined to his bed, unable to walk.

 

Mary goes exploring, and finds the little boy, named Colin (Heydon Prowse). He has lived a life of great sadness, confined to his room, able to see only the sky from the windows visible from his bed. Mary determines he must see his mother's secret garden, and she and Dickon wheel him there in an invalid's chair, stealing him out of the house under the very nose of Mrs. Medlock.

 

All of this could be told in a simple and insipid story, I am sure, with cute kids sneaking around the corridors. But Holland is alert to the buried meanings of her story, and she has encouraged her actors to act their age - to be smart, resourceful and articulate.

 

They are so good at their jobs that we stop being aware they are children, and enter into full identification with their quest.

 

More of the story I must not tell, except to mention in passing the gaunt dignity of Uncle Archibald, played by Lynch with the kind of weary, sensual sadness that Jeremy Irons used to have a corner on.

 

By the end of the film I was surprised by how much I was moved; how much I had come to care about the lonely little boy, the orphaned girl, and the garden that a dead woman had prepared for them.

 

This is Holland's first American film, backed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by his longtime associates Fred Fuchs, Fred Roos and Tom Luddy. Holland's earlier work includes "Europa, Europa," a story of a Jewish boy who is able to save his life by passing for a Nazi youth brigade member, and "Olivier, Olivier," another case of mysterious identity, about a long-lost son who may or may not have been found again.

 

I found "Europa, Europa" such an incredible story that I rejected it; what lesson can be learned from the freak survival of one potential victim, while millions died? "Olivier, Olivier" I found a more successful film, although I was mystified by the function of an unexplained supernatural element in the story.

 

In "The Secret Garden" Holland has again made a film about a missing child, but this time her theme and her telling of it are in complete harmony. It is a beautiful, intelligent film - a fable, a lesson, and an entrancing entertainment. And Roger Deakins' photography elevates the secret garden into a place of such harmony and beauty that we almost believe it can restore the lives of those who look on it.

 

The summer of 1993 will be remembered as the time when every child in the world wanted to see "Jurassic Park." The lucky ones will see this one, too.

 

VIDEO: London's 'extreme' commuters - BBC London // The commute completely transformed Britain. Is it over for ever?

Before the Industrial Revolution, everyone lived within short walking distance of their workplace. However, all of this has now changed and many people commute large distances to work, often taking around one hour in each direction. We are now used to being stuck in traffic, crammed onto a train, rushing for connecting trains and searching for parking spaces close to the station or our workplace. Commuters explores both the history and present practice of commuting; examining how it has shaped our cities and given rise to buses, underground trains and suburban railways. Drawing upon both primary sources and modern research, Commuters tells the story of a way of life followed by millions of British workers. With sections on topics such as fictional commuters and the psychology of commuting; this is a book for everybody who has ever had to face that gruelling struggle to get to the office in time.

The commute completely transformed Britain. Is it over for ever?

Commuting

It helped create the suburbs, with countless towns thriving due to good transport links. Now it is under threat, with potentially huge consequences for our cities and social lives

 

Sam Wollaston

 @samwollaston

Mon 24 Aug 2020 06.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2020/aug/24/the-commute-completely-transformed-britain-is-it-over-for-ever

 

It is 7.45 on a Monday morning and I am heading for the office. It is my first visit to the Guardian for more than four months, but the prime minister wants us back at work. Commuters are reliable, law-abiding creatures of habit, cogs in a greater machine; I am doing what I am told.

 

On the way out of the house, I pass a 1910 Underground poster in the hall, extolling the merits of my particular suburb. “Live in a New Neighbourhood,” it reads, under a picture, by the artist Alfred France, of a brown country mouse welcoming a grey town mouse to a semi-rural idyll. “24 minutes from Piccadilly Circus, including change at Baker St. 6d per day for season ticket.”

 

One hundred and ten years on (and for a bit more than 6d), I am living that same dream. But at Dollis Hill station, now on the Jubilee line, there are very few other commuters waiting on the platform. Before Covid-19, in the rush hour, you would often have to ruck and maul just to get on to a train. Today, there are only three people, masked and well-distanced, in the carriage. It does not get much busier as the journey continues. A couple more at Willesden Green, once a rural area with a few grand houses – until about 1870, when the builders moved in and began turning it into a working-class suburb for a new breed of commuter.

 

At Finchley Road, I change on to the Metropolitan line, which brings commuters in from the more affluent (and further afield) mock-Tudor suburbs that became known as Metro-land and were celebrated by Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. But, again, there are very few commuters today. The capital – normally the lungs of the country, sucking in workers in the morning and exhaling them in the late afternoon – is breathing like a hibernating bear.

 

The tube has never been a place for striking up friendly conversations. With masks and distancing, it is more eyes-down-make-no-contact than ever. Social media is an easier space to approach strangers. My eye was caught by a tweet from a passenger on the 8.08 from Surbiton to Waterloo, usually one of the busiest commuter trains in the country, with a video clip showing the empty carriage. Surbiton, AKA Suburbiton, is quintessential commuter belt, home to Tom and Barbara in the 70s sitcom The Good Life and likely the inspiration for the fictional Climthorpe, where the salaryman Reggie hit his midlife crisis in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

 

“The 8.08’s usually pretty busy – I’d be standing in the door somewhere,” Charlie Deacon, who posted the video, tells me on the phone. He did not chat to his fellow commuters. “I recognised the same people most days, but I didn’t really know anyone.”

 

Deacon, who works for a renewable energy company, worked from home throughout lockdown, but he has started coming in to the office once a week. “I’ve always been a proponent of flexible working, but it is also nice to have that one day in the office, to see the whites of people’s eyes.”

 

Team meetings and complex projects are better dealt with in person than via video calls and endless emails, he says. But Deacon never wants to commute five days a week again. “I’m a lot less stressed, I don’t have to deal with the train, I’m saving lots of money; I’m getting more sleep, more time to exercise, with my partner, to do other things in the evenings … It’s totally positive.”

 

The journey, when he makes it, is a breeze, with seats available and space to breathe and distance, as his video shows. “This is about as busy as it gets,” mumbles a woman wearing a hi-vis jacket, a mask and a visor as she directs a handful of people in and out of King’s Cross station, where I emerge on my journey to work.

 

This is reflected in the government statistics monitoring transport during the pandemic. Although the numbers are not broken down by the purpose of the journey, the use of national rail and London Underground services so far in August is about 30% of what it would be normally. Bus journeys are well down, too: about 40% outside London and 50% inside. Only car use is back to somewhere approaching normal (about 90%).

 

 Even if there are very good reasons why people should commute less, that’s not how people engage with the world

Once upon a time, people walked to work, which tended to be in a field near where they lived. But the Industrial Revolution changed all that. You know the story: with industrialisation came urbanisation. Cities grew: Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, as well as London. People flocked to them for work that was better paid than the work in the field and not seasonal. The downside was that these cities became filthy, overcrowded, polluted and diseased places.

 

So, from the latter part of the 18th century into the Victorian era, those who could afford it started to move out to new suburbs and even the countryside beyond. As it was too far to walk to work, spiders’ webs began to appear on city maps – suburban rail networks. “Up to then, the purpose of the train was to get from one city to another,” says the author and historian Simon Webb, who probably knows more about the history of commuting than anyone else, having written a book on the subject. “As commuting took off, the purpose of railways became to bring people from one part of a city to another.”

 

Webb’s book, Commuters: The History of a British Way of Life, looks at how commuting shaped our cities and gave rise to suburban railways, buses and underground trains (the first passengers rode the Metropolitan railway in London in 1863). From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of commuting was steady, with the odd surge, such as when buses or trams were introduced. Then, between the wars, it was like rush hour: one-third of the British population became commuters, thanks to unplanned development, with new urban areas springing up on the fringes of cities, and because of the mutually beneficial relationships that developed between railway companies and builders.

 

Think of a commuter and whom do you see? Suited, probably male, takes himself quite seriously, a little humourless. Or the Reggie Perrin character, trapped in a railway carriage of hell, somewhere near Surbiton, but going nowhere in life. But today a commuter is as likely to be a nurse, a security guard, a cleaner, a cabinet minister or a “super-commuter” jetting in from her place in Nice every week.

 

Since the second world war, one method of commuting has grown to eclipse all others: driving. In normal times, 60% of all journeys to work are by car or van. In spite of all their historical associations, trains account for only about 5% of the total.

 

Even before Covid-19, Webb was wondering whether the commuter was dying out, because of the gentrification and recolonisation of city centres. It is happening to the centres of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London – right here in King’s Cross, to where I have commuted. Until recently, it was dirty and dodgy after dark. Now it has sprouted shiny towers, desirable vertical urban living spaces. If I were wealthier, I might aspire to relocate here from my suburb. I can picture the poster: town mouse encouraging suburban mouse to come to where it is all happening.

 

The pandemic means that, for many, it is no longer necessary to leave home, let alone your neighbourhood, to go to work. This may have the effect of making people more insular and isolated, says Webb. He tells me about some people who, during the Crusades, took off from a village in Gloucestershire; when they reached Gloucester, they thought they had reached Jerusalem and prepared to fight the infidel. “Your outlook will probably become as restricted as that of a medieval peasant,” he jokes. At least, I think he is joking.

 

A note of caution from Joe Moran, a social historian and a professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University. Many key workers, he points out, don’t have the luxury of telecommuting “because they can’t do their work remotely. It’s non-key work that is more likely to disappear into fibre-optic cables and wireless routes.” Bankers in the City of London may be able to do their jobs from home, but that is not the case for security guards or supermarket staff.

 

As a cultural historian, Moran is wary of the idea that things change suddenly and dramatically. “I feel that there is a natural inertia,” he says. “Even if there are very good reasons why people should commute less, that’s not how people engage with the world and other people. We often do things that don’t make any sense, because we are social beings.”

 

Just as being at work is not only about the work, so commuting is not only about commuting, says Moran. While the situationist philosophers of 60s Paris may have regarded commuting as an unwanted product of capitalism, with its unpaid labour and alienating dead space, “some people actually quite like the commute, if it’s not too long. Partly because it’s time alone. It’s a sort of third space between home and work. Particularly with new technology, you can do lots of things with that time,” he says. “There is a slightly social aspect to it as well: you spend time with these intimate strangers; often you see the same people on the train every day. There is a minimal community to it.”

 

It is more than minimal for Anna Horsley, who has a train friend. It started one day when Horsley got some bad news in a phone call; the woman next to her could not help overhearing, so asked if she was all right and offered a tissue. They got chatting. Soon they were taking the same trains every day, the 7.42 out and the 6.30 home. They have seen each other since they started working from home. “She’s invited me to her wedding,” Horsley says. “She’s gone beyond train friend – she’s a proper mate now.”

 

Horsley, a social researcher, is – or was – a super-commuter. Her journey from Northampton to Westminster, by bike, train, tube and foot, took two hours. Then two hours home again in the evening. And she misses it. “I certainly don’t miss the cost of it, but I miss the routine it gave me. I find it harder to switch off and to get into work mode – I get out of bed and walk into my office, so I have no mental preparation for the day. And I tend to work past my hours.”

 

Moran concedes that, when this is over: “People will have got used to working from home and it will be tolerated more. My workplace tended to encourage people to be present before; presumably, those kind of attitudes will change. I think there’ll be less commuting, but I’m sure it will still go on. The key is to be flexible: if people want to go into work, they should be able to; if they can work from home, that’s great as well.”

 

This makes sense. Where does it leave me, though? I know where I am physically: I have done my commute, from a suburb created by commuting, along the world’s first metropolitan commuter railway, to a city centre abandoned by all but the poor that is now seeing the gradual return of the wealthy. I am here; I have reached the office. But I don’t need to be here. I am not going in – I am off home, to work.

"Tweedland" has reached 4.500.000 page views ! Thanks to you all ! Jeeves.

The Crown Season 4 Release Date and Sneak Peek

. Season 4 is expected to cover the late 1970s through 1990, including the courtship and marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, and the premiership of Margaret Thatcher.

 

The confirmed cast for Season 4 thus far includes:

 

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II

Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip

Josh O'Connor as Prince Charles

Erin Doherty as Princess Anne

Marion Bailey as The Queen Mother

Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret

Ben Daniels as Antony Armstrong-Jones

Government

Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher

Other Characters

Emma Corrin as Lady Diana Spencer

Emerald Fennell as Camilla Parker Bowles

 

Here's Everything We Know About Netflix's 'The Crown' Season 4 | MEAWW / Forget the height difference – here’s why the stars of The Crown don’t need to look like the real Royals

Forget the height difference – here’s why the stars of The Crown don’t need to look like the real Royals

 

Elizabeth Debicki is very tall. Princess Diana was not. It doesn't matter.

Monday, 17th August 2020 at 4:59 pm

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-08-17/the-crown-netflix-casting-resemblance/

 

After news broke that Elizabeth Debicki had been cast as The Crown’s next Princess Diana, the first thing I did was cry “of course!” and send a silent thanks to the Netflix show’s inspired casting directors. But I must confess, the second thing I did was go straight to Google and fire off a search for “Elizabeth Debicki height”, closely followed by “Princess Diana height”.

 

This brilliant example of investigative journalism revealed that, at least according to the search engine, The Night Manager actress Debicki is 6’3″ tall. Princess Diana was, apparently, 5’10” tall. Now I’m no maths genius, but I reckon that’s almost half a foot’s height difference. Which is a lot. Also, season four’s Princess Diana actress Emma Corrin is (unreliably) said to be 5’8″, so that’s going to be even more of a leap!

 

I was not the only person wondering about this. Here’s what happened to Google searches the moment the news broke:

 

Height comparison for the crown

But the funny thing is, the whole thing came with a sense of déjà vu. We’ve been here before with The Crown – and we’ve already established something crucial: it ultimately doesn’t matter whether the person looks exactly like the person they’re playing or not.

 

Height-wise, The Crown set a precedent by starting off with Vanessa Kirby (5’7″) as Princess Margaret (5’1″); it didn’t matter, because Kirby turned out to be brilliant. Then, when the cast changed for season three, Margaret shrunk back down dramatically towards her true height as Helena Bonham Carter (5’2″) took over the role. This was jarring for all of five minutes before we quickly adjusted and moved on.

 

Winston Churchill was 5’6″, but American actor John Lithgow (6’4″) earned huge critical acclaim for playing the British Prime Minister. There was some resemblance in the face, but in his physical build he was clearly much, much taller than the man he played. And lo – we got over it.

 

Similarly, there have already been plenty of comments about Jonathan Pryce – the new Prince Philip for seasons five and six – and how he doesn’t look like the real-life person he’ll play. They are correct. But none of that will matter if his performance is good enough, and The Crown’s casting directors haven’t failed us yet (even if I was really rooting for them to cast Jeremy Irons in this particular role).

 

Sometimes, of course, a physical feature helps capture the character.

 

Josh O’Connor has been pretty sporting about being “reliably informed I have the ears for the part” to play Prince Charles. The kid actors who played Young Charles in seasons one and two were also required to have suitably distinctive ears (no offence intended). It remains to be seen whether the actor who takes over the role of the heir to the Throne for seasons five and six will have big ears of his own. (I’m also keen to see how he will measure up, literally, to Elizabeth Debicki. The real Charles was four inches taller than his first wife.)

 

And sure, the main cast will always be closely scrutinised for a resemblance (or lack thereof) to the people they play in real life: do Claire Foy and her successor Olivia Colman look like the Queen? Do Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies look like Prince Philip? How about the actors playing Anne, or Camilla Parker-Bowles, or Margaret Thatcher? Some of them do, some of them don’t.

 

The Crown Olivia Colman and Claire Foy

But then again, many of the real-life people featured in The Crown are known more by name, and less by face – or not widely known to the public at all. How many of us have a picture in our mind’s eye of Lord Mountbatten, so ably played on screen by Charles Dance? Or Peter Townsend (Ben Miles)? Or Tommy Lascelles (Pip Torrens)? Can many people in the year 2020 remember the face of King George VI – and does it matter that Jared Harris hardly looks like him at all?

 

Perhaps the scrutiny will increase as The Crown moves relentlessly towards the present and we’re able to do a more direct comparison with what the Royals look like today and the pictures we see of them in the newspapers. In seasons five and six, the new Queen (Imelda Staunton) and Margaret (Lesley Manville) and Philip (Jonathan Pryce) will take us through some events from very recent memory, and it’s possible that the juxtaposition with the real-life royal family will get weirder as we get closer to the present day.

 

But from the very beginning, The Crown has cast more for talent and less for physical resemblance – and it has worked. That takes a certain confidence, especially when you’ve made the decision to swap out the entire cast every two seasons and replace them with actors who a) don’t have to look exactly like the person they play, and b) don’t even have to look like the actor who previously played the same role. It’s bold.

 

So bring on Elizabeth Debicki and bring on Jonathan Pryce and Imelda Staunton and Lesley Manville and more. This isn’t a documentary; it’s a drama – and The Crown’s casting team knows exactly what it’s doing.

The Luftwaffe-issued watch German navigator tried to hide in his PANTS // The Glashütte Chronograph

 

Revealed: The Luftwaffe-issued watch German navigator tried to hide in his PANTS after being captured in the aftermath of D-Day

 

Timepiece is one of four 'liberated' by officer who interrogated POWs

POWs often tried to conceal valuable items on themselves when caught

One airman stuffed watch in underpants, hoping captors would not look

Four watches being sold at Dorset auction with total estimate of £8,000

 

By MARK DUELL

PUBLISHED: 13:28, 7 April 2014 | UPDATED: 13:33, 7 April 2014

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2598786/The-Luftwaffe-issued-watch-German-navigator-tried-hide-PANTS-captured-WWII.html

 

A rare navigator’s watch recovered by a Royal Air Force officer from the underpants of a captured German who had tried to hide it is up for auction.

 

The timepiece is one of four ‘liberated’ by the officer whose job it was to interrogate German prisoners of war, who often tried to conceal valuable items about their person when first caught.

 

One airman stuffed his watch in his underpants, hoping his captors would not look there - but the unnamed British officer performed a thorough search and soon recovered the item.

  

Two of the watches are made by German watchmaker Glashutte

            

Up for auction: Two of the four watches which were 'liberated' by the officer whose job it was to interrogate German prisoners of war, who often tried to conceal valuable items about their person when first caught

 

Valuable: Two of the timepieces going under the hammer at auctioneers at Charterhouse in Sherborne, Dorset,  are Hanhart pilot’s chronograph watches, made by the famous Swiss watchmaker Johann A. Hanhart

 

It went along with three other Luftwaffe-issue timepieces he acquired during the Second World War. The four watches are now being sold at an auction on May 8 with a total pre-sale estimate of £8,000.

 

They belong to the son of the late serviceman who inherited them. He said: ‘My father was an RAF intelligence officer and his job was to interrogate German airmen who had been captured.

 

‘He spoke German and pressed the men for worthwhile information such as the equipment the Luftwaffe were using.

 

'One prisoner had his watch wrapped around something that wasn’t his wrist because he was so desperate not to lose it'

RAF officer's son

 

‘He had to search them and one prisoner had his watch wrapped around something that wasn’t his wrist because he was so desperate not to lose it.

 

‘My father ended up having it and kept it as a souvenir or as part of the spoils of war. When my father died over 20 years ago we had a clear out of his things and acquired his four watches.’

 

Two of the timepieces are Hanhart pilot’s chronograph watches, made by the famous Swiss watchmaker Johann A. Hanhart. The other two are made by German watchmaker Glashutte.

 

Historic event: The officer arrived in France 11 days after the D-Day landings in 1944 and interviewed rounded-up German prisoners, which is when it is believed he acquired the four Luftwaffe pilots' watches            

 

Auctioneer Richard Bromell said: ‘The vendor’s father, from Manchester, was of Dutch origin and spoke fluent French, German, Dutch, and towards the end of the Second World War Russian too.’

 

One fifth of all farm labour in Britain in 1946 was being done by German POWs, who were also working on roads and building sites.

 

A ban on the Germans socialising with local populations near the UK camps was lifted towards the end of the year, and many British people invited them in for a family Christmas.

 

Some 250,000 German POWs had been repatriated by the end of 1947, but 24,000 chose to stay in Britain.

 

One of them, Hans Siegfried Vallentin, married a girl he met in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, and they had five children and 11 grandchildren.

 

Perhaps the most famous POW who settled in England after the war was Bert Trautmann , who became a legendary goalkeeper for Manchester City FC. He died last July.

 

‘As an officer in the RAF, and as a linguist, he is believed to have worked in MI19, the division formed from MI9 as the enemy prisoner of war interrogation department.

 

‘He arrived in France 11 days after the D-Day landings and interviewed rounded up German prisoners, which is when it is believed he “acquired” these four Luftwaffe pilots’ watches.’

 

The vendor, who is from the Somerset area, said: ‘If you wind them up they do start to tick but they would need to be repaired as they haven’t been properly used for 70 years. These watches have been locked up in a drawer for many years.

 

'You can’t go on hoarding things forever and I don’t have any romantic association with them, so I think it is best to pass them on.’

 

Mr Bromell, of auctioneers Charterhouse in Sherborne, Dorset, which is selling the watches, said: ‘They are four high quality wristwatches used by German pilots and navigators in the war.

 

‘They need some work doing to them to get them going again. However, with all the watches being quite similar the vendor isn’t sure which one was recovered from the PoW’s underpants.’

 

The owner’s father worked in Lloyds Bank before the war, and after it had ended he joined the family business which supplied animal feeds.

The Glashütte Chronograph

Size:       39mm

Date Produced: 1940 – 1949

Forces Supplied:               The German Luftwaffe

Manufacturers: Tutima Glashutte, Hanhart

 

UROFA Caliber 59

UROFA CALIBER 59, THE FLYBACK CHRONOGRAPH

 

An often overlooked watch developed secretly in collaboration between the German government and Hanhart/Tutima, this Flyback Chronograph is one of the most historically important chronographs in all military history.

 

Used in aerial combat during the war, the German pilots were the only military combatants to have actual chronograph timing capabilities on their wrist, and the Flyback mechanism was an important technical achievement (and the first of it’s kind).

 

Tutima Flieger ChronographThis piece has some serious tool watch specs: Antimagnetic and waterproof case, shatterproof domed acrylic crystal, rotating bezel, radioactive lume, and the famous Flyback chronograph mechanism, which allows you to reset the chronograph while its running.

 

After the war was over and Glashutte lay in ruin, Russian troops dismantled the manufacture and moved all equipment and parts to Moscow as part of reparations. Russian versions of this watch using the same Calibre 59 can be found from this post-war period, and can be highly collectible as well.

https://www.60clicks.com/ww2-military-watch-guide/

Pat Cleveland: the model who partied with Warhol, lived with Lagerfeld – and took on Vogue

 

‘I didn’t see anybody that looked like me, or was like me’ ... Pat Cleveland at home in New Jersey last month. Photograph: Paul Van Ravenstein

 

Black lives

Pat Cleveland: the model who partied with Warhol, lived with Lagerfeld – and took on Vogue

 

She received death threats as a young model, but that didn’t stop her. She refused Muhammad Ali’s proposal, inspired Dalí and set up her own agency – then became an artist

 

by Ellen E Jones

Thu 13 Aug 2020 06.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/13/pat-cleveland-the-model-who-partied-with-warhol-lived-with-lagerfeld-and-took-on-vogue

 

In the late 60s, Pat Cleveland was one of the most popular models in New York, working with the best-known photographers: Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Hiro. Yet she could not get on the cover of Vogue. The photographers “were all very upset”, she says, “because they’d shoot covers of me and sometimes the editors said: ‘Wow! This is the cover!’ Then they’d replace me with a caucasian girl. I just got fed up.”

 

She made a vow. “Why am I going to waste my time” in the US, she wondered, “when they don’t care about people of colour?” In 1971, she moved to France, promising not to return to the US until a black model was on the cover of US Vogue.

 

Paris was a promised land. She slept on the floor of one of Karl Lagerfeld’s apartments with fellow models Corey Tippin and Donna Jordan and the Vogue illustrators Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos. She remembers the young(ish) Lagerfeld fondly: “He was like a muscle man at the time. He had this gym in his house, all mirrors and low black lighting and calla lilies.” The illustrators would sketch the models until midnight, when everyone got dressed up and went out to the nightclubs – Le Palace and Nuage.

 

Pat Cleveland eating a sandwich at the Battle of Versailles in 1973

FacebookTwitterPinterest ‘Every time we went out, we thought we were the Folies-Bergère’ ... Cleveland eating a sandwich at the Battle of Versailles in 1973. Photograph: Fairchild Archive/Penske Media/Rex/Shutterstock

 

In 1973, American and French designers were asked to compete in a legendary fashion show, the Battle of Versailles, held at the historic palace. French designers including Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Hubert de Givenchy competed against Halston, Bill Blass and Anne Klein. The Americans showed their designs on a group of models that included 11 African Americans – which was unprecedented at the time – and unexpectedly emerged triumphant. “Black was popular,” says Cleveland. The mood among the models was comradely. “There were no catfights. It was like: ‘Hey, let’s get it!’ We had our routines – every time we went out, we thought we were the Folies-Bergère.”

 

The following year, the black model Beverly Johnson appeared on the cover of US Vogue. Cleveland was as good as her word. She returned to New York and began spending her nights at Studio 54.

 

In the 60s and 70s, she says, you had a choice. “It was like: are you gonna hang out with the hippies, who are all lying around in beanbag chairs with torn jeans and fuzzy hair? Or are you gonna comb your hair and go out at night and have mimosas and steak au poivre and dance with the Supremes?”

 

Mick Jagger was “one of the gang”. They dated, but rock star boyfriends were no big deal: “There was nobody else around. It’s not like you could go out shopping in a regular grocery store. You always had to shop at the specialty shop.”

 

One summer in Florida, Muhammad Ali proposed to her. “He was just a big, fluffy, teddy bear guy; shy and southern with nice, soft hair. He had this convertible Cadillac with two bodyguards sat in the front and he’d take me out driving. He’d always say stuff like: ‘OK, watch this!’ then drive to a poor area where all the people would recognise him, like: ‘Muhammad! Muhammad!’ He’d stand up and say: ‘Yeah, it’s me! You put your money on me and I’ll win for you.’” He would say this in a rhythm, like “hip-hop rhyming”, she says. “I think he started that.”

 

Ultimately, however, she and Ali were not simpatico. “One morning, he saw me in my bikini, jumped at me with a towel, wrapped it around me and says: ‘Well, if you’re gonna be my wife, you cannot wear that.’ I thought ‘Oooh, this is too strange for me!’”

 

Pat Cleveland with Mohammed Ali in 1966

‘He was just a big, fluffy, teddy bear guy’ ... Cleveland with Muhammad Ali in 1966. Photograph: Lady Bird Cleveland

 

Andy Warhol was also a friend and she was a regular for afternoon tea at Salvador Dalí’s. “I’d be sitting there posing like a little dog and he would never do a drawing. He’d just walk around the table looking at me.” Surely being a muse got tedious? “Oh no! I’m not the muse; they were my muses. I was watching and studying them.”

 

Cleveland had been painting since childhood and was educated at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan (alumni include Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs and her lifelong friend Lopez). Most of the people she met were too busy looking at her to realise she was looking right back.

 

 We’d go for a walk and be accosted by racists throwing rocks ... I just threw rocks back

As a child in 50s Harlem, she had learned to stand apart. “I didn’t see anybody that looked like me, or was like me.” She was a girl of mixed heritage, growing up in an area that was diverse, but in some ways still segregated. “Sometimes I’d be in the Irish bar, or with my Jewish friend, then my Puerto Rican girlfriend would teach me Spanish, then on the corner, in the black neighbourhood, they’d be singing:‘Doo-wah, doo-wah …’”

 

Her father, a jazz saxophonist called Johnny Johnston, returned to his native Sweden shortly after Cleveland’s birth, leaving her to be raised by her mother and aunt. Her aunt was one of the black bohemians who had travelled to Europe years before, seeking freedom from prejudice, as her niece would years later. “My auntie worked in the opera house in Paris, making clothes and doing her dancing, and when she came to live with us she brought all these things. Everywhere you went was a creative mess of fabrics and paint and drums.” Dancers who worked with the renowned choreographer Katherine Dunham would come over to practise in Cleveland’s living room. “So there were always men, half-dressed, doing all of this drumming, and I would get up in the middle of the night and go dance with them.”

 

Pat Cleveland at a fitting with the designer Stephen Burrows

 

Cleveland still models – she walked for the designers Nicole Miller and Chiara Boni at last autumn’s New York fashion week – although “danced” is a better way to describe it. “There’s this open space in front of you, and when the spotlight is on you feel like you’re flying to the sun. You feel the energy of the people and you can hear their hearts beating. Then you think to yourself: ‘Oh, these are my people! I gotta make ’em happy today!’”

 

When we speak over video chat, she is in her New Jersey studio, surrounded by brushes and half-finished works, mostly colourful collages, some incorporating her modelling shots. At 70, she seems unchanged. She still has the effervescence that has ensured invitations to every party worth going to for the past 50 years.

 

It is easy to imagine her as a kid, sitting at the knee of her mother. Lady Bird Cleveland worked as an artist at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance, specialising in black history subjects, raising her only child with the support of friends including the photographer Carl Van Vechten and the opera singer Marian Anderson. “Sometimes I’d drink the water from the watercolours,” says Cleveland; her mother would say: “Well, if you don’t drink the paint, you’ll never be an artist.” Our call is suddenly interrupted. “Can you hear that?” she says. “The peacocks!” She and her husband keep them as pets. It seems apt.

 

Cleveland feels an affinity with designers because, when she started out, she was one. As a tall, slim 15-year-old, she could not find anything to fit, so she began making her own clothes. She was invited to sell her mini-skirts at a boutique next to the Manhattan nightclub Cheetah. “On the weekend, I’d drop off the clothes, go dance, come back, pick up my cash and go home,” she says.

 

Her outfits caught the eye of a Vogue employee on a New York subway platform in 1966 and she featured in the magazine as an up-and-coming designer. When she began modelling, she says, there were not 1,000 people “trying to get your one spot. It wasn’t fame. It was more like you wanted to work with the designer, y’know?”

 

That year, Cleveland was invited to take part in the touring Ebony fashion fair, arranged by Eunice Johnson, the pioneering black businesswoman and co-founder of Ebony magazine. Black people were excluded from fashion and some clothing shops at the time, so the show provided access and inspiration. Johnson “was the wealthiest woman of colour in the United States”, says Cleveland. “She would go to the shows in Europe and buy the entire collection, then show these clothes in selected [US] cities, where the cream of the black society was. She put Yves Saint Laurent on the map. She had Cardin, Dior, Givenchy, Chanel. She had everybody.”

  

Cleveland had experienced racism before, particularly when visiting her mother’s hometown in Georgia. “I had cousins who were not as fair-skinned as me and we’d go for a walk in town and be accosted by racists throwing rocks. I was from New York, so what did I know? I just threw rocks back. I thought it was a game, but we could have been killed.”

 

When she toured the south with the Ebony fashion fair, the models received death threats and were turned away from “whites-only” establishments. “It was pretty dangerous to be in a bus with clothes worth millions of dollars and 10 black girls,” she says. “The driver had to pack pistols.” For all the ugliness and tumult, this was when she learned her craft. “Every night, we’d do a show, sometimes in a church on top of set-up tables as our runway, with one light at the end. You get a lot of experience walking on a shaky table like that.”

 

Back in New York, she signed to Ford Models, but the boss, Eileen Ford, made it plain that she saw little potential for black models. “I was the only one there. Me and maybe a girl named Charlene Dash and – oh my God, forget it, they would never take anyone darker.”

 

In 1982, Cleveland married the Dutch model and fashion photographer Paul van Ravenstein. They had two children; her modelling work became less frequent, but never stopped. Her daughter Anna models, too, and the pair have walked for Chanel and appeared together in campaigns for Zac Posen and Lanvin.

 

Cleveland started her own modelling agency – in Piedmont, north-west Italy – in 1995, inspired by her desire to right an industry wrong. “They were giving me all the money, ’cause I was American, the star, and all these Italian models – really high-class, beautiful, excellent models – were getting paid very little. Those were my Italian girlfriends, who always had my back, so I started an agency. That way I got them the good money.”

 

The only moment of our conversation when Cleveland is lost for words is when I tell her about the racial profiling of British Vogue’s editor, Edward Enninful. In July, he described how he was instructed to “use the loading bay” by a security guard at the magazine’s offices. “I’m getting freaked out over here,” says Cleveland. “I have to take a minute to absorb this … I mean, if he was in America, they would brutalise him.” After a few deep breaths, she looks up again and smiles: “Y’know, when you’re a fairy, you get caught up in spider webs. You train to be what you truly are, a light, like those little light bugs that light up the night. You were born like that and that’s your energy.”

 

This energy has seen her through some extraordinary experiences. In March 2019, Cleveland was in Paris for fashion week when she fell ill with what was later diagnosed as colon cancer and taken to hospital. She was staying two floors down from where Lagerfeld had died a month earlier. “I think I had a visitation by his ghost,” she says. “There he was, on the edge of my bed. He just said: ‘Don’t worry, my dear. You’re gonna be OK.’”

 

This proved true. A crowdfunding appeal set up by her husband to help pay her medical costs received donations from Jacobs, Posen, Helena Christensen and Katie Grand. “I didn’t know I had that many friends,” she says. “Thank God for Instagram!” That is how Cleveland stays in touch with her fashion people these days. “Because we love pictures. We like to keep it shiny and bright and we try to create that atmosphere of how we like the world to be. Now, even though there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on – and we understand it – designers and artists are put here to make the world beautiful.”

 

If you have only seen Cleveland on the catwalk, you might get the impression that she floats above the world’s troubles. But that is not quite right. As her Vogue vow – and her participation in a recent Black Trans Lives Matter event – shows, she has always been ready to oppose discrimination. But her gift is her connection to beauty. Like her peacocks, she is grounded – and fabulous.