Mark Blum 1950-2020
28 Saturday Mar 2020
Mark Blum was born in Newark and raised in Maplewood, New Jersey. As a teenager, trips to Broadway shows taught him to love the theatre, though he never considered acting as a career. “I was raised in one of those basic middle-class Jewish families in the suburbs,” he told the New York Times, “and that just wasn’t something somebody thought about.” Continue reading
The Little Book of Marilyn
26 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Books, Fashion and Beauty, Marilyn Monroe, Non-Fiction
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“I first truly discovered Marilyn Monroe on a postcard stand in Devon, England, during a seaside holiday in 1985 … the postcard of Marilyn in a gold lamé dress, blowing a kiss to the camera, triggered something inside of me. At a time when I felt like the most unglamorous person in the world, Marilyn’s beauty, style and sophistication spoke to my teenage heart.”
Michelle Morgan, author of The Little Book of Marilyn, has written several other books about Monroe, including Marilyn’s Addresses, Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed, Before Marilyn: The Blue Book Modelling Years, and The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist. A compact softback, The Little Book of Marilyn is part of a series from U.S. publisher Running Press. Previous subjects include Bettie Page and Audrey Hepburn, whose fame has endured like Marilyn’s, and whose appeal surpasses that of other pin-models and actresses, including some still living. Continue reading
‘Dear Christine’ Symposium Rescheduled
05 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Profumo Affair
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The Dear Christine symposium has been rescheduled for Saturday, March 28, at Deptford Town Hall, London from 12-6 pm – more details here. (Shown above is ‘Casting the First Stone’ by Marguerite Horner, oil on linen, 2017.)
UPDATE: Due to ongoing concerns about Coronavirus, this symposium has been postponed until further notice.
‘Keeler, Profumo, Ward and Me’
23 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in History, Politics, Profumo Affair, Television
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Andrew Lloyd-Webber, BBC, Caroline Kennedy, Christine Keeler, Cliveden, Ernest Marples, Eugene Ivanov, Geoffrey Robertson, George Wigg, Harold Macmillan, John Profumo, Keeler Profumo Ward and Me, Lord Astor, Lord Denning, Lord Hailsham, Mandy Rice-Davies, Natalie Livingstone, Profumo Affair, Stephen Pound, Stephen Ward, Thomas Critchley, Tom Mangold
“The story that defined a decade of great change in Great Britain was my big break in Fleet Street, and I covered and loved every moment of it, from the ridiculous to the tragic …”
Tom Mangold, described in The Times as ‘the doyen of broadcast reporters’, began his career as an investigative journalist on Fleet Street before moving into television as a foreign correspondent, and has since made over 100 documentaries, including many for the BBC’s Panorama. But like many others drawn into the Profumo Affair, Mangold has never quite moved on from the 1963 scandal which still leaves more questions than answers.
Keeler, Profumo, Ward & Me is the third documentary on the subject in which Mangold has played a prominent role within the last decade: BBC Radio Four’s Profumo Confidential, which he presented, and ITV’s Sex, Lies and a Very British Scapegoat both aired in 2013, fifty years after the event. And as BBC1’s six-part drama, The Trial of Christine Keeler, sets the rumour mill in motion again, its final episode was followed immediately by Mangold’s latest account on BBC2. Continue reading
Goodbye (For Now) to ‘Dear Christine’
18 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Profumo Affair
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Due to unforeseen circumstances, I regret to tell you that ARTHOUSE1 is currently closed and the Dear Christine exhibition – plus a symposium scheduled for this Saturday – has been postponed until further notice. My sincere regards go out to everyone affected, and I hope to write more about this wonderful show in the near future. I currently have several related articles in the pipeline – including a review of the recent BBC documentary about the Profumo Affair, which I hope to post here later this week. (The above photo shows a print from a series by Lewis Morley, 1963, on loan from Camilla Shivarg; commissioned embroidery by Fine Cell Work, ‘Christine in Gold’; and ‘Portrait of a Lady’ by Sarah Shaw. And in the photo below is Fionn Wilson’s ‘Christine Mesmerises’, opposite the iconic Morley print.)
‘Dear Christine’ Symposium in London
11 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Profumo Affair
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Amanda Coe, Arthouse1, Carol Dyhouse, Caroline Coon, Cathy Lomax, Christine Keeler, Dear Christine, Profumo Affair
Dear Christine: A Tribute to Christine Keeler, on display until February 29 at London’s ARTHOUSE1 (open from 3-7 pm on Thursdays to Sundays) is accompanied by a symposium featuring artists and commentators including historian Carol Dyhouse and Amanda Coe, writer/producer of The Trial of Christine Keeler, on Saturday, February 22. Admission is free but reserved to 40 places so book now via Eventbrite. (The painting shown above is ‘God Save Christine’ by Sal Jones.)
UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has now been cancelled – more info here.
Reframing the Keeler Affair
09 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Interviews, Profumo Affair
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My interview with Fionn Wilson – artist and curator of Dear Christine: A Tribute to Christine Keeler, an exhibition featuring works by twenty women artists now on display at London’s Arthouse1 until February 29th – is published today on the excellent Culture Matters website. (The painting shown above, by Fionn herself, is Christine and the Poisoned Apple – conjuring both the biblical Eve, and Snow White.)
UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, this exhibition is postponed until further notice – more info here. (18/02/2020)
‘Dear Christine’ Steps Out in London
03 Monday Feb 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Magazines, Profumo Affair, Television
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Arthouse1, Bermondsey, Christine Keeler, Dear Christine, Fionn Wilson, Her Edit, Julie Burchill, Keeler Profumo Ward and Me, London, Profumo Affair, Seymour Platt, The Trial Of Christine Keeler
Dear Christine: A Tribute to Christine Keeler has just begun the final leg of its tour at Arthouse1 in Bermondsey, London. The opening night was attended by, among others, Christine’s son Seymour Platt, and her close friend, Desmond Banks; Geoffrey Robertson QC; and the writer Julie Burchill. (You can view Julie and Seymour’s speeches here.)
UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, this exhibition has been postponed until further notice – more info here. (18/02/2020)
Arthur Miller: The Writer and the Man
14 Tuesday Jan 2020
Posted in Books, Film, Marilyn Monroe, Television, Theatre
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After The Fall, Arthur Miller, Arthur Miller - Writer, Carl Rollyson, Documentaries, Documentary, Elia Kazan, Inge Morath, Marilyn Monroe, Maureen Dowd, Rebecca Miller, The Misfits
Rebecca Miller, daughter of American playwright Arthur Miller and his third wife, Austrian-born photographer Inge Morath, is a novelist and filmmaker whose works include The Ballad of Jack and Rose and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. She has directed a stage revival of her father’s play, After the Fall, and her handful of acting credits include a minor role in a television adaptation of An American Clock. She also met her future husband, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, on the set of another Miller classic, The Crucible (1996.) Continue reading
My Hopes and Fears for 2020
31 Tuesday Dec 2019
Posted in Books, Film, Lana Del Rey, Music, Poetry, Politics, Television, Updates, Writing
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1st September 1939, A Year in Books, A Year in Films and TV, A Year in Music, Art Decades, David Lynch, Dear Christine, Donna Tartt, ES Updates, Everlasting Star, Fan Phenomena, James Gray, Jeremy Corbyn, Lana Del Rey, Marilyn Monroe, Marion Cotillard, Poetry, Socialism, Soledad, The Goldfinch, The Immigrant, Twin Peaks, Ultraviolence, Video Games, W.H. Auden
As a new decade beckons, I’m deeply worried about the way our world seems to be heading. As W.H. Auden wrote on ‘September 1, 1939‘ (a poem deemed so prescient he tried to bury it …) Continue reading
