Ephraim Hardcastle
THE death of CS Lewis’s literary agent Walter Hooper revives the debate about his idolising of the Narnia writer as a quasi-Catholic saint by insisting he didn’t have sexual relations with two women he lived with. Writer AN Wilson accused Hooper at the time of believing in ‘the perpetual virginity of CS Lewis’. AN now declines to mourn Hooper. ‘He was the most awful creep who did lasting damage to Lewis’s reputation,’ he says. He also claims that JRR Tolkien – Lewis’s friend and Lord of the Rings author – ‘particularly hated him and kept him at arm’s length. But he turned up at Tolkien’s wife’s funeral, barged to the grave and put his arm round the old boy. Utterly loathsome!’
SACHA Baron Cohen claims he helped Joe Biden get to the White House by ridiculing Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani in his Borat movie just as he was about to unveil evidence which would ‘destroy’ the Democrat’s campaign. ‘We released the movie, and suddenly Giuliani was on the back foot,’ says Cohen. ‘He was defending himself rather than being on the attack. We later heard from the Biden campaign team that they really appreciated the timing...’ Might Sleepy Joe make Borat his UK ambassador ?
AFTER completing an acting course in Soho, banker Max Johnson, 35, pictured, younger half-brother of Boris, tells Tatler of his thespian ambitions. ‘I just get a lot of personal satisfaction from acting,’ he says. ‘I suppose it’s more nourishing for the soul.’ And his CV? He’s already turned down a role as an extra in a Transformers movie.
WOULD Lord Charteris relish the current Eton free speech debate? As Provost, he tutored pupils in advance of visits by Prince Philip. ‘Having been the Queen’s private secretary, Martin Charteris knew exactly how to construct a pithy riposte that would surprise Philip,’ recalls late diarist Kenneth Rose. ‘It meant Philip always went away thinking that, unlike other schools he would visit, Etonians were full of self-confidence and uniquely capable of quick-minded independent thought.’
ASKED to debunk The Crown in an Intelligence Squared debate, royal biographer Hugo Vickers was keen for the drama’s historical consultant Robert Lacey to make the argument for the Netflix series. He was one of three historians approached who couldn’t take part. The debate was scrapped. ‘I did not decline to defend The Crown,’ says Lacey. ‘I suggested that the terms of the debate might be widened to embrace larger issues around the monarchy.’
KENNETH Williams, in his diary, records telling Carry On director Gerald Thomas he wished to be ‘left out of the next film’, adding that he had been expected to black up to play a witch doctor. ‘I replied “Don’t bother to ask me”... and Barbara Windsor cried out “I’ll do it, Gerald!”’