Leonard Bentley
Piccadilly Circus: 1956
This is a Photographic Greeting Card Co. Ltd postcard showing an after dark view of Piccadilly Circus looking north along Shaftesbury Avenue. The advertisement below the Guinness clock is for the Dino de Laurentis and Carlo Ponti film production of “War and Peace” starring Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer and a young Jeremy Brett who would later play the definitive Sherlock Holmes on TV. The film played at the Plaza cinema in Lower Regent Street from 21st November 1956 until 26th June 1957. I think that this is late 1956 because there is another advertisement under the advertisement for “War and Peace”. The words “Determined to Live” can be made out and a line at the top of the hoarding says, “Have you the courage to fight back”. In October 1956 a book with the title “Determined to Live” was published, the author was the Rev. Brian Hession who was a director of the Dawn Trust an organisation set up to produce Christian films. In 1954 whilst in America he had been diagnosed with Cancer, the operation was to give him eight more years during which time he became a campaigner for Cancer research and wrote the book about his struggle with the disease. In January 1957 he was the subject of a “This is Your Life” programme with Eamon Andrews, he complained after the show was broadcast that he had been tricked by the BBC into appearing, not the first or last subject to make such an allegation. The former premises of Monico’s Restaurant underneath the Coca-Cola sign is now owned by the Ice Cream and Milk Bar King, Charles Forte who reopened the restaurant in 1954, it having been out of commission since the end of the war. He named the Restaurant, “Forte’s Popular Restaurant”, perhaps to distinguish it from several up-market Restaurants he owned and ran in the west end.
Piccadilly Circus: 1956
This is a Photographic Greeting Card Co. Ltd postcard showing an after dark view of Piccadilly Circus looking north along Shaftesbury Avenue. The advertisement below the Guinness clock is for the Dino de Laurentis and Carlo Ponti film production of “War and Peace” starring Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer and a young Jeremy Brett who would later play the definitive Sherlock Holmes on TV. The film played at the Plaza cinema in Lower Regent Street from 21st November 1956 until 26th June 1957. I think that this is late 1956 because there is another advertisement under the advertisement for “War and Peace”. The words “Determined to Live” can be made out and a line at the top of the hoarding says, “Have you the courage to fight back”. In October 1956 a book with the title “Determined to Live” was published, the author was the Rev. Brian Hession who was a director of the Dawn Trust an organisation set up to produce Christian films. In 1954 whilst in America he had been diagnosed with Cancer, the operation was to give him eight more years during which time he became a campaigner for Cancer research and wrote the book about his struggle with the disease. In January 1957 he was the subject of a “This is Your Life” programme with Eamon Andrews, he complained after the show was broadcast that he had been tricked by the BBC into appearing, not the first or last subject to make such an allegation. The former premises of Monico’s Restaurant underneath the Coca-Cola sign is now owned by the Ice Cream and Milk Bar King, Charles Forte who reopened the restaurant in 1954, it having been out of commission since the end of the war. He named the Restaurant, “Forte’s Popular Restaurant”, perhaps to distinguish it from several up-market Restaurants he owned and ran in the west end.