June 24, 2022 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JUNE 24, 1974
SEVENTEEN years ago drama teacher Mrs Jay norris took Cliff Richard aside and told him he was ‘not tough enough’ to make the grade in show business. ‘He very wisely didn’t take my advice,’ she said yesterday as Cliff rehearsed under her direction to go back on the stage of his old school, playing Bottom in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer night’s Dream at Riversmead School, Cheshunt. JUNE 24, 1983
PRINCE Edward has chosen to make a career as a Commando officer, becoming the first member of the Royal Family to join the Royal Marines. And last night an officer at the Lympstone, Devon, base where 19-yearold Edward will report on September 5 said of the recruits there: ‘They go through hell. Only the fittest and toughest survive — and the Prince will be treated like anyone else.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
IAIN GLEN, 61. The actor from Edinburgh played Jorah Mormont in Game Of Thrones, Sir Richard Carlisle in Downton Abbey and Margaret Thatcher’s father in The Iron Lady. He said his Spanish fans are the most effusive: ‘ People just completely grab you and start kissing you and taking selfies.’
JEFF BECK, 78. The English rock guitarist has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice — with the Yardbirds and as a solo artist. He is due to release an album next month with his friend Johnny Depp — with whom he performed a series of UK concerts. Beck auditioned to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones, but decided the band was too ‘quaint’ for his tastes.
BORN ON THIS DAY
PEARL CORNIOLEY (19142008). The Paris-born British shorthand typist became a wartime agent with the Special Operations Executive. She parachuted into France and posed as the representative of a cosmetics company. Cornioley, who had a million-franc bounty put on her head by the Germans, once had to hide all day in a wheat field, ‘moving only when the wind blew the corn, hiding behind my very large handbag’. JACK CARTER (1922-2015). The new Yorkborn ‘machine gun of comedy’, who had a 50-year career, played himself in the 1964 Elvis Presley film viva Las vegas, directed Lucille Ball’s series Here’s Lucy and starred on Broadway with Sammy Davis Jr. He had ‘a million retorts’ for anyone who dared to heckle him, including: ‘I couldn’t warm up to you if we were being cremated together.’
ON JUNE 24…
IN 1965, The Hollies were enjoying their first no.1, I’m Alive.
IN 2014, The Magnificent Seven star Eli Wallach died, aged 98.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: sortilege (c 14th cent)
A) A scarecrow made of old garments. B) A bandage.
C) The drawing of lots for divination.
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
In the buff: to be naked; originally from ‘buffalo’, ‘in the buff’ comes from leather worn by soldiers with a colour that was considered comparable to human skin.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
It’s sometimes best to slip over thoughts and not go to the bottom of them.
Marie de Sévigné, French letter-writer (1626-1696)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do pancakes always win at cricket? They have the best batter.
Guess The Definition answer: C.