Ephraim Hardcastle
TASKED with re-mastering The Beatles’ back catalogue, Giles Martin, son of their late producer, Sir George Martin, says in an interview: ‘They’d have been big without him, but they wouldn’t have been as big as they became.’ No doubt, but highlighting Sir George’s post-Beatles career, the acerbic John Lennon remarked: ‘When people ask me, “What did George Martin really do for you?” I have only one answer, “What does he do now?”.’
JENNIFER Saunders says when she and Dawn French pitched their hit Eighties comedy show to the BBC, its then Light Entertainment boss, Jim Moir, informed them: ‘Someone told me you are funny girls. Let’s see. I’ll put my d**k on the table and give you a series. Don’t let me down.’ It wasn’t a pre-MeToo moment, but business-speak for ‘take a risk’.
PROMOTING their first film together, Boy Erased, Aussies Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman don’t agree about their first meeting. Kidman says: ‘Russell drank champagne from my shoe.’ Crowe says: ‘You didn’t talk to me.’ The sulky brute should have gone along with her more amusing story.
BAYWATCH star Pamela Anderson is ‘fascinated’ by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, now in his seventh year avoiding arrest in London’s Ecuadorean embassy, saying: ‘I visit Julian for three to four hours at a time. I’m exhausted when I leave. We call it a romantic struggle.’ A previous romantic struggle in 1995 was captured in a home movie when fourtimes wed Pamela canoodled on-camera with her well-endowed first husband, drummer Tommy Lee, pictured together.
THE process of preparing Prince William to be the next Prince of Wales is under way and his wife Kate – previously thought to be reluctant to succeed Diana as Princess of Wales – is now said to have accepted the inevitable. Of course, Charles’s second wife, Camilla, should be Princess of Wales. But as ‘the other woman’ in Diana’s marriage, that was considered too controversial.
NEW York gossips say Vogue queen Anna Wintour had a ‘royal moment’ at a fashion design show in New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard. Finding herself in a queue for the loo, she reportedly despatched a minion to announce, ‘Anna is coming in’, and this succeeded. Ms Wintour often attracts jealous comments, but would she really pull rank in this way?!
WHILE the Prince of Wales got the full regal treatment on his tour of West Africa – Ghana gave him a state banquet, an honour usually reserved for heads of state – the gifts he has picked up, while gratefully received, are modest. In 1961, the Queen was given a gold porcupine brooch in Ghana. In The Gambia, as Robert Hardman mentions in his book, Queen Of The World, she received a biscuit tin containing a baby crocodile. Private secretary Martin Charteris put it in his bath on the royal yacht Britannia. It then lived out its days at London Zoo.