MISSING . . .
THE DAILY MAIL offers the opportunity to re-establish contact with long-lost relatives and friends. Each week, MONICA PORTER features the story of someone trying to find a missing loved one and a tale of people reunited. Produced in conjunction with the voluntary tracing service Searching For A Memory, run by Gill Whitley.
CAN former child film stars be reunited? Henry Beltran has recently retired as front-of-house manager of the independent Chichester Cinema at New Park, West Sussex. It will be screening 1965’s A High Wind In Jamaica to mark the film’s 56th anniversary next month and Henry is attempting to gather the child actors who appeared in it. He was one of them. The film, adapted from a novel by Richard Hughes, is about a group of expat children living in Jamaica whose parents put them on a ship back to England, only for the vessel to be commandeered by pirates. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick, it starred James Coburn, Anthony Quinn and Dennis Price. Viviane Ventura played an older sister. ‘Contact has been made with the lead child actress, Deborah Baxter, and Martin Amis, who later found fame in the literary world,’ says Henry. ‘But we’re missing Roberta Tovey, Jeffrey Chandler and Karen Flack. ‘This would be the first time all of the children would be reunited in more than half a century. It would be wonderful to watch it together.’