Confessions of a Cock-Eyed Optimist

Nigel Quiney

Description

This volume continues to explore the life of Nigel Quiney during the decade of the nineteen-seventies. Both his companies - Nigel Quiney Designs, and Ridley Quiney & Co Ltd - are successful and expanding. By then the decade of the 'sixties and Swinging London was maturing and London had become an extremely popular tourist destination drawn to the creativity of the theatre, music, fashion, designs and the arts generally. It was in this decade that Nigel began to explore the Far East as a source for new products and suppliers for the family business of RQ and Hong Kong was the first of many destinations that he explored. Later in 1976, having accepted one of the official invitations to visit China he flew the tortuous journey to Peking and then by train to Dairen and then Tientsin. In Dairen he was privileged to be shown the underground tunnels and excavations which took many years to create and were part of a defence system should the Russians invade. Back in Peking he was wandering around filming in Tiananmen Square which was packed with people and giant wreaths out to commemorate the death of Chou En-Lai. He was ushered away by his Chinese interpreter just before the authorities swooped and confiscated all film and arrested the few foreigners who were later jailed. He had escaped by just minutes. The same year Nigel was introduced to the amazing aspects of Bombay and touring Rajasthan by car. There he stayed at several palaces that had only just been turned into hotels where he and his two friends were the only guests. In the latter part of this decade Nigel explored Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea looking for new suppliers which culminated in Ridley Quiney being the first importer of throw-away thin carrier bags into the UK. This memoir also records the love affair between Nigel and an American pop singer which sadly failed even after trips to Moscow and Ibiza. Later another affair, was also doomed. This was also the decade when industrial unrest in coal mining, steel production and manufacturing was producing strikes as the demand and competition from abroad threatened their survival. Also the decade when our various governments seemed unable to deal with these problems to the point that the UK was likened to a Banana Republic.Nigelaas love affair with America blossomed and in this period he took on the share of a flat in New York previously used by his friend, the musician and composer, Richard Rodney Bennett. In this exciting city Nigel promoted his Nigel Quiney Design products by taking space annually at trade shows and when not working took full advantage of the cityaas varied gay life. In Los Angeles, Nigel continued his close relationship with Edward and Gillian Thorpe and introduced his widowed mother to these trips where she became very much part of the entourage.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: eBookPartnership.com
• Date de parution: 25 septembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783015245
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Copyright Nigel Quiney 2011. All rights reserved.
First published in UK by Tusitala Press 12 Ripplevale Grove, London, N1 1HU Sales enquiries on 020 7607 0071
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data - A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library. Quiney CONFESSIONS OF A COCK-EYED OPTIMIST
Print ISBN - 978-0-9558951-8-0 eBook ISBN - 978-1-78301-524-5
Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastbourne, E. Sussex All type and graphic layouts produced by Melinda Sandell
The author s moral rights are hereby asserted
Photos are from the Quiney family and Chris Wright.
Photograph of author Sally Soames
Every attempt has been made to trace the copyright holders for the photographs included.
Cover designed and stitched by the author.
I dedicate this book to my dear friends Edward and Gillian Thorpe
By the same author:-
A COCK-EYED OPTIMIST 1939 - 1960 Growing up in the war years and the Fifties
MORE COCK-EYED OPTIMISM Life in the Sixties Swinging London and starting a business
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all my family and friends who read my previous memoirs and encouraged me to continue writing a third volume. Without their continuing interest, this book would have remained an unrecorded memory.
My thanks also to my darling David, known to all his friends as Dais, for his continuing encouragement and editing my manuscripts.
I list below some of the characters whom I have already introduced in A Cock-Eyed Optimist and More Cock-Eyed Optimism , as they will appear again in this volume.
Myra Bartash (nee Hicks)
With whom I travelled to the USA in 1960. She stayed on and now lives in Brentwood, California.
Peter Beales:
Friend of Tony s from Trinity College, Cambridge and who emigrated to the USA.
Colin Burt:
A regular fling and good friend, but he wanted more than I could give him.
The Cullens:
My aunt Muriel and uncle Arthur - brother of my mother, Marion.
My Cullen cousins:
David, Elizabeth, and the twins Richard and John.
John Cutler:
Tom Monks s lover and a designer and illustrator.
Alan Boomie de Witt:
Jack Lemmon s right hand man, script reader and actor. Brother of Arlen Stuart
Kris Ellam:
Artist. My life-long friend from the age of eight.
David Flyte:
Peter Beales lover, also emigrated to the USA.
John Gibbs:
An advertising executive.
Donald Goodenough:
My father s partner at Ridley Quiney.
Gil King Carlton Payne:
Lovers who originally shared a house with Richard Perfitt and John Gibbs in Paddington. Gil worked for the Shirley Bassey management company. Carlton as a free-lance fashion accessories designer.
Jean Peters:
Movie star in 1950 s, great friend of Arlen Shel Stuart and married to Howard Hughes,
Richard Perfitt:
Film editor.
Anthony Quiney:
My brother. Architectural historian and writer. Father of Harriet, Matilda, Augusta.
Lynn Quiney:
Wife of my brother Anthony and mother to my three nieces named above.
Nigel Quiney Designs:
The company that I established to sell and promote my giftwrapping paper and decorative stationery.
Ridley Quiney Co:
The company of paper merchants established by Reginald Ridley and my father in 1918, which I joined in 1955.
Joan Shea:
Broadway actress who met me off the Queen Elizabeth in 1960.
Jim Florine Sikking:
Jim - Hollywood featured actor, Florine - Style Consultant and writer.
Arlen Shel Stuart:
Arlen - actress and friend of Jean Peters. Shel - A Hollywood producer.
George Sulker-Hutson:
Chum of mine and the others living in the Paddington house.
Christopher Taylor:
Playwright, bought David Hockney paintings from the earliest exhibition in Whitechapel. Partner of Frith Banbury.
Edward Gillian Thorpe:
Gillian, writer of novels, biographies, film scripts and ballet scenarios. Edward, writer of novels, biographies and dance critic.
Ret Turner:
Costume designer who along with Bob Mackie and Ray Agion owned Elizabeth Courtney, the independent dress makers and beaders of Hollywood movies. Dressed stars from Marlene Dietrich to Marilyn Monroe to Cher.
Carl van der Voort:
Artist s agent and gallery owner in Ibiza.
Derek Wharton:
Who I met in Ibiza during my first visit and worked in human resources around the world.
Ian Williams:
Worked in the box-office at Covent Garden Opera House and later ran a sub post-office in Islington.
Chris Wright:
Partner/director/shareholder of Ridley, Quiney Co. and later Ridley, Quiney Co. Ltd.
PROLOGUE
The other night I had a horrid dream which awoke me and I lay in bed thinking.
For the last few weeks, I have been on a roll as far as writing my memoirs is concerned and I finally completed volume two - More Cock-Eyed Optimism . It is 2008 and I am currently sailing to Australia from Southampton on the Oriana - an indifferent P O cruise ship but the many days at sea without any pressures are a perfect environment for writing. So, delighted with my efforts, I decided to start my third memoir and here I am. But
In my dream, I became very aware that writing my memoirs, in such a detailed fashion, was an enormous display of my ego and vanity and not very nice. Who on earth did I think I was? Now wide awake, my confidence was suddenly undermined and I began to question my motives for all this writing. Do I push my efforts on my friends? I have a feeling that I do. Or, if I don t maybe I manipulate a situation to achieve this end. I am beginning not to like myself.
I do not often grind to a halt when I am in the middle of some project, unless some event outside my control forces the issue. I am usually a confident person who just gets on with what is at hand; now I feel vulnerable and quite uneasy. I don t want to stop writing these unimportant stories of my life as I enjoy the process and the reinvigorated memories, and when each one is finished I feel I have achieved something.
I have been greatly encouraged to write by the enthusiasm from my immediate family and some of my friends, yet the nagging thought will not go away that all I am doing is showing off and desperately looking for applause. As I write this, sipping my morning coffee and nibbling on a particularly good biscuit, the realisation has dawned on me that my nagging fears are totally correct because I am a show-off and, horror upon horrors, I do seek applause. Therefore, to conclude, I have got to stop feeling vulnerable, accept who and what I am and drop this nonsense and get on with the job
My writing this third memoir embraces the decade of the nineteen-seventies. However, as in the last memoir where I started with some stories which belonged in A Cock-Eyed Optimist , dealing with the forties and fifties, again I start this book with a few stories left out of my previous books.
CHAPTER 1
REMEMBER?
US 1939
Starred: Robert Taylor, Greer Garson, Lew Ayres, Billie Burke
During my last year at 7 The Studios, I finally decided to buy a new TV. My parents had given me a very old black-and-white ten-inch machine which originally they had given to my grandparents but, now that grandpa had died and granny Grogie had moved to Streatham, was surplus to requirements. I hardly ever watched this TV as the picture was so small and the reception appalling. I only had a temporary aerial of the sort that stood on top of the TV and resembled a giant insect s antennae. Every time a train passed outside my huge studio window, which was frequently, white lines criss-crossed the image in waves, along with what looked like a snow storm. In the end, because I couldn t throw it away - after all it did still function - I draped a splendid twenties, embroidered silk shawl over it to make it disappear.
But finally I made the important decision to buy a new set because colour TV had recently been introduced and the Swedish, top-of-the-range SABA with a twenty-inch screen was available with remote control. This wonderment of technology was irresistible to me so at the age of thirty I began to watch television. I should just add that my parents would not tolerate TV in their house while Tony and I were at school as they did not want anything to divert our attention from our studies. Little did they know what else I was getting up to and had they known would undoubtedly have bought the biggest TV available at that time.
ooooooOOOOOOoooooo
Last night, in July 2011, I watched The Prince and the Showgirl on television. This charming film starred Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, and Richard Wattis and was made in 1957 by Marilyn s production company with Olivier producing and directing. After the film finished and I was preparing for bed, reminiscing about Marilyn and her short, tragic life, I suddenly remembered that I had attended the London premiere with mother at the Odeon, Leicester Square. Very sadly, Marilyn missed the occasion, as she had caught an infection and was bed-ridden in New York.
However, after we had found our seats and settled down, before the film began, I realised that mother was sitting next to Herbert Lom, a very successful and busy English film star. To my amazement I realised that Mr Lom was chatting to mother and I overheard him saying, somewhat plaintively, that he felt that his film career was finished.
But, surely not, was mother s immediate response in a comforting manner. Why, I see you so often in films and I am quite sure that I shall continue to do so, she added firmly.
Looking back, I remember that Herbert Lom was unaccompanied and now I wonder two things. Firstly, was he flirting with mother? I must admit that she had dressed up that evening and did look very glamorous and the second thought that crosses my mind is whether Herbert Lom had been in line for the Richard Wattis part, the actor whose role was th