Beverly Brooks obituary in “The Independent”.

In the 1970s and 1980s Patricia Rothermere was as essential to the London party scene as champagne and canapes and, within that small circle for which such things matter, was famed for her hospitality.

As a fashionable figure, ‘Bubbles’ Rothermere raised contradictory emotions. On the one hand, her total disregard for the ‘You can never be too thin or too rich’ fashion doctrine caused mirth among women less secure of their position and role in society – the women who literally nibble a lettuce leaf with such dedication that their stomachs shrink and it becomes impossible for them to put on weight. On the other hand, as she grew larger and defiantly refused to dress in a way that might disguise her size, she became a cheerleader around whom those who wanted to have fun without worrying about avoirdupois happily rallied.    

Pat Rothermere’s appearance was startlingly unconventional. She loved taffeta, velvet, bows, flounces and all the gallimaufry of late 18th-century dress. She was lucky that London is still the centre for this particular form of evening dress – over-decorative, anachronistic and fussy. London designers were also lucky that they had her to wear their extraordinary creations. Whereas on slimmer, more standard figures they appeared banal and derivative, her size gave them an unexpected probity and stature.

It is as a brilliantly dotty, shimmeringly exotic night figure that she will be remembered. As she arrived at a party wearing an extravagantly concocted evening gown by Gina Fratini or Zandra Rhodes hers was invariably a presence that could not be ignored.

As a hostess she believed in an amusing mix and threw people together in an unconventional way that, in the hands of other hostesses, would seem suicidal. Guests included politicians and City men on one side and Hollywood stars or National Hunt jockeys on the other. As an ex-Rank starlet she knew not only how to project but how to improvise. If a party was too pompous, to keep it moving, she would create her own little diversions. There are tales of midnight fish-and-chip feasts in the back of her Bentley and many escapades that are best described as japes – schoolgirlish, fun and rather innocent. They epitomise the Girls’ Own quality of much of her life.

She was born Patricia Matthews in Hertfordshire in 1929, the daughter of an architect. Considered a beauty in her early twenties, she became an actress. Under the name of Beverley Brooks she appeared in several films, including Reach for the Sky (1956), the story of Douglas Bader. In 1957, after divorcing her first husband, Christopher Brooks, she married Vere Harmsworth, later Lord Rothermere and Chairman of Associated Newspapers. She once said, ‘I married an empire.’ But she always had plenty of time for fun, moving between London and her various homes in New York, Paris and Jamaica.

Her parties were not the orgy of self-indulgence and self-congratulation that many London hostesses preside over. She was a tough and determined fund-raiser for charity and used the clout of her social position to raise considerable sums on the principle that, guests or no, she expected people to pay for the fun. Her house in Eaton Square was indeed a Mecca for fun lovers but charity-supporting friends like Princess Margaret, and later the Princess of Wales, knew that Pat Rothermere had a steely determination when it came to raising funds. And they respected her for it.

Graham Faulkner (Wikipedia)

Graham Faulkner was born in 1947 in London, UK and is a British former actor.

His first and greatest role was as Francis of Assisi in Franco Zeffirelli‘s Brother Sun, Sister Moon(1972). After that, he virtually retired from acting. He played a small number of very minor roles, but has not been involved in film or television since 1984. He left acting to find stable employment in order to support his family and has worked for a private British bank.

George Chakiris was born in 1934 is a retired American dancer, singer, and actor. He is best known for his appearance in the film version of West Side Story as Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks gang, for which he won both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

Chakiris was born in Norwood, Ohio, to Steven and Zoe (née Anastasiadou) Chakiris, immigrants from Greece. He attended high school in Tucson, Arizona and Long Beach.

Chakiris did one year of college, but he wanted to dance, so he dropped out and moved to Hollywood. He worked in the advertising branch of a department store and began to study dancing at night.

Chakiris made his film debut in 1947, in the chorus of Song of Love.

For several years he appeared in small roles, usually as a dancer or a member of the chorus in various musical films, including The Great Caruso (1951), Stars and Stripes Forever (1952), Call Me Madam (1953), Second Chance (1953) and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953).

He was one of the dancers in Marilyn Monroe‘s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and was also in Give a Girl a Break (1953).

He can be seen in the funeral dance in the MGM musical film Brigadoon (1954) and was in There’s No Business Like Show Business‘ (1954).

Chakiris appeared as a dancer in White Christmas (1954). A publicity photo of Chakiris with Rosemary Clooney from her “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me” scene generated fan mail, and Paramount signed him to a movie contract. “I got lucky with the close-up with Rosemary,” said Chakiris.^[4][5]

Chakiris was in The Country Girl (1954), and The Girl Rush (1955), dancing with Rosalind Russell in the latter. He received a positive notice from Hedda Hopper.

MGM borrowed him for Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) and he did dancing in Las Vegas.

Chakiris had a small non-dancing part in Under Fire (1957).

Frustrated with the progress of his career, Chakiris left Hollywood for New York. West Side Story had been running for a year on Broadway, and Chakiris auditioned for Jerome Robbins. He was cast in the London production as “Riff”, leader of the Jets. The musical launched on the West End in late 1958 and Chakiris received excellent reviews, playing it for almost 22 months.

The Mirisch Brothers bought the film rights to West Side Story and tested Chakiris. They ended up feeling his dark complexion made him more ideal for the role of Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, and cast Russ Tamblyn as Riff. Filming took seven months.

The film of West Side Story (1961) was hugely successful and Chakiris won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. This led him to be contracted by the Mirisch Company to a long-term contract.

Chakiris played the lead role in a British film, Two and Two Make Six (1962), directed by Freddie Francis. He was announced for Day of the Damned with Montgomery Clift but it was not made.

He starred as a doctor in the film Diamond Head (1963) opposite Charlton Heston and Yvette Mimieux, which was popular.

In the early 1960s, he embarked on a career as a pop singer, resulting in a couple of minor hit songs. In 1960, he recorded one single with noted producer Joe Meek.

Chakiris’ fee around this time was a reported $100,000 per movie.^[13] His first new film for the Mirishes was Flight from Ashiya (1964), shot in Japan with Yul Brynner and Richard Widmark.

The Mirisches announced him for Young Lucifer, with Tuesday Weld and directed by Irvin Kershner, but it was not made.Neither was a film version of Carnival! which Arthur Freed wanted to make with Chakiris, Yvette Mimieux, and Robert Goulet.

Instead the Mirisches reunited Chakiris with Brynner in Kings of the Sun (1963), an epic about the Mayans which was a box office flop. Chakiris went to Italy to make Bebo’s Girl (1964) with Claudia Cardinale.

He did 633 Squadron (1964), a popular war movie with Cliff Robertson, the last movie he made for the Mirisches. Chakiris later said he made a mistake with his Hollywood films by looking at the “potential” of them instead of the quality of the roles.

Chakiris played a Greek terrorist in Cyprus in a British filmThe High Bright Sun (1965) with Dirk Bogarde for which he was paid $100,000. He went to Italy for The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen (1965) and France for Is Paris Burning? (1966).^[17]

He acted along with Catherine Deneuve and Gene Kelly in Jacques Demy‘s French musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967). Around this time his manager cancelled his contract with Capital Records. However he enjoyed his time in Europe saying he had time to “experiment and refine my craft.”^[16] He also did a nightclub act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, his first stage work since West Side Story.

The show was successful and led to Chakiris receiving an offer to appear alongside Jose Ferrer in a TV production of Kismet (1967). He did The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (1968) in France and The Big Cube (1969) with Lana Turner in America. He made Sharon vestida de rojo (1970) in Spain.

In 1969 Chakiris did a stage production of The Corn Is Green in Chicago with Eileen Herlie. He enjoyed the experience and it revived his confidence as an actor. He said all the films he made after West Side Story had been “a waste of time… it was difficult to take them seriously… It was my fault and no one else’s”.

Chakiris accepted a dramatic role on Medical Center to change his image.

He starred in the first national tour of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Company, touring as Bobby in 1971-72.

Chakiris worked heavily on TV in the 1970s and 1980s in Britain and America, guest starring on shows like Hawaii Five-O, Police Surgeon, Thriller,  Notorious Woman, Wonder Woman, Fantasy Island, CHiPs, Matt Houston, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Poor Little Rich Girls, Hell Town and Murder, She Wrote.

He appeared in the final episode of The Partridge Family as an old high school boyfriend to Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones, also a musical theater veteran and the person who just happened to have presented him with his Academy Award). Their kiss goodbye was the final scene in the program’s run. He also starred in a film Why Not Stay for Breakfast? (1979).

Chakiris appeared in several episodes of Dallas and had a role on Santa Barbara.

Chakiris had a recurring role on the TV show Superboy as Professor Peterson during the first two seasons from 1988-1990.

He was top billed in the film Pale Blood (1990) and guest starred on Human Target and The Girls of Lido. He played The King And I on stage in 1995 in Los Angeles.

Chakiris’ last role to date was in a 1996 episode of the British sitcom Last of the Summer Wine.

He has given occasional television interviews since then, but is mostly retired. His hobby of making sterling silver jewelry has turned into a new occupation,^[21] working as a jewelry designer for his own brand, George Chakiris Collections, consisting of handmade original sterling silver jewelry.

A vegetarian, in 2012 he presented a musical about veganism titled Loving the Silent Tears.

Gary Conway (Wikipedia)

Gary Conway was born in 1936 and is an American actor and screenwriter. His notable credits include a co-starring role with Gene Barry in the detective series, Burke’s Law, from 1963–1965. In addition, he starred in the Irwin Allen sci-fi series Land of the Giants from 1968–1970.

Conway’s early film credits include the cult horror films I Was a Teenage Frankenstein(1957) as the monster, and How to Make a Monster (1958). In 1958, he was cast in the “Man Hunt” episode of the western aviation television series, Sky King, with Kirby Grant, Richard Beymer and Gloria Winters.

In 1960, Conway appeared as Lt. Charles Williams in the episode “Absent Without Leave” of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, Colt .45, starring Wayde Preston. Tyler McVeywas in the guest cast as Col. Ben Williams, and Steve Brodie also appeared in the episode.  He also appeared in 1960 in three episodes under the names of different characters on the ABC/WB crime drama, Bourbon Street Beat, starring Andrew Duggan. In 1966 Conway made an unsuccessful television pilot Assault!, made by the producers of Combat! about the US Marine Corps in the Pacific in 1942.

Gary also starred in the tv series Land of the Giants from 1967-1969 as Captain Steve Burton. 

Conway starred with Bette Davis in the 1972 television movie The Judge and Jake Wyler. In 1973, Conway was featured in Playgirl magazine’s August issue. He also guest-starred as the murder victim in the 1973 Columbo episode “Any Old Port in a Storm”.

His other film credits include Young Guns of Texas (1962), Black Gunn (1972), The Farmer(1977),^[9] Once Is Not Enough (1975), American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987) and Liberty & Bash (1989). He also starred in Woman’s Story (2000), which he also wrote and directed.

References

Shivaun O’Casey interview in “The Irish Independent” in 2018.

Shivaun O’Casey can clearly remember the moment when she realised just how much some Irish people hated her father. It was February 1955 and the 15-year-old had made her first trip to Ireland for the premiere of Sean O’Casey’s new clerical drama, The Bishop’s Bonfire. While religious groups protested outside the Gaiety Theatre, inside there were cries of “Blasphemy”, “Sacrilege!” and “Get out, ye dirty Protestants!”

“It was a very exciting evening,” recalls Shivaun, now an elegantly spoken 78-year-old woman with a ready laugh. “Leaflets were thrown down on our heads from the gallery and my mother Eileen whispered to me, ‘They’re trying to make it like the Plough, dear.'”

Even as a teenager, Shivaun understood the reference. At the Abbey Theatre in 1926, the first production of The Plough and the Stars had been disrupted by rioters who felt outraged by its less than reverential depiction of the Easter Rising. An equally annoyed WB Yeats famously arrived on stage himself and shouted at the protesters, “You have disgraced yourselves again!”

When Shivaun revisits the Gaiety later this month for another performance of The Plough and the Stars, it seems safe to assume that the atmosphere will be a lot more respectful. Previously staged at the Abbey and Lyric Hammersmith in London, this is a radical, modern-dress interpretation that begins with the sickly tenement girl Mollser singing ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ before coughing up blood. Although Shivaun has no formal connection with the production, she was consulted by director Sean Holmes during its planning stages and is happy to give it her endorsement.

“I could see that he had a great love for the play,” she says. “That was so important to me. Plough isn’t performed as often as Juno and the Paycock or The Shadow of a Gunman because it needs so many actors, but this has a brilliant cast – it’s definitely of the best versions I’ve ever seen.”

As O’Casey’s last surviving child, Shivaun feels both proud and protective of his legacy. In particular, she is keen to dispel the popular notion that he was a bitter, cantankerous man who ended up hating his native country.

“The truth is that he always loved Ireland and kept in close contact with it,” she insists. “He just didn’t like the conservative political direction it had taken.”

Shivaun was born in 1939, by which time O’Casey had become fed up with his treatment by the Irish literary establishment and moved to south-west England. Among the family friends who sent letters of congratulations were Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw and future British prime minister Harold Macmillan. Shaw congratulated Eileen on producing a girl after two boys, declaring: “Sisterless men are always afraid of women.”

O’Casey, his daughter points out, was something of an early feminist himself. “As a boy, he had bad eyesight and would sit quietly for hours, just listening to his mother and her friends talking. He used to say that if presidents and prime ministers were women, there would be no more war because they understood what it’s like to lose a child.”

Growing up in Devon, Shivaun did not realise at first that her father was anything special. She fondly remembers the constant clack-clack of his typewriter and him singing out loud when things were going well. She would then go into his room, where he often greeted her with the words, “would you like a piece of fudge?” At the age of eight she listened to Juno and the Paycock on the radio and felt “very nervous that perhaps I wouldn’t like it. Fortunately, I thought it was wonderful”.

When Shivaun decided she wanted to be an actress herself, Sean was not particularly keen. “He said it was a thankless profession and I should be a scene designer instead, because then at least you’ve got something to hang on the wall.”ADVERTISEMENT

She defied his advice and later enjoyed success as a director, too, co-founding the O’Casey Theatre Company that staged classic Irish plays around this country and the US.

Shortly before Sean’s death in 1964, John Ford began directing a wildly romantic and inaccurate film about his early life called Young Cassidy. Although Shivaun herself had a cameo role as Lady Gregory’s maid, she claims never to have actually watched it. “I just didn’t think much of the script. It gave such a wrong impression of life in the Dublin tenements, with chickens running about and people throwing chamber pots out the window. I’ve got a copy at home, but I could never get past the first 10 minutes – isn’t that awful?”

Shivaun made a documentary about her father in 2005 and is currently working on a memoir based around the family’s correspondence. She is also looking forward to visiting Dublin again, where her granddaughter is a drama student at the Lir Academy. She keeps a close eye on Irish current affairs and is fervently hoping for a Yes vote in next month’s abortion referendum.

The Plough and the Stars still endures, she believes, because it has a timeless message about the suffering of ordinary people in conflict situations.

“When I directed the play in 1997, it felt relevant due to the war in Bosnia. Today it’s Syria. If Sean was here today, he’d be delighted by the progress Ireland has made. But he’d also be writing about the things that still need to change.”

Billy Gray (Wikipedia)

Billy Gray was born in 1938 and is an American former actor known primarily for his role as James “Bud” Anderson, Jr., in 193 episodes of the situation comedy Father Knows Best, which aired between 1954 and 1960 on both NBC and CBS. A motorcycleaficionado, Gray maintains a large collection of the vehicles.

Gray was born in Los Angeles to actress Beatrice Gray (March 3, 1911 – November 25, 2009), and her husband, William H. Gray. His mother was mostly uncredited in the 1930s and 1940s, having appeared in Otto Preminger‘s Laura, with Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. In 1949, Billy Gray and his mother appeared in separate scenes in the film Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.

In 1951, at age 13, he appeared in the film Jim Thorpe — All-American, with Burt Lancaster in the lead role. Gray portrayed the Indian athlete Jim Thorpe as a child. Later that year, he was chosen to appear in the science fiction picture The Day the Earth Stood Still. Michael Rennieplayed the part of the alien who befriends a boy played by Gray.^[2] In 1952 he appeared in an uncredited role as one of the many children in Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair. That same year he played George Murphy‘s son in MGM‘s Talk About a Stranger, portraying a boy who saves his money to buy a dog, only to have it killed. He blames a strange reclusive new neighbor played by Kurt Kasznar for the death. Gray in 1952 was also slated to play the part of Tagg Oakley in the syndicated western television series Annie Oakley, starring Gail Davis and Brad Johnson. Billy did perform as Tagg in the first of two pilots produced for that series, in the 1952 episode titled “Bull’s Eye”, which potential sponsors opted not to purchase and underwrite the series. Oddly, the Bull’s Eye episode was aired as Season 1, Episode 21.  This makes watching the series a bit confusing when Annie’s appearance is somewhat different and Tagg is played by a completely different actor for a single mid season episode. The role of Tagg later went to 12-year-old Jimmy Hawkins for the series’ second pilot, “Annie Gets Her Man” (aired as Season 1, Episode 14)^[6], and for the full run of Annie Oakley after sponsors bought the series. Gray instead joined the cast of Father Knows Best, which would premiere nine months after the first broadcast of Annie Oakley in January 1954.

After Gray’s brief work on the Annie Oakley series, Warner Bros. in 1953 cast Gray as Wesley Winfield in By the Light of the Silvery Moon, a sequel to On Moonlight Bay (1951) in which Gray had played the role of the same Wesley Winfield. He appeared as Alan in the 1953 episode “Shot in the Dark” of the Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves. In that episode’s plot, the character Alan takes a photograph of Superman that could expose the hero’s secret identity. Also in 1953 Billy Gray appeared in “The Girl Next Door” as Dan Dailey’s son Joe Carter. In 1953 Billy Gray appeared in “All I Desire” as Barbara Stanwyck’s son Ted Murdoch.

In 1955, Gray appeared in The Seven Little Foys, which starred Bob Hope as famed vaudeville entertainer Eddie Foy, in the teen role of Bryan Lincoln Foy. In 1957, while still on Father Knows Best, Gray appeared as Mike Edwards in the episode “Come Back Darling Asta” of Peter Lawford‘s NBC crime series The Thin Man, based on the work of Dashiell Hammett.

After Father Knows Best, Gray appeared in several dozen single-appearance television roles. In 1960, he guest-starred as Frankie Niles in the episode “Dark Return” of the ABC western series Stagecoach West, a program similar to the longer-running Wagon Train. That same year he portrayed David Ross in the episode “Ginger’s Big Romance” on Bachelor Father.

In 1961, he played Johnny Blatner in the episode “Two-Way Deal” of the Henry Fonda/Allen Case NBC western The Deputy. He appeared twice in 1961 on the anthology series General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan. That same year he was Perry Hatch in “The Hatbox” of CBS’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1962, he appeared on CBS’s The Red Skelton Show.^[8] His other roles included appearances on The Greatest Show on Earth and Combat!. He guest-starred in such series as Rawhide, Arrest and Trial, and Custer.

In 1977, Gray appeared on both Father Knows Best television movie reunion specials that aired on NBC: the Father Knows Best Family Reunion special on May 15, 1977, and the Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas special on December 18, 1977. Both specials were reunions of the entire cast from the former series that had left the air 17 years earlier.

As the co-owner of a company called BigRock Engineering, Gray markets several products that he has invented, including a self-massager, high-technology guitar picks, and a candleholder for jack-o-lanterns. He raced competitively at dirt tracks in southern California from 1970 to 1995. He has since been a spectator and finds the sport is shrinking in availability.

Gray still resides at the house in Topanga, California, which he purchased in 1957 at the height of his Father Knows Best popularity. The house has over the years become something of a “motorcycle museum”.