Book of Obituaries

by Ann Wroe

  Mr Oppenheimer of course spoke with authority. His knowledge of economics had been honed in Oxford under Roy Harrod, a pioneer in the study of growth. He had succeeded his father as head of the Anglo American Corporation, vastly expanding its assets. It now had a stake in almost every large business in South Africa, and a very large stake in some, namely diamonds, gold and other desirable minerals.

  In South African terms, Mr Oppenheimer was a humane employer. He built decent housing for many of the blacks he employed; he encouraged the creation of black trade unions and provided advanced education for blacks, some of whom gained important jobs in his companies. He liked to quote Thomas Jefferson’s dictum that it was impossible to have democracy in an uneducated country. Still, Mr Oppenheimer had his critics. His sentiments were fine, but, with such a hold on the South African economy, could he not have hastened reform?

  The answer is perhaps he could have; but probably not. Some liberals may have chided Harry Oppenheimer for his too-quiet opposition, and complained that his miners were often brutally treated by their unliberal overseers. But many Afrikaner whites simply loathed him. Politicians such as Jaap Marais (Obituary, August 19th) feared that even talk about reform would undermine white rule, just as in China today the communist leaders fiercely refuse to acknowledge the possibility of any alternative form of government. Mr Marais believed that Harry Oppenheimer’s industrial power would have to be broken if white supremacy were to survive. His views were too extreme for even the Nationalist government; nevertheless, during the first 34 years after the National Party took power in 1948, Mr Oppenheimer, the country’s foremost businessman, was never asked to dine with the prime minister. Mr Kissinger persuaded the reformist P. W. Botha to break bread, albeit reluctantly, with the outsider in 1982. Mr Botha’s theme was “adapt or die”. Mr Oppenheimer praised him for his bravery and subsequently he had meetings with Mr Botha’s successor, F. W. de Klerk. He was no longer the outsider.

  In an interview a few years ago Harry Oppenheimer said he had tried to build a “better sort of society and a better sort of country”. At a personal level he had triedto keep alive “what I considered a voice of common sense and humanity”. It was the sort of summing up that a politician might offer. Mr Oppenheimer was for ten years a member of parliament for the United Party, which disintegrated when defeated by the Nationalists. Had it retained power, he would probably have become finance minister, and possibly prime minister. The subsequent history of South Africa would have been different, but not all that much. Mr Oppenheimer would have introduced democracy gradually over a period. The National Party held things up because they did not accept what “had to happen”.

  After taking over Anglo American Mr Oppenheimer was content to keep politics as a hobby, supporting the Progressive Party and its sole member of parliament, Helen Suzman. In the wider world he became known, through his chairmanship of De Beers, as the king of diamonds, and was a presence on lists of the richest people. He had 25 years as chairman, but for years after his retirement he would turn up at the company’s offices at 44 Main Street, Johannesburg, “to talk to my friends – they even ask my views from time to time”. He acknowledged that making money was the measure of success in business, but “one seeks success more than money after a certain point”. As for diamonds, they were bought out of vanity. What about gold, another great source of wealth for Anglo American? People bought gold, he said, because they were “too stupid to think of any other monetary system that will work”. Harry Oppenheimer had never forgotten his economics. n

  Henri d’Orléans

  Henri d’Orléans, would-be king of France, died on June 19th 1999, aged 90

  The French are, it sometimes seems, reluctant republicans. The revolutionaries who sent Louis XVI to the guillotine hesitated for more than three years before doing so in 1793; and the “national convention” that passed the death sentence managed a far from unanimous vote of 387−334. Henri d’Orléans, a French duke and count of Paris, who sought to restore the French monarchy, took comfort from opinion polls that said a fifth of the French liked the idea of a monarchy, or at least were not opposed to the proposal. It was, he said, a good base to build on.

  Henri was unusual among claimants to discarded thrones, the so-called “pretenders”, in proposing that a modern king should be elected and was convinced that a vigorous and well-argued campaign would give him the crown. In 1964 he believed that his moment had come. Charles de Gaulle, then president and regarded by many in France as their saviour, was thinking of retiring. He had taken a liking to Henri d’Orléans and sent him on a number of diplomatic missions to North Africa, a region on which Henri was an expert.

  De Gaulle seemed to be uncharacteristically humble towards Henri, whose royal inheritance, he said, made him “eternal”, while the general was just a man. Henri gives the impression in his autobiography that De Gaulle listened sympathetically to his proposals: to stand as a non-political candidate “concerned only with the general interests of France” and, when elected, to restore the monarchy. He would become Henry VI. He felt that he would have appeal as a family man: his long marriage had produced 11 children. (Large families were a feature of Henri’s ancestors: one ancestor, though a homosexual, dutifully fathered six children, helped, it is said, by “holy medals”.)

  Henri had a good record as a patriot, joining the Foreign Legion in the second world war after the army had turned him down because of a law that then banned the descendants of former kings from living in France. A son had been killed in the Algerian war. An elected king, he argued, would be a truly French idea: the first French king, Hugh Capet, had been elected in 987, albeit by his nobles rather than by universal suffrage.

  Henri’s campaign would undoubtedly have been a fascinating one, much enjoyed by connoisseurs of the by-ways of democracy. “The general wanted to re-establish the monarchy,” Henri recalled later, “and I think he was sincere when he talked to me about it.” However, De Gaulle decided after all to stand for re-election and, even as just a man, was unbeatable.

  One of the obvious obstacles to Henri’s ambition to become king was that France already has a sort of monarch, although he is called a president. From De Gaulle to Chirac, French presidents, enjoying powers that far exceed those of most of the world’s 20 or so real monarchs, have rapidly assumed custodianship of la gloire. Appropriately, the president’s home in Paris is a palace. In 1982, François Mitterrand, then France’s newly elected president, entertained the world’s leaders at Versailles, the elaborate palace and gardens built for Louis XIV. For the occasion he had the taps in the palace bathrooms replated in gold.

  Henri regarded Mitterrand as the most monarchic of French presidents. As De Gaulle had done, Mitterrand was content to accept Henri into his circle of admirers. Henri’s intimacy with the French leaders probably did no harm to his application for government money to keep his château at Amboise, on the Loire, in royal condition.Henri and Mitterrand were, in an odd way, two of a kind: Mitterrand the socialist monarchist and Henri the royal democrat. Both had for a time supported Henri Pétain’s collaborationist government after the French had been defeated in 1940. Mitterrand had worked for it; Henri had been offered the job of food minister but had declined.

  Henri’s support for Mitterrand was not shared by his wife, granddaughter of the last empress of Brazil, who said the president was a bandit. However, the couple tolerated each other for 52 years before they separated. The real opposition to Henri came from another branch of the royal family, the Bourbons. They had their own claimant to the French throne. Henri’s claim, they considered, was dishonoured because one of his ancestors had been a member of the convention that had sent Louis XVI to the guillotine. The proper politics of royalty was on the right, the Bourbons said, and they objected to the liberalism of Henri, whom they called “the red prince”.

  He may not have been that liberal. He publicly rebuked his daughter Chantal for criticising the National Front, a right-wing party. It was not th
at he disagreed with her views, but she should not have spoken without his permission. Chantal was then aged 45, the mother of three children. Henri’s successor as count of Paris, his eldest son, also called Henri, appears to be more easygoing. He is the author of a cookbook and markets a perfume called Royalissime. It is unclear whether he will pick up his father’s hopeful sceptre. But among the 41 grandchildren left by the fecund Henri, it seems likely that someone will. n

  Maureen O’Sullivan

  Maureen O’Sullivan, queen of the jungle, died on June 22nd 1998, aged 87

  For true devotees, “Tarzan and His Mate”, made in 1934, is the one to see, and see again. This is the “Hamlet”, the Fifth Symphony of the genre. A critic wrote of the film’s “sweet paganism” as expressed by Maureen O’Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller as Jane and Tarzan. Jane’s outfit is determinedly pagan, and Tarzan paganly appears to undress her as the couple dive into a jungle pool, where the girl swims in the nude. An increasingly puritanical Hollywood deleted the seven-minute sequence, fearing that suburban America might believe it approved of such goings-on. (It has since been restored in the video version.) In subsequent Tarzan films Miss O’Sullivan would wear more and more clothing. “In those days,” she recalled, “they took these things seriously.”

  So, in a sense, this was the end of innocence. A cloud had appeared over Paradise. Or so it would seem from the many thousands of words that have been written about the Tarzan films and the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875−1950) from which they are derived. Tarzan is the noble savage, the simple lifer whose habitat seems so much more desirable than the urban jungle. Some have seen him as an early environmentalist. According to Gore Vidal, Tarzan created a generation of American men who “tried to master the victory cry of the great ape”, which, as every Tarzan expert knows, is a jungle-piercing “Ungawa”. In one day, a collector of useless information noted, 15 children in Kansas City were taken to hospital after falling from trees imitating Tarzan.

  “Tarzan and His Mate” is one of those modest films produced in the Hollywood factory that have curiously refused to go away. “King Kong”, made in 1933, is another. They have something in common. Maureen O’Sullivan and Fay Wray, the heroine of “King Kong”, are at the mercy of wild creatures, but tame them with their womanly ways. It is a classic tale, the damsel in distress. Its classicism, though, did not impress Miss O’Sullivan. She was in some 60 films and was understandably cross that people mostly remembered her in the six she had made as Tarzan’s mate. But in later life she expressed a fondness for them. The Tarzan films are said to be the most lucrative and longest-running series ever made. “It’s nice to be immortal,” she said, not entirely jokingly.

  When Miss O’Sullivan first came to Hollywood the publicists said she was born in a thatched cottage in Ireland and spoke Gaelic. In her biography she says her father was a British army officer and she went to a finishing school in France. One of the problems of writing about showbiz people is finding the real person behind the make-up. At least Miss O’Sullivan’s biography is amusing, and takes a pleasantly sceptical view of Hollywood. The studio she first worked for told her she was a failure. Miss O’Sullivan blamed the studio for putting her in musicals although she could not sing. “I realised that what really counted in Hollywood was looks rather than talent,” she said. If you were pretty, photogenic and did what the director told you to, you were made. She had some alluring photos taken, was given a film test and became Tarzan’s Jane.

  The alluring Miss O’Sullivan nicely matched the Jane of the Burroughs books. Tarzan took her into his arms “and smothered her upturned panting lips with kisses”. Johnny Weissmuller, though, was hardly the Tarzan of the books, described as an English lord fluent in six languages. The scriptwriters gave him a more limited vocabulary, usually remembered as “Me Tarzan, you Jane” (although there is some argument among Tarzan experts over whether he ever used these words). Weissmuller, though, was good at wrestling alligators and a marvellous swimmer (a former Olympics champion). Miss O’Sullivan’sswimming was a gentle breaststroke, so a double did the nude scene.

  Burroughs turned up at the studio one day to see what sort of a mess it was making of his masterpieces, but was polite to the couple. “He said we were perfect,” Miss O’Sullivan recalled. Many would agree, among them Stalin, who would put on a show of Tarzan films for favoured visitors. They were more fun than “Battleship Potemkin”.

  It would be unfair to Maureen O’Sullivan not to say more about a career that stretched over 50 years. But what? Most of her pictures were second features; or if they were first features she had small parts. Some critics remember her fondly in “The Big Clock”, a much-praised thriller directed by her husband, John Farrow, in 1948. This is a cue to say that they had seven children, one of them Mia Farrow. Mother of Mia? “That’s me,” Miss O’Sullivan would say. Girlfriend of Tarzan? “That’s me, too.” It is a fame not to be sniffed at. Many other Tarzan films have been made besides the O’Sullivan six. None though has a Jane like hers, as Burroughs describes her, “lithe and young, her eyes wide with mingled horror and admiration for the primeval man who had fought for her and won her”. n

  David Packard

  David Packard, the inspiration of Silicon Valley, died on March 26th 1996, aged 83

  At a memorial service for David Packard at Stanford, the university he credited for his start, more than 1,000 mourners showed up. It seems a lot of people credited him for their start, too. Mr Packard founded, along with Bill Hewlett, one of the most successful high-tech firms in history, Hewlett-Packard. (The order of names was chosen by the toss of a coin, but, as it turned out, in reverse order of influence.) More importantly, in a small garage in Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, California, the two men started what would become Silicon Valley.

  It is hard, on reviewing Mr Packard’s life, to understand how this boy from Pueblo, Colorado, who liked to be in the open air and would spend some of his happiest moments driving a bulldozer on his ranch, could have inspired such digital-age icons as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Intel’s Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs, Apple Computer’s co-founder. Mr Packard was always a gentleman, who insisted that his employees respect their competitors and never criticise them in front of customers. Today the business is full of predators, publicly contemptuous of their rivals, who preach such battlefield exhortations as “Eat lunch or be lunch” and “Only the paranoid survive”.

  As a child, Mr Packard wished he had been born in an earlier day, when America’s west was still a frontier and its people pioneers. He proved that the same spirit, channelled into technology and business rather than land and conquest, could create and cross new frontiers.

  Mr Packard and Mr Hewlett started HP in 1939 as a west coast firm in an industry dominated by east coast firms such as General Electric and Westinghouse. Their first sale was an audio oscillator used in a Disney film, “Fantasia”. HP built up ties with Stanford: an engineering professor named Fred Terman tutored many of those who would become Silicon Valley’s early stars. HP was one of the first firms to move into Stanford’s business park, ground zero of the Valley’s industrial explosion. It was an innovator and nimble in entering new business, traits that today define the region’s firms. And it made heaps of money: more than $30 billion in annual sales today, not terribly far behind IBM. It is the Valley’s largest company and biggest employer. Some 25 of the Valley’s top executives are HP alumni.

  No doubt there would have been a computer industry in California without HP. It was just one of several electronics firms that were starting up on the west coast in the late 1930s, a trend that accelerated during the second world war. But HP is the only one from those early days to have survived as a force in the industry. The fact that HP started with two guys in a garage, and took off, was an inspiration. It wasn’t quite log cabin to White House – it was better.

  But, the lack of courtesy apart, there is much that Mr Packard would have disapproved of in today’s Valley. Growing up in the depression
, and seeing what banks could do to companies, he swore never to take on long-term debt. The firm grew on profits alone, and did not even go public until nearly its 20th year. Today’s computer industry start-ups often go public before they are two, and will beg

  and borrow whatever it takes to keep up with the industry’s skyrocketing growth. Compaq reached $1 billion in annual sales in less than a decade, something it took HP 40 years to achieve.

  The firm practises pragmatic benevolence. It has never had a lay-off, and was one of the first firms to offer share options and profit-related pay. It has trusted employees, leaving equipment rooms unlocked (and believing that access to equipment might encourage employees to tinker in their off hours, perhaps inventing some new product).

  At 6ft 5in, Mr Packard had an imposing presence, and he relished face-to-face contact with his employees. When he worked at General Electric after leaving university, he spent a day on a factory line and cracked the problem behind its failure rate with vacuum tubes. From then on, when things went wrong at HP, he would head for the shop floor. This “management by walking around” (later dignified by management theorists as MBWA) reflected Mr Packard’s low tolerance for boardroom decision-making, business schools and professional managers (although the firm would have to embrace all three as it grew larger). In 1969 he was asked by theNixon administration to become assistant secretary of defence. He found the three years he spent in the job frustrating. The defence procurement system ran counter to the principles of efficiency HP held dear. He said the Pentagon would do as well picking names from a hat.