No Feelings

Jamie Reid: No Feelings (1977) [1]

tate.org.uk.

 

 

When Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten informs us that he has no feelings how are we to interpret this? 

 

Some suggest it's a sign of apathy - a key term within the punk lexicon. 

 

And it's certainly true that Rotten often exhibits emotional emptiness as sneering indifference; informing listeners of 'Pretty Vacant', for example, that there's no point asking him to care about what's happening in the world as he's out to lunch [2].

 

Others have suggested that we might also consider 'No Feelings' in relation to the neuropsychological phenomenon of alexithymia - i.e., that Rotten's problem is not so much an inability to feel, but identify, acknowledge, and express emotions. 

 

As an accomplished lyricist, however, Rotten is very rarely lost for words, so I think we can safely assume he doesn't suffer from alexithymia - and even his apathy is, ultimately, just another punk affectation or pose.  

 

Indeed, even the aggressive narcissism of 'No Feelings' is clearly put on for comic effect (although, sadly, Lydon's genuine self-regard has - like his waistline - expanded massively over the years).      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This work takes its name from a song of the same title - 'No Feelings' - by the Sex Pistols, for whom Reid constructed a powerful graphic identity, designing record sleeves, posters, etc. The song can be found on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin, 1977): click here. Or, to watch the band perform the song live at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas, on 10 Jan 1978, click here. 

 

[2] To listen to 'Pretty Vacant' on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin, 1977), click here. To watch the official video (as played on Top of the Pops), click here. And for an earlier post on Torpedo the Ark (30 July 2018) discussing this song, click here.

Bodies

"I'm not a discharge / I'm not a loss in protein 

I'm not a throbbing squirm"

 

 

I. 

 

The debate around the issue of abortion is often loud and ugly, with those who take up the polarised (and politicised) positions of either pro-life or pro-choice often viewing the matter as one in which there is no compromise possible. 

For the former, abortion is wrong in most if not all circumstances on the grounds that human life begins at conception and an unborn baby deserves protection. For the latter, on the other hand, affirmation of a woman's right to bodily autonomy is sacrosanct over and above all other considerations, including any supposed rights of an embryo or foetus.    

But, of course, no issue is cut and dried and abortion is (in every sense of the word) a messy business. To discuss it fully requires consideration of complex moral, legal, and medical questions. I'm not, however, here to address the question of abortion from the perspective of a priest, a lawyer, or a doctor. Rather, I'm interested in it in relation to a controversial song by the Sex Pistols entitled 'Bodies' ...     

 

 

II.

 

To be honest, I never much liked 'Bodies' although it seems to be a fan favourite and the band would often open their live set with the song, so one assumes they always enjoyed playing it. 

 

Found on the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977), 'Bodies' tells the true and terrible tale of a female fan from Birmingham called Pauline, who stalked the group whilst carrying an aborted foetus in a plastic bag [1]. 

 

According to the song's graphic and expletive-laden lyrics, this schizophrenic young woman lived in a tree house in the grounds of a mental institution at one time and made even Nancy Spungen seem sane and reasonable in comparison.

 

Apparently, Pauline recounted her experiences of having had several abortions to Rotten at length and in detail and it was these stories that inspired him to write 'Bodies'. 

 

Interestingly, the song is sung from multiple perspectives and is not quite the reactionary and misogynistic anti-abortion diatribe that it is now thought to be by many liberal critics [2], including the loathsome Mark Kermode, who finds the song absolutely reprehensible and thinks it explains why it is Lydon ends up as a Trump supporter [3].

 

What it doesn't do is shy away from the tragic aspect of abortion, which some activists who identify as pro-choice are often keen to overlook, deny, or downplay. It's a difficult track to listen to, but Rotten here as elsewhere captures some of the horror, pain, confusion, and ambiguity that characterises human life conceived as a gurgling bloody mess.             

 

 

Notes

 

[1] To listen to the version of 'Bodies' that appears on Never Mind the Bollocks, click here. To watch the song being performed live at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas Tuesday, on 10 Jan 1978, click here.  

 

[2] It should be pointed out that there are also some on the right who have interpreted 'Bodies' as one of the greatest conservative rock songs; charting, for example, at number 8 on John J. Miller's list of fifty such songs in the National Review (5 June 2006): click here.  

 

[3] Whilst discussing Danny Boyle's 6-part miniseries Pistol with his (equally odious) sidekick Simon Mayo on their podcast Kermode and Mayo's Take (1 June 2022), the former makes clear his moral contempt of the Sex Pistols - particularly Rotten and particularly the song 'Bodies' - click here and go to 4:12 - 4:48.  

     

Brief Notes on David Bowie's 'Life on Mars'

David Bowie looking perfect in the video for 

'Life on Mars' (dir. Mick Rock, 1973)

 

 

David Bowie's arty glam rock ballad 'Life on Mars' is three minutes and forty-eight seconds of pure pop perfection [1].

 

Originally included as a track on his 1971 album Hunky Dory, it was released as a single in the summer of 1973 and although it only got to number three in the UK charts - kept off the number one spot first by Slade, then Peters and Lee, and, finally, Gary Glitter - I agree with the many fans and critics who believe it to be Bowie's finest song; one that became, rather ironically, his 'My Way' - i.e., the signature song he would frequently return to in performance throughout his career and which turns up again and again on compilation albums [2].         

 

To promote the single, photographer Mick Rock filmed a video that shows a heavily made-up Bowie looking extraordinarily beautiful in an ice-blue satin suit designed by Freddie Buretti [3] and miming the song against a stark white backdrop. 

It is, in its own way, just as perfect as the song and Rock achieves what he set out to do; namely, create a musical painting that captures perfectly what Malcolm McLaren would term the look of music and the sound of fashion.

 

In 2016, the video was remastered and re-edited by Rock and uses a remixed version of the song by the original producer Ken Scott, which strips the track back to strings, piano and vocals: click here - and enjoy!

Notes

 

[1] What makes 'Life on Mars' so perfect, apart from Bowie's own vocal performance and talent as a songwriter, is the string arrangement composed by guitarist Mick Ronson and Rick Wakeman's excellent playing of the same studio piano that was used by the Beatles when recording 'Hey Jude' in 1968 (and, later, in 1975, by Queen for their own moment of pop perfection 'Bohemian Rhapsody').  

 

[2] This is ironic because Bowie wrote 'Life on Mars' as an intentional parody of 'My Way' - the original French version of which, by Claude François and Jacques Revaux (entitled Comme d'habitude), he had once supplied English lyrics for (rejected by the song's French publishers). 

      Shortly afterwards, much to Bowie's annoyance, Paul Anka purchased the rights to the song and rewrote it as 'My Way', which was then recorded and made famous by Sinatra in 1969. In order to show that he was just as capable of creating an equally epic song, Bowie effortlessly tossed off 'Life on Mars'.      

 

[3] For more on Freddie Buretti, see the post entitled 'On the Designers Who Dressed David Bowie' (19 Dec 2017): click here.

Is There Life on Mars?

Is There Life on Mars? (SA/2023)

 

 

The question of whether there is - or at some point has been - life on Mars is one that continues to excite the popular imagination, as well as arouse the professional interest of astrobiologists.

 

Indeed, the seach for microbial Martian life or, at the very least, traces of such life - so called biosignatures - is one of the main reasons NASA keep sending missions to the Red Planet.    

 

However, whilst evidence has been found that Mars could have once supported life in the past - for it wasn't always the dry and arid planet that we know today - there's nothing to indicate that life is still present now.      

 

But the thing is, I don't really understand why it matters or why anyone should care: for whilst there may or may not have been life on Mars billions of years ago, there's presently an abundant and mind-boggling variety of living organisms here on Earth - it's the freakiest show, as Bowie might say.

 

Indeed, as the above photograph illustrates, there's probably more life to be found on a single red tile of my front door step than on the entire surface of the Red Planet and surely we should cherish and preserve this life, rather than spend billions of dollars looking for alien beings.        

 

For me, a tiny baby garden snail inspires far more wonder than E.T. (Oh man, look at those molluscs go!)

On the Ugly Truth and Beautiful Fiction of Butch Cassidy

 Who are those guys?

 Prison mugshot of Robert LeRoy Parker (1894)

Publicity photo of Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy (1969)

 

On this day, in April 1866, the (in)famous American outlaw and leader of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang [1] Robert LeRoy Parker - better known as Butch Cassidy - was born in Utah, the son of English immigrants (his mother, like mine, was a Geordie lass from Tyneside).

 

Parker's life (and death) have been so extensively dramatised (and, indeed, mythologised) in film, TV, and literature, that he has assumed legendary status as a figure of the Wild West during its late period at the tail end of the nineteenth-century and beginning of the twentieth-century.

 

In fact, it's almost impossible when thinking of Parker not to immediately have an image in one's mind's eye of Paul Newman playing the role of an affable and intelligent Butch Cassidy (alongside Robert Redford as the rather more laconic Sundance Kid) in the ridiculously entertaining 1969 film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman.    

 

Ultimately, beautiful fiction always wins out over brutal fact, and that's why far more people know Newman's handsome face in relation to the story of Butch Cassidy than know Parker's ugly mug - and it's why whenever the movie is shown on TV I have to watch it, whereas I wouldn't dream of reading a biography of Parker (or even writing a lengthy post about him) [2].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Parker and his criminal cohorts were referred to as the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, they were actually known as the Wild Bunch (a name they borrowed from another gang of outlaws - the Doolin-Dalton Gang). 

      The Hole-in-the-Wall was a popular hideout in Wyoming for several gangs whose members may have interacted on occasion, but mostly operated independently. 

 

[2] Having said that, I would like to read more about Etta Place - the female companion of Parker and Harry A. Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), who accompanied them to South America and participated in at least one robbery. 

      Sadly, however, little seems to be known about her, other than the fact she was a very striking young woman, as the picture below taken in NYC in 1901 (alongside her lover Sundance) illustrates. 

      In the 1969 film, Place is played by Katharine Ross and said to be a schoolteacher (screenwriter William Goldman rejected claims that she was a prostitute). Upon returning to the United States in 1906, it is believed Place settled in San Francisco. After that, she vanishes from the historical record ...     

 

 

 

Musical bonus: 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head', written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), sung by B. J. Thomas. Click here. 

 

 

Dinner with Malcolm at L'Escargot

Malcolm McLaren enjoying a glass of wine in 1984 [1].

 

 

I.

L'Escargot is London's oldest - arguably finest and most famous - French restaurant [2].

 

Housed in a mid-18th century Georgian townhouse and located in the heart of Soho, L'Escargot was established by snail-loving Georges Gaudin, a painted sculpture of whom still sits astride a giant snail outside the restaurant to this day (see image below).

Ella Alexander - no relation - provides an excellent description in a review piece for Harper's Bazaar:

 

"If L'Escargot were a person, it would be a wealthy French dandy never seen without his cane, cravat or cigar. London's oldest restaurant is a bastion of Soho decadence, where red velvet, chandeliers and jacquard curtains still reign. It's as far from modern luxe as you can imagine, which is all part of its charm." [3]

 

Regrettably, I've only had the pleasure of dining there once - almost 40 years ago - when L'Escargot was owned by husband and wife team Nick Lander and Jancis Robinson, and managed by Elena Salvoni, widely recognised as one of the greatest maître d's of the time and known fondly by regulars as the Queen of Soho [4]. 

 

But it was a memorable night for me - not so much because of the food (mushroom soup followed by pheasant), but because of the company; for it was one of the few times I accompanied Malcolm McLaren for dinner and got to enjoy his unique genius in a more relaxed setting than the office on Denmark Street ...

 

 

 II.

 

Note: the following account is based on an entry in the Von Hell Diaries dated Tues 27 Nov 1984. 

 

Myself and Lee Ellen - the Charisma Records Press Officer - were supposed to be going for a quick bite to eat and then to the theatre. But whilst dropping off some new photos that required his approval, Malcolm insisted that we go for dinner with him and a friend who designed rubber jewellery in the shape of fish (and who, according to Malcolm, was in the IRA).

 

After a brief discussion, it was decided we'd go to L'Escargot ...

 

Malcolm was in a very buoyant and - even by his standards - exceedingly talkative mood; he was pleased with a film made for The South Bank Show that was soon to air on TV [5] and he was looking forward to escaping the muddy hole of London and starting a number of new film projects - such as Fashion Beast - in the US. 

 

Nothing was happening any more in London and any up and coming young rascal who wanted to do something radical, should, he said, relocate either to New York, Leningrad, or Australia. 

 

Other topics of conversation (by which I mean McLaren monologue) included: the history of the English music hall; famous Victorian scandals involving the British Royal Family; the influence of Jack Zipes on contemporary readings of the fairy tale; why fascism is an ever-present danger and England in the 1980s resembles Weimar Germany in the late 1920s.  

 

Malcolm was disappointed that I had to leave early - though it was nearly 1am - and told me I was a drongo for living way out west in Chiswick and should move to Bloomsbury as soon as possible. 

 

However, he did confess that whilst an art student he dated a great big fat bird who lived in Turnham Green (he also told me that at around this time he'd shot up the Spanish Embassy with a machine gun in order to protest the Franco regime, but I have my doubts about the veracity of this latter tale) [6].  

As Malcolm and Tom walked off into the Soho night, Lee Ellen and I got a taxi to Sloane Square. Walked her home and then made my way back to Chiswick. Bed at around 3am, but couldn't sleep as I felt sick - the sign, so they say, of a good evening. 

www.lescargot.co.uk

 

Notes

 

[1] Unfortunately, in an age before smart phones, no photos were taken on the night at L'Escargot that I reminisce about here. However, this image of McLaren - screenshot from The South Bank Show (see note 5 below) - was taken only a few weeks earlier in New York and he wore the same suit on the night I dined with him in Soho.

 

[2] L'Escargot, 48, Greek Steet, Soho, London W1. The restaurant is currently closed for refurbishment, but is due to re-open on 10 May 2023.

 

[3] Ella Alexander, 'L'Escargot, London: How London's oldest French restaurant kept its allure 90 years on', Harper's Bazarre (29 June 2017): click here. 

      It's easy to understand from Alexander's description why L'Escargot would be such a popular hangout for actors, artists, and fashionistas. And whilst I'm sure McLaren liked the place, I think he found the history of nearby Kettner's - founded in 1867 - far more exciting, and used to love telling stories of how the Prince of Wales would dine there with his mistress Lillie Langtry, whilst Oscar Wilde entertained young boys in the rooms above. It was in Kettner's that he also once encouraged me to smash a window.

 

[4] Born in Clerkenwell, in 1920, to parents from Northern Italy, Elena Salvoni died in March 2016, aged 95. Having started work aged 14, at Café Bleu in Soho, she devoted her life to hospitality, ending her career at L'Etoile, also in Soho, where she continued to work even after her 90th birthday. 

      Readers who are interested can find a nice feature on Elena published in the Evening Standard (29 April 2010): click here.  

 

[5] See the recent post 'When Melvyn Met Malcolm (A Brief Reflection on The South Bank Show Episode 178)' - click here.

 

[6] Who knows, maybe it's true ... As Paul Gorman reminds us, McLaren attended several political rallies and demonstrations as an art student in the 1960s, protesting against the war in Vietnam, the apartheid regime in South Africa, etc. He was even arrested, aged 20, for burning the American flag outside the US Embassy on 4 July 1966. 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), pp. 71-72. 

 

 

When Melvyn Met Malcolm (A Brief Reflection on The South Bank Show Episode 178)

Malcolm McLaren - Boy George - Adam Ant

The South Bank Show (S8/E9 - 1984)

 

The South Bank Show is a British television programme which treats high art and popular culture with equal respect. Conceived, written, and presented by Melvyn Bragg, it was originally produced by LWT and broadcast on ITV between 1978 and 2010 [1]. 

Of the many excellent episodes during this period - and there are over 730 to choose from - I suppose my favourite is the one broadcast on 2 December 1984 (S8/E9) [2], featuring Malcolm McLaren and filmed whilst the latter was recording Fans - his amusing attempt to fuse opera with R&B [3]. 

 

It's not just that the film provides an excellent insight into Malcolm's thinking, it also reveals how two of his protégés - Adam Ant and Boy George - really didn't understand his motivation, or quite get what the spirit of punk was really all about; namely, a desire not merely to question authority and challenge conventions, but destroy success (i.e., the very thing these ambitious, hard-working pop stars most wanted).   

 

When speaking about Malcolm, George, for example, says: 

 

"He's somebody who's capable of being absolutely brilliant. But for some reason, you know, he's someone who regards success as being anti what he believes in and he gets to a certain level then he wants to smash the wall down." 

 

Whilst Adam confesses (with the same disbelief at McLaren's anarcho-nihilism): 

"I don't understand all the anarchist stuff, with him. Obviously, that's a lot to do with his youth, or whatever. He likes to do things [...] and afterwards he just smashes it all to bits, he just destroys it." [4]

 

This, of course, is precisely the aspect of McLaren I most admired; the fact that, in his own words, he was not an empire builder ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] A new version of the series began broadcasting on Sky Arts in May 2012. 

 

[2] As Paul Gorman reminds us, this episode was the brainchild of director Andy Harries and, crucially, it "conferred importance to McLaren's position in British cultural life". See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), pp. 555-56.

 

[3] Fans was McLaren's second studio album released on Charisma Records (1984). Although not an entirely convincing or successful experiment, the album did give rise to the astonishing single 'Madame Butterfly (Un bel dì vedremo)' and the steamy video that accompanied it, directed by the fashion photographer Terence Donovan: click here.

 

[4] Boy George and Adam Ant interviewed on The South Bank Show S8/E9 (1984): click here and go to 3:42 - 4:08. 

 

 

In Memory of Two Dead Artists: Malcolm McLaren and Pablo Picasso

Malcolm admiring Picasso's Woman with Yellow Hair (1931)

at the Guggenheim (c. 1984) [1]

 

 

Doubtless many well-known people have died on April 8th, but the only two who really interest me are Malcolm McLaren and Pablo Picasso; the former departing this life in 2010, aged 64, and the latter in 1973, aged 91.

 

McLaren had a tremendous knowledge of modern art and admired many painters, but I seem to remember him having a genuine penchant for Picasso; he and Vivienne Westwood famously using Picasso's Weeping Woman (1937) on a toga dress in their Nostalgia of Mud / Buffalo collection (A/W 1982-83).

 

I was surprised, therefore, when I discovered that his response upon first hearing of the Spanish artist's death was simply to say 'Oh good' [2].   

Nevertheless, when asked to pose for an official publicity shot at the Guggenheim ten years later, it was besides a Picasso that Malcolm chose to stand - not a work by Rothko, Warhol, or Francis Bacon ... 

 

Whether he had a particular liking for this 1931 portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, I don't know. But I find it hard to believe that the picture was chosen purely at random.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the photographer who took this picture, which was used as a publicity shot by Charisma Records, to whom McLaren was signed in the early-mid '80s.*   

 

[2] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 185. 

      Roberta Bayley recalls that it was the American fashion entrepreneur, designer, and journalist Gene Krell who broke the news of Picasso's death to McLaren. 

 

 

* Update: Paul Gorman kindly informs me the image is from S8/E9 of ITV's The South Bank Show on McLaren, which aired on 2 December 1984. For a post in which I reflect on this show, click here.   

 

   

Easter with the Anti-Christ: In Praise of Pontius Pilate

"I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. 

All who love the truth recognise that what I say is true."

      "What is truth?" Pilate asked. [1] 

 

 

Of all the many characters named in the New Testament, there is only one whom Nietzsche deems worthy of honour; Pontius Pilate, the man who governed Judea by the authority of Rome and held ultimate responsibility for determining that Jesus should be crucified.

 

It is, of course, a provocative choice; one that is guaranteed to delight some and offend others. But it's not simply designed to amuse or outrage his readers; Nietzsche has good reasons why Pilate captures his respect.

 

For one thing, Pilate displays noble indifference when confronted with the case of Jesus; he simply refuses to care about what is essentially a squabble amongst religious fanatics: "To regard a Jewish affair seriously - he cannot persuade himself to do that." [2]

 

In addition - and this is perhaps the key thing - Pilate is scornful of the concept of truth being advanced (or attested to) by Jesus. 

 

For Nietzsche, the question: Quid est veritas? not only dismisses but destroys the entire basis of what will come to be known as Christianity as well as revealing Pilate to be a man who is unconcerned with the details of the matter brought before him (including the question of whether Jesus is guilty or not guilty of the charges made against him; whether he does or does not deserve to die).

 

Pilate may make a pretty poor governor, but he has an ironic and philosophical disposition and that's why Nietzsche admires him - he's disdainful of the very idea of Truth with a capital T (of truth as something one might not only live by but die for). 

 

This is further revealed, of course, in his symbolic handwashing and the fact that, many years later, when asked about the case he has no memory of the Nazarene [3].

 

Mark Bauerlein provides the perfect paragraph with which to close:

 

"Nietzsche's Pilate, then, isn't a weak administrator trying to finesse a tricky adjudication. He is a cosmopolitan showing his superiority to parochial bickering. His question reduces Christianity from the truth of the world to a partisan contention. He doesn't attack Christianity; he transcends it. [...] His entrance into the theater of the Passion is a virtuous and vigorous interruption of the Christian narrowing of life in all its energy and variety into a single, universal mode of being. Pilate's irony dissolves the historic reality before him into a show. While everyone else in the drama is committed to the outcome, Pilate stands apart, a disinterested observer, an anti-dogmatist wary of truth-seekers and religious types." [4]

 

 

Notes

[1] John 18: 37-38

 

[2] Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1990), §46.

[3] I'm referring here to a fictional account given by Anatole France in his short story "Le Procurateur de Judée" (1892), which portrays an elderly Pilate who has been banished to Sicily.  When asked by a friend if he remembers the trial of Jesus, Pilate thinks for a moment and then replies that he cannot recall the case. An English translation of this tale by Michael Wooff is available as an ebook on Project Gutenberg: click here to read online. 

 

[4] Mark Bauerlein, 'Nietzsche's Pilate', in First Things (August 2019): click here. 

      It is important to note that this most certainly isn't Bauerlein's own position. In fact, he no sooner says this than he slams on the brakes and fully reverses, dismissing modes of philosophical irony - be they pre-Nietzschean like Pilate's, or post-Nietzschean, like Richard Rorty's - as ultimately just sophisticated word games played by those who daren't make the leap into faith.

      There's nothing ironic about Jesus, says Bauerlein, and his Passion makes Pilate's skepticism and cleverness simply appear glib. Those who pride themselves on their curbed enthusiasm and insincerity might mock, but, says Bauerlein, we need to rediscover "forces deeper than words" - forces such as devotion, conviction, and sacrifice ...

 

 

Readers interested in the first Easter post spent with the Anti-Christ, should click here. 

 

For the 2019 version, click here. 

 

And for the 2020 version, click here.     

In Memory of Georgia Brown (1933-1992)

Georgia Brown as seen in A Study in Terror 

(dir. James Hill, 1965)

 

"A carefree, goodtime girl you see / Queen of swell society ..."

 

 

I. 

 

Ever since reflecting on Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century - click here - I've been constantly revising my own list of such figures ... 

 

For whilst I'd be willing to keep Kafka and Freud, I'm not sure about Gershwin or Bernhardt, for example, and would quite happily drop Martin Buber, Louis Brandeis and Golda Meir as these names mean nothing to me. 

 

In fact, come to think about it, I'd probably not miss Gertrude Stein, Albert Einstein, or even the Marx Bros very much either (and one presumes that Groucho Marx wouldn't want to belong on any list of Jewish luminaries that included him).

 

So, retaining Kafka and Freud, who would comprise the other famous eight? 

 

It's tricky: because some Jewish figures - such as Wittgenstein, for example - did not always identify as such, whilst others whom I would have added to my list - such as Larry David - don't qualify because they are still living and Warhol's portraits are exclusively of the dead.    

    

Then there are those like Amy Winehouse who are disqualified from consideration because although born in the twentieth-century, they rose to prominence and died in the early years of this century.  

Or those like Rhoda Morgenstern who are fictional characters and so I suppose don't count (though I'm not sure why).

 

Anyway, I think I can legitimately add the names of Anne Frank, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Derrida and Malcolm McLaren to the list (even if Derrida died in 2004 and McLaren passed away in 2010). 

 

And someone else I think I'm entitled to have on my list and would very much like to add (particularly if I can't have Amy Winehouse), is the singer and actress Georgia Brown ...

 

 

II. 

 

Born Lilian Claire Klot in October 1933 and raised in the East End of London, Klot grew up in a large, extended family of Jewish-Russian descent. Adopting the professional name of Georgia Brown, she established herself as a teenage nightclub singer and recording artist in the early 1950s and soon after made her first TV appearance.   

 

Without ever becoming a huge star, Brown had a varied and successful career in showbiz, including musical theatre; playing Lucy, for example, in the 1956 West End production of The Threepenny Opera at the Royal Court, and Nancy in Oliver! (1960) - Lionel Bart specially adapting the role for the woman he had known since childhood.   

 

From the mid-1960s, Brown concentrated more on developing a screen career - and I personally remember her best for her appearance as a singer at the Angel & Crown in the British 1965 thriller A Study in Terror, in which Sherlock Holmes (played by John Neville) is on the trail of Jack the Ripper [1].

 

Brown treats us to two music hall songs in the film - including the classic Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! [2], about which I have written elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

An intelligent and politically conscious woman, Brown also appeared in the highly acclaimed BBC adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's The Roads to Freedom (1970), for which she sang the theme song La route est dure, and co-created another BBC drama - Shoulder to Shoulder (1974) - which chronicled the struggle for women's suffrage in late-19th and early-20th century. 

  

Brown continued singing and acting throughout the 1980s, but in her later years she limited herself to concerts, cabaret appearances, and guest spots on hit TV shows, including Cheers and Star Trek: The Next Generation (by then she was a permanent US resident).

 

Sadly, Brown died at the age of 58, in London, in July 1992. She was interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery (the largest Jewish cemetery in California).

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although not much loved or praised by the critics, I like this film; not simply because Georgia Brown is in it, but because it also features a young Barbara Windsor as Annie Chapman (the second of Jack the Ripper's canonical five victims). Readers who are interested can watch the 1965 trailer by clicking here. 

 

[2] Georgia Brown sings her version of 'Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay' (accompanied by Ted Heath and His Music) on the album A Little of What You Fancy (Decca, 1962): click here.