Beaton & Garbo: Did they or didn’t they?
Wicked gossip, showbiz yarns, kings, spies and bed hopping — find them all in TONY RENNELL’s pick of 2021’s best biographies
MALICE IN WONDERLAND: MY ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF CECIL BEATON by Hugo Vickers
(Hodder £25, 352pp) BACK in 1979, a wet-behind-theears hugo Vickers was invited to write an authorised biography of fashion photographer, costume designer, social butterfly and legendary snob Cecil Beaton.
Before he’d even started, Beaton, his principal source, died, so he spent the next five years piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of his convoluted life through his vast network of friends and, even more tellingly, enemies.
Now, years after that best-selling biography was published, Vickers reproduces the diaries he kept as, Alice-like, he took himself on a grand tour in wonderland, from one chic dinner party to another, from Mayfair mansion to country house, from London to Paris to New York, indulging in that irresistible beau monde commodity — gossip.
In this bitchy, back-biting world of sharp-tooted harridans and camp playboys, few had a good word to say for Beaton.
But, then, in his own notorious diaries, he had had little but bile for any of them. This is payback time, his character trashed, his sexuality explored and derided, his artistic skills questioned.
Names pour off the pages — queens (of all sorts), film stars (hepburn, Grace Kelly), writers (Capote), grand dames galore (Lady Diana Cooper, enid Bagnold, the Queen Mum).
Vickers revels in their company and their waspishness. It’s all such wicked fun.
One question keeps them obsessively guessing: did the primarily gay Beaton really, as he claimed, bed the elusive Greta ‘I want to be alone’ Garbo?
Or was it just another of the many affectations adopted by this poseur extraordinaire?
FALL: THE MYSTERY OF ROBERT MAXWELL by John Preston (Penguin £9.99, 352 pp)
WHEN he was a lieutenant in the British Army in World War II, the Czech refugee Jan hoch — renamed Robert Maxwell — was viewed with awe by his men because of his ruthlessness in battle but also with suspicion. he was, a fellow officer recalled, ‘a big fellow, very dark, a bit of a mystery’.
What they didn’t care much for was his habit of keeping for himself all the bank notes looted from German soldiers they captured and giving his men the loose change.
Maxwell had started where he meant to carry on. Forty-five years later he would die doing the same thing — stealing from those who put their trust in him.
This is an epic of rise and fall, told by a master story-teller in a book that, in a crowded field, is my biography of the year. It reads like a thriller which, though you know from the start whodunnit, is gripping to the end.
As for that end, we are left in little doubt that Maxwell — having played his last conman’s card and knowing he faced ruin, humiliation and jail time — slipped despairingly into the Atlantic from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, named after his now notorious daughter.
But what underscored his entire life was a deep loneliness, as the monster he had created increasingly isolated him from others. he was loathed and feared by employees, his wife and his children. his only friend was his valet.
GEORGE V: NEVER A DULL MOMENT by Jane Ridley (Chatto £30, 576 pp)
The king emperor George V was a man of habit, a dull, shy creature, many said.
When he sat down to dinner he would plead: ‘We won’t talk, will we?’ When breakfasting at Buckingham Palace — 9am on the dot — he was accompanied by his pet parrot Charlotte, who walked along the table digging her beak into the boiled eggs.
Sometimes she pooped and he would guiltily cover the mess with a silver mustard pot.
Then, with Charlotte on his wrist, he would stroll outside for a smoke before training his binoculars on a house a mile away in Mayfair.
There his favourite grandchild, Princess elizabeth, would wave to him from the balcony.
Yet it was he, argues Jane Ridley convincingly in this sparkling biography, who saved the British crown when all around — Russia, Germany et al — were losing theirs to revolution.
It was achieved by being unspectacular. he wasn’t the brightest; he was woefully uneducated; his hobbies were blasting game birds out of the sky and collecting stamps.
Yet he turned out to be a skilful politician who negotiated his way — and the country’s — through war, social unrest and economic crisis, not least by cannily changing the family’s Germanic name from Saxe-Coburg to the more people-friendly Windsor. his queen was the key. Mary was first engaged to his older brother and, when he died, she switched her affections to new heir George.
Yet the marriage turned out to be not only solid but a love match — brought to life quite brilliantly here in their personal correspondence.
LOVE AND DECEPTION: PHILBY IN BEIRUT by James Hanning (Corsair £25, 432 pp)
TREACHERY ran through Kim Philby like ‘Brighton’ through a stick of rock. It was his stock in trade as, working for Britain’s secret service but clandestinely spying for the Soviet Union, he passed intelligence to Moscow on an industrial scale in the crucial Cold War era.
But it was true of him in his private life, too. he betrayed all the women he professed to love, as callous an adulterer as he was a
traitor to his country. His first marriage was one of convenience and his wife was quickly dumped; his second wife he couldn’t wait to die, turned by him into an alcoholic mad woman.
He celebrated with champagne when she finally did and married Eleanor, his American mistress. She was the wife of a close friend — a typical Philby double deception. Theirs may well have been true love as they partied drunkenly together around expat Beirut, where he was outwardly a newspaper stringer for a British paper but secretly still in the pay of the KGB.
Meanwhile, the feeble authorities in London, having let him off the hook for far too long, were finally closing in on him. One step ahead of arrest, he fled to Moscow, leaving naive and bewildered Eleanor with no explanation of where he’d gone or why. She eventually followed, only for him to expect her to share his bed with another woman, the wife of fellow spy and friend Donald Maclean.
SPYMASTER: THE MAN WHO SAVED MI6 by Helen Fry
(Yale £20, 360 pp) TOMMY Kendrick was the suave British spymaster who operated, writes intelligence historian Helen Fry, so totally in the shadows that history has forgotten him. Not any more.
With this absorbing biography, his incredible range of hush-hush activities over decades blazes into the light — from elusive pimpernel in pre-war Vienna to de-briefer of weird Nazi leader Rudolf Hess in the Tower of London.
He was a mystery for so long because, as he saw it, that was the nature of the Secret Service job he’d signed up for. He wasn’t one for memoirs. He destroyed his papers when he retired. There wasn’t even an obituary in a national newspaper when he died in 1972, his lips sealed.
All that remained was a small bundle of personal letters and the sketchy memories of his grandchildren — enough for Fry to start her impressive detective work through newly de-classified files in the National Archives.
From his cover job in the passport office of the British embassy in Austria, Kendrick ran rings round Soviet and German agents, then, when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, he used that position, Schindler-like, to get thousands of Jews out of the country and to safety.
The Gestapo had him for a while but let him go. Back in London, he masterminded an intelligence operation every bit as vital as Bletchley Park.
Clever systematic bugging of German prisoners-of-war disclosed Hitler’s secrets — his rocket programme, the Holocaust — keeping the Allies ahead of the game. Without him, World War II may have ended very differently.
TERENCE: THE MAN WHO INVENTED DESIGN by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity (Constable £25, 336pp)
THE irony at the heart of Terence Conran was that the retail visionary who revolutionised our leisure and lifestyle activities was in fact a driven workaholic who never relaxed, was always on the go, a restless and ultimately dissatisfied spirit.
Yes, he was the transformative design guru whose Habitat shops put vibrant colour, vitality and lashings of style into drab postwar Britain, doing for homes, kitchens and consumerism what the Beatles did for music. For that alone he deserves a place in social history.
And, with that done, he then took his imagination and his creativity to the nation’s rather bland restaurants and, with the likes of Bibendum, spread his magic there, too, turning them into emporia of good taste, in their looks and their menus.
Yet the cigar-chewing pharaoh behind all this fun was not someone you’d want to break bread with.
Rather, he was a sour-faced curmudgeon, fired up by a competitiveness that verged on hostility. A bully with a need to put others down, whose frequently expressed disapproval withered staff, wives, family. A control freak riddled with meannesses, who banned Earl Grey tea in the office because of its expense and wanted to charge staff to use the lift.
All this makes for a fascinating personality, captured here — both affectionately and critically — by two colleagues who worked closely with him, suffered his snideness, saw him obsessively grab all the credit for himself, and yet still came away loving and admiring him. A terrific read, bubbling with anecdotes and insight.
GEORGE III: BRITAIN’S MOST MISUNDERSTOOD MONARCH by Andrew Roberts (Allen Lane £35, 784 pp)
HISTORY routinely abuses George III. Thomas Paine, the 18th century radical, denounced him as ‘a sottish, worthless, brutish man, a common murderer, a highwayman’. Even now, 250 years on, the hit musical Hamilton portrays him as a buffoon.
But he was none of those things, argues Andrew Roberts. The incompetences that led to the War of Independence and the loss of the American colonies were down to others — his ministers and his generals — rather than him.
Nor were the Founding Fathers he was up against on the other side of the Atlantic as noble and pure of heart as Americans still like to believe.
Here is a major reappraisal that, by unearthing new evidence and rigorously challenging conventional interpretations, paints a picture of a monarch who was thoughtful, well-read, concerned to do the right thing, caught up in revolutionary times and trying his best to steer a way through.
Roberts is equally majestic in guiding the reader through the complexities of constitutional crises, international affairs, Whig/ Tory politics at home and military campaigns while, with intimate details, still breathing real life into the character of a monarch whose most used phrase was a spluttering ‘What, what, what!’
As for the king’s ‘malady’ — his bouts of madness — Roberts attributes this to recurrent manic depression rather than the popular explanation of the inherited disorder porphyria.
This is a big book in every sense, very long and detailed but fizzing with new ideas and interpretations and totally compelling as it authoritatively rescues the sullied reputation of the man who sat on the throne for nearly 60 years, a record only recently now surpassed by the present Queen.
GREAT SPORTING LIVES ROGER ALTON LEAP OF FAITH by Frankie Dettori (HarperCollins £20, 320 pp)
You don’t have to know how to ride to love this fabulous book, but it helps if you love horses. Dettori’s passion for the animals he rides so brilliantly illuminates this memoir. And he had some mounts, too: Enable, Golden Horn, Stradivarius — they were all stars, and he writes about them all with a lover’s tenderness.
But there’s much more than simply horse racing here. In an autobiography as thrilling as any photo-finish, and as compelling as Frankie’s riding skills, he writes with searing honesty about his ban for cocaine, the terrifying moment his plane crashed and burst into flames, and his falling-out with the all-powerful Godolphin stable.
He is also very funny about joshing with the Queen, and reveals exactly where on his body his rival Lester Piggott, angry with this cocky youngster, grabbed him mid-race. Clue: it was very painful.
THE MASTER: THE BRILLIANT CAREER OF ROGER FEDERER by Christopher Clarey (John Murray £20, 432 pp)
THE great ‘Fed’ can, for some bizarre reason, be a bit of a Marmite figure, with some benighted folk unable to appreciate his brilliance. The title of Clarey’s exhaustive book will tell you where he stands, though.
Clarey has covered tennis for the New York Times for donkey’s years and has interviewed Federer countless times.
The big question is how this supreme athlete has stayed at the top of his game for so long: the answer seems to be focus and planning, determination and grit, and the fact that his life appears to be a whole load of fun, with friends, family and fellow-pros making sure he never feels jaded.
Superbly researched, you can find out everything you may or may not have wanted to know, including some matchplay advice from his twin girls: look in one direction and hit the ball in the other, they suggest. ‘Not as
easy as you think it is, but I’ll try,’ he tells them.
BE GOOD, LOVE BRIAN: GROWING UP WITH BRIAN CLOUGH by Craig Bromfield (Mudlark £16.99, 320 pp)
THINK you can’t face another book about Brian Clough? Well, think again, because you really can’t do without this one. But have some tissues at hand.
Craig Bromfield was just 11, and brought up in an impoverished and brutally abusive household in Sunderland, when he and his older brother, Aaron, were befriended by the football legend, almost on a whim, after meeting him and his Nottingham Forest team while out collecting a penny for the guy.
Clough took the boys into his family — and his beautiful house in Quarndon, ‘like something in Dallas’ — and became Craig’s surrogate father for the next few years, giving him shelter and a unique environment to grow up in.
An inspirational and moving story, and, what’s more, it’s all true.
BELONGING by Alun Wyn Jones (Macmillan £20, 336 pp)
THERE’S no Welshman (or woman) who doesn’t worship at the shrine of Alun Wyn Jones, the most capped rugby player in history, long-time captain of rugby-mad Wales as well as the British Lions, and one of the greatest, and seemingly most indestructible, players in history.
This is the autobiography of a working man: rugby is his job... and he has no thoughts of retiring. As he says, very sensibly: ‘No one counts how many kitchens a carpenter has fitted, or tells a plumber to pack it in when he’s done a certain number of bathrooms. keep working, keep trying to improve.’
You can see why his teammates over the decades would follow him anywhere. But the glory is also here: walking out in Cardiff to the roars of a packed stadium, with the knowledge that millions more are supporting at home.
Famously reserved as a man and a player, the book reflects that, too. When he returns home after breaking All Black Richie McCaw’s record of caps, his long-suffering wife, Anwen, has some champagne ready. ‘Let’s leave it till tomorrow,’ he says [Wales had been beaten, at home, by Scotland]. ‘A tense evening that one,’ he admits.
WHY WE KNEEL, HOW WE RISE by Michael Holding (Simon & Schuster £20, 320 pp)
AFTER former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq’s painful recollections this autumn, the issue of racism has dominated coverage of cricket. But arguably a much more significant
event happened during a rain break at a Test match between England and the West Indies during lockdown in 2020.
There, in the wake of the murder of George floyd in the U.s., the legendary West Indian fast bowler and revered commentator, Michael Holding, launched into an explosive monologue about the racism, insults and bigotry he had experienced and seen around him all his life. That was not the end of it.
This book, perhaps one of the most important of the year, and certainly among the most powerful, is the result. Holding shares his story together with many of the world’s most iconic sports stars: Usain Bolt, tennis champ
Naomi Osaka, Michael Johnson, Makhaya Ntini, the first Black African to play cricket for south Africa, Thierry Henry and many more. If anything will change the way we see the world it is this — the sports book of the year.
TOO MANY REASONS TO LIVE by Rob Burrow (Macmillan £20, 304 pp)
If yOU can read this wonderful book without a tear in your eye then you’re a stronger person than I am. Burrow is one of the most successful players in the history of rugby league, although he is only 5ft 5in and weighed less
than 11st in a sport peopled by big, ugly, hard men battering each other.
But his agility, speed, strength and courage made him a legend of the sport, representing Leeds, England and Britain.
He needed even more courage after his world was blown apart in December 2019 when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. And they might be tough guys, but his team-mates are also big-hearted, generous and loyal.
Another inspiring story, interspersed with memories from friends and family, and his childhood sweetheart Lindsey, whom he married in 2006. ‘I want to keep fighting till my last breath,’ he says.
ONE: MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Peter Schmeichel (Hodder £20, 416 pp)
THIs is much more than the usual footballer’s life story, thanks no doubt to the skills of the highly respected football writer and co-author Jonathan Northcroft.
He’s sensitive, Peter schmeichel; not just an awesome goalkeeper, but a lover of jazz, family (his son is a Premier League-winning keeper, too) and capable also of dropping names such as the philosopher Kierkegaard as he reflects on his legacy.
It’s warm, frank and conversational in tone; you could be sharing a beer with him in one of his favourite Copenhagen bars.
Rated the best goalkeeper in the world for years, he takes us behind the scenes of Manchester United’s epic last-minute Champions’ League victory in 1999, as well as all the other soccer triumphs with United, and Denmark.
Off the pitch he’s also got a remarkable story about his early life: he nearly died at 15 and had a stormy relationship with his father, who was a Polish jazz pianist, an alcoholic and a spy. Terrific.
WHISTLE BLOWER: MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Mark Clattenburg (Headline £20, 336 pp) EvEN those who thought Clattenburg was a good referee would agree he wasn’t a man burdened by self-doubt, and this memoir, written with the Mail’s Craig Hope, is a breezy cruise through Clatts’ highlights, which are, by his own estimate, numerous.
Eventually, with his tattoos and an eye on his public approval, he became almost a parody of the ‘celebrity referee’.
Now he can let rip with a few two-footed tackles: other refs are ‘snide’ or a ‘boring f***er’, a senior official is a ‘slippery, sly toff’, the current crop of Premier League refs ‘has never been weaker’.
If you have ever enjoyed swearing at the man in black (and who hasn’t?) this is the book for you. Worth reading if nothing else for finding out how Clattenburg persuaded Liverpool captain and England star Jordan Henderson to put a sock in it after he had given the ref a mouthful of abuse. He threatened to tell the midfielder’s Mum. Henderson shut up after that. No wonder.
BARCA: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CLUB THAT BUILT MODERN FOOTBALL
by Simon Kuper
(Short Books £20, 384 pp)
KUPER has long been one of the most thoughtful and intelligent writers about football. The almost shakespearean narrative of the rise and fall of the world’s most exciting and inspirational club makes a suitably epic tapestry for his talents.
He charts the story through three remarkable icons of the game: the chain-smoking Dutch genius Johan Cruyff, who redefined the game of football both as a Barcelona player and later a revolutionary manager; Pep Guardiola, who has taken football coaching to new levels first in spain, then Germany and now Manchester; and Lionel Messi, the best player in the world whose sublime skills have entranced fans for years but whose colossal salary eventually brought the club to its knees.
A compelling account, brilliantly told, of ambition, sublime ability, and political infighting.
ALL IN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Billie Jean King (Viking
£20, 496 pp)
If ANyONE can be said to have changed the face of their sport (and much else besides) it’s Billie Jean. A supremely gifted tennis player, as a youngster she came up against the wall of patronising sexism that dominated the sport (‘These girls would be much happier if they settled down,’ opined the U.s. star stan smith).
forced to set up a women-only pro tour (the WTA), she became an icon for women everywhere, beating the ageing player Bobby Riggs in straight sets in the infamous ‘Battle of the sexes’, and a multiple Grand slam winner.
struggling with her sexuality, too, she didn’t formally come out as gay until she was in her 50s, and subsequently began dating the south African tennis player Ilana Kloss.
Now King is a tireless campaigner and activist on gay and gender rights, as well as feminism and Black Lives Matter. A compelling story of a sporting legend and an inspirational human being, it’s a moving love story, too.