Tea at Trianon: British Magic in Hollywood

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, March 20, 2022

British Magic in Hollywood

From Tatler:

She was unsure and romance took a back seat. But their friendship continued to flourish and Andrews was inspired by his perspective. ‘I realised I didn’t have his “eyes” - though once he pointed it out, it became obvious. It made me think, “My God, I never look enough” and, in the years since, I’ve tried very hard to look - and look again,’ Andrews wrote in her first autobiography Home. Theirs was a bond compounded by the arts and Walton finally secured a first date to see the film The Greatest Show on Earth in London. ‘In the cinema Tony held my hand, but I was stiff and withdrawn, for I felt that he was becoming interested in a deeper relationship which I wasn’t ready for,’ Andrews wrote. But he was patient. And there was more waiting ahead: an obligatory two year period of National Service in Canada pulled Walton and Andrews oceans apart. Before leaving, he presented her with a painting of an island, which he titled Ours.

Theirs was a fiercely supportive alliance. In 1956, when Andrews was starring in her breakthrough role as Eliza alongside Rex Harrison in the Broadway smash hit My Fair Lady, she and Tony exchanged dictabelts on a daily basis — a kind of early voice note. ‘We would record our voices onto a plastic roll inside a compact little machine known as a Dictaphone and send each other the roll in an envelope on an almost daily basis,’ she wrote. ‘He remembers that the [opening night] recording was euphoric.’ By this point, his National Service long complete, he had returned to London and studied for a career in design, setting himself on a path that was to realign with Andrews' soaring star. (Read more.)