Ephraim Hardcastle
IT seems improbable, in this age of right-on parliamentary candidates chosen by committee, that we shall see the likes of Teddy Taylor again. He was a fan of the marijuana-infused music of Bob marley but once declared nelson mandela ‘should be shot’. He fought to restore the death penalty and said arming the police was vital in the face of the Ira. He was also teetotal and despaired of young mps ‘drowning their failure in beer’.
NEWSNIGHT’S Emily Maitlis, 47, asked Russell Brand, 42, on Wednesday night if he was appalled by his past behaviour? ‘No, my dear. I simply think there are things that I’ve done, I’ve amended (sic) for them.’ Any regrets over his debauched 2008 ‘Sachsgate’ BBC programme when he left aged actor Andrew Sachs a voicemail saying he had had sex with his granddaughter? Not asked. Brand, plugging his new book Recovery, didn’t deign to be interviewed in the BBC studio, with a clearly fawning Maitlis going to him.
BARBRA Streisand, 75, pictured, taking part in a celebrity los angeles telethon for hurricane victims, walked the red carpet in the opposite direction to everyone else – so cameras would only capture her ‘good side’ (the left). diva Babs is sensitive about her looks, saying: ‘on the one hand I’ll be compared to an egyptian sculpture and on the other hand people think I’m awful looking. Since childhood my looks have always been talked about in some strange way.’ not being talked about would be worse, though.
THIS week marks the 73rd anniversary of Operation Market Garden, an ill-fated airborne assault against the Germans in The Netherlands. Will the film version – A Bridge Too Far – get a TV outing? It’s not popular among experts as it shows the British as buffoons, uses all the wrong vehicles and has far too many TV aerials visible. Some bits are realistic. Dirk Bogarde played General ‘Boy’ Browning – the Glasgow-educated actor was scarred by his own wartime experiences. And Sean Connery played General Roy Urquhart, son of a Scots dentist.
MICHAEL Whitehall, 77, soon to be seen on TV with his comedian son in Jack Whitehall: Travels with my Father, was accosted in West london by a laundry van driver, saying: ‘I know who you are.’ michael recalls: ‘He said, “You’re the f ****** actor that plays Jack Whitehall’s father.” and I said, “F*** off!”.’
PHOTOGRAPHS of the Queen receiving the new governor-general of Canada, Julie Payette, at Balmoral show HMQ wearing a Balmoral tartan skirt. Designed by Prince Albert in 1853, it can only be made by Kinloch Anderson in Edinburgh. And it’s a transgender tartan, restricted to top royals and the Queen’s Piper!
SIR michael Caine, 84, named as the UK’s most prolific male cinema star, had a sworn enemy in richard Harris. Taking exception to Caine’s claim that most top actors of his generation had been ‘drunks’, the thirsty thespian described him as a ‘windbag’ with ‘vast limitations’. Harris, who died in 2002, also mocked his macho image, saying: ‘mr Caine is as dangerous as laurel and Hardy... and as intimidating as Shirley Temple.’