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I will be away for awhile... This song is where I am today. I will return
"It Ain't Easy"
Keeping it Real
I take a shot of Henessey now I'm strong enough to face the madness
Nickel bag full of sess weed laced with hash
Phone calls from my niggaz on the, other side
Two childhood friends just died, I couldn't cry
A damn shame, when will we ever change
And what remains from a twelve gauge to the brain
Arguements with my Boo is true
I spend mo' time with my niggaz than I do with you
But everywhere it's the same thang, that's the game
I'll be damned if a thang changed, fuck the fame
I'll be hustling to make a mill-ion, lord knows
Ain't no love for us ghetto children, so we cold
Rag top slowin down, time to stop for gas
Beep my horn for a hoochie with a proper ass, uhh
It ain't easy, that's my motto
Drinkin Tanqueray straight out the bottle
Everybody wanna know if I'm insane
My baby (DADDY) gotta mind full of silly games
And all the drama got me stressin like I'm hopeless, I can't cope
Me and the homies smokin roaches, cause we broke
Late night hangin out til the sunrise gettin high
Watchin the cops roll by
It ain't easy... that's right
It ain't easy, being me
Will I see the penitentiary, or will I stay free
I can't sleep niggaz plottin on to kill me while I'm dreamin
Wake up sweaty and screamin, cause I can hear them suckers schemin
Probably paranoid, problem is, them punks be fantasizin
A brother bite the bullet, open fire and I died
I wonder why this the way it is, even now
Lookin out for these killer kids, cause they wild
Bill Clinton can you recognize a nigga representin
Doin twenty to life in San Quentin
Gettin calls from my nigga Mike Tyson, ain't nuttin nice
Yo 'Pac, do something righteous witcha life
And even thou you innocent you still a nigga, so they figure
Rather have you behind bars than triggers
But I'm hold ya down and holla Thug Life, lickin shots
Til I see my niggaz free on the block
But no it ain't easy, hahahah
Til I see my niggaz free, on the block, oh
It ain't easy
Lately been reminiscin
bout Peppermint Schnapps in Junior High hit the block
Keep an eye on the cops while D-Boys slang rocks
It's the project kid without a conscience, I'm havin dreams
of hearin screams at my concerts, me all my childhood peers
through the years tryin to stack a little green
I was only seventeen, when I started servin fiends
And I wish there was another way to stack a dollar
So my apoli', casue these hard times make me wanna holler
Will I live to see tommorrow, am I fallin off?
I hit the weed and then proceed to say fuck all of y'all
Ain't nobody down with me I'm thuggin, I can't go home
Cause muh-fuckers think I'm buggin, so now I'm in
this high powered cell at the county jail
Punk judge got a grudge, can't post no bail, what
do I do in these county blues
Gettin battered and bruised by the you know who
And these fakes get to shakin when they face me
Snakes ain't got enough nuts to replace me
Sittin in this, livin hell, listenin to niggaz yell
Tryin to torture em to tell, I'm gettin mail
But ain't nobody sayin much, the same old nuts
is makin bucks while these sluts is gettin fucked
They violated my probation, and it seems
I'll be goin on a long vacation, meanwhile
It ain't easy
No it ain't easy
Tanqueray Gin.
My first try at some "still life". I want to develop this theme in 2015.
Constructive comments welcome, especially from the more experienced in this field.
Make-up shot for 256.365 and my week hosting Musically Challenged. Haha..
The day I had planned on taking it, Amy Winehouse passed away. And I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to do things that appear to be as if I'm looking or asking for attention; because I'm just not purposely trying to do that. So, I waited b/c I didn't want it to necessarily be a tribute to Amy, in lieu of her death, but rather b/c I like the song. And I love Stella Artois - but not from a can.
Meet you downstairs in the bar and hurt,
Your rolled up sleeves in your skull t-shirt,
You say "what did you do with him today?",
And sniffed me out like I was Tanqueray,
'Cause you're my fella, my guy,
Hand me your stella and fly,
By the time I'm out the door,
You tear men down like Roger Moore,
I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
Upstairs in bed, with my ex boy,
He's in a place, but I can't get joy,
Thinking on you in the final throes,
This is when my buzzer goes,
Run out to meet you, chips and pitta,
You say 'when we married",
'cause you're not bitter,
"There'll be none of him no more,"
I cried for you on the kitchen floor,
I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good,
Sweet reunion, Jamaica and Spain,
We're like how we were again,
I'm in the tub, you on the seat,
Lick your lips as I soak my feet,
Then you notice little carpet burn,
My stomach drops and my guts churn,
You shrug and it's the worst,
Who truly stuck the knife in first
I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good
PRODUCTION: The Second Mrs Tanqueray
TYPE: drama in 4 acts
PLAYWRIGHT: AW Pinero
THEATRE: revived King's Theatre, Melbourne
DATE: 17 November 1923
CAST: Irene Vanbrugh, Dion Boucicault Jr and CM Hallard
SCENERY: by George Upward
Act 1 - Mr Tanqueray's rooms, No. 2x The Albany
Acts 2, 3 & 4 - Tanqueray's House, "Highercoombe", near Willowmere, Surrey
A bitter drink that's great preparation for a meal and an Apertif. Tanqueray gin, Campari, Cinzano Rosso on the rocks.
from r.tl regional tasting lounge in Vancouver, BC, Canada. 1130 Mainland Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone 604.638.1550
Wrightbus New Bus for London - H62T
New to this Operator during June-2013.
Wearing an all over advertising wrap for “Tanqueray” is heading for Notting Hill Gate on TfL Route 390.
LTZ1037 is making a left turn from Euston Road into Gower Street , London .
17th-June-2016.
WARNING: There may be more information in the following little ditty about mrwaterslide than you are prepared to handle, and if you are at all afraid that that might be the case, don't read on.
1.) Not yet two-years-old, I put the Drano in the goldfish bowl.
2.) Out with the family for Sunday dinner at the Old Washington Inn (a little flea-bite town whose sole claim to fame was that Morgan's Raiders had come riding through), I locked the front door, a deed undiscovered for close to an hour. My mother says that my father had to give them a substantial sum of money to make-up for their loss of business.
3.) I had a rubber ball, or a series of rubber balls, that I bounced and caught, bounced and caught, bounced and caught, bounced and caught, bounced and caught, bounced and caught, indoors and out, against the house, against the wallpaper, against the brick wall in the garden, on and on, again and again, almost neverending. Once, when the ball rolled into the next room, my grandmother got it and put it in her apron. I knew that she had it. I asked her if she had it. She said she hadn't seen it. I was stymied. I couldn't call my grandmother a liar. I think I went for the rest of the day without my rubber ball.
4.) I first got to second base at the Boy Scout National Jamboree held at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. Me and some other guy whose name might have been Ricky struck-up a conversation with these two girls who claimed to be Candy Stripers at a local King-of-Prussia hospital. Maybe they had their Candy Stripers uniforms on, which would give the story a little Japanese erotic kinky twist, except that I was not yet a dirty-old-man. We walked them all-the-way to the other side of the park, and bade them a prolonged groping goodbye. When we got back to our group, we had been found-out as curfew violators and were confined to our tents for the whole of the next day, until the next evening when they let us out to go hear LBJ, who flew in in a helicopter and vigorously defended his Viet Nam policy. While we were in the tent together, Ricky and I listened to that song about how "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, you've got to marry an ugly wife," and Ricky pointed out the dirty lyrics.
5.) The day The White Album came out, we (the guys on my end of the hall in the dorm) got a bottle of Tanqueray and all got drunk. When the record got to that line in "Rocky Raccoon" about "stinking of gin," we all roared with laughter. Larry Goldblatt, who didn't drink and whose parents had a lot of money (most everyone there had parents who had more money than my parents had), came in with his $350 camera (when $350 was a lot of money---probably it was a Leica) and began taking pictures.
I remember looking up at him, helpless and well-neigh delirious, and thinking "Oh shit," or words to that effect. He took our photographs and made them in to postcards, and, when Christmas break came around, he sent one to each of us, at our home addresses. I went to the mailbox that day, and when I saw the card and that image of my drunken self, hair matted to my head, and realized what it was, I tore it into pieces and threw it in the trash, to my everlasting shame.
6.) I owned Bausch & Lomb @ $192 a share and rode it all the way down, like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, to something like $32 a share, where I sold it. I sold my Twenty-Century Fox stock just before Rupert Murdock made the tender offer and it skyrocketed. I bought defense industry put options when Reagan took office, thinking I would make some money, if nothing else, out of his presidency. The stock market tanked and soon my $8000 had vanished.
7.) Riding in the car on the way to the church for my grandmother's funeral, my grandfather (a Methodist preacher) told me that he had always hoped I would be the one to carry on his ministry.
8.) I am a member of The In-The-Middle-Of-The-Pedernales-River Club. I am a member of The On-A-Levee-By-The-Mississippi Club. I am a member of The On-Top-Of-A-Fire-Tower Club. I am not a member of The Mile-High Club.
9.) Once, sitting with my girlfriend on the roof of my house in Missouri with a beer and a cigarette, watching the sun go down (our almost nightly ritual) I looked up directly overhead and saw Jesus Christ, or at least that Christ imaged in the Shroud of Turin, but only from the waist up. It wasn't like kind-of like that Christ---it was the spitting image of that Shroud of Turin Christ, only it was a cloud, of course. "Look at that," I said to my girlfriend, and she looked up and said, "It's Jesus Christ."
10.) I have a $2400 burn on my legs. At work one night, in too much of a hurry, I opened a pressurized steam jacket too quickly to check on a pot roast that was boiling in a 600 pan. A Niagara Falls of boiling water came leaping out at me. The burn on my right leg is an almost perfectly formed rectangle, not really noticeable.
The burn on my left leg is shaped like a medium-sized Idaho potato. When I had been going up to the Burn Unit for three or four weeks to have the dressing changed, one of the nurses said, "I wonder why they didn't give you a skin graft," looking at the burn on my left leg. When I saw people who had really bad burns, I knew I was lucky.
The burns itch like crazy in the wintertime. I was disappointed that I didn't get more money.
11.) I may well be a father. The last time I saw her, she looked to be about four-months pregnant, but she was with her husband in the produce aisle at the grocery store, and I couldn't very well go up to her and ask her how she was doing.
It's a Long Short Story, of course, and, as I tell my Latin friends, "mi no culpable."
12.) Me being impulsive and all, if you asked me just now which historical figure I would like to return as, I would say, "Johnny Appleseed."
13.) I am not the kind of person who has no regrets. When Tom Rush sings that song called "No Regrets," about how he's walking away and he has "no regrets," the regret in his voice is palpable. That song is on an album called, "The Urge For Going," which is the second album (vinyl) I ever bought, and Tom Rush's version of Joni Mitchell's song "The Urge For Going," is undoubtedly my favorite song of all-time.
I would lie in bed at night with my little transitor radio and listen to WBZ Boston, hoping against hope that they would play that song. Later, in college, I dated a girl from Bryn Mawr who told me that the girls in her suite at her private girl's school drew straws to see who got to spend the night with Tom Rush. She never did tell me if she was the one who got the short straw.
14.) I don't believe in that astrology crap, but I read somewhere that Capricorn's are late-bloomers, and I'm counting on that.
15.) On my tombstone, it will say, "He Never Voted For A Republican President." However, the thought of mouldering in the ground disgusts me, and I plan to be cremated.
16.) I can't believe I ever was as a happy as the person in this photograph seems to be. In fact, I can't believe that the person in this photograph was that happy. He was not a particularly nice person, at that point in his life. Fact is, he may not be a particularly nice person even now. He is, however, capable of goodness and decency, nice or not. As someone told him just the other day, "Chef, if it wasn't for white folks like you, and I mean this sincerely, Obama could never have become President." That sentence felt less like vindication than redemption.
He hopes to be this happy again someday, and soon.
A 2000 creation from Audrey Saunders. When she created it in 2000, there was a public's fear of gin in the USA and this drink acted as an ambassador for gin, being somewhere between a Mojito and a Moscow Mule, but with its own, distinctive, character.
Recipe:
• 45 ml Tanqueray Gin
• 30 ml Ginger Beer
• 22,5 ml Lime Juice
• 22,5 ml Simple Syrup
• 10 Big Leaves of Mint
• Saline Solution
• Sprig of Mint
Execution:
1. Chill the highball glass.
2. Fill the glass with a clear ice bar.
3. Place 10 big mint leaves into boston shaker
4. Muddle the mint leaves with the lime juice and the simple syrup in a boston shaker
5. Add the gin.
6. Add 3 drops of the saline solution into the shaker.
7. Add a 5 cm ice cube and two smaller ones into the shaker.
8. Shake for 10 seconds.
9. Add the ginger beer into the glass.
10. Double strain into the glass.
11. Put a straw into the glass.
12. Garnish with a mint sprig.
Steely Dan is an American rock duo founded in 1972 by core members Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Blending rock, jazz, latin music, reggae, traditional pop, R&B, blues,[2] and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics, the band enjoyed critical and commercial success starting from the early 1970s until breaking up in 1981.[2] Throughout their career, the duo recorded with a revolving cast of session musicians, and in 1974 retired from live performances to become a studio-only band. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies".[4]
After the group disbanded in 1981, Becker and Fagen were less active throughout most of the next decade, though a cult following[2] remained devoted to the group. Since reuniting in 1993, Steely Dan has toured steadily and released two albums of new material, the first of which, Two Against Nature, earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. They have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001.[5][6][7][8] VH1 ranked Steely Dan at #82 on their list of the 100 greatest musical artists of all time.[9] Founding member Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017, leaving Fagen as the sole official member.
Contents
1History
1.1Formative and early years (1967–1972)
1.2Can't Buy a Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy (1972–1973)
1.3Pretzel Logic and Katy Lied (1974–1976)
1.4The Royal Scam and Aja (1976–1978)
1.5Gaucho and breakup (1978–1981)
1.6Time off (1981–1993)
1.7Reunion, Alive in America (1993–2000)
1.8Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go (2000–2003)
1.8.1Firing of Roger Nichols
1.9Touring, solo activity (2003–2017)
1.10After Becker's death (2017–present)
2Musical and lyrical style
2.1Music
2.1.1Overall sound
2.1.2Backing vocals
2.1.3Horns
2.1.4Composition and chord use
2.2Lyrics
3Members
3.1Timeline
4Discography
5See also
6References
7External links
History
Formative and early years (1967–1972)
Becker and Fagen met in 1967 at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. As Fagen passed by a café, The Red Balloon, he heard Becker practicing the electric guitar.[10] In an interview, Fagen recounted the experience: "I hear this guy practicing, and it sounded very professional and contemporary. It sounded like, you know, like a black person, really."[10] He introduced himself to Becker and asked, "Do you want to be in a band?"[10] Discovering that they enjoyed similar music, the two began writing songs together.
Becker and Fagen began playing in local groups. One such group, known as the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, the Bad Rock Group and later the Leather Canary, included future comedy star Chevy Chase on drums. They played covers of songs by The Rolling Stones ("Dandelion"), Moby Grape ("Hey Grandma"), and Willie Dixon ("Spoonful"), as well as some original compositions.[10] Terence Boylan, another Bard musician, remembered that Fagen took readily to the beatnik life while attending college: "They never came out of their room, they stayed up all night. They looked like ghosts—black turtlenecks and skin so white that it looked like yogurt. Absolutely no activity, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and dope."[10] Fagen himself would later remember it as "probably the only time in my life that I actually had friends."[11]
After Fagen graduated in 1969, the two moved to Brooklyn and tried to peddle their tunes in the Brill Building in midtown Manhattan. Kenny Vance (of Jay and the Americans), who had a production office in the building, took an interest in their music, which led to work on the soundtrack of the low-budget Richard Pryor film You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat. Becker later said bluntly, "We did it for the money."[12] A series of demos from 1968 to 1971 are available in multiple different releases, not authorized by Becker and Fagen.[13] This collection features approximately 25 tracks and is notable for its sparse arrangements (Fagen plays solo piano on many songs) and lo-fi production, a contrast with Steely Dan's later work. Although some of these songs ("Caves of Altamira", "Brooklyn", "Barrytown") were re-recorded for Steely Dan albums, most were never officially released.
Becker and Fagen joined the touring band of Jay and the Americans for about a year and a half.[14] They were at first paid $100 per show, but partway through their tenure the band's tour manager cut their salaries in half.[14] The group's lead singer, Jay Black, dubbed Becker and Fagen "the Manson and Starkweather of rock 'n' roll", referring to cult leader Charles Manson and spree killer Charles Starkweather.[14]
They had little success after moving to Brooklyn, although Barbra Streisand recorded their song "I Mean To Shine" on her 1971 Barbra Joan Streisand album. Their fortunes changed when one of Vance's associates, Gary Katz, moved to Los Angeles to become a staff producer for ABC Records. He hired Becker and Fagen as staff songwriters; they flew to California. Katz would produce all their 1970s albums in collaboration with engineer Roger Nichols. Nichols would win six Grammy Awards for his work with the band from the 1970s to 2001.[15]
After realizing that their songs were too complex for other ABC artists, at Katz's suggestion Becker and Fagen formed their own band with guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder and singer David Palmer, and Katz signed them to ABC as recording artists. Fans of Beat Generation literature, Fagen and Becker named the band after a "revolutionary" steam-powered dildo mentioned in the William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch.[16][17][18] Palmer joined as a second lead vocalist because of Fagen's occasional stage fright, his reluctance to sing in front of an audience, and because the label believed that his voice was not "commercial" enough.
In 1972, ABC issued Steely Dan's first single, "Dallas", backed with "Sail the Waterway". Distribution of "stock" copies available to the general public was apparently extremely limited;[19] the single sold so poorly that promotional copies are much more readily available than stock copies in today's collectors market. As of 2015, "Dallas" and "Sail the Waterway" are the only officially released Steely Dan tracks that have not been reissued on cassette or compact disc. In an interview (1995), Becker and Fagen called the songs "stinko."[20] "Dallas" was later covered by Poco on their Head Over Heels album.
Can't Buy a Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy (1972–1973)
Can't Buy a Thrill, Steely Dan's debut album, was released in 1972. Its hit singles "Do It Again" and "Reelin' In the Years" reached No. 6 and No. 11 respectively on the Billboard singles chart. Along with "Dirty Work" (sung by David Palmer), the songs became staples on classic rock radio.
Because of Fagen's reluctance to sing live, Palmer handled most of the vocal duties on stage. During the first tour, however, Katz and Becker decided that they preferred Fagen's interpretations of the band's songs, persuading him to take over. Palmer quietly left the group while it recorded its second album. He wrote the No. 2 hit "Jazzman" (1974) with Carole King.
Released in 1973, Countdown to Ecstasy was not as commercially successful as Steely Dan's first album. Becker and Fagen were unhappy with some of the performances on the record and believed that it sold poorly because it had been recorded hastily on tour. The album's singles were "Show Biz Kids" and "My Old School", both of which stayed in the lower half of the Billboard charts (though "My Old School" and—to a lesser extent—"Bodhisattva" became minor FM Rock staples in time).
Pretzel Logic and Katy Lied (1974–1976)
Guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter left Steely Dan in 1974 when they ceased performing live and began working in the studio exclusively.
Pretzel Logic was released in early 1974. A diverse set, it includes the group's most successful single, "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" (No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100), and a note-for-note rendition of Duke Ellington and James "Bubber" Miley's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo".
During the previous album's tour, the band had added vocalist-percussionist Royce Jones, vocalist-keyboardist Michael McDonald, and session drummer Jeff Porcaro.[21] Porcaro played the sole drum track on one song, "Night By Night" on Pretzel Logic (Jim Gordon played drums on all the remaining tracks, and he and Porcaro both played on "Parker's Band"), reflecting Steely Dan's increasing reliance on session musicians (including Dean Parks and Rick Derringer). Jeff Porcaro and Katy Lied pianist David Paich would go on to form Toto. Striving for perfection, Becker and Fagen sometimes asked musicians to record as many as forty takes of each track.[22]
Pretzel Logic was the first Steely Dan album to feature Walter Becker on guitar. "Once I met [session musician] Chuck Rainey", he explained, "I felt there really was no need for me to be bringing my bass guitar to the studio anymore".[22]
A rift began growing between Becker-Fagen and Steely Dan's other members (particularly Baxter and Hodder), who wanted to tour. Becker and Fagen disliked constant touring and wanted to concentrate solely on writing and recording. The other members gradually left the band, discouraged by this and by their diminishing roles in the studio. However, Dias remained with the group until 1980's Gaucho and Michael McDonald contributed vocals until the group's twenty-year hiatus after Gaucho. Baxter and McDonald went on to join The Doobie Brothers. Steely Dan's last tour performance was on July 5, 1974, a concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California.[23]
Becker and Fagen recruited a diverse group of session players for Katy Lied (1975), including Porcaro, Paich, and McDonald, as well as guitarist Elliott Randall, jazz saxophonist Phil Woods, saxophonist/bass-guitarist Wilton Felder, percussionist/vibraphonist/keyboardist Victor Feldman, keyboardist (and later producer) Michael Omartian, and guitarist Larry Carlton—Dias, Becker, and Fagen being Steely Dan's only original members. The album went gold on the strength of "Black Friday" and "Bad Sneakers", but Becker and Fagen were so dissatisfied with the album's sound (compromised by a faulty DBX noise reduction system) that they publicly apologized for it (on the album's back cover) and for years refused to listen to it in its final form.[24] Katy Lied also included "Doctor Wu" and "Chain Lightning".
The Royal Scam and Aja (1976–1978)
The Royal Scam was released in May 1976. Partly because of Carlton's prominent contributions, it is the band's most guitar-oriented album. It also features performances by session drummer Bernard Purdie. The album sold well in the United States, though without the strength of a hit single. "Haitian Divorce" (Top 20) drove sales in the UK, becoming Steely Dan's first major hit in that country.[25] Steely Dan's sixth album, the jazz-influenced Aja, was released in September 1977. Aja reached the Top Five in the U.S. charts within three weeks, winning the Grammy award for "Engineer – Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical." It was also one of the first American LPs to be certified 'platinum' for sales of over 1 million albums.[26][27]
Roger [Nichols] made those records sound like they did. He was extraordinary in his willingness and desire to make records sound better.[28] The records we did could not have been done without Roger. He was just maniacal about making the sound of the records be what we liked... He always thought there was a better way to do it, and he would find a way to do what we needed to in ways that other people hadn't done yet.[29]
~ Steely Dan producer Gary Katz regarding Roger Nichols' role in the band's recording legacy.
Featuring Michael McDonald's backing vocals, "Peg" (No. 11) was the album's first single, followed by "Josie" (No. 26) and "Deacon Blues" (No. 19). Aja solidified Becker's and Fagen's reputations as songwriters and studio perfectionists. It features such jazz and fusion luminaries as guitarists Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour; bassist Chuck Rainey; saxophonists Wayne Shorter, Pete Christlieb, and Tom Scott; drummers Steve Gadd, Rick Marotta and Bernard Purdie; pianist Joe Sample and ex-Miles Davis pianist/vibraphonist Victor Feldman and Grammy award-winning producer/arranger Michael Omartian (piano).
Planning to tour in support of Aja, Steely Dan assembled a live band. Rehearsal ended and the tour was canceled when backing musicians began comparing pay.[30] The album's history was documented in an episode of the TV and DVD series Classic Albums.
After Aja's success, Becker and Fagen were asked to write the title track for the movie FM. The movie was a box-office disaster, but the song was a hit, earning Steely Dan another engineering Grammy award. It was a minor hit in the UK and barely missed the Top 20 in the U.S.A.[25]
Gaucho and breakup (1978–1981)
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Becker and Fagen took a break from songwriting for most of 1978 before starting work on Gaucho. The project would not go smoothly: technical, legal, and personal setbacks delayed the album's release and subsequently led Becker and Fagen to suspend their partnership for over a decade.
Misfortune struck early when an assistant engineer accidentally erased most of "The Second Arrangement", a favorite track of Katz and Nichols,[31] which was never recovered. More trouble — this time legal — followed. In March 1979, MCA Records bought ABC, and for much of the next two years Steely Dan could not release an album. Becker and Fagen had planned on leaving ABC for Warner Bros. Records, but MCA claimed ownership of their music, preventing them from changing labels.
Turmoil in Becker's personal life also interfered. His girlfriend died of a drug overdose in their Upper West Side apartment, and he was sued for $17 million. Becker settled out of court, but he was shocked by the accusations and by the tabloid press coverage that followed. Soon after, Becker was struck by a taxi while crossing a Manhattan street, shattering his right leg in several places and forcing him to use crutches.
Still more legal trouble was to come. Jazz composer Keith Jarrett sued Steely Dan for copyright infringement, claiming that they had based Gaucho's title track on one of his compositions, "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" (Fagen later admitted that he'd loved the song and that it had been a strong influence).[32]
Gaucho was finally released in November 1980. Despite its tortured history, it was another major success. The album's first single, "Hey Nineteen", reached No. 10 on the pop chart in early 1981, and "Time Out of Mind" (featuring guitarist Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits) was a moderate hit in the spring. "My Rival" was featured in John Huston's 1980 film Phobia. Roger Nichols won a third engineering Grammy award for his work on the album.
Time off (1981–1993)
Steely Dan disbanded in June 1981.[33] Becker and his family moved to Maui, where he became an "avocado rancher and self-styled critic of the contemporary scene."[34] He stopped using drugs, which he had used for most of his career.[35][36][37] Meanwhile, Fagen released a solo album, The Nightfly (1982), which went platinum in both the U.S. and the U.K. and yielded the Top Twenty hit "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)." In 1988 Fagen wrote the score of Bright Lights, Big City and a song for its soundtrack, but otherwise recorded little. He occasionally did production work for other artists, as did Becker. The most prominent of these were two albums Becker produced for the British sophisti-pop group China Crisis, who were strongly influenced by Steely Dan.[38] Becker is listed as an official member of China Crisis on the first of these albums, 1985's Flaunt the Imperfection, and played keyboards on the band's Top 20 UK hit "Black Man Ray". For the second of the two albums, 1989's Diary of a Hollow Horse, Becker is only listed as a producer and not as a band member.
In 1986 Becker and Fagen performed on Zazu, an album by former model Rosie Vela produced by Gary Katz.[39] The two rekindled their friendship and held songwriting sessions between 1986 and 1987, leaving the results unfinished.[40] On October 23, 1991, Becker attended a concert by New York Rock and Soul Revue, co-founded by Fagen and producer/singer Libby Titus (who was for many years the partner of Levon Helm of The Band and would later become Fagen's wife), and spontaneously performed with the group.
Becker produced Fagen's second solo album, Kamakiriad, in 1993. Fagen conceived the album as a sequel to The Nightfly.[citation needed]
Reunion, Alive in America (1993–2000)
Steely Dan, shown here in 2007, toured frequently after reforming in 1993.
Becker and Fagen reunited for an American tour to support Kamakiriad, which sold poorly despite a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. With Becker playing lead and rhythm guitar, the pair assembled a band that included a second keyboard player, second lead guitarist, bassist, drummer, vibraphonist, three female backing singers, and four-piece saxophone section. Among the musicians from the live band, several would continue to work with Steely Dan over the next decade, including bassist Tom Barney and saxophone players Cornelius Bumpus and Chris Potter. During this tour, Fagen introduced himself as "Rick Strauss" and Becker as "Frank Poulenc".
The next year, MCA released Citizen Steely Dan, a boxed set featuring their entire catalog (except their debut single "Dallas"/"Sail The Waterway") on four CDs, plus four extra tracks: "Here at the Western World" (originally released on 1978's "Greatest Hits"), "FM" (1978 single), a 1971 demo of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" and "Bodhisattva (live)", the latter recorded on a cassette in 1974 and released as a B-side in 1980. That year Becker released his debut solo album, 11 Tracks of Whack, which Fagen co-produced.
Steely Dan toured again in support of the boxed set and Tracks. In 1995 they released a live CD, Alive in America, compiled from recordings of several 1993 and 1994 concerts. The Art Crimes Tour followed, including dates in the United States, Japan, and their first European shows in 22 years. After this activity, Becker and Fagen returned to the studio to begin work on a new album.
Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go (2000–2003)
In 2000 Steely Dan released their first studio album in 20 years: Two Against Nature. It won four Grammy Awards: Best Engineered Album – Non-Classical, Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Pop Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal ("Cousin Dupree"), and Album of the Year (despite competition in this category from Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP and Radiohead's Kid A). In the summer of 2000, they began another American tour, followed by an international tour later that year. The tour featured guitarist Jon Herington, who would go on to play with the band over the next two decades. The group released the Plush TV Jazz-Rock Party DVD, documenting a live-in-the-studio concert performance of popular songs from throughout Steely Dan's career. In March 2001, Steely Dan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[5][6]
In 2003 Steely Dan released Everything Must Go. In contrast to their earlier work, they had tried to write music that captured a live feel. Becker sang lead vocals on a Steely Dan studio album for the first time ("Slang of Ages" — he had sung lead on his own "Book of Liars" on Alive in America). Fewer session musicians played on Everything Must Go than had become typical of Steely Dan albums: Becker played bass on every track and lead guitar on five tracks; Fagen added piano, electric piano, organ, synthesizers, and percussion on top of his vocals; touring drummer Keith Carlock played on every track.
Firing of Roger Nichols
In 2002 during the recording of Everything Must Go, Becker and Fagen fired their engineer Roger Nichols, who had worked with them for 30 years, without explanation or notification, according to band biographer Brian Sweet's 2018 revision of his book Reelin' in the Years.[41]
Touring, solo activity (2003–2017)
To complete his Nightfly trilogy, Fagen issued Morph the Cat in 2006. Steely Dan returned to annual touring that year with the Steelyard "Sugartooth" McDan and The Fab-Originees.com Tour.[42] Despite much fluctuation in membership, the live band featured mainstays Herrington, Carlock, bassist Freddie Washington, the horn section of Michael Leonhart, Jim Pugh, Roger Rosenberg, and Walt Weiskopf, and backing vocalists Carolyn Leonhart and Cindy Mizelle. The 2007 Heavy Rollers Tour included dates in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, making it their most expansive tour.[43]
The smaller Think Fast Tour followed in 2008, with keyboardist Jim Beard joining the live band. That year Becker released a second album, Circus Money, produced by Larry Klein and inspired by Jamaican music. In 2009 Steely Dan toured Europe and America extensively in their Left Bank Holiday and Rent Party Tour, alternating between standard one-date concerts at large venues and multi-night theater shows that featured performances of The Royal Scam, Aja, or Gaucho in their entirety on certain nights. The following year, Fagen formed the touring supergroup Dukes of September Rhythm Revue with McDonald, Boz Scaggs, and members of Steely Dan's live band, whose repertoire included songs by all three songwriters. Longtime studio engineer Roger Nichols died of pancreatic cancer on April 10, 2011.[44] Steely Dan's Shuffle Diplomacy Tour that year included an expanded set list and dates in Australia and New Zealand. Fagen released his fourth album, Sunken Condos, in 2012. It was his first solo release unrelated to the Nightfly trilogy.
The Mood Swings: 8 Miles to Pancake Day Tour began in July 2013 and featured an eight-night run at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.[45] Jamalot Ever After, their 2014 United States tour, ran from July 2 in Portland, Oregon to September 20 in Port Chester, New York.[46] 2015's Rockabye Gollie Angel Tour included opening act Elvis Costello and the Imposters and dates at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The Dan Who Knew Too Much tour followed in 2016, with Steve Winwood opening. Steely Dan also performed at The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with an accompanying orchestra.
The band played its final shows with Becker in 2017. In April, they played the 12-date Reelin' In the Chips residency in Las Vegas and Southern California.[47] Becker's final performance came on May 27 at the Greenwich Town Party in Greenwich, Connecticut.[48] Due to illness, Becker did not play Steely Dan's two Classics East and West concerts at Dodger Stadium and Citi Field in July.[49] Fagen embarked on a tour that summer with a new backing band, The Nightflyers.
After Becker's death (2017–present)
Becker died from complications of esophageal cancer on September 3, 2017.[50] In a note released to the media, Fagen remembered his longtime friend and bandmate, and promised to "keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band."[51] After Becker's death, Steely Dan honored commitments to perform a short North American tour in October 2017 and three concert dates in the United Kingdom and Ireland for Bluesfest on a double bill with the Doobie Brothers.[52] The band played its first concert following Becker's death in Thackerville, Oklahoma, on October 13.[52] In tribute to Becker, they performed his solo song "Book of Liars", with Fagen singing the lead vocals, at several concerts on the tour.[53]
Becker's widow and estate sued Fagen later that year, arguing that the estate should control 50% of the band's shares.[54] Fagen filed a counter suit, arguing that the band had drawn up plans in 1972 stating that band members leaving the band or dying relinquish shares of the band's output to the surviving members. In December, Fagen said that he would rather have retired the Steely Dan name after Becker's death, and would instead have toured with the current iteration of the group under another name, but was persuaded not to by promoters for commercial reasons.[55]
In 2018, Steely Dan performed on a summer tour of the United States with The Doobie Brothers as co-headliners.[56] The band also played a nine-show residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York City that October.[57] In February 2019, the band embarked on a tour of Great Britain with Steve Winwood.[58] Guitarist Connor Kennedy of The Nightflyers joined the live band, beginning with a nine-night residency at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas in April 2019.[59]
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Steely Dan among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[60]
Musical and lyrical style
Music
Overall sound
Special attention is given to the individual sound of each instrument. Recording is done with the utmost fidelity and attention to sonic detail, and mixed so that all the instruments are heard and none are given undue priority. Their albums are also notable for the characteristically 'warm' and 'dry' production sound, and the sparing use of echo and reverberation.
Backing vocals
Becker and Fagen favored a distinctly soul-influenced style of backing vocals, which after the first few albums were almost always performed by a female chorus (although Michael McDonald features prominently on several tracks, including the 1975 song "Black Friday" and the 1977 song "Peg"). Venetta Fields, Sherlie Matthews and Clydie King were the preferred trio for backing vocals on the group's late 1970s albums.[61] Other backing vocalists include Timothy B. Schmit, Tawatha Agee, Brenda White-King, Carolyn Leonhart, Janice Pendarvis, Catherine Russell, Cynthia Calhoun, Victoria Cave, Cindy Mizelle, and Jeff Young. The band also featured singers like Patti Austin and Valerie Simpson on later projects such as Gaucho.
Horns
Horn arrangements have been used on songs from all Steely Dan albums. They typically feature instruments such as trumpets, trombones and saxophones, although they have also used other instruments such as flutes and clarinets. The horn parts occasionally integrate simple synth lines to alter the tone quality of individual horn lines; for example in "Deacon Blues" this was done to "thicken" one of the saxophone lines. On their earlier albums Steely Dan featured guest arrangers and on their later albums the arrangement work is credited to Fagen.
Composition and chord use
Steely Dan is famous for their use of chord sequences and harmonies that explore the area of musical tension between traditional pop sounds and jazz. In particular, they are known for their use of the add 2 chord, a type of added tone chord, which they nicknamed the mu major.[62][63][64] Other common chords used by Steely Dan include slash chords for example Bb/C or E7/A. This notation shows a chord (shown to the left of the slash) with a note other than the tonic (shown to the right of the slash) as the lowest pitched note.[65]
Lyrics
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Steely Dan's lyrical subjects are diverse, but in their basic approach they often create fictional personae that participate in a narrative or situation. The duo have said that in retrospect, most of their albums have a "feel" of either Los Angeles or New York City, the two main cities where Becker and Fagen lived and worked. Characters appear in their songs that evoke these cities. Steely Dan's lyrics are often puzzling to the listener,[66] with the true meaning of the song "uncoded" through repeated listening, and a richer understanding of the references within the lyrics. For example, in the song "Everyone's Gone to the Movies," the line "I know you're used to 16 or more, sorry we only have eight" refers not to the count of some article, but to eight-millimeter film, which was lower quality than 16 mm or larger formats, underscoring the illicitness of Mr. Lapage's movie parties.
Thematically, Steely Dan creates a universe peopled by losers, creeps and failed dreamers, often victims of their own obsessions and delusions. These motifs are introduced in the Dan's first hit song, "Do It Again," which contains a description of a murderous cowboy who beats the gallows, a man taken advantage of by a cheating girlfriend, and an obsessive gambler, all of whom are unable to command their own destinies; similar themes of being trapped in a death spiral of one's own making appear throughout their catalog. Other themes that they explore include prejudice, aging, poverty, and middle-class ennui.
Many would argue that Steely Dan never wrote a genuine love song, instead dealing with personal passion in the guise of a destructive obsession.[67] Many of their songs concern love, but typical of Steely Dan songs is an ironic or disturbing twist in the lyrics that reveals a darker reality. For example, expressed "love" is actually about prostitution ("Pearl of the Quarter"), incest ("Cousin Dupree"), pornography ("Everyone's Gone to the Movies"), or some other socially unacceptable subject.[68] However, some of their demo-era recordings show Fagen and Becker expressing romance, including "This Seat's Been Taken", "Oh, Wow, It's You" and "Come Back Baby".
Steely Dan's lyrics contain subtle and encoded references, unusual (and sometimes original) slang expressions, a wide variety of "word games." The obscure and sometimes teasing lyrics have given rise to considerable efforts by fans to explain the "inner meaning" of certain songs.[69][70] Jazz is a recurring theme, and there are numerous other film, television and literary references and allusions, such as "Home at Last" (from Aja), which was inspired by Homer's Odyssey.
Some of their lyrics are notable for their unusual meter patterns; a prime example of this is their 1972 hit "Reelin' In the Years", which crams an unusually large number of words into each line, giving it a highly syncopated quality.
"Name dropping" is another Steely Dan lyrical device; references to real places and people abound in their songs. The song "My Old School" is an example, referring to Annandale (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, is home to Bard College, which both attended and where they met), and the Two Against Nature album (2000) contains numerous references to the duo's original region, the New York metro area, including the district of Gramercy Park, the Strand Bookstore, and the upscale food store Dean & DeLuca. In the song "Glamour Profession" the conclusion of a drug deal is celebrated with dumplings at Mr. Chow, a Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills. The band even employed self-reference; in the song "Show Biz Kids," the titular subjects are sardonically portrayed as owning "the Steely Dan T-shirt."
The band also often name-checks drinks, typically alcoholic, in their songs: rum and cokes ("Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More"), piña coladas ("Bad Sneakers"), zombies ("Haitian Divorce"), black cows ("Black Cow"), Scotch whisky ("Deacon Blues"), retsina ("Home at Last"), grapefruit wine ("FM"), cherry wine ("Time Out of Mind"), Cuervo Gold ("Hey Nineteen"), kirschwasser ("Babylon Sisters"), Tanqueray ("Lunch with Gina"), Cuban breeze (Fagen's solo track "The Goodbye Look"), and margaritas ("Everything Must Go") are all mentioned in Steely Dan lyrics.[71]
Members
Current members
Donald Fagen – lead vocals, keyboards (1972–1981, 1993–present)
Former members
Walter Becker – guitar, bass, backing and lead vocals (1972–1981, 1993–2017; his death)
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter – guitar, backing vocals (1972–1974)
Denny Dias – guitar (1972–1974, studio contributions until 1977)
Jim Hodder – drums, backing and lead vocals (1972–1974; died 1990)
David Palmer – backing and lead vocals (1972–1973)
Royce Jones – backing and lead vocals, percussion (1973–1974)
Michael McDonald – keyboards, backing vocals (1974, studio contributions until 1980)
Jeff Porcaro – drums (1974, studio contributions until 1980; died 1992)
Today has been one of those trying days...Violet's home today, rather than nursery as she is tomorrow, and Cyrus has his firsty proper nasty cold. Not forgetting that I am currently very sleep deprived [he's still feeding like a newborn] and my [ex?] husband is, as usual, working 60 hour weeks. Put this delightful combination into the witch's couldron [MiL] and you get a mother who wants to drink gin for breakfast [Tanqueray]. Instead I applied The Grinch Who Stole Christmas [her fave, and allowed now it's the last week in October], these fabulous no-mess Peppa Pig aqua draw things and we, erm, made jelly which she thinks is cooking...
Both in bed, although I doubt it'll be for long as C is coughing his sweet little boy guts up. And I am off to bed too.
I HATE the cold virus. You suck. How can my children suffer so badly and I don't even sneeze [I know the answer before anyone points me in the direction of GCSE biology].
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard by Rotary Photo of London E.C. that was printed in Great Britain. They state on the back of the card:
'This is a hand-painted real
photograph of a British Beauty'.
The signature of Miss Gladys Cooper is printed on to the image.
Although the card was not posted, someone has used a pencil to write across the divided back of the card:
"Dear Muriel,
Thanks very much for P.C.
Hope you are getting on alright
(strong arms).
All the girls send their best love
to you, also little Frances - she
has come back to the old firm
once more on the machine next
to your old one.
Tell your Ma to cheer up, the
War is over now and we are all
still smiling once more.
With love,
Lizzie xxxx"
Miss Gladys Cooper
Gladys Cooper's most noticeable characteristic is that she rarely if ever smiled when being photographed. In some publicity shots she actually looks quite annoyed.
Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, (18th. December 1888 – 17th. November 1971) was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.
Beginning as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and silent films before the First World War.
She also became a manager of the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1933, where she played many roles. From the early 1920's, Cooper was winning praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others.
In the 1930's, she was starring both in the West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles; she was nominated for three Academy Awards, the last one as Mrs. Higgins in 'My Fair Lady' (1964). Throughout the 1950's and 1960's, she mixed her stage and film careers, continuing to star on stage until her last year.
Gladys Cooper - The Early Years
Cooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London, the eldest of the three daughters of Charles William Frederick Cooper and Mabel Barnett.
Gladys Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant.
Gladys made her stage debut in 1905 touring with Seymour Hicks in his musical 'Bluebell in Fairyland'. The young beauty was also a popular photographic model.
In 1906, she appeared as Lady Swan in London in 'The Belle of Mayfair', and then in the pantomime 'Babes in the Wood' as Mavis. The following year she became a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, creating the small role of Eva in 'The Girls of Gottenberg'. That Christmas, she was Molly in 'Babes in the Wood'.
In 1908, she appeared in the musical 'Havana', followed the next year by 'Our Miss Gibbs', in which she played Lady Connie. She was then on tour again with Hicks, in 'Papa's Wife', before playing Sadie von Tromp in the hit operetta 'The Dollar Princess' at Daly's Theatre in 1909.
In 1911, she appeared in a production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' and in 'Man and Superman'. Among several other plays, the next year she was Muriel Pym in 'Milestones' at the Royalty Theatre. A highlight of 1913 was Dora in 'Diplomacy' at Wyndham's Theatre. That year she also played the title role in 'The Pursuit of Pamela' at the Royalty.
In 1913 Cooper appeared in her first film, 'The Eleventh Commandment', going on to make several more silent films during the Great War and shortly afterwards. She continued full-time stage work, however, including appearances as Lady Agatha Lazenby in 'The Admirable Crichton' in 1916, and Clara de Foenix in 'Trelawny of the Wells'.
In addition, in 1917, Cooper became co-manager, with Frank Curzon, of the Playhouse Theatre, taking over sole control from 1927 until she left in 1933. During these years, she starred several times in 'My Lady's Dress'. She appeared in W. Somerset Maugham's 'Home and Beauty' in 1919, repeated Dora at His Majesty's Theatre in 1920 and elsewhere thereafter, and played numerous roles at the Playhouse Theatre.
Gladys Cooper - The Later Years
It was not until 1922, however, now in her mid thirties, that she found major critical success, in Arthur Wing Pinero's 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray'. Early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Aldous Huxley dismissed her performance in 'Home and Beauty', writing:
"She is too impassive, too statuesque,
playing all the time as if she were Galatea,
newly unpetrified and still unused to the
ways of the living world."
Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for:
"Turning herself from an indifferent actress
to an extremely competent one through her
common sense and industriousness".
For both the 1923 and 1924 Christmas shows at the Adelphi Theatre, Cooper played the title character in 'Peter Pan', while also playing several other roles at that theatre during those two years. She appeared in Maugham's 'The Letter' in London and on tour in 1927 and 1928, in 'Excelsior' in 1928, and in Maugham's 'The Sacred Flame' in 1929, also in London and on tour.
Among other roles, Cooper was Clemency Warlock in 'Cynara' (1930), Wanda Heriot in 'The Pelican' (1931), Lucy Haydon in 'Dr Pygmalion' (1932), Carola in 'The Firebird' (1932), Jane Claydon in 'The Rats of Norway' (1933), Mariella Linden in 'The Shining Hour' in 1934 and 1935, in London and New York City and on tour (at the same time making her first "talkie" film, 'The Iron Duke'), also playing Desdemona and Lady Macbeth on Broadway in 1935.
She was Dorothy Hilton in 'Call it a Day', again in both London and New York, from 1935 to 1936. A highlight of 1937 was Laura Lorimer in 'Goodbye to Yesterday' in London and on tour. In 1938, she played Tiny Fox-Collier in 'Spring Meeting' in New York, Montreal and Britain, as well as several Shakespeare roles and Fran Dodsworth in 'Dodsworth'. She repeated 'Spring Meeting' in 1939.
Cooper turned to film full-time in 1940, finding success in Hollywood in a variety of character roles, and was frequently cast as a disapproving, aristocratic society woman, although she sometimes played lively, approachable types, as she did in 'Rebecca' (1940).
She was nominated three times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances as Bette Davis's domineering mother in 'Now, Voyager' (1942), a sceptical nun in 'The Song of Bernadette' (1943), and Rex Harrison's mother, Mrs. Higgins, in 'My Fair Lady' (1964).
In 1945, after playing the role of Clarissa Scott in the film 'The Valley of Decision' for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she was given a contract with the studio. Her credits there included both dramatic and comedy films, including 'The Green Years' (1946), 'The Cockeyed Miracle' (1946) and 'The Secret Garden' (1949).
Other notable film roles were 'The Man Who Loved Redheads' (1955), 'Separate Tables' (1958) and 'The Happiest Millionaire' (1967) as Aunt Mary Drexel, singing "There Are Those".
Her only stage roles in the 1940's were Mrs. Parrilow in 'The Morning Star' in Philadelphia and New York (1942), and Melanie Aspen in 'The Indifferent Shepherd' in Great Britain (1948).
She returned to theatre (between films) more often in the 1950's and 1960's, playing in London and on tour in such roles as Edith Fenton in 'The Hat Trick' (1950); Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, in 'Relative Values' (1951 and 1953); Grace Smith in 'A Question of Fact' (1953); Lady Yarmouth in 'The Night of the Ball' (1954); Mrs. St. Maugham in 'The Chalk Garden' (1955–56), Dame Mildred in 'The Bright One' (1958); Mrs. Vincent in 'Look on Tempests' (1960); Mrs. Gantry (Bobby) in 'The Bird of Time' (1961); Mrs. Moore in a stage adaptation of 'A Passage to India' (1962); Mrs Tabret in 'The Sacred Flame' (1966 and 1967); Prue Salter in 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' (1967); Emma Littlewood in 'Out of the Question' (1968); Lydia in 'His, Hers and Theirs' (1969); and others.
She received two nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for her roles in 'The Chalk Garden' and 'A Passage to India'.
She also had various television roles in the 1950's and '60's. These included, among others, three episodes of 'The Twilight Zone'. In the first, titled "Nothing in the Dark" (1962), she played an old lady who refuses to leave her flat for fear of meeting 'Death'. A young policeman (Robert Redford) is shot at her doorstep and persuades her to let him inside.
Her second appearance was in "Passage on the Lady Anne", which aired on the 9th. May 1963.
Her final episode was the 1964 "Night Call", where she portrayed a difficult, lonely old lady who is besieged by late-night phone calls. Cooper starred in the 1964–65 series 'The Rogues' with David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young, Robert Coote, John Williams and Larry Hagman. The series lasted a single season of thirty episodes, most of which featured Cooper as the matriarch of a crime family.
In 1967, at the age of 79, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Her last major success on the stage was at the age of 82, in 1970–71 in the role of Mrs. St. Maugham in Enid Bagnold's 'The Chalk Garden', a role she had created on Broadway and in the West End in 1955–56.
Marriages of Gladys Cooper
Cooper was married three times. Her husbands were:
- Captain Herbert Buckmaster (1908–1921). The couple had two children: Joan (1910–2005), who was married to the actor Robert Morley, and John Rodney (1915–83).
- Sir Neville Pearson (1927–36). Sir Neville and Lady Pearson had one daughter, Sally Pearson, aka Sally Cooper, who was married (1961–86) to actor Robert Hardy.
- Philip Merivale (1937–1946), a fellow actor. The couple lived for many years in Santa Monica, California as permanent resident aliens. He died at age 59 from a heart ailment. Her stepson from this marriage was John Merivale.
Death of Gladys Cooper
Gladys lived mostly in England in her final years, and died from pneumonia at the age of 82 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
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Musical royalty descends upon Las Vegas at The Cosmopolitan this weekend as UK soul Songstress Adele will play to a sold-out crowd at The Chelsea. Simultaneously, rock band Death Cab for Cutie will play to a standing room only crowd high above The Las Vegas Strip at the Boulevard pool on Saturday, August 20.
Adele at The Chelsea (doors at 8:30 pm) and Death Cab for Cutie at The Boulevard Pool (doors at 8 pm) on Saturday 8/20:
Guest Parking
To meet the needs of our guests who will be attending Adele at The Chelsea and Death Cab For Cutie at The Boulevard Pool on Saturday, 8/20, The Cosmopolitan will offer overflow parking. From Harmon and Polaris, guests will head North on Polaris until they reach a dead end, where the lot is located. Complimentary shuttle service will go to and from the overflow lot for 5pm – 5am on Saturday 8/20.
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Ticket Pickup
Tickets can be picked up at the following locations on Saturday, 8/20:
- Queue Bar from 12PM-10PM (main ticket pick up location)
Alternative pick-up locations:
- Any Concierge desk from 7AM-10PM
- Concierge Box Office (2nd floor/P2, located by the bridge to CityCenter) from 12PM-10PM
- Gracia Commons Box Office (3rd floor) opens at 4PM
- Chelsea Commons Box Office (4th floor) opens at 4PM
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Dining – Special pre-fixe menus offered by our Restaurant Collection
Participating restaurants from The Cosmopolitan’s exclusive Restaurant Collection will offer a pre-fixe menu from 5 – 7 pm. The menu from all five participating restaurants and prices are listed below.
Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill ($65 pp):
Edamame
Miso or Wakame Salad
Spicy Tuna Roll OR California Roll (Blue Crab) OR Beef Tataki
BR Fried Chicken OR Salmon Teriyaki OR Pork Ribs
Ginger Bread Pudding OR Green Tea Creme Brulee
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Holstein’s ($28 pp):
Greener Pastures
Gold Standard Burger
Lemon-Blueberry Custard
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Jaleo ($55 pp, minimum 2 people):
Sangría de Vino Tinto Our version of sangria
Pan con tomate y jamón Serrano Toasted slices of rustic bread brushed with fresh tomato and Serrano ham
Aceitunas rellenas y aceitunas ‘Ferrán Adrià’ Olives stuffed with anchovy and piquillo and ‘Ferrán Adrià’ liquid olives
Salmón crudo con huevas de salmón* Salmon tartare and salmon roe cone
Croquetas de pollo Traditional chicken fritters
Remolacha con cítricos A salad of red beets, citrus, La Peral cheese and pistachios with Sherry dressing
Gambas al ajillo The very, very famous tapa of shrimp sautéed with garlic
Carne asada con piquillos ‘Julián de Lodosa’* Grilled skirt steak with piquillo pepper confit
Espinacas a la catalana Sautéed spinach, pine nuts, raisins and apples
Flan al estilo tradicional de mamá Marisa con espuma de crema catalana A classic Spanish custard with ‘espuma’ of Catalan cream and oranges
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Estiatorio Milos ($49 pp):
First Course
Charcoal Grilled Mediterranean Octopus, Jumbo Maya Prawn
& roasted sweet peppers
or
Pan Roasted Dayboat Scallop, Maryland Blue Crab Cake
with marinated Piazi beans, cherry tomatoes & wild arugula
Second Course Served Family Style
Vine Ripened Tomato Salad
the authentic salad with field grown tomatoes,
barrel aged feta cheese & Kalamata olives
Main Course
Lavraki: Mediterranean Seabass from the protected waters of Cephalonia
simply grilled & served with Briam (roasted vegetable casserole)
or
Colorado Lamb Chops
wild oregano & lemon, French fries
Dessert
Walnut Cake (karydo-pita)
served with kaimaki ice cream
or
Krema Lemoni
lemon custard with seasonal berries & yogurt creme
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Comme Ca ($49 pp):
Starters
(Choice of)
Bone Marrow and Oxtail jam
Steak Tartare, pickled vegetables, confit egg yolk and brioche
Provence country salad, hearts of palm, little gem lettuce, garlic croutons, bleu cheese and red wine vinaigrette
Entrees
(Choice of)
Crispy Skate, haricot Vert, Brown Butter
Braised beef cheek, ala greque vegetables, potato pave, red wine
Roasted Chicken, ratatouille, mizuna and olive oil
Mushroom Risotto
Dessert
(Choice of)
Chocolate Pot de Crème
Calamansi Crème, Orange tuile, Fennel, aloe vera, Greek yogurt and rice sorbet
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China Poblano (Dine in $42 pp / $40 pp for parties of 6 or more):
First Course
Choose one
Gaspacho Morelia pineapple/ cucumber/ jicama/dragon fruit/ queso fresco/chile pequin $10
Snow Pea Leaf Salad pomegranate/orange/ lily bulb petals $9.88
Palmitos Hamakua Farms hearts of palm/ citrus/ tamarind dressing $11
Don’t Be Jealous hot and sour soup/pork/tofu/bamboo shoots/ dried mushrooms $8.88
Second Course
Choose two tacos…
Setas wild mushrooms/guacamole
Barbacoa de Res Oaxacan-style barbeque beef/guajillo chile/pickled cactus paddle
Carnitas braised baby pig/pork rinds/ spicy salsa verde cruda
Refried Beans chipotle salsa/ queso fresco
OR
Choose one dim sum
When Pigs Fly 4pc delicate steamed buns/Chinese barbeque pork
Fried Wonton 6pc shrimp/pork/ sesame sauce
Happy Buddha Vegetable Spring Roll 4pc cucumber/carrot/ zucchini/water chestnuts
Third Course
Choose one
Shrimp Mojo 8 pc shrimp/sweet black garlic/ roasted poblano peppers
Dan Dan Mian hand-cut wheat noodles/ spicy pork sauce
Queso Fundido melted chihuahua cheese/tequila blanco/fresh tortillas
Chicken Ji Song 4pc chicken/ lettuce leaf cups/fried sweet potatoes
Dessert
Choose one
Mango Sticky Rice our surprising version
Cajeta Flan goat’s milk caramel/pineapple
China Poblano (To Go $36 pp):
Guacamole made one-by-one/ fresh tortillas
Fried Wonton 6pc shrimp/pork/sesame sauce
OR
Rou Jia Mo Street Sandwich red braised pork
Choose two tacos…
Setas wild mushrooms/guacamole
Barbacoa de Res Oaxacan-style barbeque beef/guajillo chile/pickled cactus paddle
Carnitas braised baby pig/pork rinds/ spicy salsa verde cruda
Refried Beans chipotle salsa/ queso fresco
… and Choose one dim sum
Fried Wonton 6pc shrimp/pork/ sesame sauce
Happy Buddha Vegetable Spring Roll 4pc cucumber/carrot/zucchini/ water chestnuts
Sui Mai Beef 6pc beef/lime/ daikon/ breakfast radish
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STK ($39 for 2 people):
Lil BRGRs
Tuna Tartare
Blue Iceberg
Libation Package (valid 6 to 7 p.m. in restaurant and anytime at outside/satellite bar)
Choose 5 for $45
Any 5 drinks from the Standard Package
Standard Package
Vodka
Stoli
Smirnoff
Ketel One
Gin
Tanqueray
Bombay Sapphire
Rum
Bacardi
Captain Morgan
Malibu
Tequila
Corzo Silver
Jose Cuervo
Scotch
Dewars White
Johnny Walker Black
Whiskey
Jameson
Jack Daniels
Seagrams 7
Cognac
Hennessey
On top of this Hawaiian volcano was a steam-venting, cracked crevice about 12' deep! Rey jumped into the open crevice space below, & landed on the rocky floor. As we watched from above, Rey yelled, "Hey, there's a half-gallon of Tanqueray Gin down here, & the bottle isn't cracked or open!" "Bring it up," we two replied from above,"& hurry up!, before it vents boiling hot steam!" We had to get the Tanqueray gin 1st, then pull Rey out, like a rescue ops. Ron, the Hawaiian, warned us not to take the "gin SACRIFICE" from Madame Pele'-the volcano Spirit! We laughed. "Superstitious b.s.," we said. That night, drunk as hell on the sacrificial gin, we were confronted by a mob of drunken, horny Hilo ma-whoos, who attacked us, who beat the shit out of Rey & our friend, Jeff. I got 3 broken ribs, & was bit behind my left knee! Finally, the local Hilo cops came, & chased away the pursuers, & kindly led us to the Hilo Hospital, where Ron's wife, Mary, was on duty! "Lucky those "guys" didn't cut you up & throw you down the volcano," the doctor lectured us! So much for local superstitions! Now, I'm a believer in Madame Pele's power!!!
British postcard by The Biograph Studio, London. Sent by mail in 1902.
British actress Mrs Patrick Campbell (1865-1940) was by far the biggest name on the London stage of the belle époque, famous for her wit, temperament and beauty. She was the original Eliza Dolittle in Pygmalion (1914) a part written especially for her by her lifelong friend George Bernard Shaw. In her later years, ‘Mrs. Pat’ made notable film appearances as a dowager in One More River (1934) and in Crime and Punishment (1935).
Mrs. Patrick Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, in 1865. Her parents were John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini. She studied for a short time at the Guildhall School of Music. She was well-known as an amateur before she made her stage debut in 1888 at the Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, four years after her marriage to Patrick Campbell. In March, 1890, she appeared in London at the Adelphi, where she afterward played again in 1891–93. She became successful as a result of starring in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's play, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, in 1893, at St. James's Theatre where she also appeared in 1894 in The Masqueraders. As Kate Cloud in John-a-Dreams, produced by Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket in 1894, she made another success, and again as Agnes in The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith at the Garrick (1895). Among her other performances were those in Fédora (1895), Little Eyolf (1896), and her notable performances with Forbes-Robertson at the Lyceum in the roles of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia in Hamlet, and Lady Macbeth (1895–1898) in Macbeth. Her first marriage to Patrick Campbell in 1884, from which she took the name by which she is generally known, produced two children, Alan Urquhart ('Beo'), who was killed in WWI, and Stella, who married an American and moved to Chicago. Campbell’s own marriage ended with the death of her husband in the Boer War in 1900. Fourteen years later, she became the second wife of Major George Frederick Myddleton Cornwallis-West, a dashing writer and soldier previously married to Jennie Jerome, the mother of Sir Winston Churchill.
In 1902, Mrs. Patrick Campbell made her debut performance on Broadway in New York City in Hermann Sudermann’s Magda, a marked success. Subsequent Broadway roles included The Joy of Living (1902), as Melisande to the Pelleas of Sarah Bernhardt in Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande (1904), as Hedda Gabler in Henrik Ibsen’s play of the same name (1907), The Thunderbolt (1908), Lady Patricia (1911), and Bella Donna (1911). She would return to perform there on a number of occasions until 1930. She was described by one American producer as a temperamental actress whose "grand sense of humor and outstanding charm made you laugh instead of strangle her". One of her most famous quotes was " It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses." In 1914, she played Eliza Doolittle in the original production of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion; though much too old for the part at 49, she was the obvious choice, being by far the biggest name on the London stage, and Shaw would have seen it no other way since he wrote the play for her in particular. She and Shaw conducted a famous correspondence for many years. Despite her second marriage, to George Cornwallis-West, she continued to use the stage name Mrs Patrick Campbell. Her last stage appearance came in 1933.
Mrs. Patrick Campbell had made her film début in the silent film The Money Moon (1920, Fred Paul). When the sound film came along, she went to Hollywood and appeared in The Dancers (1930, Chandler Sprague) with Lois Moran and Mae Clarke. She also became a speech teacher and dialogue coach and made instructional films for aspiring actors who wanted to break into the sound film. Campbell herself made some notable film appearances, including Riptide (1934, Edmund Goulding) starring Norma Shearer, One More River (1934, James Whale) with Diana Wynyard, and as the villainous pawnbroker in Crime and Punishment (1935, Josef von Sternberg) featuring Peter Lorre. She was legendary for making astonishingly inappropriate remarks. She undoubtedly lost her chance for a career in Hollywood when, at a party, she approached MGM executive Irving Thalberg, married to Norma Shearer, and said: "Dear Mr. Thalberg, how is your lovely, lovely wife with the tiny, tiny eyes?". Mrs. Patrick Campbell died in 1940 in Pau, France, at age 75. The onset of WWII had caught her in the French Pyrenees, ill and destitute. She could not return to England because quarantine laws would have imprisoned her Pekinese, Moonbeam. Her nurse cabled Sara and Gerald Murphy for funds, which were sent but arrived too late and were used to bury the former diva in the Cimetiere Urbain at Pau.
Sources: Hans J. Wollstein (All Movie Guide), Harry Rusche (Shakespeare’s World), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
4 oz. Tanqueray Gin
1/8 oz. Dry Vermouth
Place all ingredients in a Boston Shaker and stir to chill. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with an olive or lemon twist depending on preference of guest.
To discover more hotelmonteleone.com/dining-entertainment/
British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., Ltd., Printers & Publishers, nr. 516 B. Photo: Ellis & Walery. Publicity photo for a stage production of 'The Prisoner of Zenda'.
Sir George Alexander (1858-1918) was an English actor and theatre manager. One of his most famous stage roles was in 'The Prisoner of Zenda' by Anthony Hope, which premiered in 1896.
George Alexander was born in 1858 as George Alexander Gibb Samson in Reading, Berkshire, England. He began acting in amateur theatricals in 1875. Four years later he embarked on a professional acting career, making his London debut in 1881. He played many roles in the leading companies, including Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum. In 1890, he produced his first play at the Avenue Theatre and in 1891 he became the actor manager of St James's Theatre, where he produced several major plays of the day such as Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde (1892). He appeared in The Second Mrs Tanqueray by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero in which he played Aubrey Tanqueray and which turned Mrs Patrick Campbell into a theatrical star.
One of the most famous first nights in Victorian Theatre occurred on 14 February 1895 when The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde hit the stage. The Prince of Wales was in attendance and a good dozen policemen could be seen patrolling the streets outside. A tip-off had warned both the author and the actor/manager that Lord Alfred Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensbury was hoping to get into the theatre and create havoc during the play. Fortunately the Marquess was ushered from the premises and in disgust threw his grotesque bouquet of vegetables that he was carrying into the gutter. Queensbury then set into motion the events that led to Wilde's downfall and disgrace. Upon his release from prison in 1897, Wilde moved to the continent. In 1900, Alexander, who had acquired the acting rights for The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan, visited Wilde in Paris and offered the poverty-stricken former writer some voluntary payments on the plays and to bequeath the rights to Wilde's estranged sons.
Later George Alexander threw himself into the development of the modern drawing room comedy. It was here his true talent shone. With a light comic air and a delicate grace Alec, as he was affectionately known, brought many carefree parts to life. He remained at the St. James's Theatre to the end of his life. In 1911 he was knighted by King George V for his services to the theatre. He appeared in two silent films. He repeated his stage role of Aubrey Tanqueray in the film adaptation The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1916, Fred Paul). The following year he appeared as himself in Masks and Faces (1917, Fred Paul). In this silent curiosity were also appearing the legendary stage actors Henry Irving and Gerald Du Maurier as well as the famous authors George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Barrie. George Alexander later appeared as a character in David Lodge's novel about the life of Henry James, Author, Author. Alexander is the great, great uncle of actor/comedian Hugh Laurie.
Sources: IMDb and Wikipedia.
The Postcard
A postally unused Smart Novels Series postcard that was published prior to the summer of 1918. The photography was by the Dover Street Studios, and the card has a divided back.
'The Perfect Lover'
'The Perfect Lover' is a play in 4 acts that opened at the Imperial on the 14th. October 1905. It also played in New York in 1921.
The play was written by Alfred Sutro (1863-1933). He was an English author, dramatist and translator who wrote society dramas and satirical comedies for London’s West End in the early twentieth century.
Alfred didn’t achieve much critical success; his commercial victory and eventual fame were mostly due to determination and productivity. His work went out of fashion around the time Noel Coward became fashionable, and he retired from playwrighting disappointed.
Miss Evelyn Millard
Evelyn Mary Millard (18th. September 1869 – 9th. March 1941) was an English Shakespearean actress, actor-manager and "stage beauty" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is best known for creating the role of Cecily Cardew in the 1895 premiere of Oscar Wilde's play 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.
Evelyn Millard - Early Life and Career
Millard was born in Kensington, one of three daughters of John Millard (1838 –1900), a teacher of elocution at the Royal Academy of Music, and his wife, Emily (née Cooke) (1848–1902).
Evelyn Millard studied at the Female School of Art in Bloomsbury. She made her first stage appearance in 1891 in a "walk-on" role in Henry Arthur Jones' play 'The Dancing Girl' at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
She trained as an actress under Sarah Thorne at her School of Acting based at the Theatre Royal in Margate, where she learnt:
"Voice production, gesture and mime,
dialects and accents, make-up, the
portrayal of characters, the value of
pace and the value of pauses".
For Thorne she played Julia in 'The Hunchback', Juliet in 'Romeo and Juliet' and Hero in 'Much Ado About Nothing'. She then joined Thomas Thorne's company, and toured in the plays 'Joseph's Sweetheart', 'Miss Tomboy', 'Sophia' and 'Money'. Millard then spent almost two years at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
In 1894 Millard toured with George Alexander, for whom she played Rosamund in 'Sowing the Wind', Dulcie in 'The Masqueraders' and Paula in 'The Second Mrs Tanqueray'.
Evelyn created the role of Cecily Cardew in the 1895 premiere of Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. In September 1895 Millard appeared before Queen Victoria in a Royal Command Performance of 'Liberty Hall' at Balmoral.
From January 1896 she played Princess Flavia in the London premiere of the play 'The Prisoner of Zenda'. In 1897 Millard joined the theatrical company of Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and played Portia in 'Julius Caesar' in 1898 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.
For the American theatrical manager Charles Frohman, she played Lady Ursula in 'The Adventure of Lady Ursula' at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1898, the title role in Jerome K. Jerome's 'Miss Hobbs', both of which ran for over 200 performances, and Cho-Cho-San in the London premiere of David Belasco's play 'Madame Butterfly', which opened on the 28th. April 1900 at the Duke of York's Theatre. This production was seen by the composer Giacomo Puccini, who is said to have based his opera 'Madama Butterfly' on it.
Evelyn Millard - The Later Years
On the 19th. July 1900 Millard married Robert Porter Coulter (1862–1915) at St. George's church in Hanover Square in London. A partner in the clothing firm of Scotch House, in 1910 he was declared bankrupt.
Their daughter Ursula Helen Coulter (1901–1991) was named after the character Millard was playing in 'The Adventure of Lady Ursula' when she met Coulter in 1898.
In March 1902 Millard returned to the stage at the St James's Theatre to play Francesca in 'Paolo and Francesca'. She appeared in two further Royal Command Performances at Windsor Castle before Edward VII; in November 1904 she appeared as Lady Mary Carlyle in 'Monsieur Beaucaire' opposite Lewis Waller, and in November 1906 as Lady Marian in 'Robin Hood'.
Millard then played in a number of Shakespearean roles, including Jessica in 'The Merchant of Venice' in 1903, Juliet in 'Romeo and Juliet' in 1905, and Desdemona in Waller's 1906 production of 'Othello'.
Also in 1906 she appeared with Lewis Waller in 'The Harlequin King' at the Imperial Theatre. Millard formed her own theatrical company as actor-manager in 1908, and played Olivia in 'Twelfth Night' in 1912 at the Savoy Theatre in London. She also played Edith Dombey in 'Dombey and Son' and Agnes in 'David Copperfield', among others. Millard reprised the role of Cho-Cho-San in 'Madame Butterfly' at the Palace Theatre of Varieties in London in 1911.
Millard's last major role was as Agnes Wickfield in 'David Copperfield' at His Majesty's Theatre in December 1914. Her last known role was a brief appearance as Calpurnia in 'Julius Caesar' during the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration in 1916.
Death of Evelyn Millard
Following her retirement Millard lived in Abingdon Court in Kensington where she died on the 9th. March 1941 aged 71.
Mr. Lewis Waller
William Waller Lewis (3rd. November 1860 – 1st. November 1915), known on stage as Lewis Waller, was an English actor and theatre manager, well known on the London stage and in the English provinces.
After early stage experience with J. L. Toole's and Helena Modjeska's companies from 1883, Waller became known, by the late 1880's, for romantic leads, both in Shakespeare and in popular costume dramas of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
He attracted a large number of female admirers, who formed themselves into a vocal and conspicuous fan club. He also tried his hand at management of tours in 1885 and 1893, and then became an actor-manager at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in the mid-1890's.
Waller remained an actor-manager for the rest of his career, both in London and on tour.
Despite his commercial success in Booth Tarkington's 'Monsieur Beaucaire' and Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Brigadier Gerard', Waller greatly preferred acting in Shakespeare, in which his roles ranged from Romeo to Othello.
Among the roles he created was Sir Robert Chiltern in Oscar Wilde's 1895 comedy 'An Ideal Husband'.
Lewis Waller - The Early Years
Waller was born in Bilbao, Spain, the eldest son of an English civil engineer, William James Lewis, and his wife, Carlotta née Vyse. He was educated at King's College School in south west London, after which, intending to pursue a commercial career, he studied languages on the Continent. From 1879 to 1883 he was a clerk in a London firm owned by his uncle.
After acting in amateur performances, Waller decided to make a career on the stage, and was engaged by J. L. Toole in 1883. His first role was the Hon. Claude Lorrimer in H. J. Byron's 'Uncle Dick's Darling', in which he was billed as 'Waller Lewis'.
By May of the same year, he had adopted the stage name Lewis Waller. In that month he appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in a charity matinee for the Actors' Benevolent Fund with Toole's company and such contemporary stars as Rutland Barrington, Lionel Brough, Arthur Cecil, Nellie Farren, George Grossmith, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.
He remained in Toole's company for a year, playing light comedy and juvenile parts. During this year, he married a young actress, Florence West (1862–1912).
He joined a touring company, playing the central role, the blind Gilbert Vaughan, in 'Called Back' by Hugh Conway.
Waller returned to London in March 1885 to play at the Lyceum Theatre in Helena Modjeska's company, as the Abbé in 'Adrienne Lecouvreur', and then toured with her, playing such roles as Mortimer in 'Mary Stuart', and Orlando in 'As You Like It'.
The Manchester Guardian said of the latter:
"He kept Orlando properly ingenuous,
and made him a taking and gallant
young wooer."
Towards the end of 1885, Waller ventured into management for the first time, touring a production of 'Called Back', taking the role of Dr. Basil North, in which The Manchester Guardian thought him:
"A trifle too melodramatic".
The tour was modestly successful, but not such as to lead Waller to mount further productions for some time.
Waller returned to the West End, working for a succession of managements. At the Strand Theatre in early 1887, he played Roy Carlton in 'Jack-in-the-Box', which his biographer describes as his first substantial success in London.
At the Opera Comique he played Ernest Vane in 'Masks and Faces', and Captain Absolute in 'The Rivals'. At the Gaiety Theatre he played Jacques Rosney in 'Civil War'.
Waller then joined William Hunter Kendal and John Hare at the St. James's Theatre, where he played the Duc de Bligny in 'The Ironmaster', Sir George Barclay in 'Lady Clancarty', and Lord Arden in 'The Wife's Secret'.
When Rutland Barrington took over the management of the St. James's in 1888, Waller played George Sabine in 'The Dean's Daughter', and Ralph Crampton in 'Brantinghame Hall'.
Rudolph de Cordova, in a 1909 biographical sketch noted:
"During this period, few theatres
played regular afternoon performances,
so that the actors were, for the most part,
engaged only in the evening. Many
matinees were, however, given to introduce
new plays and new players; and in this way
Mr. Waller acted a large number of new parts,
all of an ephemeral character."
In particular he played several Ibsen roles in these matinees in the early 1890's, bringing him to the attention of people of influence in the theatre such as William Archer, Jacob Grein and Bernard Shaw.
Waller played Oswald in 'Ghosts', Lovborg in 'Hedda Gabler', Rosmer in 'Rosmersholm' and Solness in 'The Master Builder'. The ODNB commented that:
"Archer was delighted that an established
West End actor had contributed to the Ibsen
revival, but was aware that Waller could
overcome neither the play's inadequate
rehearsal period nor his background of
florid West End performances."
Lewis Waller - The Later Years
In October 1893, Waller returned to management, mounting a tour of Wilde's 'A Woman of No Importance', in which he played Lord Illingworth. The Manchester Guardian called it:
"A tolerable travelling company in
which nobody gains great distinction."
Returning to London, Waller, in partnership with H. H. Morrell, leased the Theatre Royal, Haymarket while its regular tenant, Herbert Beerbohm Tree was on tour in the US. He began with the premiere of Wilde's 'An Ideal Husband', playing Sir Robert Chiltern in a cast that included his wife as Mrs. Cheveley, Julia Neilson as Lady Chiltern and Charles Hawtrey as Lord Goring.
Waller and Morrell remained in management until 1897, when Tree invited Waller to join his company at the newly rebuilt Her Majesty's Theatre.
Waller remained with Tree for three years, playing a wide range of roles, including romantic leads in popular costume dramas and, in Tree's lavish Shakespeare productions, Laertes in 'Hamlet', Brutus in 'Julius Caesar', Faulconbridge in 'King John' and Lysander in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
After leaving Tree's company, Waller returned to management. Although he loved playing Shakespeare, adding the roles of Romeo, Othello and Henry V to his repertoire, for commercial reasons he was best known as the star of swashbuckling romances. He was particularly identified with the title roles in the stage versions of Booth Tarkington's 'Monsieur Beaucaire' and Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Brigadier Gerard'. He starred in a film of the latter in 1915.
The critic Hesketh Pearson praised Waller for:
"His good looks and virile acting,
and his vibrant voice which rang
through the theatre like a bell and
stirred like a trumpet".
Waller had a large following of enthusiastic women fans, who formed a club known as the K.O.W. [Keen On Waller] Brigade. Pearson lamented:
"The puerile nature of the plays he
usually put on, and the adolescent
behaviour of his female admirers,
prevented many people from
appreciating his superb gift as a
declaimer of Shakespeare's rhetoric,
and frequently exposed him to ridicule."
In 1911 and 1912, Waller made a tour of the US, Canada and Australia. In his absence his wife died. His last play was May Martindale's 'Gamblers All', which opened at Wyndham's Theatre, London in June 1915, with Gerald du Maurier and Madge Titheradge co-starring.
The Manchester Guardian called the production:
"A personal acting triumph
for Lewis Waller".
Death of Lewis Waller
After the West End run, Waller took the play on tour, during which he contracted pneumonia, from which he died in Nottingham two days short of his 55th birthday.
*** Please, No Group Invites ***
You Know I'm No Good - Amy Winehouse, 2007
Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard
Your rolled up sleeves and your skull t-shirt
You say "what did you do it with him today?"
And sniff me out like I was Tanqueray
'Cause you're my fella, my guy
Hand me your stella and fly
By the time I'm out the door
You tear me down like Roger Moore
I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was trouble
You know that I'm no good
Upstairs in bed, with my ex boy,
He's in the place, but I cant get joy,
Thinking of you in the final throws, this is when my buzzer goes
Run out to meet you, chips and pitta
You say "when we're married"
'cause you're not bitter
"There'll be none of him no more"
I cried for ya 7-6-1-4 - My Blake!
I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was trouble
You know that I'm no good
Sweet reunion, Jamaica and Spain
We're like how we were again
I'm in the tub you're on the seat
Lick your lips as I soak my feet
Then you notice little carpet burn
My stomach drops and my guts churn
You shrug and it's the worst
To truly stuck the knife in first
I cheated myself like I knew I would
I told ya I was trouble, you know that I'm no good
I cheated myself, like I knew I would
I told ya I was trouble, yeah ya know that I'm no good...
Linley Sambourne's diary entry, Thursday 19 July 1894:
Stafford Terrace. Up at 7.30. At 8.10 rode in Park on Cob. Talk to old Mr Smith etc. Out & back. Breakfast. After gave up going on with Illustrated News drawing. Skemed cartoon. Otley round at 1.30. Photod him & self for drawing of Paris (Rosebery) & Apple of Discord. Developed them etc. Rested very tired for 1 hour & after at 4.30 began small drawing of Gladstone saying farewell to Midlothian. At 7.15 dressed & drove in cab to Savoy Restaurant. Dined with Ayala & little Froggie. Met Mr Lockett, Tanqueray, Tresham Gilbey etc. Very good dinner & extraordinarily good wild duck. Left at 11.10 & went to Empire Theatre. Very dull. Out 12.40 & home by cab from Piccadilly. No one there. (Red ink: Good dinner with Farnau de Ayala at the Savoy Restaurant.)
104 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea SW10. Along with GK Chesterton, he was one of the great Roman Catholic philosophers of his day.
Taken from www.catholicauthors.com/belloc.html
JOSEPH HILAIRE PIERRE BELLOC, ONE OF THE TRUE LORDS of the English language, was not an Englishman by birth. His father was French, his mother was Irish; and when he married, his bride was an American. But he looked more like the traditional figure of John Bull than any Englishman could. He wore a stand-up collar several sizes too large for him. His rotund head was crowned with a black hat-sometimes tall, sometimes of the pancake variety. He was big and stocky and red of face, and a typically British great-coat draped his beefy form except in the warmest weather.
Hilaire Belloc-he dropped the other appendages at an early age-was born at La Celle, near Paris, on July 20, 1870. His father, Louis Swanton Belloc, was well known as a barrister throughout France. Bessie Rayner Belloc, his mother, was of Irish extraction. Somewhere in his immediate background was an infusion of Pennsylvania Dutch blood. His mother, who lived into her nineties and died in 1914, was a remarkably intellectual woman, noted as one of the signers of the first petition ever presented for women's suffrage.
Her son studied at the Oratory School at Edgebaston, England, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1893. In his third year he was Blackenbury History Scholar and an honor student in the history schools.
Between Oratory School and his matriculation at Oxford, Belloc served in the French Army, where as a driver in the Eighth Regiment of Artillery, he was stationed at Toul. It was from this spot that, years later, he was to set forth on the pilgrimage afoot to St. Peter's that furnished material for the book that many critics consider his best,- The Path to Rome.
In 1903 Belloc became a British subject and in 1906 was returned to Parliament by the South Salford constituency. He was a member of the Liberal party in the brilliant House of Commons created by the Tory debacle of the preceding year. He made his maiden speech in the House early in 1906 and it won him an immediate reputation as a brilliant orator. He had already attracted considerable attention during his campaign. In the year of his return to Parliament he was also the nominee of the British Bishops to the Catholic Education Council.
Belloc's literary career began immediately after Balliol. He rapidly achieved success as a newspaper and magazine writer and as a light versifier. His first book, published in the year of his graduation, was Verses and Sonnets, and this was followed within a year by The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, in which his reputation as a master of whimsy was fully established. One of the most famous in this category starts out thus:
The nicest child I ever knew
Was Charles Augustus Fortesque;
He never lost his cap or tore
His stockings or his pinafore;
In eating bread he made no crumbs.
He was extremely fond of sums.
Another, more dire, ballad about an untruthful maiden named Mathilde was a famous forerunner to the Ogden Nash style of rhyming:
It happened that a few weeks later
Her aunt was off to the theatre
To see that entertaining play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
Belloc sat in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910, but refused to serve a second term because, in his own words, he was "weary of the party system," and thought he could attack politics better from without Parliament than from within. From that time on he devoted his entire efforts to writing and lecturing.
Belloc's wife, the former Elodie Agnes Hogan of Napa, California, whom he married in 1896, died in 1914. He never remarried. His eldest son, Louis, was killed while serving as a flier in World War I, and his youngest, Peter, a captain of the Royal Marines, died during World War-II. Belloc made his home with his elder daughter, Mrs. Eleanor Jebb, wife of a member of Parliament, in Horsham, Sussex. Besides Eleanor, he had another daughter, Elizabeth, a poet, as-well as another son, Hilary, who lives in Canada. Belloc's sister, Mrs. Marie Belloc Lowndes, also a noted British writer, died in 1947.
By Pope Pius XI, Belloc was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1934 for his services to Catholicism as a writer. In the same year, his alma- mater, Oxford, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. He shared with the then British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, the distinction of being the only persons to have their portraits hung in the National Portrait Gallery while they were alive.
Mr. Belloc visited the United States on many occasions. In 1937 he served as a visiting Professor of History at the Graduate School of Fordham University in New York. From the matter of these lectures came his book, The Crisis of Civilization.
A prolific writer, he was the author of 153 books of essays, fiction, history, biography, poetry and light verse as well as a vast amount of periodical literature. He was largely responsible for G. K. Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism, and the two of them became ranked as not only among England's greatest writers but as the most brilliant lay expounders of Catholic doctrine. The two were also close friends and frequent collaborators, especially on the magazine which came to be known as G. K's. Weekly, and in which they came to wage many a valiant crusade together. As a critic noted: "To Hilaire Belloc this generation owes big glimpses of the Homeric spirit. His mission is to flay alive the humbugs and hypocrites and the pedants and to chant robust folk-songs to the naked stars of the English world to a rousing obligato of clinking flagons."
Because of his antagonism to many British sacred cows and his free and caustic criticism of them, he was not a wholly popular man in England. Nor did his espousal of the Franco cause against the Communists during the Spanish civil war add to his popularity there. But Belloc had never been a man to purchase popularity at the price of integrity.
Just four days before his eighty-third birthday, while dozing before the fireplace in his daughter's home, he fell into the flames and was so badly burned that he died in hospital at Guildford, Surrey, soon afterward on July 16, 1953.
Despite his own prediction to the contrary, his place in English letters is forever secure, primarily as a poet and as the author of The Path to Rome.
Memorial to Sir George Alexander
Sir George Alexander (19 June 1858 – 15 March 1918), born George Alexander Gibb Samson, was an English stage actor, theatre producer and theatre manager.
Alexander was born in Reading, Berkshire. He began acting in amateur theatricals in 1875. Four years later he embarked on a professional acting career, making his London debut in 1881. He played many roles in the leading companies, including Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London.
In 1890, he produced his first play at the Avenue Theatre, and in 1891 he became the actor manager of St James's Theatre, where he produced several major plays of the day such as Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde (1892). He appeared in The Second Mrs Tanqueray by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero in which he played Aubrey Tanqueray and which made Mrs Patrick Campbell into a theatrical star.
One of the most famous first nights in Victorian theatre occurred on 14 February 1895 when The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde hit the stage. The Prince of Wales was in attendance,[citation needed] and a good dozen policemen could be seen patrolling the streets outside. A tip-off had warned both the author and the actor/manager that Lord Alfred Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry was hoping to get into the theatre and create havoc during the play. Fortunately the Marquess was ushered from the premises and in disgust threw his grotesque bouquet of vegetables that he was carrying into the gutter.
Queensberry then set into motion the events that led to Wilde's downfall and disgrace. Upon his release from prison in 1897, Wilde moved to the continent. Nevertheless, Wilde still felt indebted to Alexander as a result of his artistic integrity in producing two of Wilde's plays so successfully. But when Wilde was at the seaside resort in Napoule in December 1898, he suddenly encountered Alexander on a bicycle, as he wrote to Robbie Ross: "He gave me a crooked, sickly smile, and hurried on without stopping. How absurd and mean of him." By the summer of 1900, however, Wilde had forgotten the slight, and greeted Alexander warmly: "It was really a great pleasure to see you again, and to receive your friendly grasp of the hand after so many years." Alexander, who bought the rights to Lady Windermere's Fan and Earnest after Wilde was declared bankrupt, voluntarily agreed to spread the payment for the plays over a certain period — to which Wilde responded, "...I know it was dictated by sheer kindness and the thoughtfulness of an old friend." Alexander later willed the rights of the plays to Wilde's son, Vyvyan.
Under Alexander, the St James's Theatre was said to be modern in outlook and attire. The imaginative fancy of Mr. Walter Crane had created designs for the decoration of the walls in the foyer. They were covered with embossed paper of green and gold. On the one side a curiously carved mantelpiece in walnut, was surmounted by a picture of Venus emerging from a shell, painted by Mr. J. Macbeth. While on the other side sat the ticket box, having all the appearance of an elegant cabinet, with antique clock and choice 'blue and white' as ornaments. On the floor were spread rich and costly rugs and Indian carpets. A flight of stairs made of Siena marble, covered with Indian carpet, and having brass standards on either side of the banisters, conducted one to the crush-room. Again, fancifully furnished, draped with printed tapestry, and resplendent with mirrors. From the scheme, and the designers, it appears that Oscar Wilde must have advised on the house decoration.
Later The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope followed in 1896. Then more Pinero premieres added to the already overwhelming successes at the St. James's, including Stephen Phillips's Paolo and Francesca (1902). Henry James's Guy Domville (1895) was a rare disaster.
Having become an actor rather than a financier, as his family wished, Alexander threw himself into the development of the modern drawing room comedy. It was here his true talent shone. With a light comic air and a delicate grace Alec, as he was affectionately known, brought many care-free parts to life. As lessee of the St. James' he was characteristically closely supported by his wife, who undertook much of the set-dressing and wardrobe organisation. This included selecting props and fashionable attire, attending fittings, for both costume and wigs, and also working with a host of scenic artists. Many well-known artists from the Royal Academy either advised or actually painted the St. James's backdrops. One notable worth mention was Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Alma-Tadema had also worked for Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre.
George Alexander remained at the St. James's Theatre to the end of his life. He appears as a character in David Lodge's novel about the life of Henry James, Author, Author. He was knighted for his services to the theatre in 1911. From 1907 to 1913 he was a member of London County Council, one of two Municipal Reform Party councillors representing St Pancras South. He was active in the Actors' Orphanage Fund (now the Actors' Charitable Trust), serving as a Trustee for more than 10 years, and chairing general meetings after the death of Sir Henry Irving.
104 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea SW10. Along with GK Chesterton, he was one of the great Roman Catholic philosophers of his day.
Taken from www.catholicauthors.com/belloc.html
JOSEPH HILAIRE PIERRE BELLOC, ONE OF THE TRUE LORDS of the English language, was not an Englishman by birth. His father was French, his mother was Irish; and when he married, his bride was an American. But he looked more like the traditional figure of John Bull than any Englishman could. He wore a stand-up collar several sizes too large for him. His rotund head was crowned with a black hat-sometimes tall, sometimes of the pancake variety. He was big and stocky and red of face, and a typically British great-coat draped his beefy form except in the warmest weather.
Hilaire Belloc-he dropped the other appendages at an early age-was born at La Celle, near Paris, on July 20, 1870. His father, Louis Swanton Belloc, was well known as a barrister throughout France. Bessie Rayner Belloc, his mother, was of Irish extraction. Somewhere in his immediate background was an infusion of Pennsylvania Dutch blood. His mother, who lived into her nineties and died in 1914, was a remarkably intellectual woman, noted as one of the signers of the first petition ever presented for women's suffrage.
Her son studied at the Oratory School at Edgebaston, England, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1893. In his third year he was Blackenbury History Scholar and an honor student in the history schools.
Between Oratory School and his matriculation at Oxford, Belloc served in the French Army, where as a driver in the Eighth Regiment of Artillery, he was stationed at Toul. It was from this spot that, years later, he was to set forth on the pilgrimage afoot to St. Peter's that furnished material for the book that many critics consider his best,- The Path to Rome.
In 1903 Belloc became a British subject and in 1906 was returned to Parliament by the South Salford constituency. He was a member of the Liberal party in the brilliant House of Commons created by the Tory debacle of the preceding year. He made his maiden speech in the House early in 1906 and it won him an immediate reputation as a brilliant orator. He had already attracted considerable attention during his campaign. In the year of his return to Parliament he was also the nominee of the British Bishops to the Catholic Education Council.
Belloc's literary career began immediately after Balliol. He rapidly achieved success as a newspaper and magazine writer and as a light versifier. His first book, published in the year of his graduation, was Verses and Sonnets, and this was followed within a year by The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, in which his reputation as a master of whimsy was fully established. One of the most famous in this category starts out thus:
The nicest child I ever knew
Was Charles Augustus Fortesque;
He never lost his cap or tore
His stockings or his pinafore;
In eating bread he made no crumbs.
He was extremely fond of sums.
Another, more dire, ballad about an untruthful maiden named Mathilde was a famous forerunner to the Ogden Nash style of rhyming:
It happened that a few weeks later
Her aunt was off to the theatre
To see that entertaining play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
Belloc sat in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910, but refused to serve a second term because, in his own words, he was "weary of the party system," and thought he could attack politics better from without Parliament than from within. From that time on he devoted his entire efforts to writing and lecturing.
Belloc's wife, the former Elodie Agnes Hogan of Napa, California, whom he married in 1896, died in 1914. He never remarried. His eldest son, Louis, was killed while serving as a flier in World War I, and his youngest, Peter, a captain of the Royal Marines, died during World War-II. Belloc made his home with his elder daughter, Mrs. Eleanor Jebb, wife of a member of Parliament, in Horsham, Sussex. Besides Eleanor, he had another daughter, Elizabeth, a poet, as-well as another son, Hilary, who lives in Canada. Belloc's sister, Mrs. Marie Belloc Lowndes, also a noted British writer, died in 1947.
By Pope Pius XI, Belloc was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1934 for his services to Catholicism as a writer. In the same year, his alma- mater, Oxford, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. He shared with the then British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, the distinction of being the only persons to have their portraits hung in the National Portrait Gallery while they were alive.
Mr. Belloc visited the United States on many occasions. In 1937 he served as a visiting Professor of History at the Graduate School of Fordham University in New York. From the matter of these lectures came his book, The Crisis of Civilization.
A prolific writer, he was the author of 153 books of essays, fiction, history, biography, poetry and light verse as well as a vast amount of periodical literature. He was largely responsible for G. K. Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism, and the two of them became ranked as not only among England's greatest writers but as the most brilliant lay expounders of Catholic doctrine. The two were also close friends and frequent collaborators, especially on the magazine which came to be known as G. K's. Weekly, and in which they came to wage many a valiant crusade together. As a critic noted: "To Hilaire Belloc this generation owes big glimpses of the Homeric spirit. His mission is to flay alive the humbugs and hypocrites and the pedants and to chant robust folk-songs to the naked stars of the English world to a rousing obligato of clinking flagons."
Because of his antagonism to many British sacred cows and his free and caustic criticism of them, he was not a wholly popular man in England. Nor did his espousal of the Franco cause against the Communists during the Spanish civil war add to his popularity there. But Belloc had never been a man to purchase popularity at the price of integrity.
Just four days before his eighty-third birthday, while dozing before the fireplace in his daughter's home, he fell into the flames and was so badly burned that he died in hospital at Guildford, Surrey, soon afterward on July 16, 1953.
Despite his own prediction to the contrary, his place in English letters is forever secure, primarily as a poet and as the author of The Path to Rome.
The Postcard
A Philco Series postcard featuring an early image of Gladys Cooper.
It was posted in Southend-on-Sea on Friday the 28th. April 1922 to:
Mrs. H. Green,
Feering Hill,
Kelvedon,
Essex.
What Mrs. Green read on the back of the card a century ago is as follows:
"Dear Nellie,
Thanks very much for your
letter. I hope you will excuse
me not writing but we have
been so very busy.
We sent a box off today for
Mother, but have put your
address on. You may have
to pay something on it as
there's been a little
misunderstanding about it.
Thank Mother for letters.
I will write a letter tomorrow
or Sunday.
Love to all".
Nellie can be a nickname for Helen or Helena.
Philco
The Philco Publishing Co. of 1-6 Holborn Place, London were active between 1905 to 1934. They published many different types of artist-signed cards and photo-based view-cards.
They are noted for three large sets representing Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Most of their cards were printed in Germany, although a set of real photo birthday greeting cards were manufactured in Italy.
Miss Gladys Cooper
Gladys Cooper's most noticeable characteristic is that she rarely if ever smiled when being photographed. In some publicity shots she actually looks quite annoyed.
Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, (18th. December 1888 – 17th. November 1971) was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.
Beginning as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and silent films before the First World War.
She also became a manager of the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1933, where she played many roles. From the early 1920's, Cooper was winning praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others.
In the 1930's, she was starring both in the West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles; she was nominated for three Academy Awards, the last one as Mrs. Higgins in 'My Fair Lady' (1964). Throughout the 1950's and 1960's, she mixed her stage and film careers, continuing to star on stage until her last year.
Gladys Cooper - The Early Years
Cooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London, the eldest of the three daughters of Charles William Frederick Cooper and Mabel Barnett.
Gladys Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant.
Gladys made her stage debut in 1905 touring with Seymour Hicks in his musical 'Bluebell in Fairyland'. The young beauty was also a popular photographic model.
In 1906, she appeared as Lady Swan in London in 'The Belle of Mayfair', and then in the pantomime 'Babes in the Wood' as Mavis. The following year she became a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, creating the small role of Eva in 'The Girls of Gottenberg'. That Christmas, she was Molly in 'Babes in the Wood'.
In 1908, she appeared in the musical 'Havana', followed the next year by 'Our Miss Gibbs', in which she played Lady Connie. She was then on tour again with Hicks, in 'Papa's Wife', before playing Sadie von Tromp in the hit operetta 'The Dollar Princess' at Daly's Theatre in 1909.
In 1911, she appeared in a production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' and in 'Man and Superman'. Among several other plays, the next year she was Muriel Pym in 'Milestones' at the Royalty Theatre. A highlight of 1913 was Dora in 'Diplomacy' at Wyndham's Theatre. That year she also played the title role in 'The Pursuit of Pamela' at the Royalty.
In 1913 Cooper appeared in her first film, 'The Eleventh Commandment', going on to make several more silent films during the Great War and shortly afterwards. She continued full-time stage work, however, including appearances as Lady Agatha Lazenby in 'The Admirable Crichton' in 1916, and Clara de Foenix in 'Trelawny of the Wells'.
In addition, in 1917, Cooper became co-manager, with Frank Curzon, of the Playhouse Theatre, taking over sole control from 1927 until she left in 1933. During these years, she starred several times in 'My Lady's Dress'. She appeared in W. Somerset Maugham's 'Home and Beauty' in 1919, repeated Dora at His Majesty's Theatre in 1920 and elsewhere thereafter, and played numerous roles at the Playhouse Theatre.
Gladys Cooper - The Later Years
It was not until 1922, however, now in her mid thirties, that she found major critical success, in Arthur Wing Pinero's 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray'. Early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Aldous Huxley dismissed her performance in 'Home and Beauty', writing:
"She is too impassive, too statuesque,
playing all the time as if she were Galatea,
newly unpetrified and still unused to the
ways of the living world."
Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for:
"Turning herself from an indifferent actress
to an extremely competent one through her
common sense and industriousness".
For both the 1923 and 1924 Christmas shows at the Adelphi Theatre, Cooper played the title character in 'Peter Pan', while also playing several other roles at that theatre during those two years. She appeared in Maugham's 'The Letter' in London and on tour in 1927 and 1928, in 'Excelsior' in 1928, and in Maugham's 'The Sacred Flame' in 1929, also in London and on tour.
Among other roles, Cooper was Clemency Warlock in 'Cynara' (1930), Wanda Heriot in 'The Pelican' (1931), Lucy Haydon in 'Dr Pygmalion' (1932), Carola in 'The Firebird' (1932), Jane Claydon in 'The Rats of Norway' (1933), Mariella Linden in 'The Shining Hour' in 1934 and 1935, in London and New York City and on tour (at the same time making her first "talkie" film, 'The Iron Duke'), also playing Desdemona and Lady Macbeth on Broadway in 1935.
She was Dorothy Hilton in 'Call it a Day', again in both London and New York, from 1935 to 1936. A highlight of 1937 was Laura Lorimer in 'Goodbye to Yesterday' in London and on tour. In 1938, she played Tiny Fox-Collier in 'Spring Meeting' in New York, Montreal and Britain, as well as several Shakespeare roles and Fran Dodsworth in 'Dodsworth'. She repeated 'Spring Meeting' in 1939.
Cooper turned to film full-time in 1940, finding success in Hollywood in a variety of character roles, and was frequently cast as a disapproving, aristocratic society woman, although she sometimes played lively, approachable types, as she did in 'Rebecca' (1940).
She was nominated three times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances as Bette Davis's domineering mother in 'Now, Voyager' (1942), a sceptical nun in 'The Song of Bernadette' (1943), and Rex Harrison's mother, Mrs. Higgins, in 'My Fair Lady' (1964).
In 1945, after playing the role of Clarissa Scott in the film 'The Valley of Decision' for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she was given a contract with the studio. Her credits there included both dramatic and comedy films, including 'The Green Years' (1946), 'The Cockeyed Miracle' (1946) and 'The Secret Garden' (1949).
Other notable film roles were 'The Man Who Loved Redheads' (1955), 'Separate Tables' (1958) and 'The Happiest Millionaire' (1967) as Aunt Mary Drexel, singing "There Are Those".
Her only stage roles in the 1940's were Mrs. Parrilow in 'The Morning Star' in Philadelphia and New York (1942), and Melanie Aspen in 'The Indifferent Shepherd' in Great Britain (1948).
She returned to theatre (between films) more often in the 1950's and 1960's, playing in London and on tour in such roles as Edith Fenton in 'The Hat Trick' (1950); Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, in 'Relative Values' (1951 and 1953); Grace Smith in 'A Question of Fact' (1953); Lady Yarmouth in 'The Night of the Ball' (1954); Mrs. St. Maugham in 'The Chalk Garden' (1955–56), Dame Mildred in 'The Bright One' (1958); Mrs. Vincent in 'Look on Tempests' (1960); Mrs. Gantry (Bobby) in 'The Bird of Time' (1961); Mrs. Moore in a stage adaptation of 'A Passage to India' (1962); Mrs Tabret in 'The Sacred Flame' (1966 and 1967); Prue Salter in 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' (1967); Emma Littlewood in 'Out of the Question' (1968); Lydia in 'His, Hers and Theirs' (1969); and others.
She received two nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for her roles in 'The Chalk Garden' and 'A Passage to India'.
She also had various television roles in the 1950's and '60's. These included, among others, three episodes of 'The Twilight Zone'. In the first, titled "Nothing in the Dark" (1962), she played an old lady who refuses to leave her flat for fear of meeting 'Death'. A young policeman (Robert Redford) is shot at her doorstep and persuades her to let him inside.
Her second appearance was in "Passage on the Lady Anne", which aired on the 9th. May 1963.
Her final episode was the 1964 "Night Call", where she portrayed a difficult, lonely old lady who is besieged by late-night phone calls. Cooper starred in the 1964–65 series 'The Rogues' with David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young, Robert Coote, John Williams and Larry Hagman. The series lasted a single season of thirty episodes, most of which featured Cooper as the matriarch of a crime family.
In 1967, at the age of 79, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Her last major success on the stage was at the age of 82, in 1970–71 in the role of Mrs. St. Maugham in Enid Bagnold's 'The Chalk Garden', a role she had created on Broadway and in the West End in 1955–56.
Marriages of Gladys Cooper
Cooper was married three times. Her husbands were:
- Captain Herbert Buckmaster (1908–1921). The couple had two children: Joan (1910–2005), who was married to the actor Robert Morley, and John Rodney (1915–83).
- Sir Neville Pearson (1927–36). Sir Neville and Lady Pearson had one daughter, Sally Pearson, aka Sally Cooper, who was married (1961–86) to actor Robert Hardy.
- Philip Merivale (1937–1946), a fellow actor. The couple lived for many years in Santa Monica, California as permanent resident aliens. He died at age 59 from a heart ailment. Her stepson from this marriage was John Merivale.
Death of Gladys Cooper
Gladys lived mostly in England in her final years, and died from pneumonia at the age of 82 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
The Postcard
A postcard published by J. Beagles & Co. of London E.C. The photography was by Ellis and Walery of Conduit Street and later Regent Street, London, and the card was printed in England.
The firm of J. Beagles & Co. was started by John Beagles (1844-1909). The company produced a variety of postcards including an extensive catalogue of celebrity (stage and screen) portrait postcards. After Beagle’s death, the business continued under its original name until it closed in 1939.
The card was posted in Marden, Kent on Saturday the 10th. June 1905 to:
Miss Aust,
14, Lorne Road,
Twerton,
Bath.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Hope you are home
alright.
Wish it would dry up
a bit.
Yours,
A. M."
Sir George Alexander
George Alexander was born George Alexander Gibb Samson in Reading on the 19th. June 1858. He was an English stage actor, theatre producer and theatre manager.
He is the great- great-uncle of actor/comedian Hugh Laurie.
George started his working life as a clerk for a London firm of drapers in 1873 while acting in amateur theatricals. He first toured with a professional company in 1879, and over the following eleven years, he gained experience with leading producers and actor-managers, including Tom Robertson, Henry Irving, and Madge and W. H. Kendal.
George's London breakthrough came in 1881, when he played Freddy Butterscotch in The Guv’nor; he was hired by Sir Henry Irving for the Lyceum the same year, remaining with that company (with breaks) until 1889.
George married Florence Jane Théleur in 1882, and she proved to be a forceful helpmate.
During his time with Irving, Alexander became interested in theatre management. in November 1890 he signed a lease on the St. James’s Theatre where he installed electric light, re-upholstered the seats, and became that object of so much debate, an actor-manager.
He remained at the St. James's Theatre, acting and producing, for the rest of his career.
George appeared in more than sixty full-length productions, in which he was often (but not necessarily) cast to star, including brilliant new plays such as Oscar Wilde's 'Lady Windermere’s Fan' (1892), A. W. Pinero's 'The Second Mrs Tanqueray' (1893) and Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895 and revived 1909).
He performed a wildly successful double act in 'The Prisoner of Zenda' (1896), and also found time to serve on the London County Council from 1907 to 1913, as well as on various charitable committees.
Alexander followed Robertson and the Kendals in preferring a naturalistic style of writing and acting to the extravagantly theatrical manner favoured by some earlier actor-managers.
He built around him a company of fine actors, many of whom were or later became leading figures in the profession, including Henry Ainley, Arthur Bourchier, Constance Collier, Julia Neilson, Fred Terry and Marion Terry.
As an actor, Alexander's range was limited, and he did not attempt the great heroic roles or play much tragedy. His genre was naturalistic, and rarely very profound, comedy and drama, in which he was a recognised leader.
He was knighted for his services to the theatre in 1911.
The Death of Sir George Alexander
George Alexander retired in June 1917.
George died of tuberculosis and diabetes at his country home, Little Court, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire on the 16th. March 1918 at the age of 59. He was laid to rest there four days later.
A memorial service was held at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, in London on the 22nd. March 1918, attended by a large congregation, mainly comprising the theatrical profession and British society.
A blue plaque unveiled in 1951 commemorates Alexander at his London house, 57 Pont Street, Chelsea.
Final thoughts on Sir George Alexander
George's acting style has been described thus:
"Mannerisms? Well, yes! A twist of the mouth,
a bending of the knees - those were his, as
other actors have others, and they would
become accentuated, if he was harassed,
or his part was not strenuous."
"As an actor-manager, he used the St. James’s
Theatre. He threw open its doors to any kind
of play. He never insisted that his part should
be the best.
He was willing to stand out of the cast altogether,
and would have done so more often, had the
authors of the plays been willing."
Hesketh Pearson, an actor colleague, said of him:
"He was handsome in a rather expressionless
way; his movements were as graceful as they
were decorous; his voice was genteel, and
admirably modulated.
He was so well-dressed that men would often
study his clothes before ordering their own.
He was kind, not generous; likeable, not loveable;
just, not indulgent; the last man to whom you
would go for sympathy, the first to whom you
would go for advice.
Yet that aloof manner and restrained behaviour
concealed a very sensitive soul, which was
revealed when he confessed to me that the
older he grew, the more nervous he felt at
rehearsals."
Arthur Mellish
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted>
Well, the 10th. June 1905 marked the birth of Arthur Preston Mellish. He was a Canadian mathematician, known for his generalization of Barbier's theorem.
Arthur Mellish received in 1928 an M.A. in mathematics from the University of British Columbia with his thesis 'An Illustrative Example of the Ellipsoid Pendulum'.
Arthur died aged 24 on the 7th. February 1930, and had no mathematical publications during his lifetime. After his death, his colleagues at Brown University examined his notes on mathematics.
Jacob Tamarkin prepared a paper based upon the notes, and published it in the Annals of Mathematics in 1931.
In the statement of the following theorem, an oval means a closed convex curve. Mellish's Theorem is as follows:
The statements:
(i) A curve is of constant width;
(ii) A curve is of constant diameter;
(iii) All the normals of a curve (an oval) are double;
(iv) The sum of radii of curvature at opposite points of a curve (an oval) is constant;
are equivalent, in the sense that whenever one of statements (i–iv) is true, all other statements also hold.
(v) All curves of the same (constant) width a have the same length L given by L = πa.
So now you know.
De los creadores de Casa Mono, el restaurante de moda en la capital, llega ahora Ateneo, ubicado en el interior de una de las instituciones artísticas y culturales más emblemáticos, el Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid. El nuevo espacio que nace con el objetivo firme de “ofrecer un espacio versátil que se pueda disfrutar en cualquier momento”, se organiza en tres zonas completamente diferenciadas y comunicadas entre sí: coctelería, cafetería-bar de tapas y restaurante. Todo ello envuelto en el diseño funcional y un tanto transgresor de Lázaro Rosa-Violán.
COCINA TRADICIONAL EN DOS FORMATOS
El equipo de Ateneo propone una oferta gastronómica sencilla basada en la cocina tradicional española con matices internacionales, tanto en versión restaurante como en formato tapas. La carta de restaurante apuesta por platos para compartir como el ceviche de pulpo y mango, las croquetas de jamón ibérico o los huevos de corral con patatas paja. Además propone arroces y pastas como el arroz meloso o los Fettuccine Alfredo’s, pescados como el pez mantequilla a la plancha o el tataki de salmón y carnes como la hamburguesa de buey o la carrillada de ibérico. Para terminar, postres caseros como el Citros o la Fábrica de Chocolate. Propuestas que se encuentran también en su carta de tapas, disponible durante todo el día en la cafetería y la coctelería. Y para acompañar cuenta con una selección muy cuidada de tintos, blancos, rosados y espumosos de las principales D.O españolas.
COCTELERÍA CON SELLO PROPIO
El savoir faire de la coctelería de Casa Mono se extiende a Ateneo. Aquí apuestan por una carta de cócteles que recoge los grandes hits de la coctelería caribeña como el mojito, el daiquiri, la caipiriña o la fruta pasión. Además, dedican un especial cuidado al combinado por excelencia, el gin tonic, para los que han seleccionado las ginebras más especiales y los botánicos que consiguen ensalzar su sabor. Por ejemplo, proponen Tanqueray Malacca con naranja kumkuat, Martin Millers con lima y enebro y Broockmans con frambuesa y mora. Una oferta coctelera perfecta para alargar la sobremesa en el restaurante o tomarse la primera copa de la noche en su coctelería en un ambiente más animado con música elegante pero divertida.
DISEÑO DE AUTOR
Lázaro Rosa-Violán, uno de los interioristas más reconocidos a nivel internacional por sus trabajos en grupos como Aristocrazy o Inditex, da vida a Ateneo, como si se tratara de una extensión del edificio decimonónico, pero con la impronta transgresora que le caracteriza. Desde la calle Santa Catalina nº10 se accede al restaurante-coctelería presidida por una gran barra de madera y una chimenea. En torno a ella auténticos sofás Chester y taburetes altos de piel genuina recrean el ambiente de los lujosos cafés ingleses del siglo XIX. Por sus escaleras se llega a la segunda planta del restaurante, un espacio elegante y acogedor, que se comunica con la cafetería, a la que se puede entrar también directamente desde el Ateneo. En ella se alternan mesas altas y taburetes, coquetas e íntimas mesitas para dos y alargadas mesas para compartir. Ambos se envuelven en una estética minimalista y rústica que se consigue con ladrillos vistos y un mobiliario que mezcla la piel, el ante y la madera en tonos neutros. Sin duda, el lugar perfecto para desayunar, realizar un picoteo office-break, celebrar el afterwork, disfrutar de una cena romántica o tomar las primeras copas de la noche.
EVENTOS CON ARTE
Ateneo es además un espacio idóneo para la celebración de todo tipo de eventos en el corazón del barrio de Las Letras. Cada cliente puede elegir entre la cafetería, el restaurante o la coctelería, además de cualquiera de las prestigiosas e históricas salas del emblemático edificio. Desde el equipo de Ateneo se encargan de todo el catering, desde el diseño del menú y la selección de los vinos hasta la elaboración de cócteles en directo.
Dirección: Santa Catalina,10 y Prado, 21. Madrid.
Teléfono: 914202432
Horario: de lunes a sábado de 9:00 a 1:00h. Domingos de 9:00 a 22:00h.
Precio medio: 25€
Menú entre semana: 14,90€.
The Postcard
An Oilette Popular Plays Series postcard that was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons, Art Publishers to Their Majesties the King and Queen.
The card was posted in Sittingbourne in Kent, although the date of posting has been removed along with the stamp.
The card was posted to:
Miss Olive Glover,
64, Providence Street,
South Ashford,
Kent.
The brief pencilled message on the divided back was as follows:
"Anything like
this.
G."
The edge of the postcard shows the consequences of the man's flirtation with the maid - a considerably slimmed-down version of his wife has packed her bags and is leaving him, and a family law barrister is waiting in the wings. Or maybe it's the maid who's been given the push?
'A Wife Without a Smile', and Why it Was Banned
The postcard's title refers to the play 'A Wife Without a Smile' which is a comedy in three acts written by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero.
It was first performed at Wyndham's Theatre, London on the 9th. October 1904.
There can't be many plays that have been banned on account of a dancing doll, but Pinero's "Comedy in Disguise", A Wife Without a Smile, suffered precisely that fate.
The clue was in the stage directions: the doll was not just any doll, but a toy bought by Pinero's hero Seymour Rippingill in an attempt to cheer his humourless wife.
So keen is he to make her smile that when his friends come to visit, he bores a hole in his own ceiling, ties a string to the springs of the upstairs sofa and attaches the other end to the doll, so that, as the Illustrated London News's critic drily pointed out:
"The doll acts as indicator of the different
degrees of amorousness of persons using
the couch".
Occasionally, this went so far as to result in a "wild jigging".
As a way of representing sex on stage, it seems pretty tame by today's standards. The couple were married, the sex was implicit rather than explicit and it was, after all, a farce.
At first the critics didn't seem to mind. Pinero was, as the Illustrated London News's critic put it, "Our Premier Dramatist", and while his social dramas (such as The Second Mrs. Tanqueray) had made him a rival to George Bernard Shaw, he was most famous for his farces.
The Times defined the doll as an "Erotometer", but the Illustrated London News's critic protested:
"There is no need to take the joke,
even if it is rather broad, at more
than its face-value".
He went so far as to nominate the doll itself as the most important member of the cast at Wyndham's, and the most popular.
The London News's only cavil was that Dion ("Dot") Boucicault, son of the flamboyant Irish actor-playwright of the same name, was too serious an actor for farce, and was wasted in the role of the joker husband.
The Observer also pitied Boucicault:
"He was required to laugh consumedly
during the first act - an invidious task.
It was the dancing doll that won the trick;
the toy was funnier than Pinero's "Glancing
Wit" or his "Gallery of Contemporary Foibles".
The only person who wasn't laughing was the wife (played by Lettice Fairfax), who cracked only a smile when it transpired that her marriage to Rippingill was, quite literally, a farce - his previous marriage had not been properly annulled.
The Banning of A Wife Without a Smile
The trouble came on the 15th. October 1904, when Brigadier Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel J. B. B. Myers wrote to Lord Clarendon, the Lord Chamberlain, in a fury.
Myers hadn't actually seen the play; he had only read a review of it in the Sunday Referee, but he was incensed. He wrote:
"There can be but one inference from the
movements of the dancing doll - in plain
language - of sexual intercourse taking place.
If my surmise be correct, could anything be
more repugnant to every sense of decency?"
Lord Clarendon went to see the play and concluded that:
"Although the doll incident might be indelicately
construed, it might also be regarded as a childish
accessory."
However a week later, a review appeared in The Free Lance under the headline The Dirty Drama:
"The doll is grossly indecent, and the play is
the latest in a slippery slope from Ibscenity
to unashamed obscenity".
The critic also singled out Lord Clarendon:
"For not having saved the British stage a
greater degredation than it ever suffered
at the hands of the Restoration dramatists".
Clarendon started to lose the courage of his convictions, and arranged a meeting with the management at Wyndham's, who vowed to take action, and told him:
"We have moderated the transports
of the doll considerably".
However this was not enough; Clarendon came under pressure from so many people (including the Bishop of London, who asked him "to relieve London of what many felt to be a degrading spectacle") that he withdrew the play's licence, forcing it to close.
However it didn't significantly dent Pinero's glittering career; he continued to be the toast of the West End, and five years later, after the success of another farce about marital distress, Mid-Channel, he was knighted. But there doesn't seem to have ever been a revival of A Wife Without a Smile.
De los creadores de Casa Mono, el restaurante de moda en la capital, llega ahora Ateneo, ubicado en el interior de una de las instituciones artísticas y culturales más emblemáticos, el Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid. El nuevo espacio que nace con el objetivo firme de “ofrecer un espacio versátil que se pueda disfrutar en cualquier momento”, se organiza en tres zonas completamente diferenciadas y comunicadas entre sí: coctelería, cafetería-bar de tapas y restaurante. Todo ello envuelto en el diseño funcional y un tanto transgresor de Lázaro Rosa-Violán.
COCINA TRADICIONAL EN DOS FORMATOS
El equipo de Ateneo propone una oferta gastronómica sencilla basada en la cocina tradicional española con matices internacionales, tanto en versión restaurante como en formato tapas. La carta de restaurante apuesta por platos para compartir como el ceviche de pulpo y mango, las croquetas de jamón ibérico o los huevos de corral con patatas paja. Además propone arroces y pastas como el arroz meloso o los Fettuccine Alfredo’s, pescados como el pez mantequilla a la plancha o el tataki de salmón y carnes como la hamburguesa de buey o la carrillada de ibérico. Para terminar, postres caseros como el Citros o la Fábrica de Chocolate. Propuestas que se encuentran también en su carta de tapas, disponible durante todo el día en la cafetería y la coctelería. Y para acompañar cuenta con una selección muy cuidada de tintos, blancos, rosados y espumosos de las principales D.O españolas.
COCTELERÍA CON SELLO PROPIO
El savoir faire de la coctelería de Casa Mono se extiende a Ateneo. Aquí apuestan por una carta de cócteles que recoge los grandes hits de la coctelería caribeña como el mojito, el daiquiri, la caipiriña o la fruta pasión. Además, dedican un especial cuidado al combinado por excelencia, el gin tonic, para los que han seleccionado las ginebras más especiales y los botánicos que consiguen ensalzar su sabor. Por ejemplo, proponen Tanqueray Malacca con naranja kumkuat, Martin Millers con lima y enebro y Broockmans con frambuesa y mora. Una oferta coctelera perfecta para alargar la sobremesa en el restaurante o tomarse la primera copa de la noche en su coctelería en un ambiente más animado con música elegante pero divertida.
DISEÑO DE AUTOR
Lázaro Rosa-Violán, uno de los interioristas más reconocidos a nivel internacional por sus trabajos en grupos como Aristocrazy o Inditex, da vida a Ateneo, como si se tratara de una extensión del edificio decimonónico, pero con la impronta transgresora que le caracteriza. Desde la calle Santa Catalina nº10 se accede al restaurante-coctelería presidida por una gran barra de madera y una chimenea. En torno a ella auténticos sofás Chester y taburetes altos de piel genuina recrean el ambiente de los lujosos cafés ingleses del siglo XIX. Por sus escaleras se llega a la segunda planta del restaurante, un espacio elegante y acogedor, que se comunica con la cafetería, a la que se puede entrar también directamente desde el Ateneo. En ella se alternan mesas altas y taburetes, coquetas e íntimas mesitas para dos y alargadas mesas para compartir. Ambos se envuelven en una estética minimalista y rústica que se consigue con ladrillos vistos y un mobiliario que mezcla la piel, el ante y la madera en tonos neutros. Sin duda, el lugar perfecto para desayunar, realizar un picoteo office-break, celebrar el afterwork, disfrutar de una cena romántica o tomar las primeras copas de la noche.
EVENTOS CON ARTE
Ateneo es además un espacio idóneo para la celebración de todo tipo de eventos en el corazón del barrio de Las Letras. Cada cliente puede elegir entre la cafetería, el restaurante o la coctelería, además de cualquiera de las prestigiosas e históricas salas del emblemático edificio. Desde el equipo de Ateneo se encargan de todo el catering, desde el diseño del menú y la selección de los vinos hasta la elaboración de cócteles en directo.
Dirección: Santa Catalina,10 y Prado, 21. Madrid.
Teléfono: 914202432
Horario: de lunes a sábado de 9:00 a 1:00h. Domingos de 9:00 a 22:00h.
Precio medio: 25€
Menú entre semana: 14,90€.
Ben Gazzara, one of the stars of Vincent Gallo's "Buffalo 66", seen here enjoying a drink during a cocktail reception for the launch of "Pia Linstrom Presents".A weekly interview show on SAT. Radio. The program on the SIRIUS and XM Book radio channel will focus on writers directors, producers literary insiders, movie critics, slam poets lyricists and others.