The Restless Years (1955-63)

by Cecil Beaton

  Raymond said: ‘If I died during the night I should still feel it was worthwhile — one of the most wonderful days in my life.’

  TANGANYIKA

  In the misnamed ‘Park’ of Lake Manyara in Tanganyika we saw tropical forests with tall trees of every variety garlanded with parasitic fronds; and cascades of lilac and pale green blossom. In the viridian canopy above there were crickets to deafen one, and shrieking monkeys.

  The sheaths and blades of tropical undergrowth gave way to a gently weaving procession: a herd of forty or fifty elephants appeared. How supple are their flapping butterfly ears as, weaving their trunks, with ivory tusks pointing, every heavy limb moves in graceful harmony. Elephants seem less like themselves than their counterfeiters in the pantomime. One cannot believe that those baggy trousers do not contain well-trained performers!

  But although the elephant appears to have small, unseeing eyes and moves in slow rhythm, he is quick to escape out of range: perhaps fortunately — for if he had a mind to it, only one of the herd could, within seconds, reduce our landrover to a mere sardine tin.

  On the way to the great crater of Ngoro Ngoro we passed mountains like the backsides of green elephants; the dark-red earth ditches abounded in black and gold snakes and giant flowers. Masai shepherds and warriors with elaborate hair plaits and earth-red draperies, bring home their flocks to share their mud dwellings.

  At a height of eight-thousand feet we looked down upon the crater — bean-shoot green plains surrounded by a cerulean wall of mountain. It is one of the great sights of the world. It was an opportunity to see the earth as it was at the time of the Creation. The impression was so overwhelming that one became speechless.

  The descent into the crater took us down winding crags that are filled with every sort of rare plant, shrub and flower. Trees are taller, grass is longer, and forget-me-nots are bluer. In the crater are forests, plains, lakes. On the edge of a large sheet of water fringed with poison green rushes, continuous bird ballet is performed. The long islands of pale pink are flamingos, and the paler ones, cranes. They walk or paddle by the water’s edge in a long crocodile procession.

  A group of water buffalo, caked with pale grey mud, with pinprick, blinking eyes, wide decorative horns and low ears, remind one of early Chinese sculpture.

  Even as we looked in awe and marvel, darkness enveloped the neighbouring mountains and the skies became menacing yellow and grey. Our log cabins, complete with lamp and wood fire, welcomed us. Raymond quoted: ‘We have sipped the milk of Paradise.’

  MADAGASCAR

  The first glimpse of this island was promising — pale rice-shoots in the paddy fields, energetic, muscular women working in the muddy water, eucalyptus trees, frangipani, red earth, villages with tall, coloured houses. In fact, even the humblest shack had elegant proportions, wooden balustraded balconies, and some are painted as if by children in bright chalk colours. A special light gave uniformity and grace, and pleased the aesthetic sense.

  The people in the streets seemed to be a mixture of races — Chinese, Indian, Arab and African. Women and men wore white draped shawls, and the men an assortment of fantastic European hats — highwayman-esque or Robin Hood-ed.

  Madagascar is the third largest island in the world. Marco Polo gave it its name. King Radama was the first king. He encouraged Europisation and, under the influence of an Irish soldier in the Indian Service, Sergeant James Hastie, learned to sleep in a bed, take a bath, play cards and listen to the striking of clocks, before he met an early death in 1828 at the age of thirty-five. Unfortunately he was succeeded by Queen Ranavalona the Terrible, who is said to have been responsible for over two hundred thousand men and women being put to death in the most ghastly ordeal of poison, mutilation, and stoning. At her coronation in 1868 idols were burned and Protestantism became the state religion. Queen Victoria sent the Malay Queen a huge bible and an album of coloured family photographs. But, after a certain amount of misunderstanding and trickery in 1895, Madagascar joined the French Empire and Queen Ranavalona III sadly went into exile in Algeria, where she died in 1917. Today Madagascar is a Republic with the President living on the hilltop in a large castle.

  Tananarive, the capital city, is a tightly-packed cluster of heterogeneous buildings covering the mountain top and glistening in the crystal sunlight. We discovered every sort of architectural style: Chinese, art nouveau and 1890 Louis XVI cheek by jowl, and we were reminded of San Francisco, Singapore and Karachi.

  Dominating the entire city is the four-square Queen’s Palace built in the medieval style. This was originally made of wood, but, in order that it should become suitably grandiose, the Scottish architect Cameron covered it with stone. It is flanked by enormous wooden, thatch-roofed chalets that are either tombs, temples, or palaces of former rulers.

  Queen Ranavalona II, who was an enthusiastic pen friend of Queen Victoria, whom she addressed as ‘Ma chere soeur’, lived in a charming Chelsea-ish house with small-paned, deep-set sash windows. The Balmoral influence can be seen in stag-decorated inkstands and chairs, gold-embossed flock paper from London, red-velvet ottoman, inlaid floors, gilt-framed portraits and huge coloured photograph-portraits. Even the garden is a paradox of exotics with formal borders of marguerites and salvias; and the scarlet-hatted brass bandsmen practising under an enormous avenue of royal figtrees play the same selections we hear on the front at Eastbourne.

  Victoria’s influence can also be seen in the black Queen’s choice of jewels which, though of no rare stones, are in imitation of the coral coronets and sapphire and gold diadems seen in Winterhalter portraits.

  The Queen’s throne room has an Alice in Wonderland quality with the crimson velvet canopy over gilt throne, Victorian chandeliers and clocks under glass, for with the silk on the walls looking like the shabby guest bedroom of a large house in the Lake district the pretence at grandeur fails poignantly, but the attempt has great charm.

  My particular treat was to see the Court clothes, all made for the Queen in Paris by Lemoine. They were in the bustle style in bright scarlets or orange and heavily embroidered almost all over in design of jasmine or wheat ears, and some of the pants were slashed like those worn by Elizabethan courtiers; and there were many small Empire-style bodices that were an inspiration, for they were made of most unexpected material — moss green tufted velvet, or cabbage-rose patterned wool cretonne, and the skirts of scarlet or yellow had embroidered hems that were works of art.

  Nothing was more rewarding than the visit to the market (Rova). It took place in the square. Large white umbrellas covered each stall and the sunlight and shadow playing on these geometric shapes created bizarre abstract patterns. The reflected light under the umbrellas flattered the serried rows of sugar-cane sticks, the soft mounds of tomatoes and the opalescent pyramids of eggs; the mountains of pineapples, plums and bananas were like Braque ‘still-lives’, and the spikes of black bullrushes, the billowing bundles of carnations, the clouds of roses, the zinnias and the tuberoses were dazzling.

  But it was the rainy season and in the late afternoon with the first heavy drops this impermanent city of white umbrellas broke up in a trice. The people, in their bright-coloured cottons, packed their wares, climbed on carts and wagons and left behind a deserted sea of refuse.

  Madagascar is the home of the gentle lemur, birds of brilliant plumage, and many varieties of chameleons. Mountains rise in some places to over ten thousand feet; I saw hot springs, extinct volcanoes and forests like tapestries; rare ferns, orchids, and waterfalls; this vanilla-scented island is indeed a tropical paradise.

  PARIS: PRINCE FELIX YOUSSOPOFF

  In Paris I had a rendezvous that delighted me, a visit to the past, to Prince Felix Youssopoff, the beautiful, royal, dignified homosexual who murdered Rasputin. I have tried hard to get in touch with this remote figure each time I’ve come to Paris. This time my contacts, Tony Gandarillas and Prince Paul, were of no help, so I telephoned him myself and asked if I could come and see him. He seemed ba
ffled. What did I want? I told him and he said he did not want to be photographed, but yes I could come and talk to him. I had trouble in finding the street and the house. When I rang at an orange-red painted gate there was no reply. Parents waiting for their children to come out of a school watched with curiosity while I rang in vain. At last the door was opened by the Prince, very sprightly in spite of his seventy-nine years, a tall figure in blue serge, like a cavalry officer or ski instructor.

  We sat in a small, dark sitting room full of ikons, démodé photographs and huge Czarist portraits. He spoke in a deep Russian voice, very racé, with innate dignity. He is almost blind but his eyes are still beautiful and deep-lidded and had been liberally made-up with dark pencil. He talked of mutual friends: Diana Cooper, Marjorie Anglesey; but he seemed preoccupied and disinterested in the Paris of today that I know. Rather he was involved in helping people who are nervously upset or even a bit mad. He says that often nervous troubles are alleviated by being aired to strangers. He is mixed up in all sorts of religious, mystical, occult ideas and showed me a whole series of paintings of fantastic heads that he had done in ink and water-colour. He had never painted before, and once he had done these heads and put them away in a cupboard the talent had left him.

  I’m told he is very stingy, but does have money. Today he was worried that the pipes in the house in the country had burst and he would have to pay for a whole new heating system. His Russian housekeeper appeared with wine and biscuits which we ate in this awful little dining room. The bedroom was a charming room with tall windows letting in a lot of light. There were many mementoes of the past; portraits in pastel and oil, etchings, and photographs. The furniture was cream-coloured and the huge cane-work imitation Louis XIV bed had belonged to Grand Duchess Dagmar; the enormous dressing-table with a three-fold mirror was covered with a vast array of bottles, and make-up pencils of every colour.

  A certain resistance to being photographed was soon worn down and the old boy posed with extreme dignity. There was nothing ludicrous about him and he defied one’s amusement. It was amazing to see this gaunt, birdlike man, whose sculpted head appeared on the chimney-piece, and on bookshelves, and who was photographed in Imperial pearls, now sitting in this microcosm of another age and another world.

  He did not seem to have any regrets. His wife was in bed, ill of a cold. He seems to get along well with her, but is said to be ungenerous with their daughter who now has a debutante to launch.

  It would have been an even more interesting morning if I had dared broach the subject of the Rasputin murder, but I was already late for lunch with Lilian so that topic must wait until the next time.

  Part X: Return to Hollywood, 1963

  HOLLYWOOD REVISITED

  February 19th

  I was going to Hollywood to work on the film of My Fair Lady. But could I really be going away for one whole year? Would there be no glimpse of England in summer? Would I miss my garden?

  Not that London, or the country, had been particularly pleasant during the last two months. In fact ever since the return from East Africa the snow, ice and Alaskan cold had made travel even between Salisbury and London somewhat difficult.

  The work at Covent Garden designing Turandot and Freddie Ashton’s new ballet, Marguerite et Armand, had been arduous. The strain had been intense, and my physical condition was weakened by a long bout of colitis.

  Thirty-five years ago I could think of nothing more wonderful than going to Hollywood to work on designing a great film. But Hollywood has changed and so have I.

  Eleven hours after flying over ice floes, icebergs, snow-capped, jagged mountains, a white frozen world from which one would never be saved if forced to make a landing, the jet plane landed in a mist in an unrecognisably enlarged Los Angeles airfield. We were ahead of schedule, by one hour, so the great Irving Lazar was not there to meet me, but a nice note of welcome and flowers from various friends greeted me at the hotel.

  Memories floated back of my first visit here when Hollywood was all Spanish. Anita Loos, Gloria Swanson and the Fairbanks were reigning; memories of Ina Claire, and photograph sessions for Vanity Fair. How thrilled I had been to be allowed inside a studio; to pass the police at the door was like entering the pearly gates. I remembered the time we rehearsed and played Lady Windermere here, and most poignant of all were the memories of Greta, of the days when I did not know her, when I met her, and the last time she lived here, and here was her house from which I used to walk back, very tired, late at night, hardly able to manage the steep incline of the drive to the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  Irving Lazar, my brilliant agent, came to my room to give me a few pointers: I’d go on the payroll tomorrow. I’d better find a little house of some sort as I was going to be here a considerable time. Irving, a mole-sized giant, fives in a vast luxurious apartment-block; he has a large collection of modern pictures, including a Picasso; the dollar bills roll in and roll out, and his car was, of course, a marvellous café-au-lait and black Rolls.

  We went to a charming house for dinner. By the time the evening was over it was according to English time seven-thirty in the morning. Little wonder that the evening had gone by in somewhat of a haze. But the bright talk, about films, had seemed amusing and a new Hollywood was already unfolding itself to me.

  February 24th

  An evening with Christopher Isherwood and Don Bacardy at their house by the sea was an utter delight. Christopher biting and munching his lips, blinking his eyes, and sitting in a blue window, talked with such wealth of interest. Stravinsky was suddenly stricken and couldn’t come, which was a minor disaster, but his wife Vera and Bob Craft contributed to a most sympathetic and charmingly civilised evening.

  Vera Stravinsky had been the Queen in Sleeping Beauty and kept laughing about her age. ‘I’m not going to tell you how old I am.’ She is a lesson in how to compensate for lost youth and beauty. She is now fat, and a mess, but she has style which does not make one regret anything. She has acquired a robust magnanimity towards the world. She has the common touch, and knows how to remain pure in this most drossy of worlds. Madame Stravinsky, a Scandinavian who is more Russian than the natives of Russia, was at her best from the moment that she entered the house and started reminiscing about Diaghileff. He was such a dandy, but because he was hopeless about money and keeping up his wardrobe, his underclothes were found to be full of holes when he died. He was a wonderful impresario; he was susceptible to energetic youth. All the boys suffered when he died; one of them went so far as to polish the nails of the dead man.

  It is interesting to note how the Stravinskys, Christopher, Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard are hardly conscious, in their own little world out here, of the vulgarity around them.

  March

  This evening was a real change. The Brodys were giving a party for the French Ambassador and his wife and Mary Lasker, and the Wrightsmans had arranged for me to be asked. The Brodys live in a large modern house filled with contemporary pictures and sculpture. It is everything a modern house should be, with ceilings open to the skies, large plate-glass walls, gardens filled with Rodin, Giacometti and Maillot; and indoors, great trees growing. The effect of tropical green leaves against Picassos is exciting. One wall was taken up by a vast Matisse ceramic. Seventy people sat at tables decorated with red rose umbrellas. An enormous number of magnums were drunk and the French Ambassador in a speech complimented the host on the excellence of Californian wines. People have given millions, and collected more millions, to make Los Angeles a worthy place. Up until now people living here have not had much civic sense, perhaps because they felt they had no roots here. But now it is different. California has developed enormously, and with its electronics, motors, oil and nuclear experiments is one of the most important states in the country, and Los Angeles is its principal city.

  Dinner with Merle Oberon

  Irving and Ellin Berlin were fellow guests at Merle Oberon’s dinner party. Irving is amazingly young for seventy-five. He has the grand man
ner combined with the personality of a little boy. He told about song hits that weren’t recognised at first, about Ethel Levey, George M. Cohen, Fanny Brice, the Dolly sisters and Charles Dingham. He reminisced about Gaby Deslys, ‘plump but a star’; she said ‘crapped’ up the stairs instead of crept.

  Ellin was relaxed but tough. Irving said, ‘You’re very bitchy tonight. Friends will wonder how I stayed married to you all these years.’ Merle was at her very best; relaxed, calm, no hostess’s giggles or wild eyes. She looked beautiful in a Japanese kimono; only the house was awry, but that can’t be mentioned. The sympathetic, cosy and interesting evening had another merit — it was over by ten o’clock.

  A NEW FRIEND

  March 24th

  I went to San Francisco for the weekend and there I met Kin Hoitsma, a tall Scandinavian boy who struck me as being particularly sensitive and gentle. He had the most sweet smile. Eventually we talked with one another. I discovered by baffling degrees that he was an art historian, working for his degree and studying and lecturing at Berkeley University.

  His apartment had dried grasses on the window-sill and eight daffodils were very charming in a black pot. There was everywhere evidence of little money, but pure taste. He had cut up a book of Picasso drawings to hang on the walls of his lavatory.

  Kin turned out to be someone of the utmost simplicity and honesty and intellectual integrity. He presented a tremendous challenge, and although essentially a difficult character, solitary and deep thinking, he inspired me to the sort of gentle emotion that I have not felt for a long time.