From The Vault: The Day Hollywood Came Calling

so many Marilyns

Dear reader, cast your mind back some decades. 1980 to be exact.
Whispers was living in a small but cute Mews flat just off London's famous Portobello Road. To be exact, where the real antique shops began and before the bits & pieces stalls started. Saturday was always a joyful day as the Portobello Market began in full swing early in the morning.

In our quaint street we were always awakened by the sound of a Tuba on a Saturday around 10am. A neighbor taught the instrument and it really was the most pleasant and reassuring way to be awakened and one always knew it was market day,
Whispers had a pal staying. His name was Ben and he worked in films organizing transport. As a bonus he would take a side job of driving around whatever star was in town at the time and filming at Pinewood Studios. While he lived in the country, Notting Hill was far more convenient for obvious reasons.
I had also moved in the legendary rock manager Kit Lambert who had fallen on rather tough times and who I was working with attempting to revive various music projects. Kit had discovered and nurtured one of the most famous and enduring bands on the planet, The Who along with legends like Jimi Hendrix.
 
This was the era of The Blitz. A Tuesday night club in London's West End, operated in a small restaurant by a budding entrepreneur named Steve Strange (pictured). The Blitz Kids had grown out of the Punk era and the kids wwo flocked to the club called themselves the New Romantics with their colourful and inventive outfits. It was really just kids from the suburbs dressing up. Innocent but a lot of fun
I had convinced Lambert that there were bound to be future stars and musicians to come out of the very creative Blitz scene. And they surely did. Boy George with Culture Club was one. Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet began there as did Strange himself who had a huge hit with his band Visage. Another was Phil Collen, my personal discovery who I hired for a band and who later went on to join one of the biggest groups on the planet Def Lepard. I took Kit to The Blitz once and he was hooked. Together we decided there was a gold mine of talent there.

Living in Notting Hill had distinct advantages because of it's close location to central London. Most of the teenagers who went to the Blitz on a Tuesday night, after planning their exotic outfits, lived in the outer London Suburbs. George O'Dowd ( Boy George) was one. Peter Robinson who called himself Marilyn and styled himself after the Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe was another, Inevitably half a dozen or so would choose to flop on my Mews flat floor having missed the last tube home.

And so it was on one such night when we had been partying at The Blitz that around 8 souls descended upon my tiny flat, along with flatmate Ben who had accompanied us to The Blitz for his first visit. Ben was now working on a film called Saturn 3 staring two Hollywood greats - the late star Kirk Douglas and the former Charlies Angels star Farrah Fawcett Majors. Ben had also nabbed me a job as Kirk Douglas' "gofer". Such an easy job although one had to be available at all hours. Douglas was popular with film crews. He had a reputation as being easy going, very professional often only needing one shoot of a scene, treating the crew respectfully and a great tipper when a project had been completed.

Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett Majors in the Sci Fi flick Saturn 3

CONTINUED HERE.

Strange connections

L-R Keith Moon & Kit Lambert " Arthur Brown * George Lambert* Sir Keith Murdoch

Hollywood heavyweights Cassian & Cary Elwes

 Following the dreadful terrorist attacks in the New Zealand Mosques (the perpetrator's name should never be mentioned) comes an odd and rather upsetting 'scandal'. Videos of the terrible shootings have been removed in their hundreds from social media websites. But an artist from 1968, Arthur Brown who had a hit record 'Fire' with his 'The Crazy World of Arthur Brown' is distressed that his recording has been used in those videos.

The recording Fire is a production by the late rock manager Kit Lambert who died in 1983. A big budget film on the life of Lambert is currently being planned by ace Los Angeles producer Cassian Elwes and his actor brother Cary Elwes.
Lambert was the grandson of Australia's first internationally famous artist George Washington Lambert.

During the first World War George Washington was commissioned by the Australian government to travel to Gallipoli and record scenes from the terrible battles. The journalist who accompanied Lambert was Sir Keith Murdoch, the father of possibly the world's most powerful media baron, Rupert Murdoch. 

# Heir apparent to the world-wide Murdoch media empire, Lachlan Murdoch and his glamorous wife Sarah (pictured right) arrived back in Sydney this week for an extended stay.
## Kit Lambert discovered, among many others like Jimi Hendrix, one of the world's most enduring super bands The Who who are co-operating on the planned Elwes brother's biopic.
### Arthur Brown who now lives in the USA has cancelled a recent tour due to his distress that he & Lambert's music features in the video.
Here is another version of Fire with Arthur Brown recorded in Germany in 2012.

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From the Crypt:

At a Pepsi Cola promotion at the Sydney Intercontinental Hotel: 
 ..actor Leslie Nielsen & Meatloaf. Why were they there? Beats me. I just turn up to these events & hope for the best and was pleasantly surprised to see two well known names who had been flown into Australia for a party.

Rock'N'Roll Row

Famed music entrepreneur Simon Napier-Bell (pictured left) was in Sydney last month and Whispers popped along to the Newtown music club Leadbelly to hear him give a talk on the music industry.  Napier-Bell discovered such legends as Marc Bolan & T-Rex, Dusty Springfield and the late George Michael and Wham. He has managed numerous stars and steered their careers including The Yardbyrds in the 1960s up to Sinead O'Connor last year.

One of Napier-Bell's themes is the influence of gay managers on the emerging music business in Britain that included not just himself but Brian Epstein and The Beatles, Kit Lambert and The Who, Australian Robert Stigwood and The Bee Gees and Larry Parnes. Parnes discovered and launched numerous stars in the 1960s including Billy Fury and Marty Wilde. One tale told by the late Kit Lambert is that Robert Stigwood rang Parnes and said " I've just driven past your office and there is a blond Adonis working on the roadworks, look out your window". Parnes looked, spotted the handsome blond and the career of Tommy Steele was born. Napier-Bell reckons gay managers had a unique feel for what teenage girls wanted and acted upon it.

Top: Epstein & The Beatles* Jann Werner Bottom: Stigwood & the Bee Gees. Kit Lambert & The Who

Parnes & Tommy Steele

The New York Times just last week featured this theme (after speaking to Napier-Bell) in a feature written by journalist Jim Farber on the occasion of the pending launch of a biography of the famous Jann Werner who launched the music bible Rolling Stone magazine. Werner, now 70 only just came out the closet recently. But an almighty row is now brewing between Werner and his biographer which you can read all about. What fun!

The articles:

The Gay Architects of Rock

Who created that gorgeous 20th-century creature, the rock star? Consider

the gay image makers of the day, like Brian Epstein and Jann Wenner.

Rolling Stone founder falls out with biographer over candid life story

Box Office Bonanza

As if to prove Whispers' point in our last post mentioning a low budget film we are working on, a

perfect example occurs to prove powerful Hollywood film producer Cassian Elwes' belief in the big profits to be made on small films.

And taking the box office by storm the flick also stars two Australian actors. Annabelle: Creation is the tale of a couple who welcome a Nun and six orphaned girls into their California farmhouse. But terror soon strikes the house when one child enters a forbidden room.
Directed by Swede David Sandberg the film stars Miranda Otto and Anthony LaPaglia. It was released in Australia on the 10th August and is a smash hit.
Costing a reasonable $15M , the picture has already taken over $71M at the box office. 
Below is a trailer for the film.
    UPDATE : Worldwide takings for Annabelle: Creation are now:  

$215,080,384

We reveal identity of Marco's Mystery Blonde !

Marco Pierre White with the glamorous interesting cast of the upcoming Hell's Kitchen

The adverts for the 7 Network's new series of Hell's Kitchen starring celebrity chef Marco Pierre White have been running non-stop. A youngish Marco appears in numerous snaps including one with Gordon Ramsey with the claim that he "made Gordon cry".
 But another snap flashes up with a glamorous blonde giving the handsome (younger) Marco a juicy kiss on the cheeks. 
But all is not what it seems as Whisper's ever eagle eye spotted who that blonde was - the androgynous British singer Marilyn who had a hit song in 1983 called "Calling Your Name". Marilyn- real name Peter Robinson - is well know to Whispers who at one time promoted the then struggling singer.

Along with his close pal Boy George the pair often flopped on Whisper's living room floor at our Notting Hill Mews house after Tuesday's night's legendary Blitz nightclub where kids know as the New Romantics would gather.
Indeed there is a scene in the forthcoming film based on the life of legendary The Who manager Kit  Lambert who also occasionally bedded down on Whisper's living room floor.
At the time Whispers was working on a film being shot at Pinewood Studios called Saturn 3 with famed Hollywood great Kirk Douglas and the late Farah Fawcett Majors. A scene in the Lambert film includes an extraordinary but amusing meeting between Marilyn, Douglas, Lambert and Farah Fawcett Majors in the Mews street at 6 am in the morning.

This wasn't the first encounter with a Hollywood star for Marilyn. Before his recording success, famed actor Jack Nicholson flew Marilyn / Peter - who at the time looked exactly like Marilyn Monroe- to Los Angeles and arrived at a gala show biz party with Marilyn on one arm, and on the other Australian model Linda Kerridge (pictured above left) famous for her Monroe impersonations. As only Nicholson could get away with- a male and female Monroe. Ahhh, the memories.
# Whispers once asked singer Marilyn what his mother thought when he dolled up and left their suburban London home for the evening : "she just cries" he responded.

Kit Lambert                   Kirk Douglas & Farah Fawcett Majors                                   Jack Nicholson

Fifteen Minutes...

Have television producers been secretly scouring the pages of Whisper's contact book?. Yet another 'reality" TV show is to be launched that features long time pals of this website.
Following the success of Googlebox comes a new show called Common Sense which features "real life" people as they comment and give opinions on the main talking points of the week.

Two of the stars will be (as seen above) man-about-town Frank Elgar and designer Robert Burton (on the right). Frank is a man of many talents although we've never quite pinned down what they are in the decades Whispers has known him- he has so many. But he always seems to be at the centre of the action.
Burton is a talented designer and has boutique in uber smart Queen Street Woollhara selling fashion and luxury goods designed by himself.
Whispers is still reeling from the fact two very long time pals, Mick & Di Kershaw ( left) are part of the crew on the hugely successful show Googlebox which is produced by the same producers as Common Sense.
Just last week we attended a party at the gallery of artist Charles Billich and chatted to his Italian wife Christa, another pal, who features in the controversial Real Housewives of Sydney.
When will be Whispers time to shine?. Perhaps when the feature film being produced in Hollywood on the life of legendary British rock manger of The Who, Kit Lambert - pictured with Keith Moon -based on script authored by Whispers, rock impresario Simon Napier Bell and journalist Pat Gilbert. It's being produced by top film-maker Cassian Elwes.

Good Reads

Dean Dudley & Marie Sutton

DIANA-SURVIVOR. This book was brought to out attention by Princess Diana's Aussie pal Marie Sutton who organised Diana's last official function before she was to retire- the Victor Chang Institute fundraiser in Sydney in 1996. It's the debut book by British writer Dean Dudley and is available in paperback or Kindle version.                         
Diana-Survivor tells the story of Diana surviving the car crash and giving birth to Dodi Fayed's Muslim son. Some years later, in the wake of 9/11, her child is kidnapped.
 "I can almost imagine this happening " says Marie. "it's a completely believable tale with twists and turns.I loved it". Along with Marie's endorsement it also gets a seal of approval from the Scottish Herald. Buy it here

Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay: The dodgy business of popular music  by music figure Simon Napier Bell is a complete history of popular music from the late  1700s- when composers first obtained legal copyright - to the present day. Simon is the best selling author of Black Vinyl White Powder which is described as the definitive history of pop and was included in the UK school curriculum in 2013. 

Simon's books are never boring. His I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch which charts his successful endeavours to get the band he managed WHAM ! as the first Western pop music band to give a concert in China is fascinating. Napier-Bell is also a writer of huge hits for Dusty Springfield & Elvis Presley. Buy it here.

 As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by actor Cary Elwes who starred in the Princess Bride and Robin Hood Men in Tights, Glory, Days of Thunder, Twister, and Saw and dozens of movies since. Elwes is to direct his first film about the late Kit Lambert the discoverer of The Who & Jimi Hendrix who died in mysterious circumstances in 1983. Cary's book takes you behind the scenes of the making of a Hollywood film and has received rave reviews from the New York Times and US Weekly. Buy it here.

 

Lifesurfing : Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2015 by noted Astrologer Victor Olliver is an invaluable guide for the coming year. We at the Shuttle still consult our 2014 guide and swear by Olliver's accuracy. Buy it here.

exclusive : The Francis Bacon Mystery

As Francis Bacon's 1969 triptych of Lucien Freud sells for $142.4m (£89.6m) in New York- the greatest price ever received for a work of art- the mystery still remains of the missing Bacon paintings in Thailand.
The Shuttle revealed the tale in 2010 and it can be read here.

When Francis Bacon died in 1992 he left his estate valued at around £11m to his lover John Edwards whom Bacon met when he discovered Edwards burgling his London mews house. His paintings were bequeathed to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.

Bacon with John Edwards

Edwards moved to the Thai seaside resort of Pattaya where he purchased a house and a lavish penthouse. Both were decorated with Bacon paintings that Edwards had held back from Bacon's estate and despite Edwards telling friends they were 'copies' ( and the Shuttle viewed 2 at Edwards' penthouse at a dinner party one night) an expert flown in by a local French decorator and Bacon enthusiast who wished to purchase one, concluded they were genuine.                
The French decorator however got cold feet and didn't purchase the painting.

As rumours of the fortune on Edward's walls spread throughout Thailand and local Pattaya- a town with it's fair share of dodgy characters, Edwards became nervous and instructed his then Thai lover to transport the 6 paintings to the Thai lover's family house in Northern Thailand.

Edwards died from cancer in 2006 and the trail ended there. The Thai lover was never located and the paintings had vanished into the ether.
Now the Shuttle hears though the Pattaya ex-pat grapevine that a US art collector and billionaire has financed another expedition to attempt to find the missing Bacons.
Somewhere in the Chaing Mai area, a simple Thai house exists and on the walls could be, at today's values, possibly one billion dollars of Francis Bacon masterpieces !.

The Colony Room, Bacon & Kit Lambert

By co-incidence, the Shuttle was a sometime drinking pal with Francis Bacon at the afternoon Soho drinking club The Colony. Once Bacon and the late rock manager Kit Lambert offered to assist the Shuttle in finding a cab after we became a bit the worse for wear. They made a valiant effort assisting us down the stairs but unable to find a taxi deposited the Shuttle in a nearby doorway, collecting our still prone body several hours later after repairing back to the club for a further drinking session.

Michael Buble, Anna Nicole, The Who and Robin Hood

Michael Buble and his favourite actor Cary Elwes

  Crooner Michael Buble has announced via this week's Woman's Day that his favourite all-time movie and actor are The Princess Bride and star of the flick, Cary Elwes who also played Robin Hood in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
By co-incidence Elwes was in Melbourne last week as a guest at the Comic Con convention along with Star Trek's William Shatner and George Takei and actress Shannen Doherty. Around 33,000 fans attended the convention.
The Shuttle's omnipresent spies also report that  Elwes was spotted at Melbourne's magnificent National Gallery of Victoria last Friday where he appeared absorbed in the works by Australia's first acclaimed artist George Washington Lambert.

Kit Lambert with Townshend & Daltrey

George Lambert's self portrait

As reported by the Shuttle last year, Cary Elwes is to direct a bio-pic on the life of the late rock manager Kit Lambert who discovered The Who and Jimi Hendrix amongst other music legends. Lambert led a dissolute but magnificent life before dying tragically in mysterious circumstances at the age of 43 in 1981. At his peak he owned a house in Belgravia and a palace in Venice where he wooed his neighbour, the art collector Peggy Guggenheim.
Kit was the grandson of George Washington Lambert  and the son of noted English classical composer Constant Lambert .

The Who perform at the closing concert for the London Olympics last year

George Lambert was appointed the official war artist for the WW1 Gallipoli campaign that is so etched into the Australian psyche and was accompanied on that venture by a young war correspondent Keith Murdoch, father of media baron Rupert Murdoch. Both were disturbed by the upper class British generals at Gallipoli who they considered dangerous and incompetent.

Agnes Bruckner stars as Anna Nicole

Kit Lambert was born into privilege and was privately educated and his classical education combined with a rock'n'roll lifestyle influenced The Who's music as exampled by the rock opera Tommy. Remaining Who members Peter Townshend and Roger Daltrey are enthusiastically backing the film about Lambert and it's rumored will be composing music for the film.  The Rolling Stones and The Who are the remaining 60's Supergroup and are still huge throughout the world. In 2010 The Who performed at the most watched event in TV history, the Superbowl and at the closing ceremony for the London Olympics last year in front of an estimated 750 million viewers worldwide. 
 As for Cary Elwes, he has several films to be released soon including one on the life of Anna Nicole and he has just produced a film about the famous meeting between Elvis Presley and president Richard Nixon in 1970. Nixon made Presley, who was high as a kite on drugs at the meeting, an Honorary Marshall. That movie is to be released by Aussie actor Eric Bana's production company.

Rupert Murdoch, Dame Edna, The Who, Gallipoli & The Anzacs

Today is Anzac Day and numerous TV adverts are exhorting us to raise a glass to the remaining old soldiers. The last Gallipoli Anzac Alec Campbell died in 2002 aged 101 and even WW2 veterans are now in their 80s while Vietnam Vets are in their late 60s.

 George Lambert's self portrait.
note the pre-Dame Edna Gladioli !

A few months ago it was announced that a film was to be made about the life of Kit Lambert, the rock impresario who discovered The Who and Jimi Hendrix amongst others. Lambert fell on hard times and died in 1981 aged only 41 but led a fascinating life while it lasted. His partner in his rock adventures, Chris Stamp, younger brother of actor Terrence Stamp died last year at age 70.

Kit Lambert & The Who

News filters through to the Shuttle that Fox Studios may be involved in the Lambert film which is being directed by actor Cary Elwes of Princess Bride fame and being produced by Orian Williams who also produced the brilliant bio-pic of rock singer Ian Curtis, Control which won numerous BAFTA & Cannes Film awards in 2007.

Rupert  Murdoch                             Cary Elwes                            Orian Williams                                Sir Keith Murdoch

Will the Lambert film also feature his grandfather George Washington Lambert Australia's first famous artist ?.

Lovers : Margot Fonteyn & Constant Lambert

 Kit Lambert's father was the English classical composer Constant Lambert, George's son . In 1918 George Lambert was appointed as the official Gallipoli War Artist and traveled to Palestine with a young budding war correspondent Sir Keith Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch's much loved father and the founder of the News Ltd empire.

George Washington Lambert outraged Australian and British generals when he arrived at the front on a horse in a tailor made uniform and wearing a flamboyant hat be-decked with some towering peacock feathers, looking oddly imperial and outlandish at the same time. He had been urged to shock the assembled generals by Sir Keith who regarded most as incompetent upper class twits who he hated, a trait he passed on to son Rupert.

 As for Kit's father Constant Lambert , he died relatively young like his son, at the age of 46 but not before, as rumors go, he impregnated the famous ballet star, Margot Fonteyn at the age of 17 and she was forced to have an abortion to avoid a scandal.

And today's slebs think they lead outrageous lives !

Here is Joan Baez singing the anti-war song about Gallipoli : "And the band played Walzing Matilda"

The Greens Leader & Jimi Hendrix

Dr Bob Brown (above) the leader who has taken the Australian Greens party to such extraordinary heights with 9 Senators now holding the balance of power in the Upper House for the next six years, resigned today as party leader and as an MP.

The openly gay Brown plans to spend more time at his Tasmanian property with partner Paul Thomas. Needless to say the media, notably News Corp which vowed in an editorial to "destroy The Greens" has already begun to promote conspiracy theories for his resignation, pinning it to the Carbon Price (earth to News Corp-it's a price not a tax) and so on, ignoring the fact that next year Brown would undoubtedly be re-elected and faced serving in the Senate until he was 75.

What is less well known is that Brown in 1970 as a young doctor having graduated from Sydney University was working as a locum at St Mary's Hospital in South Kensington when Jimi Hendrix's body was brought in.

Brown says it was obvious Hendrix had been dead for some hours and the presumption was that he had died from a drug overdose. Despite talk at the time that Hendrix had been murdered, Brown says there was no way of proving as much by an autopsy which he assisted with and he was never spoken to by police over the matter.
And it was Bob Brown who faced the British media that morning to announce that Jimi Hendrix had passed away.
You can hear an interview Brown gave on the subject some years ago to 2GB here on the Greens website.

G.W.Lambert self portrait 1920

Kit Lambert

## Jimi Hendrix who died in at the age of 28 had another Australian connection with some degrees of separation. It was Kit Lambert, the man who discovered The Who who was the first to realise the potential of Hendrix when he saw Jimi performing in a pub in West London. He recalled later :
"He was amazing, not only playing the guitar with first his right hand, then left but eventually with his teeth. I had to have him and in my mind I created an instant record label, Track Records and signed Hendrix before we even knew how a record was produced".

Lambert was the son of the English classical composer Constant Lambert who was the son of one of Australia's first great artists and the Official War Artist at the WW1 Gallipoli campaign, George Washington Lambert.

exclusive : The Guggenheim Aussie Connection !



Peggy in Venice



Currently on show at the Art Gallery of Western Australia is A Collection In Venice-the fantastic art collection of famed US art patron Peggy Guggenheim. It's been ignored by most media except for an ABC TV story this week.

Amongst the extraordinary works that were owned by Peggy Guggenheim are pieces by Mondrian, Rothko, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack and Marcel Duchamp.

Max Ernst

 Guggenheim inherited around $US2.5M from her grandfather Benjamin Guggenheim who died in the Titanic disaster in 1912.

After working for a time in a New York book store she moved to Paris and immersed herself in the Bohemian world of art, having numerous affairs with now famous names of the art world.

She married Max Ernst in 1941 and became pals and the patron of artists like Duchamp and Man Ray. With her wealth she promoted artists who today are legendary.

 Older Shuttler's may remember the controversial 1973 purchase of Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles . Pollack owed his reputation in the USA to Guggenheim's relentless promotion.

The newly elected Labour government of Gough Whitlam  paid $1.3M for the painting-the then highest ever price for a modern work of art. Scathing criticism lasted for years although the work, now at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is estimated at being worth $180M .

Peggy Guggenheim eventually settled in Venice on the Grand Canal at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in 1949 after divorcing Ernst where she continued her love of art collecting and along the way, indulging in love affairs with artists.

But there is one love affair that has never been written about before.

Kit Lambert with Pete Townshend from The Who

In the 1970's,  rock band manager Kit Lambert who  discovered the legendary The Who arrived in Venice to purchase his dream home. Lambert had always believed he had been conceived in Venice during a  night of passion between his mother and famous father, the English classical composer Constant Lambert.

He found his villa, ironically named Villa Lamberti next door to Guggenheim's Palazzo Venier dei Leoni . Within a year the two had become close friends and were having a torrid love affair. It lasted on  and off for over 3 years.

However Lambert  was addicted to heroin and had a fierce cocaine habit which Peggy, despite her bohemian aspirations, abhorred. Lambert was also having financial problems due to his drug intake. Peggy ended the affair one morning when she visited Lambert in his villa for breakfast.

As Lambert would later re-call, Guggenheim's parting words to Kit were-"Quite frankly, Kit, I simply cannot afford you !".

Christopher 'Kit' Lambert  who died in 1983 after a mysterious fall down a flight of stairs was the grandson of one of Australia's first and most famous artists-George Washington Lambert.

Along side Blue Poles in Canberra can be found several G.W.Lambert works and beside the driveway to Mrs Macquarie's Chair in Sydney there is a statue dedicated to him.

Peggy Guggenheim ; A Collection In Venice is at the Art Gallery of Western Australia from the 9th October 2010 to 31st January 2011

## Coming soon-the woman who turned down Andy Warhol's offer of marriage !

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Uber fashion designers and the darlings of the pop set Dolce and Gabana have been accused of a massive tax evasion scam in Italy.

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, along with five other people, are accused of channeling profits through Luxembourg, paying just three per cent tax on sales royalties instead of much higher Italian taxes. As a result, the Italian treasury has allegedly been defrauded of an estimated €420m.

Read more at The First Post.