Archive for My Life – Page 7

At Least You Couldn’t Buy His Underwear

by Beverley
September 19th, 2011

I generally spend a great deal of time going through all the items in auctions of Chinese antiques. But recently I found myself totally intrigued with a catalog of an auction sale of belongings of the very handsome proper late actor and member of the international social set Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. I was shocked — everything was there but his underwear. Whatever happened to dignity after death. And his death was many years ago so where have all of these belongings have been kept for so long?

The auction included the usual items, Louis XIV style chairs, silver platters, crystal and dinner services. And the books. That is where I really got interested.  What an incredible library this actor had!

There were beautifully leather bound complete collections of the work of Gustave Flaubert, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alexander Dumas, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde for starters. Hundreds and hundreds of leather bound books.  Then such items as A Display of Heraldry  London 1638. Something that tempted me to bid was four signed or inscribed books of Robert Benchley including his great The Treasurer’s Report.

Katherine Hepburn was included with signed copies of her books Me & The Making of the African Queen. And there were personal letters from her to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. signed by a nickname “Pete.” Andrew Wyeth was well represented with books, drawings, and a watercolor of him fencing with Fairbanks (sold for $1,024).

Then there was something as far to the extreme from all the leather bound classics as a delightful poster by Dong Kingman of San Francisco Chinatown. (sold for $281) The books with regular covers were sold in lots — there were hundreds of them.  One lot featured Slim Arons The Wonderful Life. I hope it was signed. My copy is inscribed to me by Slim.

Silver gelatin photographs popped up occasionally through the list of items for sale. There was one of George Bernard Shaw, and a good one of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Countess of Burma in a silver frame with them dressed in formal court regalia estimated at $200-300 sold for $2,375.  It did have “Dickie” and “Edwina” signed on the mat by each of them.

I was intrigued with a worn leather dispatch case with the cypher for King George VI (sold for $1,625).  And John Barrymore‘s white silk evening scarf was bought for $875. Then there was one lot of the 1984 commemorative United States post office stamp honoring his father Douglas Fairbanks Sr worth $288 to someone. This was accompanied by photos and envelopes featuring the stamp. He had a Civil War bullet and huge collection of medals and  Masonic pins.

Then things got personal and I was a bit shocked. Two complete Rolodex files sold for $625 which was probably no bargain because most of people listed were dead; Douglas Fairbanks’ wallet with all his signed credit cards as well as his passport brought $1000; Thirty-five signed canceled 1935 checks and a ledger sheet were worth $750 to someone.

He had 3 police badges, an endless collection of cufflinks (some knotted cloth and some very elegant like a set of coral, gold and diamonds that sold for $2,304. The were many shirt studs and cuff link sets as well as many cigarette cases, watches, gold buttons for blazers. The cases for his contact lenses weren’t fancy! Imagine having the case for your contact lenses sold at public auction!  Well I don’t wear them so that’s not a worry for me.

Then the clothes. These went on and on and on. The sport jackets, the smoking jackets, suits endlessly — all so elegant! A mountain of ties; complete white tie evening apparel from tail coat to an assortment of white ties; a great array of cotton shirts and lots of Lilly Pulitzer shorts and tops for summer visits on private islands I suppose. Or maybe Palm Beach. An item with one of highest estimates other than cigarette cases and watches from top jewelers was his Louis Vuitton steamer trunk which sold for $5,938.

Did I weaken and bid on anything? Well actually I did. A hip length man’s black wool evening cape with velvet collar. Not in the usual man’s wardrobe. But Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was a very elegant gentleman. And no my absentee bid didn’t make it. Just as well. It wouldn’t have looked very good over blue jeans anyways!

Well there is much more I could write about but I want to get busy cleaning out my drawers and closets. One has to face the inevitable I guess…

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

You Haven’t Heard the Last of Polo Season

by Beverley
September 12th, 2011

It’s no secret I’m a great enthusiast for polo. In the 1930’s my mother, a fine horsewoman, used to take me out to the old Riviera and Uplifters polo fields to watch Sunday matches. In retrospect I’m not sure my mother’s enthusiasm was totally involved with the horses and the sport since the men riding those fine horses were Hollywood stars like Tyrone Power, Spencer Tracey, Clark Gable, David Niven to name a few. They weren’t great players in most cases but they were certainly nice to look at. At one point I had one of the old wooden balls which had level areas from being hit hard and those areas were great for autographs. I had them all! Sadly that ball is long lost…

Walt Disney was such a polo enthusiast he had a cage built on a sound stage at Disney Studio where he and other players could go in and practice hitting polo balls into a goal. Darryl Zanuck was another studio head who was very involved with polo. He actually was quite a good player as I recall.

In 1941 Hernando Courtright, who was managing the Beverly Hills Hotel which a group of his friends had saved from foreclosure, decided to change the name of El Jardin Restaurant off the hotel lobby to The Polo Lounge. This was in honor of his movie friends who played polo. And it is still one of most popular spots in the Los Angeles area. I lunched there several weeks ago and the place was jammed, inside and large outdoor patio.

Elizabeth Skene, Gloria Holden and me at High Goal Polo 7/31/11

Mrs. Robert Skene, Mrs. Glen Holden and me enjoying a day of exciting polo

Well that’s a lot of past glamour but we had plenty of our own this summer at the Santa Barbara Polo Club. Ambassador Glen Holden and club president Wesley Ru, the board of directors, Gloria Holden, Geannie Holden Sheller, Clarisa Ru, Ariana Nobel and all the incredible staff of the club — saw to it that the 100th anniversary of the Santa Barbara Polo Club was celebrated in grand style. Glen, who had played with Prince Philip and Prince Charles in many tournaments through the years really scored major winning points when he brought Prince William, the future King of England, and his brand new bride the Duchess of Cambridge, to play a special tournament right here in Carpinteria. But then you’d have to have been in a medical coma not to know about that.

Mrs. Adolfo Cambiaso

Mrs. Adolfo Cambiaso, wife of the 10 goal player considered the greatest polo player in the world, at the Pink Tea for polo wives and members of the Santa Barbara Polo Club

And Patron John Muse provided attendees with plenty of excitement by once again bringing the famous Argentine Adolfo Cambiaso, the world’s greatest player, to participate in the Bombardier Pacific Coast Open Tournament as part of his Luchese team. They won incidentally 11-9 against Piaget in a game that was exciting to the very last 15 seconds of the sixth chukker when Luchese’s Julio Gracida scored the 11th goal.

Gloria Holden, Ambassador Glen Holden, Wendy Overmire & Geannie Holden Sheller

Gloria Holden, Ambassador Glen Holden, Wendy Overmire and Geannie Holden Sheller at the Golden Mallet benefit

Missy de Young and grandchild

Missy Chandler de Young holding her first great grandchild Isadora Chandler, daughter of Elizabeth and Otis Y. Chandler. It was the horses that excited Isadora during the finals of the Bombardier Pacific Coast Open Tournament.

It was exciting all the way. There were fun casual parties as well as polo. And two rather fancy ones, one in a tent at the Polo Club and the other in the Coral Casino Ballroom. Then there was the annual Santa Barbara Braille charity luncheon in a tent adjacent to the member’s box area and in the same tent another day the annual charity benefit Gloria Holden started 28 years ago, the Assistance League of Southern California annual Golden Mallet Polo Luncheon. This benefit supports a learning center for generally disadvantaged pre-nursery school and kindergarten children Gloria has backed since its inception. The polo competition associated with this luncheon is the Robert Skene Invitational Polo Match and every year the winning trophies are distributed by Bob Skene’s widow Elizbeth Skene. Oh and we can’t forget the Moscow polo team coming to play at the Santa Barbara Polo Club — but I did a whole blog on them so you already know about that event.

Talking on IPhone to Coco Skouras across the table -- foto by Marcy Hodges

Using my Moshi Moshi receiver attached to my iPhone to talk to Coco Skouras on her iPhone across the table at the Golden Mallet Tournament benefit luncheon. (photo: Marcy Hodges)

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

I’ve Been in a Typhoon Too

by Beverley
September 5th, 2011
Quilin area 1997

The famous mystical mountains of Quilin which were painted through the centuries by China’s most famous artists. Notice the peasant in the background with a shoulder pole walking by the soaked rice paddies.

My blog on “Irene” ran too long and I didn’t get around to Typhoons I have known. So now that she’s past let’s talk about typhoons. The world typhoon comes from the Greek on a very devious route. In Greek it meant father of winds. In the Middle Ages the word was borrowed into Arabic. In Cantonese it is toi fung and in Mandarin it is tai feng (great wind). In 1699 it was recorded in English as tuffoon. Looking it up in the dictionary you get “Tropical cyclone occurring in western Pacific or Indian Oceans.” If you want my experience with the word it’s one horror of a wind/rainstorm in an area off the River Li near Quilin, China in 1997!!!

A group of seven of us on a very special China tour sponsored by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, led by the late brilliant scholar Dr. William Wu, began the greatest trip of my life in Quilin in 1997. We traveled with a full time national guide and city guides in each city/village we visited, plus translators wherever we went as dialects changed drastically. One of our first days we left Quilin on the usual Li River Boat cruise all tourists take but unlike other tourists we had arrangements to disembark at a remote deserted part of the river. Our bus was sent off on a three hour drive to get to the place where it would pick us up on the other side of the river.

We weren’t very far down the river when a typhoon, very common in that part of the world (but not to us), set in. It was still in the early stages of its power when we disembarked. But this wasn’t a usual disembarkation. There was no gangplank. There was no dock. They had eliminated the “gang” and simply threw a line of linked wooden planks over the side for us to navigate with no railings. The river was very shallow at that point but still! A group of German tourists on board pleaded with us not to attempt it as the wind and rain were gaining strength, but off we went. We even paused for a group picture once we made it ashore. I wish I’d had a picture of me maneuvering those planks!

Our group in Quilin, China

Our group in China: Bill Wu wisely huddled in lots of thick rainproof gear sitting up front, I’m on far right, several of our guides and translators and disappearing in the distance the boat that dropped us off for our coming adventure — in a real honest typhoon!

We were headed for a generally unchanged Ming village one mile inland where at the school house, the only non-Ming building in the village, we were expected for a visit with the children. After a very short period of sloshing through the mud the storm gained such violence we realized we had to seek shelter and knocked at first little house we came to. The owners welcomed us with great warmth. It was the house of a man who repaired broken metal parts of the river ships and was quite nice for the area. There were two stories. The workshop and kitchen/living room area you might call it was downstairs as were the livestock and chickens and the family slept upstairs. They produced narrow wooden stools for each of us and kept the lighted brazier he used for heating his tools going so we could try to dry out.

After about 20 minutes there was a letup in the torrential rain and thunder and lightening and we set off again. But after a short while things got out of hand again. This time we sought shelter in more of a shack which was owned by a man who made raincoats out of palm fronds. The kind you see frequently in old Japanese woodcuts. I was dying to buy one he’d just finished and bring home for my Chinese costume collection. But Bill diplomatically suggested it would be cumbersome to wear, and also US Customs would never allow it in. So no palm frond rain coat for my collection.

Singing in typhoon on way to Ming village school near Kunming 1997

That bulge isn’t an indication of a future Jackson it’s my camera case I was hoping to keep dry. The big purse is nylon but the camera case is leather and things like leather can mildew fast in those conditions.

Ultimately the rain let up and the sun came out as we were wading through rice paddies. It became really hot and humid though a light rain still fell. I suddenly felt silly and burst into a song imitating Gene Kelly’s famous song/dance “Singing in the Rain.” My fellow travelers worried that the storm had possibly damaged my brain I’m sure.

singing in the rain for school children remote Ming village 100 miles from Quilin

The darling children sang to us and our group had to sing in return. Having heard my Gene Kelly “Singing in the Rain” number en route I was nominated.

The weather was really quite normal by the time we reached the Ming village and our destination school. And our welcome was truly warm. We were the first Westerners many of the children had ever seen. They were very much off the tourist path! Our visit had been anticipated for weeks and a whole program had been prepared for us. When their delightful program concluded Bill was asked for OUR program. We all looked at each other and finally someone started us on “Home on the Range.” You’ve never heard worse voices and so many la la la’s for forgotten words. At the conclusion of this never to be heard again performance the children stood waiting for our second act. At that point Bill introduced Beverley Jackson to the Chinese group and announced she would sing and perform a famous American song “Singing in the Rain.” Never in my life will I surpass the idiot I made of myself singing away in my terrible voice and prancing around with the open umbrella, improvising Kelly’s swing around the pole! But the children and teachers loved it. My group couldn’t stop laughing long enough to applaud. I acknowledged the praise from the children most graciously. And then I saw a beautiful sight — our getaway bus pulling up in front of the school!

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

Speaking of Irene: Some Storms I’ve Personally Known

by Beverley
August 29th, 2011

We don’t get much snow in Santa Barbara, California. We get earthquakes and forest fires and the possibility of tsunamis. But if we want real snow, skiable sit in front of the fire snow, it means packing a suitcase and going to it. So I was most surprised to awaken one morning in New York City, March 12, 1993 to be exact, and find myself in midst of what has been called the Storm of the 20th century.

And what was I doing there? I was spending, we thought, a short stay in the big city on our way to St. Petersburg, Russia. From the moment in 1991 when Leningrad became St. Petersburg again I wished to go to the city of Anna Karenina dashing through the snow in a troika. There also was a practical reason in addition to the literary one, I had a very old yellow Chinese empress robe that had a most unusual symbol on it (another blog of course) that no one could give me much information on and since I knew the great Hermitage Museum had major Chinese textiles from tombs discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein I wanted to take photographs of my robe and consult with the curators in that department of the Hermitage.

Tourist travel wasn’t big in Russia at that time but I discovered the Finnish airlines had a very special price that included airfare, the Grand Hotel, then the very best hotel in the city, and three meals a day (all food and water brought in from Helsinki daily) and a car, driver and guide for one week. I booked! Then my friend Mrs. Gordon Douglas, a great traveler, decided to go with me.

So that is why Mary Douglas and I awakened in our rooms in the Colony Club to a silent city on March 12th. Looking out the windows everything was white, total silence, no car tracks or foot prints in the snow. It was a lot of snow! Knowing we were pretty well stranded at the Colony, where there were no meals served that day, we called our friends Rudolph and Rafaella Schirmer who lived directly across the street at 555 Park Avenue hoping they were well stocked and we’d possibly get invited for dinner.

Rudolph always the man of action announced, “My Knickerbocker Club is very close. I’ve phoned and they are serving full breakfast. We’ll meet you on the corner in half an hour. Luckily we had warm clothes for my hopes of an Anna Karenina scene in St. Petersburg so off the four of us went making the first footprints up well above our ankles down 62nd Street, Rafaella carrying a bright red umbrella, the only color in a totally silent white scene. So we didn’t starve and when the airports opened we were off to St. Petersburg, but this blog is about storms…

It was August 14, 2003 and my United flight was due to land at JFK but we weren’t landing. In fact being a fairly seasoned flyer it seemed to me we were all over the place, probably the ocean because there was not a light to be seen and we should have been seeing lots of lights by then. Finally the Captain spoke. “Ladies and Gentlemen we are flying above a giant power outage all along the east coast. We can’t get into Boston, or Philadelphia or anywhere in between. The airports are all closed however Kennedy is making special arrangements for three planes to come in, one from Germany, one from London and us for reasons of fuel getting short. So put on your seat belts and we’re going in!”

And land we did, third in line, on a runway lit with dozens of cars and trucks and anything with headlights that could shine on the runway! Then there was the problem of getting us off the plane. Those fancy steps for the big planes need electricity to work it seemed so they brought something used for cargo that was mighty tricky to maneuver! Our hand luggage was passed down a line of airport personnel lining one side of our sort of slide with small areas raised every so often to break a total slide. I didn’t take great note of its construction as I was trying to make it to the bottom in a standing position. Once on the ground we saw far in the distance several dim lights where we were told we’d find our luggage eventually. However it was pitch dark getting from the plane we’d just left to those lights. Never have I been so happy I always carry a small powerful flashlight in my purse! And so were about 300 other people. Playing the Pied Piper with my little flashlight I got everyone to that luggage area safely.

Obviously we’d be spending the hot humid night on the sidewalk opposite the main airport buildings that were closed down. Exiting the building where our luggage finally appeared I discovered two planeloads of people who landed just ahead of us sitting on luggage in a line along a wall under an overhead roof. Since I also always carry a supply of power bars, almonds and peanut butter in my carryon I knew what late supper would be. I’d just settled in, planning to sleep on my soft big duffle bag and use the carryon as my pillow, when I heard a man’s voice calling to me over the low wall. “Where ‘ya going?” “Into Manhattan,” I replied. This was really no time to worry about rapists! “How many bags ‘ya got?” “This big one and the carryon?” “Where in Manhattan?” “Parker Meridien,” I answered not sure where it was but I’d been guaranteed they had a big swimming pool. “Okay I’ll take ya, hand me over your bags and you walk up ahead there’s a break in the wall and my black town car is there.”

There are times in life where you don’t question what is happening and this was one! Turned out he wasn’t a rapist or a serial murderer, but was a sharp limo driver who knew back roads to get thru to the airport. I finally asked “how much?” not that I cared at that point. “Sixty bucks!” he called back as he went over to the wall to choose his other passengers. He could have named any price and we’d all have paid it. We never did figure out how he chose us out of the at least 900 people lined up there. My fellow lucky ones were a German business man, a young man whose wife was due to give birth momentarily whom we last saw running up Third Avenue because the driver couldn’t get any closer to his destination. As he took off dragging a small bag behind him he called back to us “I ran a lot further than this on 9/11 to get home to my family!” The other passengers were a very nice lady and her adorable 4 year old daughter Francis (who made the trip in my lap as her mother’s was filled with their carryons). They had been on a trip to London to meet some of the mother’s English relatives.

Arriving at the Parker Meridien I was met by the sight of a bunch of very handsome young grounded DHL pilots sitting outside on the hot night drinking beer, trying to use cell phones that didn’t work and having a fine time. Inside there was a dimly lit reception desk and a huge heavily laden buffet table. Since the refrigeration was off the management was using all the food they had to feed the guests free. I was informed one generator was working enough to take guests on one trip up and hopefully one down in the morning. But only one. And there was no air conditioning in the rooms.

What did I do? I checked in, got a luggage receipt, found myself one of those big luggage carts with the brass tubes that go up into an elaborate area to hang clothes on hangers, got a plate of food that couldn’t possibly have spoiled, no oysters or clams etc, got a bottle of beer and went out into the humid night to join the DHL crowd. Heard some really good new jokes that night too!

So Irene, I may be sitting comfortably poolside at my Santa Barbara condo under a big umbrella on a lovely August day writing this on my iPhone, however Irene I’ve been there done that as the kids say! And done it with great good fortune and style!!! But I wouldn’t want to push my good luck too far by taking you on…

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

Let’s Talk MAJOR Movie Legends: Kirk Douglas, Marlene Dietrich & Rita Hayworth

by Beverley
August 23rd, 2011

Today is sort of movie legend day. I originally was going to tell you only about a secret concerning Rita Hayworth’s legendary strapless satin gown from Gilda and details of the famous gown and coat Marlene Dietrich wore in Las Vegas, both designed by the late Hollywood designer Jean Louis.

However I got a very disturbed email this morning from my good friend Kathleen Fetner without whom there would be no blog. Kathleen came into my life when a friend in Atlanta, GA, Joan Aherns gave me Kathleen’s name when I needed someone to do my first website in 1998 for my first book, the once-again newly reprinted Splendid Slippers – A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition. Kathleen is a genius. What more can I say. She can deal with me trying to do things I’m incapable of doing on this PC for starters. She can get me out of all the messes I manage to type my way into. She can make photographs of shoes for bound feet and women with bound feet revolve in my blog, and my latest Tweets magically appear going round and round as well. She can find things like ancient video on Florence Chadwick swimming and Russian Cossacks marching in Shanghai in 1937 it would never occur to me to look for. Well, as I said there would be no By The Way nor Beverley Jackson blog without Kathleen. And further more I couldn’t be without her as a friend.

Now what upset Kathleen? A Terrible Tabloid she saw while checking out at the supermart. While I might sometimes secretly succumb to picking one up and peeking to see if someone famous is really having a wild affair with someone I know???? Kathleen would never dignify the TT’s by even a glance. But she had broken her rule when she saw the name Kirk Douglas in headlines. Knowing Anne and Kirk are adored friends of mine she sent me a very upset email. Is Kirk barely able to walk, is it true he’s never learned to talk again since his stroke, etc etc etc.

I immediately answered Kathleen with a quick email from my iPhone as I was walking to my car, late as usual. “Saturday before last I dined at Mollie’s Trattoria with Anne & Kirk & the super bright young man who is working with Kirk on the latest book he’s writing. We parked in the garage in Mollie’s building. That garage is in the basement & there are two flights of stairs up to Mollie’s. Still using the cane due to the fall I recently had I took the elevator. Anne, a fine athlete still, graciously took elevator with me. Kirk and his young pal TORE up the two flights of stairs to beat our elevator up. And they did! Then Kirk talked more than any of us at dinner. Don’t even glance at the TT’s anymore!”

Now with Kirk’s situation clarified in case any of you secretly look at the Terrible Tabloids, let’s get on to Rita Hayworth. For a very long time the strapless satin gown Hollywood designer Jean Louis created for her to wear in Gilda was the most copied gown in history. Now I suppose Princess Diana or the Duchess of Cambridge‘s wedding gowns will hold that honor. But in its day that Gilda dress was IT!

Maggie and Jean Louis, who lived in Santa Barbara/Montecito their last years, were very special friends. Miss Rosie O’Grady, my introduction to wirehair dachshunds, was a gift from them. Maggie always named all their dogs good Irish names. Rosie came to me because the five Jack Russells that the Louis had before they found neglected lost Rosie didn’t like the new addition to the Louis household and it got dangerous for Rosie. I learned Jack Russells in a pack cannot be trusted. The five at Maggie and Jean’s ultimately killed the family cat after living with it for years. And they killed a little white poodle who arrived with a friend of Maggie’s for a painting session after the owner disregarded Maggie’s warning not to take the dog out of the car. So Rosie came to me and had a very happy safe long life!

I delighted in getting Jean to tell me about gowns he had designed for Hollywood glamour queens — Gene Tierney, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Lana Turner, Claudette Colbert, Marilyn Monroe (he designed the much photographed gown she wore the night she sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy.) I was particularly interested in the strapless satin gown Rita Hayworth wore in Gilda. And the incredible beaded seemingly see-through creation with great white fox coat with a seemingly endless train that trailed behind Marlene Dietrich which Jean produced for her last Las Vegas show. I flew to Las Vegas to see that show as I was a great Dietrich admirer and I did want to see the dress she supposedly had to be sewn into before going on stage. It was well worth the trip. She/it were fabulous!

At one point I read that some collector had paid a great deal of money to buy the original Gilda dress. That was before costume collecting became such a big thing and prices really skyrocketed. I asked Jean about it. He smiled that sweet innocent smile of his, looked at me and said, “I wonder which one they got?” Then after chuckling to himself he added, “I knew that dress was being worn in a major scene in the film and it would endure a real beating with take after take after take. So I secretly made three identical dresses.” Now the secret is out.

Maggie and Jean were wonderful people and they gave the BEST parties. Their New Years Eve parties were very special, always with interesting assortment of guests like brilliant American designer James Galanos and members of the Moroccan royal family. At one of their large parties my dinner partners were Rudolf Nuryev on one side and Alexander Godunov on the other. I’m talking MAJOR ballet greats here! This party was actually the beginning of a treasured friendship with Rudi Nuryev. One thing that kept that friendship going to be honest wasn’t that I made him laugh or he enjoyed my company. It was that he collected Chinese robes and I had much better ones than he. There was one robe in particular he coveted, an emperor’s robe with superb embroidery. I kept telling him I’d leave it to him when I died and he kept hoping to get it sooner. Then he went and died! The robe is now in an important American museum. I’d rather Rudi had had it.

with the late Rudolf Nureyev & Jean Louis in my living room

Rudolf Nuryev, Jean Louis and me. One of my Chinese robes Rudi tried to get me to give him was the brown imperial princess robe with branches of plum blossoms hanging behind us in my living room

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

Sure I Cooked Dinner for Julia Child: Often and Unafraid

by Beverley
August 17th, 2011
L to R: Me, Robert Walker, Julia Child, and Eleanor Lum at Julia Child's Cambridge home (photo credit: Raymond Lum)

L to R: Beverley Jackson, Robert Walker, Julia Child, and Eleanor Lum at Julia Child's Cambridge home (photo credit: Raymond Lum)

I’m driving home from the local Chinese restaurant with my station wagon filled with the lovely mixed fragrances of moo goo gai pan, imperial shrimp, Mongolian lamb, and other specialties. While stalled in traffic my thoughts go to the past and I switch on my little recorder. I think of the hours and days spent chopping and preparing Chinese feasts with recipes I’d learned from all the cooking lessons with Hugh Carpenter as well as teachers in Hong Kong and Taipei. I think of the entire wall of cook books in my kitchen, some well worn and stained with everything from Chinese hoisin sauce to rare Cassis bottled at Chateau Mouton Rothschild exclusively for the use of family and going away gifts for special house guests when leaving Mouton.

Oh this traffic seems interminable! Memories of Italian cooking lessons with famous Guiliano Bugialli come back. Bugialli was so strict. Then memories of my dear friend, the late Guiseppe Bellini in his great home in Florence overlooking the Arno River where I stayed on several occasions with him and wife Pat. Beppe loved to cook. Even wrote some cookbooks I have. In Italian. No I don’t speak Italian. Beppe had a complete kitchen staff but when he entered his kitchen even his chef was reduced to chopping assistant. One of Beppe’s greatest dishes was a pasta dish served en croute made in a gigantic bowl that could serve at least 30 at dinner. Oh the fragrance when he broke into that pasta pie! Whenever the Bellinis arrived in Santa Barbara for their annual visit to houseguest with Mary and Gordon Douglas, Pat immediately took a book and spread out on a chaise poolside. And Beppe called me to come pick him up to go marketing and that night I would have the fun and honor of assisting him in whipping up a great feast in my small condo kitchen. It was from Beppe long ago, before Alice Waters was born, I first learned to buy only the freshest straight from the fields.

Beppe Bellini comes out of kitchen where he cooked for banquet

You Can See Beppe Likes Showing His Great Culinary Skills

Now there appears to be an accident ahead. Just what I don’t need! I’ve got to get home well before guests arrive for Chinese dinner in my Chinese bed dining room. More time to remember! Moroccan cooking. Did I study that in Morocco? No it was with my American friend Robert Carrier who settled in England and had a restaurant, small inn and gave cooking lessons in his 16th century Hintlesham Hall near Ipswich. Robert Carrier’s cook books on the marvelous Moroccan cuisine are some of the very best in English language.

Then there was my friend Jim Beard. I devoured his cookbooks before Julia Child‘s came out. And I had some lessons in New York in his home where I was also fortunate enough to dine on occasion.

Julia! Ah yes Julia. We were friends long before she and Paul moved into the building across the street from me in our condo compound. Did I learn to cook with Julia? No. No but her first cookbook did become my cooking Bible. However we did shop together. There was one occasion when she wanted to go to the giant Chinese market in Arcadia I’d go for Chinese supplies — No that’s another blog. But speaking of shopping with Julia, I got a frantic call from a friend Nancy Cudahy one day who had just been shopping at Von’s. Von’s is a chain of California supermarkets. “Beverley you must tell me what to do. Julia Child was in Von’s shopping. So I pushed my cart right behind her and everything she put into her cart I put into my cart. Now I’m home with over $200 worth of groceries and I don’t know what to do with any of them!”

I frequently dined with Julia and Paul, even in their charming home in Cambridge, MA. There we dined in the big cozy kitchen that is now housed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. Needless to say dining Chez Child was a great treat. And I’ll do an entire blog on that one day.

However, Julia and Paul often dined with me in Santa Barbara. “Aren’t you scared to cook for Julia Child?” I was frequently asked. No of course not. She appreciated people making the effort. Although she never once left after a meal in my home without commenting, “Dear you didn’t cook the vegetables enough!” I like crunchy Julia liked squishy. Other than that we agreed on everything.

Well traffic is moving a bit now and my thoughts, aside from thinking how bright the yellow Ferrari ahead of me is, are wandering to the hours spent learning to carve flowers out of turnips and carrots and strange vegetables I’ve never seen since with one of the experts in the kitchens of the Imperial Hotel in Bangkok. Oh yes and the series of lessons in making Indian samosas with Sri Lankan Indra Jayasekera in her little apartment in Hong Kong. I’ve never made a samosa since! The Indian restaurant in downtown Santa Barbara does such a good job with them.

Indra Jayasekera teach how to make samosas in HK 4/4/82

Sri Lankan Indra Jayasekera teaching us how to make Indian samosas in her Hong Kong apartment.

Well finally pushing the gadget that opens the gates to get into our compound. Have to get upstairs fast to get everything into woks and toss all the tell-tale red takeout cartons down the trash slide before the guests arrive.

Gee I hope they remembered not to cook the snow peas, to give them to me raw in a separate container. I always make a ceremony of tossing them into the restaurant’s moo goo gai pan when there are guests in my kitchen. They are so impressed with my culinary skills as I frantically whip those snow peas around in the hot wok!

Dining in my Chinese wedding bed dining room

Dining in my Chinese wedding bed dining room

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

The Resourceful Worker

by Beverley
August 10th, 2011
apricot picker Sorrento

The apricot picker in Sorrento

As one thing generally does lead to another, it’s not really surprising that my blog discussing the island Capri led me to an apricot picker in Sorrento in 1972. Well it wouldn’t really be logical that this would happen to anyone else, but for me it did. If you were writing a blog about Capri it could very well lead you to a followup blog on giant rock structures in the sea, or great recipes for linguini vongole, or maybe addresses for the best handmade sandals on the island. But for me it led to a most inventive apricot picker in Sorrento.

What really happened is it led me to the picture you see here. I hadn’t encountered this photograph in years but running across it again I have to admit it is one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken. Just something snapped out the car window on a winding road high up in the hills of Sorrento.

Now I could stretch this into a big long blog. I could go on and on about the reason we should wash fruit carefully before biting into the delicious offerings of summer trees. I could lecture a bit on how inventive people can be about making their work more efficient. Could even give you some great recipes for apricot jam.

But you know what — I’m just going to say isn’t this just the most fun picture and let it go at that. I think with all the disturbing news we are facing right now it’s time for my creative apricot picker in Sorrento to hopefully bring a smile…

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

Sadly Diana Nyad Couldn’t But I Was With Florence Chadwick The Night She Did

by Beverley
August 9th, 2011

This blog was started as a way to promote my latest book The Beautiful Lady Was a Palace Eunuch but things keep leading me to writing a new blog, not getting busy sending copy to reviewers and trying to get publicity for the book.

A CNN alert just came up on my screen announcing the very brave Diana Nyad was forced to give up her swim from Cuba to USA. My heart goes out to her because my friend the late Florence Chadwick was forced to give up a Catalina to Pacific Coast swim her first time attempt, but I was right there on a yacht next to her the entire second time she attempted that swim again and made it.

It all started with father’s newly divorced brother who was, from what I gathered, working his way through the list of eligible women in San Diego, CA. My lawyer father’s brother insisted dad help his latest girlfriend, Florence Chadwick, who had gotten in over her head regarding her next attempt at the Catalina Channel. Female channel swimmers were not my father’s thing. He started as a criminal lawyer until someone tried to kidnap me when I was 2-1/2. He then had straight business clients like young Norton Simon and ultimately got into what he loved, trucks. He became the leading trucking transportation lawyer in the U.S. None of which prepared him to take on his brother’s ocean channel swimming girlfriend!

But as always brother won out. I never totally understood but it seemed to have something to do with her raising money for her swim by selling percentages of her swim to men with money. But by the time she landed in dad’s lap she’d sold over 100% of the next swim from Catalina to San Pedro and was in deep trouble. Florence had to be hidden as a first step. Where? In the bedroom next to mine in our home. And she had to practice daily in secret. She couldn’t go to a public beach for ocean practice with all those men who owned too much of her swim after her. How? I drove her down to the old Del Mar Club in Santa Monica (now a lovely hotel) where there was a secluded indoor pool of almost Olympic proportions. My father had somehow arranged for us to have the pool to ourselves in strict privacy every day for five hours. I’d tie a rope around Florence’s waist and the other end to the diving board. While she started swimming non- stop against the rope which gave her the action of swimming against waves (sort of) I took out a good book (went through a lot of books before she completed that swim!!!) and every hour I held out a cup of sugar and water our housekeeper had prepared attached to the end of a long wooden pole. I think that’s what it was. If I were swimming against a diving board for five hours a day I think I would have wanted something more interesting than sugar and water! After the swim we went home where mother and I had early dinner with Florence and dad who talked business throughout, Florence went straight to bed after dinner and I went out dancing to one of the Sunset Strip nightclubs like Mocambo, Trocadero or Ciro’s or the Coconut Grove in the old Ambassador Hotel. And the next morning back to the Del Mar Club, robe, sugar water, another book.

Then came the big day. What most people never knew, the shark danger for Florence’s swim was secretly much more dangerous than anyone could imagine. Sharks are attracted by blood and this was not a day in the month Florence should have been making the swim. But she was fearless. And the cold water shut off the bleeding problem a short way off the coast of Catalina.

Now I said I was there with her. Well I wasn’t in that freezing water you can be sure. One of my special BFF’s except we called them best friends then was Mary Margaret Muller and her Uncle Frank Muller had a wonderful yacht named The Mojo and a Filipino houseman who was a fine chef. So my parents, and Mary Margaret’s and Uncle Frank and MM and I had a lovely warm crossing with continuous fabulous dining. Cuddled into cashmere sweaters and skirts and camel hair coats occasionally we’d stop eating and venture out on deck to watch Florence ploughing through the icy waves. We had lights on our ship shining on her as did her attending boats.

At one exciting point the coach in the small boat that gave her nourishment every hour at the end of the long pole (it was probably something better than our Emma had been making for two months) invited me to board their little boat and make that hour’s serving with them. I was more agile in those days and somehow got myself from the Mojo into the little boat and off we went. As Florence covered in bear grease, I think it was as some protection against the cold, slowed her strokes to take her nutrition she looked up and saw me from her freezing position and shouted, “You shouldn’t be out here Little Sister, you’ll catch cold!” She then gulped her drink down and continued on battling the high waves and I went back to my luxurious surroundings aboard the Mojo until we all got to San Pedro beach. Well, we dropped anchor off shore of course.

Florence did indeed make the successful crossing but her torturous hours in the freezing water and her world’s record were almost destroyed by unknowing well-wishers on shore who ran down to greet her. Luckily her coaching attendants had guards waiting on the beach for just such a happening. Had anyone touched her before she stood up in the water and walked out of the Pacific and on the sand by herself, it would have all been in vain.

That was 59 years ago and the memory is still so strong I get chills thinking of her in that water all those hours and the fright as people rushed towards her before she was out of the water.

Somehow my father had solved her legal problems and there were no hits out on her and she moved out as my suite mate and back to San Diego and got on with her life and Little Sister, as she called me, danced on with hers except my father had lowered the boom and issued an ultimatum — either I go back to university, get married or get a job. So I got architect William Pereira to take me on as his receptionist and I had a dream job and still danced the nights away. Daddy was happy. I was happy. And Bill found me a great receptionist because I knew most of his clients’ children and the clients themselves. But that will be discussed sometime in the future. I’ve really got to get busy and send out press releases on The Beautiful Lady was a Palace Eunuch. If you all would spread the word about my book, word of mouth is what sells books now they tell me, then I could concentrate full time on telling you stories like this!!!

Here is a fun video found on Youtube of her appearance on the TV show “What’s My Line?”:

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

Married After 50 Years Together

by Beverley
August 5th, 2011

Parker Ladd and Arnold Scassi‘s wedding in New York last week was a very happy occasion making international news. Following the private civil ceremony there was a major celebration at Le Cirque attended by a most impressive group of friends. I wasn’t there, but I do have a Parker and Arnold story to tell you…

It was 1972 and we were all spending some weeks on the beautiful, in those days uncrowded, island of Capri. One evening at a dinner party in a very glamorous home high above the Quisisana Hotel I was telling Parker and Arnold and an Irish character actor whose name sadly has vanished from memory that I thought there was a ghost in the home where I was staying. While my two friends from the United States didn’t particularly react, the Irish gentleman was genuinely intrigued. So I invited the three of them for luncheon later in the week to check out my ghost scene.

The home where the suspected ghost might be living was called Torre Saracena and belonged to my close friend Tamara Cherio Usher (now Kinsell). For those of you who know Capri it was the large estate that descended down the mountain towards Gracie Fields Club on the beach on the far side of Capri. It had been Tamara’s parent’s beach house, their main house and her mother’s painting studio had been sold earlier. Today, no longer owned by Tamara. Torre Saracena has been converted into five large condominiums.

Arnold Scassi and Frederico Usher, Capri 1972

Arnold Scassi and Frederico Usher, Capri 1972

One walked down many steps from the road to get to the house, 72 I recall counting one night when I returned from dancing for hours in very high heels! And then there were seemingly endless descending steps from floor to floor. It was on the last ten steps leading to the level where my lovely large room was located, and on into that room, that I felt the ghostly presence. By the way, the terrace off my bedroom overlooked the famed so often photographed three giant rocks called Faraglioni.

The luncheon day arrived and Arnold, Parker and I went out to the main terrace where luncheon would be served to look at the view and enjoy aperitifs but our Irish friend had interest in only one thing. He was on the trail of a ghost! I actually was quite relaxed about things because I received very friendly protective vibes from my suspected ghost. Finally luncheon was announced and our friend reappeared with a very pleased look on his face. “You are quite correct. I sense the presence as well. It is in a very limited area however — the large hallway and bedroom inside on this floor and the last ten steps of the stairs leading to this level.” No one said a word. The only sound was the shattering of the glass I had held as it hit the ancient stone flooring of the terrace. He found it exactly where I felt the presence and I’d purposely given him no clue.

When Tamara returned from Naples I told her of the experience and she took it in her usual easy manner. “I don’t know who it is, but I’m not surprised that we have one!” So I never found out any history of MY ghost as he/she became but we lived together very nicely my entire stay. I really felt I’d be quite protected in case of any emergency. My nice ghost was there watching over me.

There was another sort of ghostly experience this trip that started in Capri and ended with a face looking out at me from the window of a passing bus on Madison Avenue in New York City. But that is for another blog. As is the ghost in my Kinnerton Street mews in London. Oh dear, I do seem to attract ghosts don’t I!

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life

Men Didn’t Like Women Wearing Trousers

by Beverley
August 2nd, 2011

Reading an obscure article on when women in Britain were not being allowed to wear trousers for other than sports events through most of history I was reminded of two things.  One was the old Talk of the Town restaurant in Santa Barbara in the  1960’s.  I arrived at the popular restaurant for a dinner party being hosted there by Vesta and Robert Hutchins. Robert Hutchins was formerly Chancellor of University of Chicago and in Santa Barbara headed the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions who brought people of every type of political thinking and accomplishment to Santa Barbara. The Center was a most exciting part of our town for many years.  But back to that Talk of the Town dinner party with extremely important guests of honor.  I arrived wearing new Palazo Pajamas I’d bought in Rome from a young designer named Valentino in his shop on the Via Condotti.  The new style pajamas were a great extravagance and I was very proud of them.  However, the stuffy owner of Talk of the Town who knew me well refused to allow me in wearing pants!  Well the outfit had a long dramatic tunic on top so I simply slipped out of the trousers right there in front of the maitre d’, my date and him, handed them to a valet parker to put in our car and the speechless owner couldn’t say a word.  I’ve read of other women doing this later but I hadn’t heard of anyone before!

The other episode concerned my good friend the late Sir Hugh Wontner, chairman and major owner with Mme. d’Oyly Carte of the Savoy Group of London (hotels including Savoy, Claridge’s, Connaught, Lancaster Paris, and The Berkley) and Lord Mayor of London 1973-74. During luncheon with him one day at Claridge’s he confided a rather embarrassing predicament he’d been in that morning. Coming down from the fabulous penthouse he’d built atop Claridge’s after WWII (actually he built two — one for himself and one that was rented by Walter Annenberg former US Ambassador to Court of St. James and later to Stavros Niarchos) in the lobby Sir Hugh spotted a woman wearing horror of horror pants in the lobby of Claridge’s.  Quickly summoning over his trusted assistant manager of the hotel Michael Bentley he ordered Michael to send the woman out of the lobby immediately. If she must exit the hotel in trousers then she must use the servant’s elevator and exit!

Michael always the great diplomat hesitated.  “Sir Hugh, this presents a bit of a problem.  You see the woman in trousers you refer to is married to the president of the United States.”  Michael confessed to me later he’d never seen Sir Hugh at a loss for words before in their long history of working together.  Jackie Kennedy unknowingly had made history!  And Hugh only picked at his delicious luncheon that day muttering occasionally under his breath!!!  I could only imagine what he was saying…

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories My Life
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