Ephraim Hardcastle
THE who-will-succeed-the-Queen-as-head-of-the-debate surprises HM, who considered the post hereditary. On the death of her father, George VI, no one doubted that she would take over his role. And in 1958, in the proclamation creating Charles as Prince of Wales, she declared that he and his successors would be, ‘kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of our other realms and territories, heads of the Commonwealth, forever’.
SIR Mick Jagger, 74, has arranged accommodation for himself (plus female muse?) for a Rolling Stones concert in Dublin next month. He’ll be at the Merrion Hotel while the band bunks down at the Intercontinental. Guitarist Keith Richards said in his memoir: ‘I haven’t been to [Mick’s] dressing room in 20 years. Sometimes I think, “I miss my friend. Where did he go?” ’
VETERAN Italian-American singer and actor Gianni Russo, 74, who boasts that his famous lovers included Marilyn Monroe, omits mention of one of them, blonde screen goddess Grace Kelly, from a new memoir, explaining: ‘Talking about Grace Kelly is like talking about the Blessed Mother – I can’t do it!’ Suave movie star David Niven said he was asked by Miss Kelly’s husband, Prince Rainier of Monaco, to name his favourite conquest. Caddish Niven, who died in 1983 aged 73, said he replied: ‘Grace, of course.’ Noting Rainier’s startled expression, he added hurriedly, ‘Grace – Gracie Fields’ – the homely, rags-to-riches Rochdale singing star, born in 1898.
NADHIM Zahawi, 50, pictured, the Iraqborn minister for children and families – or someone looking very like him – appears to have upset fellow passengers on a flight from New York to London, one of whom tweets sarcastically: ‘Big thanks to @nadhimzahawi and family from all fellow BA116 First Class passengers for noisily keeping us up overnight from JFK. Really enjoyed [their] running commentary on the movies.’ Fancy!
SOCIALITE author Kathy Lette, 59, who has been celebrating the 100th anniversary of comedian Spike Milligan’s birth with his daughter, Jane, 52, pursued the Goons star as a teenager during his visits to her native Australia. She confesses: ‘It was like having a sugar daddy, but without the sex. I did hurl myself at him, but he was always such a gentleman. He put me up in hotel rooms, lavished me with attention – in exchange for nothing.’ Milligan, who died in 2002, admitted: ‘Perhaps I missed an opportunity there that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.’
TEN years after the closure of Soho’s raffish Colony Room Club – a dingy, afternoon-drinking den favoured by artistic types, including painters Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, poet Dylan Thomas, Princess Margaret, writer E M Forster, and Doctor Who star Tom Baker – former member Darren Coffield has written a history of the sleazy joint. He says that Francis Bacon was in the habit of wearing fishnet stockings under his trousers.