"In June 1961 US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, visited Paris." "Public enthusiasm for the handsome young President and his beautiful wife was overwhelming." "At a glittering series of state occasions," "Jacqueline looked stunning..." "Even the austere President de Gaulle was bowled over." "The French took the elegant First Lady to their hearts." "They queued patiently in the rain for a glimpse of her in one of her trademark Oleg Cassini outfits." "There were shouts of "Vive Jackie!"" "wherever she went..." "Her husband observed..." ""l do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience, I am the man who accompanied" "Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris"." "The presidential visit to France saw the flowering of what became known as "Camelot", the enchanted court of the Kennedys in which their youthful style blew away the dowdy cobwebs of the Eisenhower years." "The President's dominating father, Joe Kennedy, had impressed upon his son that, in public, the most important thing is not what you are but what people think you are Joe Kennedy came from a powerful" "lrish-American political dynasty based in Boston." "A multi-millionaire businessman, he was US ambassador to Britain as World War two began his defeatism wrecked his own political ambitions." "They were transferred to his eldest son Joe Jr." "When Joe Jr was killed in the war," "Jack stepped into his shoes." "Joe Kennedy was determined that Jack would be the first Catholic President of the United States." "When the young Jack Kennedy entered the Senate in January 1953, he was universally recognised as one of the most eligible bachelors in the United States..." "He was a war hero, an author and devastatingly good-looking..." "And he could charm his constituents and the wider public." ""Here we have a picture of the former President Hoover, I was Chairman of the subcommittee on re-organisation which considered all the Hoover commission recommendations, we passed about thirty of them in the Senate and he expressed his appreciation" "as I believe its done a good deal for economy, this is a model of PT boat on which I served," "PT109 on which I served during the war, and of course this is the democratic donkey."" ""What about that coconut on your desk that's a rather interesting object"." ""Well our PT boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer and we found a native and gave him a coconut which he took through the lines and wrote a message on it and a boat came and picked us up about ten days later" "and I put the coconut in plastic and kept it as a momento of a more unpleasant day"." "At a Washington dinner party in 1951, the 35-year-old Jack Kennedy had met the 23-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier." "In the autumn of 1952 they began what Jackie later described as a "spasmodic courtship"." "...Prising Jack from the protective embrace of his large family was to prove a tricky task." "Jacqueline Bouvier was descended from a French cabinetmaker who had emigrated to America in 1815 and made a fortune..." "The money was eventually dissipated." "Although Jackie always looked like a rich girl, and lived in great houses, the Bouviers never really had a bean." "What was left of the family money was squandered by Jackie's father," "John V. Bouvier lll, a notorious philanderer popularly known as" ""Black Jack"." "In 1940 Jackie's mother Janet divorced "Black Jack"" "and married a millionaire, Hugh D. Auchincloss, whose main interests were collecting pornography and saving electricity..." ""Black Jack" remained the centre of Jackie's universe." "The young Jackie graduated from" "George Washington University in 1951 and then won ajournalism scholarship sponsored by the fashion magazine Vogue." "But she stayed in America, fearing that if she went to Paris for Vogue, she might never come back." "She got ajob as a photojournalist on the Washington Times Herald, and then met Jack Kennedy." "Kennedy already had a reputation as a womaniser." "Joe Kennedy had encouraged his sons to adopt his own rapacious attitude towards women." "Many young women shuttled in and out of Jack's Washington house." "But he soon realised that Jacqueline Bouvier was different from these one-night stands." "Behind the wide-apart eyes, soft voice and wistful smile lay an independent young woman with a cultured intelligence, barbed wit and a mind which, many years later, a private secretary likened to a steel trap." "Jackie's reserve contrasted with the raucously competitive Kennedy clan, who dubbed her "The Debutante"." "Joe Kennedy was the architect of his children's lives." "His sons were to fulfill their destiny by bearing the Kennedy standard into public affairs..." "His daughters' role was to attract capable husbands whom marriage would make "honorary Kennedys' and whose task it would be to serve as loyal staffers to the Kennedy sons..." "And of course they would all produce lots more Kennedys." "Joe had it all worked out." "Jackie Bouvier fitted uneasily into this world of endless joshing and relentless activity." "She remained in a state of undeclared war with Jack's sisters." "She hated the bruising games of touch football on the lawn at the Kennedy summer home in Hyannis Port on Nantucket Sound." "She gave them up after breaking an ankle in a scrimmage." "She had been warned about Jack's womanizing and the unlikelihood of it stopping if she married him." "But as a Kennedy friend observed," "Jackie was not sexually attracted to men unless, like her own father, there was an element of danger about them." "Not surprisingly, she developed a strong rapport with Joe Kennedy - as dominating a father figure as her own adored "Black Jack"." "Jacqueline Bouvier married Jack Kennedy at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Newport, Rhode lsland, on the 12th of September 1953." "Joe and his wife Rose had ensured that the wedding was the social event of the year." "The groom's face bore the scratches from a strenuous early morning session of touch football." "But as Jackie waltzed with the Kennedy menfolk there was one notable absentee from the celebrations." ""Black Jack" Bouvier had assumed that he would give his daughter away." "On the morning of the wedding he was drunk but not incapable." "But his ex-wife Janet had other ideas." "Somehow, "Black Jack" never got from his hotel to the church." "Jackie was given away by Janet's second husband," "Hugh D. Auchincloss." "Marriage cast Jackie in the role of political wife." ""When I was first married out life was almost as hectic as it is now and I found it rather hard to adjust, but now I think politics is one of the most rewarding lifes a woman can have to be married to a politician" "I think every woman wants to feel needed and in politics you are so much more than in any other field"." "In private Jackie confessed to the strain of living with Kennedy ambitions and Jack's ill-health." "His handsome profile and apparent vigour belied a fragile constitution." "A bad back caused him constant pain." "Worse, he suffered from Addison's disease, a rare and life-threatening condition which required him to take regular doses of cortisone." "But Jack's political future demanded that he Addison's disease be kept a family secret." "At the 1956 Democratic convention," "Jack narrowly failed to secure the vice-presidential nomination." "It was a bitter blow - his father had taught the boys that Kennedys were always winners." "But losing spared Jack the landslide defeat which buried the Democrats the following November and would have consigned him to political oblivion." "After the convention, Jack went to the South of France on holiday." "He was not at Jackie's side when, traumatically, their first child was stillborn." "The marriage teetered close to breakdown but was patched up, reputedly with a million-dollar pay-off to Jackie." "Divorce would have spelt the end of Jack's political career." "Jackie had had an earlier miscarriage and now the stillborn child." "Having married into a family overrun with children, she fretted that she was incapable of childbearing." "The longed-for baby, Caroline, came in the autumn of 1957, just before the Kennedys moved into a new house in Washington." "Caroline's arrival coincided with Jack's drive for the presidency." "With his brother Bobby acting as chief counsel," "Jack served on the McClellan Committee investigating union racketeering." "He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for Profiles in Courage, a study of politicians in adversity." "Jack Kennedy's own political profile was expanding to fit his presidential ambitions while his wife publicly stood by his side." ""ln a way it was the best training for everything, for the life I lead now you've got to know so much about people how they spoke how they felt, granted the exhaustion is their but you're with your husband" "in the major endeavor you share and then when you look back on it you've seen so much of the country all the people you've met its just made you a person you weren't before"." "Kennedy organisation and will to win secured Jack the presidential nomination at the Democratic convention of 1960." ""l can assure all of you here who have reposed this confidence in me that I will be worthy of your trust, we will carry the fight to the people in the fall and we shall win"." "On the stump," "Jack pressed the flesh till his right hand was swollen and bleeding." "Jackie, now pregnant again, hated campaigning." "Watching her work a wintry street with her husband, the journalist Joe Alsop likened Jackie to a "lost child"." "Jack's youthful energy shone throughout the campaign, and his approachability contrasted with his prickly Republican opponent Richard Nixon" "Nevertheless, the contest was a desperately close run thing." "In the Hyannis Port communications room, the Kennedy family followed the unfolding drama." "Jack squeaked home by the narrowest of margins - only just over 100,000 votes separated the two candidates." "Victory was followed by a tickertape parade in New York." "Enthusiastic crowds surged around the Kennedys' open-topped car, at one point threatening to turn it over..." "Jack told reporters that the nation could now prepare for a new administration while he and Jackie prepared for a new baby." "The campaign had taken its toll on Jackie." "On the 25th of November she was rushed to hospital, where an emergency Caesarian was performed to deliver a boy, John Fitzgerald Jr, one month prematurely." "The proud parents emerged with the new addition to the Kennedy dynasty." "On the 20th of January 1961, in bitterly cold weather," "Jack Kennedy and his wife took their places for his inauguration parade." "Accompanied by Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, the President watched the US Navy march past his viewing stand." "Then came a PT-boat in the markings of" "Jack's old wartime command, PT-109, manned for the day by his former shipmates." "Two floats struck an ambivalent note in the Cold War climate which added an extra chill to the new decade." "At the inaugural ball held in the Washington Armory," "Jackie wore a stunning" "Oleg Cassini gown of white chiffon, covered with a floor-length silk cape." "It seemed like the dawn of a new era of elegance." "Jackie was radiant, but once installed in the White House she seemed somewhat aloof to the American public." "Compared with the homely Mamie Eisenhower, the new First Lady was a little too chic for the taste of most Middle-Americans." "Jack exuded all-American charm." "The President was super-confident and surrounded by the best and brightest of his New Frontiersmen But he was quickly brought down to earth when a cla plan to topple Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, came to grief in the Bay of Pigs." "An invading force of Cuban exiles was quickly overwhelmed." "President Kennedy was still recovering his poise when he met the Soviet leader" "Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961." "Mrs Khrushchev seemed to have stepped straight from the tractor factory, while Jackie dazzled her husband, who could scarcely contain his delight at sitting next to her." "Jackie was now box-office." "Her husband quickly grasped that she was a political asset." "She provided the style for which the Kennedy family had striven but had never quite achieved." "Their fairytale marriage was now a matter of mutual convenience." "It could never have survived Jack's insatiable appetite for casual sexual encounters." "But it became the basis for Camelot." "Jackie's contribution, and one of her greatest challenges, was the refurbishment of the White House..." "She had a clear message for the public who filed through its rooms." ""As I remember the first time I came here as a child I was eleven years old and my mother bought me here on Easter vacation, when I think of all the school children who came through here," "I think their should be flowers when their can be and fires going and the pictures, to make it look rather like a home and not so frightening"." "Much of the cultural dazzle of her husband's presidency derived from Jackie's good taste and inclinations." "There was a magnificently staged reception for Pakistan's President Ayub Khan at George Washington's home Mount Vernon." "Here the First Lady was in her element." "It was Jackie who brought to the White House poets," "Nobel prize winners and the musical giants like Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Casals." "Jack's personal preference was for country music and the James Bond thrillers he helped to popularise." "007 would have relished the Cuban missile crisis which erupted when an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft photographed Soviet missile installations on Cuba." "For a week in October 1962, as Soviet ships carrying more missiles steamed towards Cuba, the world hovered on the brink of nuclear war..." "Kennedy issued a stern warning." ""l call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine reckless and provocative threat to world peace and the stable relations between our two nations"" "The crisis passed." "The Cold War unfroze a little." "But in June 1963 the sight of the Berlin Wall moved Kennedy to eloquence." ""Today in the world of freedom the proudest boast is Ich Bin Ein Berliner"." "Jackie had now become a public figure in her own right." "Her solo trip to India in 1962 was a public relations triumph." "Prime Minister Nehru was the latest in a long line of haughty middle-aged statesmen to succumb to her charm." "Younger members of the population proved equally receptive." "But Indira Gandhi was determined not to be upstaged by Jackie Kennedy." "The First Lady had an easier ride on an elephant" "And looked composed and beautiful when she visited the Taj Mahal." "To relax away from the pressures of Washington," "Jackie spent weekends riding at Glen Ora, a country house in Virginia which the President had bought her." "She was an accomplished horsewoman..." "And was riding in a Virginia horse show when Marilyn Monroe stole the show during her husband's 45th birthday party at Madison Square Gardens, breathily serenading the President in a skintight dress which left little to the imagination." "In public the Kennedys were the world's most glamorous couple." "In private the gulf between them was widening." "But there was still time for some unforced moments." "When Caroline's pony Leprechaun seemed intent on munching Jack's ear, the President commanded the cameraman to" ""Keep going..." "You are about to see a President eaten by a horse"." "In the winter of 1962, Jackie was pregnant again." "In August 1963 she gave birth to a son, Patrick, who lived for only a few hours." "The strain and the sadness were etched on to the faces of the President and his wife." "Ten days later Jackie flew to Athens where she embarked on a cruise of the Aegean aboard the Christina, the yacht owned by the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis." "It did not escape everyone's attention that Mrs Kennedy was the only unescorted woman on Christina and Onassis the only unescorted man." "The children bridged the gap between the Kennedys." "Jack's natural affection for his own and other people's children was one of his most endearing personal traits." "There was always time to play in the Oval Office." "Meanwhile there was a little local political difficulty to sort out in Texas." "At 11:39am local time on the 22nd of November 1963" "Air Force One touched down at Love Field." "Sixteen minutes later the President's motorcade was bound for Dallas." "It was a hot, clear day and the bullet-proof bubble was not fitted to the presidential Lincoln." "into Dallas the Kennedys drove, past cheering crowds." "And on towards Dealey Plaza, where Death waited for Jack Kennedy." "Jackie Kennedy flew back to Washington with her husband's body." "Distraught, she was still wearing the pink suit blotched with Jack's blood." "With immense self-possession, she began immediately to plan her husband's funeral." "Jackie orchestrated every detail for maximum effect." "Joe Kennedy, now paralysed and speechless after a stroke, watched his son's funeral on television, isolated from the teeming Kennedy world he had created." "Jackie's dignity was intensely moving." "At this moment of shock, she held the nation together" "A whispered reminder and little John Kennedy said goodbye to his father." "In 1961 the Journalist Kenneth Crawford wrote of the President and his wife:" ""Those attractive Kennedys enlist our sympathy." "We want them to be all they seem to be"." "It was an impossible wish, but for a brief moment they almost made it come true." "It was the most remarkable funeral procession in the history of South America." "On the 10th of August 1952, the body of Eva Peron, the wife of the President of Argentina, General Juan Peron, was borne through the streets of Buenos Aires." "Tens of thousands of mourning Argentines lined the streets to watch the cortege pass." "Eva Peron had never been elected or officially appointed to any government office." "But she was buried with full presidential honours." "Her husband in full general's uniform followed the coffin." "For seven years she had been the most powerful woman in the world." "The myths surrounding Eva Peron reverberate to this day." "On the 7th of May 1919 an Indian midwife helped an unwed mother give birth to a child on the Argentina pampa near the small town of Los Toldos in the province of Buenos Aires." "This child was to grow up to be Eva Peron," "First Lady of Argentina." "When she was 15," "Eva left her family and made her way to Buenos Aires, adopting the name of her father, a prosperous landowner." "The adolescent Eva Duarte, or Evita as she liked to be called, dreamed about becoming a movie star." "By the time she was 20 she was playing small parts in radio plays." "By all accounts she was an atrocious actress, but in 1943 she signed a contract to play the title roles in a radio series about famous women in history..." "Evita became Catherine the Great and Sarah Bernhardt." "Soon she would add another name to the list - herself." "Evita's success attracted the attention of a rapidly rising figure in Argentina's military government, the dashing Colonel Juan Peron." "From 1943, when the military came to power, he had been building a political base for himself among the country's trade unions." "Peron provided pay rises, better conditions and created a bureaucracy devoted to dealing with labour problems." "By 1945, Peron was Argentina's vice-president and Evita his mistress." "Evita became part of Peron's political apparatus, broadcasting a stream of propaganda to the Argentine nation." "She told the people:" ""l am a woman like you, mothers, wives, sweethearts, sisters... from me came the son who is in the barracks... or the worker who is creating a new Argentina by land, sea and air."" "Evita was eager to assume this iconic role away from the microphone." "She was placed in charge of organising the union which represented Argentina's radio workers." "The concessions Peron had made to the workers cemented his popularity, but by 1945 the military government of which he was vice-president, and effectively controlling, was deeply unpopular... rioting broke out in Buenos Aires." "The army moved in to make thousands of arrests." "A state of martial law was declared." "Newspapers were shut down." "Strikes gripped Argentina" "Peron's military colleagues decided to move against him and his mistress." "At the beginning of October he was dismissed, arrested and briefly exiled to an island off the coast of Argentina." "Peron was rescued by Evita's willpower and by the workers, the descamisados or shirtless ones as they had been contemptuously dubbed by the military junta." "It was Evita who was behind the huge demonstration which converged on the government's Pink House, the Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires." "Many of the demonstrators carried banners proclaiming "Peron for President!"" "The junta caved in." "Peron was released, to marry Evita and to run for the presidency." "In February 1946 his triumph was complete when he took the oath of office as president." "Evita had been with him every step of the way." "There was no precedent in Argentine politics for the role Evita was to play." "She made the rules up as she went along." "After her death, Peron claimed that, from the start, he had prepared Evita for the part she was to play." "But even he could not have foreseen just what a force she would become." "Even though Peron was twice Evita's age, they formed a perfect political partnership." "Where Peron was benign and relaxed," "Evita was fiercely passionate." "Her political philosophy was simple - love of the poor, from whom she had come, and hatred of the rich who had run Argentina for so long." "Peron's style was avuncular and glad handing." "He once referred to himself as a "vegetarian lion"." "While he was the man of the people," "Evita was the people." "The Peronist system claimed to have found a third way between capitalism and communism." "But it was a fascist state much influenced by Mussolini's Italy, where Peron had spent the early war years as a military attache." "It was ironic, then, that Juan and Evita had come to power in 1945, when fascism seemed a spent force." "As the self-styled First Worker of Argentina," "Evita reached out to two powerful forces previously ignored by Argentine politicians:" "women, for whom she won the vote, and the workers who had carried Peron to power." "Self-effacingly, she said of Peron:" ""He is like God for us, we cannot conceive of heaven without Peron... he is our sun, our air, our water, our life"." "In truth Evita wielded enormous personal power." "She exercised an iron grip on the labour movement." "She owned four of Buenos Aires' largest newspapers and had complete control of the nation's radio network." "She worked long hours in her office in the Ministry of Labour." "Up the stairs and into her suite tramped not only the big union leaders, to be exhorted or dressed down, but also a stream of poor people bringing their individual problems to the young blonde woman who received homage" "and dispensed favours from behind her desk." "The military had watched Evita's rise with the deepest suspicion." "The high command regarded her with a contempt that was repaid in kind." "Evita had a short temper and a long memory." "She waged ferocious vendettas against all those who had snubbed or patronised her in the past or who now stood in her way." "In 1947 the Spanish dictator General Franco invited Evita to Spain." "The Argentine navy denied her a ship for the voyage, and she was obliged to fly to Europe." "Peron declared that the trip was unofficial and Evita claimed that she was financing it out of her own funds." "Whatever the truth, it was the prelude to a spectacular descent on the Old World by a representative of the New." "In Madrid the entire Spanish government stood waiting to meet her." "Behind them were 200,000 ordinary Spaniards who had stood for hours in broiling heat for a chance to glimpse the Lady of Hope." "It was the biggest reception since the German SS chief Heinrich Himmler had visited Spain in 1940." "Himmler was long since dead." "Evita was alive and kicking." "There was the obligatory visit to the bullfights at the plaza de Toros, where the arena was spread with coloured sand in the red and yellow national colours of Spain and the blue and white of Argentina." "In the Palacio Real," "Franco decorated Evita with the diamond-encrusted Cross of Isabel the Catholic, the highest honour Spain can bestow." "Then, her shoulders draped in mink in spite of the heat, she addressed a vast throng in the square below." "Evita told them," ""l come as a rainbow between two countries"." "She told Franco." ""Any time you want a crowd of this size just give me a call."" "Then it was on to Italy, the mother country of so many Argentines." "Behind Evita is her brother Juan, who was Peron's private secretary." "Another tumultuous reception was marred by clashes between Italian fascists and socialists." "But there was no denying that" "Evita had brought an extraordinary glamour and excitement to a Europe still struggling to escape from postwar austerity." "She was received by the Pope but snubbed by the British Royal Family, who were advised against meeting Evita in London." "Back in Argentina it was business as usual." "Peron filled the role of "caudillo", the traditional Latin American strongman, fixing the armed forces and the big money interests while Evita dealt with the unions." "With the unions they used carrot and stick tactics." "Massive pay rises were accompanied by ruthless purges of any unions which stepped out of line." "lncreasingly Evita's principal instrument of power was the Eva Peron Social Aid Foundation." "One of its showcases was an eerie model village for children, which only seemed to contain children when important visitors arrived." "Propaganda films, however corny, contained the essence of Evita's philosophy - the betterment of the masses." "In this she was steadfast." "Her Social Aid Foundation was ostensibly a charity but woe betide any business or union which declined to make a substantial donation." "Eventually the Foundation became Argentina's biggest enterprise, effectively taking over the functions of the Ministries of Health and Education." "Many thousands benefited, but the fruits of the Foundation were grown in deeply corrupt soil." "At the centre of Evita and Juan's partnership was the sway they held over the people from the balcony, the traditional podium of Latin American demagogues." "Peron had been deeply impressed by the huge demonstrations orchestrated by Benito Mussolini, and it was in the great gathering in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo that, at regular intervals, they rallied and reassured the shirtless ones." "This was Evita's stage, on which she achieved a fire and resonance entirely lacking in her radio performances and during her mercifully brief movie career." "In Peron's words, she was the "bridge of love" between himself and the Argentine people." "She gave the poorest and most exploited Argentines an understanding of themselves." "Evita declared that the happiness of one of the shirtless ones was worth more than her life." "Evita, of course, was hardly shirtless herself." "Her wardrobe bulged with hundreds of expensive outfits." "She dripped jewels, and wore them when she visited the slum dwellers, telling them," ""One day you will inherit the whole collection"." "But she also took care to cultivate a severely iconic style, with simple suits and scraped-back hair emphasising the burning power of her face." "She had no need of children, She was the mother of the nation." "In retrospect, Evita's political life seems like a preparation for the agonisingly drawn-out drama of her death." "Her health had always been delicate." "In 1950 she had been diagnosed as having cancer of the uterus, but she refused to undergo the operation which might have saved her." "Instead she stepped up her workload..." "She drove herself on." "The sacrifice she made for the people would become real rather than rhetorical." "Evita was rushing towards her own appointment with destiny." "Her rhetoric was as fiery as ever... but a sense of exhaustion was setting in." "Meanwhile, the rolling thunder of Peron's speeches continued to galvanise the masses with promises of the wonderful future that his movement would bring them." "And when Evita spoke, it was always as the leading propagandist of Peronismo" "In August 1951, the Army blocked her bid to become Argentina's vice-president." "She was now so weak that Peron had physically to support her." "She was saying goodbye to her people." "Evita lived long enough to make her last public appearance at Peron's inauguration for a second term as president in June 1952." "Riddled with cancer, she died on the 26th of July." "As she was prepared for the final futile operation to save her," "Evita had shouted "Viva Peron!" with her last strength." "Her death provoked a frenzy of mourning." "Argentina's interior Minister, Angel G. Borlenghi, described Evita as "the martyr of labour, protecting saint, haven for the humble and the quintessence of the people's feelings"" "Peron's feelings were all too clear as he walked slowly behind the gun carriage bearing the tiny coffin." "Evita's enemies rejoiced, but the nation mourned." "Her body lay in state at the Ministry of Labour." "Outside the Ministry colossal queues waited for up to 15 hours in freezing rain to snatch a glimpse of Evita's wasted face..." "Sixteen people died in the crush... ln a fortnight over two million Argentines had paid their last respects to Evita Peron." "Walls of flowers channeled the mourners as they shuffled towards Evita's bier." "Inside hysterical women threw themselves forward to kiss the glass panel on Evita's coffin." "The Peronistas mounted massive torchlit parades in her memory." "But the light of Peronismo was already dimming now that its beacon was dead." "Without Evita's fire, the movement she and her husband had created began to wither away at the roots." "Even as she lay in her coffin the cult of Evita began to falter." "The plans to build a massive memorial to her, the biggest in the world, never got beyond the model stage." "Peron, taking a stroll with Evita's pet poodles, cut an increasingly isolated figure." "An economic crisis loomed, caused largely by Evita's lavish handouts to the unions." "Peron's moment seemed to be passing... the anti-Peron forces gathered strength and waited for their opportunity." "It came in June 1955 when navy aircraft launched bombing attacks on the Casa Rosada." "Peron, the vegetarian lion, was now also toothless." "The revolt was put down but Peron no longer had the stomach for a fight." "When the army rose against him in September, he fled to Paraguay." "The shirtless ones who gathered in the Plaza Mayo could not save him now." "A new strongman donned the presidential sash." "In 1960 Peron settled in Madrid, where he married his long-time mistress Isabel Martinez, a former dancer." "By 1972 the 76-year-old Peron saw an opportunity to return to Argentina, which had been run into the ground by a succession of military dictatorships." "At home the Peronistas, now an uneasy coalition of forces on the extreme left and right of the political spectrum, were clamouring for Peron's return." "When he came back, it was at the invitation of those whom Evita had despised the most - the army, big business and landowners." "Now Isabel was at his side, a surrogate Evita but a pale imitation of the original." "The Peronistas chanted the old warcrys, but they were a tinny echo of the glory days in the late 1940s." "Nevertheless, they were sufficient to secure Juan Peron a massive victory in the presidential election held in the autumn of 1973." "The old warrior gave a sheepish grin as the sash was placed on his shoulders." "But Peron's failing health meant that Isabel, who had consciously modelled herself on Evita, assumed an increasingly important role in the governing of Argentina." "President Peron proposed but his vice-president, Isabel, disposed." "Peron's charisma remained intact but he could make no impression on the economic chaos and political violence which bedeviled Argentina." "After Peron suffered a heart-attack Isabel was sworn in as Argentina's interim president." "But there was no public enthusiasm for the hatchet-faced Evita Mark 2." "Juan Peron died on the 1st of July 1974" "The army presence at his funeral was more menacing than it had been when Evita died." "In 1952 the army had fed the lines of mourners." "Now they looked ready to mow them down." "But the grief of the Peronistas was genuine enough." "It was only after Peron had been laid to rest that Evita's embalmed body was returned to Argentina under heavy guard." "In 1956 it had been secretly buried in the Italian city of Milan." "Fourteen years later she had been disentombed and moved to Peron's house in Madrid." "But when he returned to Argentina he had left her behind." "Isabel's decision to bring the body back, and reunite Evita with her husband, provoked diehard Peronistas to fresh frenzies." "As Evita's body sped through the streets of the city she had so dominated it seemed that the force of her personality was as strong as ever, even in death." "It was strong enough to frighten the military junta which deposed Isabel." "They forbade any mention of Evita's name." "But the legend of Evita and Juan Peron is too potent to be forgotten." "In 1968 Richard Burton wrote in his diary:" ""l have been inordinately lucky all my life, but the greatest luck of all has been Elizabeth..." "She is a wildly exciting lover-mistress, she is shy, witty, she is nobody's fool, she is a brilliant actress, beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography..." "AND SHE LOVES ME!"" "The Sixties were a time of conspicuous consumption." "And two of that decade's most conspicuous consumers were Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton." "Wherever they went, whatever they spent, the cameras and the reporters were always there to record the event." "Lashings of food and drink downed in the best restaurants." "Jets and jewels in abundance, the latter nestling on Taylor's sumptuous bosom." "Eventually, when they had consumed everything else," "Burton and Taylor consumed each other." "Like the Sixties themselves, the bubble burst." "In a spectacular case of life imitating art, the Burtons' marriage seemed almost to merge with that of the doomed couple they played in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "For two people who so readily embraced excess, it was entirely fitting that they should have fallen in love in 1963 on the set of one of the most expensive films in movie history." "Cleopatra nearly bankrupted its studio, 20th Century-Fox, switched its directors in midstream, devoured millions of dollars as vast sets lay idle for months on end and, in the middle of this chaos, united Burton and Taylor." "In Cleopatra, Taylor took top billing." "She had been a star since childhood, discovered by Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in 1942, when she was just ten years old." "In 1943 MGM co-starred Taylor with a dog in Lassie Come Home" ""She's going towards Yorkshire!" "She's going towards Yorkshire!"" "Then came National Velvet, this time with a horse and another formidable child star, Mickey Rooney." "By 1949 Taylor had grown up - delectably and was bickering with parents Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett in Father of the Bride, an anticipation of many marriages to come." "Taylor had been pursued by many men, including the wayward tycoon Howard Hughes, over 20 years her senior... but shortly after completing Father of the Bride she became a bride herself, marrying hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr..." "Father of the Bride remains as fresh as the day it was made, but the marriage to Conrad Hilton quickly went sour." "Taylor was to fall hopelessly in love with Montgomery Clift, her co-star in" "A Place in the Sun and Raintree County." "But when they met she was married to English actor Michael Wilding and remained unaware of Clift's homosexuality." "While making Giant in 1956," "Taylor became involved in the same kind of entanglement with James Dean..." "When Dean died in an automobile crash shortly before the completion of Giant, she was heartbroken." "Husband Number Three was the flamboyant showman Mike Todd, who gave Taylor a $30,000 ring and a Mexican wedding at which the guests were outnumbered by the mounds of caviare." "Todd also gave Taylor a daughter, Liza, and left a movie monument of sorts, a sprawling version of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, filmed in wide-screen Todd-AO and completed amid a blizzard of bouncing cheques." "It went on to win five Oscars." "But Todd's triumph was shortlived." "On the 22nd of March 1958," "Mike Todd was killed when his private plane, the Lucky Liz, crashed as he was piloting it to New York." "His wife had stayed home with a flu virus..." "When she heard the news of Todd's death," "Taylor had to be sedated to prevent her taking her own life." "Taylor turned to Todd's best friend, the singer Eddie Fisher, then married to America's Sweetheart Debbie Reynolds." "The marriage was empty but Middle America branded Taylor a "scarlet woman"." "She married Fisher the day he divorced Debbie." "Taylor's career was now entering a rich phase." "She won an Oscar nomination for her performance opposite Paul Newman in Tennessee Williams' steamy Southern drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof..." "The movie was toned-down for the screen, but Taylor still filled it with sexual static." ""When a marriage goes on the rocks, the rocks are there, right there"" "Then, riding on a tide of sympathy after nearly dying of pneumonia," "Taylor won a Best Actress Oscar as a call-girl in Butterfield 8." ""Command performances leave me quite cold, I've had more fun in the back seat of a 39 Ford than I could ever have in the vault of the Chase National Bank"" "In Butterfield 8 Eddie Fisher provided a shoulder for Liz to cry on, but by now Marriage Number Four had foundered." "This one wasn't for keeps either..." "A new romance lay just around the corner." "Richard Burton was born Richard Jenkins, one of 13 children of a Welsh coalminer." "With the help of his schoolteacher," "Philip Burton, from whom he took his stage name, he won a scholarship to Oxford." "After national service in the RAF," "Burton embarked on a glittering stage career." "His Hamlet in the 1953" "Old Vic season was full of fire, passion and power." "Burton was a brooding, intensely masculine Henry V." "But the movies beckoned, and in 1952 he went to Hollywood." "In Tinseltown, he lent his rich baritone voice, and an elaborate coiffure, to lumbering epics like Alexander the Great." "Burton's reputation as a formidable Shakespearian actor was still growing, but the movies, and the money they provided, had captured him." "Mere flashes of his real authority illuminated Burton's Hollywood films." "The rest was mere posturing." "Only occasionally, as in Nicholas Ray's Bitter Victory, was Burton given the chance to unleash some of his reserves of poetry and power." "Burton was a notorious womanizer - but he remained married to his first wife Sybil." "After a run as King Arthur in the Broadway musical Camelot," "Burton was cast to play" "Marc Antony in the much-delayed, multi-million-dollar production of Cleopatra." "His fee was a quarter of a million dollars and $1,000 a week plus a villa and servants while filming in Rome At first relations between Cleopatra and Marc Antony seemed cool." "Taylor told friends that Burton was a clumsy flirt." "Behind her back, Burton called his co-star "Miss Tits" This didn't fool anyone for a moment." "As soon as filming began, it was clear that Burton and Taylor were infatuated with each other." "The atmosphere on the set was electric." "Cleopatra's director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, likened it to being "locked in a cage with two tigers"." "It was not long before rumours of the affair were seeping out of the set." "As passions flared, Laurence Olivier sent a telegram to Burton." "It read: "Make up your mind, dear heart." "Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?"" "Burton replied, "Both"." "The paparazzi, a phenomenon new to Burton, descended on his villa in Rome." "The situation was spinning out of control." "For Burton, Taylor represented the latest in a long line of tempestuous affairs." "But although Taylor was much-married, she was not promiscuous." "She always married the men she slept with, whether THEY were married or not." "Burton was no exception." "Alarmed by the press reports of the affair between his wife and Burton," "Eddie Fisher flew to Rome." "It was too late." "When it appeared that a wavering Burton was about to return to his wife," "Taylor produced her trump card, a suicide attempt with sleeping pills." "She was denounced by members of the US Congress." "The Vatican accused her of the curious crime of "erotic vagrancy"." "The couple eventually found a refuge at Puerto Vallarta, in Mexico, a small fishing port where" "Burton had filmed another Tennessee Williams play," "Night of the Iguana." "It was at Puerto Vallarta that the divorces were granted from Eddie and Sybil..." "Here, too, Richard and Elizabeth could escape the most insistent attentions of the press." "Yet already Burton seemed distracted, consumed by some huge inner boredom, as if constantly waiting for something to happen." "Richard Burton married Elizabeth Taylor in Montreal in March 1964." "Afterwards, quoting Hamlet's line to Ophelia," "Burton declared," ""l say we will have no more marriages"." "For a while it worked." "But there was a constant undertow tugging at their relationship." "Burton hated being hemmed in by their fame." "Taylor adored fighting her way through press and fans." "She had never known anything else." "But this rarefied existence increasingly cut Burton off from his family and friends." "Burton, a temperamental but very biddable man, had moved into Taylor's world." "A world in which she was a bigger star and in which the sole purpose of the secretaries and the sycophants who surrounded them was to keep the real world at bay..." "But it was a world which could not last." "Taylor had always been impressed by Burton's academic background, and he was always talking about returning to Oxford to teach." "The closest they came was in 1966, when the Burtons descended on the city of dreaming spires to star in a production of Marlowe's Dr Faustus at the Oxford Playhouse." "Burton took the title role of the man who strikes a pact with the Devil, an ironic comment perhaps on the Faustian pact he had struck with Hollywood..." "But briefly he was back in his element." "For this part," "Burton was mad about Liz's opulent body." "He also genuinely admired her as a film actress." "It was Elizabeth who tried to teach him that, in front of the camera, less is more." "She had only limited success..." "She was more successful in encouraging her husband to extract colossal sums of money from studios anxious to exploit their fame at the box-office..." "Between 1964 and 1972 the Burtons earned an estimated $50 million." "They spent it." "Elizabeth declared that she "loved beautiful things"." "Burton bought them for her." "She dripped with jewels, one of them so large" "Burton called it 'the ice rink'." "Diamonds and emeralds were Liz's best friends." "On the way, Burton collected a few baubles of his own, among them a CBE in 1971." "It was a happy moment undermined by the nagging realisation that for the man who in the Fifties had been hailed as the new Olivier, the stage was now almost a thing of the past." "It was easier, perhaps, to play the fool with one of the jewels he bought for Liz." "They shone on her like a brand mark, as if to say Elizabeth Taylor belongs to Richard Burton... or maybe it was the other way round." "Richard and Liz had become Hollywood royalty, moving out of the big league into a league all of their own." "Richard had always been ambitious for money, but it was Liz who made him ambitious for the kind of stardom where nothing less would do than the best suites in the best hotels and the best tables in the best restaurants" "An armlock on Marlon Brando was all part of the fun." "Sadly, most of the films the Burtons made together lacked the sparkle of Taylor's jewels." "A coarse-grained version of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, set the tone, with Burton happy to ham and bluster his way through the part of Petruchio" "As Katharina, Taylor proved that when it came to being raucous, she was more than a match for her husband." ""l will"" ""Thou must be married to no man but me, for l am born to tame you" " ""l'd rather die"" "The exception was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "which pitched the gilded couple into a marriage made in a hell shared by" "George Segal and Sandy Dennis." ""Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"" "The Burtons' own marriage was eventually to prove as rancorous, although the tantrums and tearful reconciliations usually took place in luxury hotels." "As the Burtons' caravan rolled from continent to continent and from movie to movie, their marriage became an equally moveable piece of mayhem." "At hotels the couple thoughtfully rented suites above and below their own accommodation to spare fellow guests the sound of their brawling." "London's Dorchester was their favourite watering hole." "One guest recalled that when the volatile Burtons stayed there, the tension could be felt quivering in the luxuriously appointed air like an exposed live wire." "Drink was at the root of it." "Burton's father had been an alcoholic." "Burton drank beer until he met Taylor, who introduced him to vodka." "She started every day at 8:30 with an outsize Bloody Mary." "By the end of the Sixties it was not just the vodka that was on the rocks." "The Burtons' marriage was breaking up." "The endless party ground on." "The celebrations which marked Liz's 40th birthday, held in Budapest, scaled new heights of indulgence but Burton was falling apart." "His elder brother lfor had been tragically paralysed in an accident in Burton's home in Switzerland." "Richard was nearly 45, and with much of his youthful promise unfulfilled." "He was now frightened of returning to the stage." "The refuge, as always, was drink." "His eye was roving again, too." "There was an affair with the French actress Nathalie Delon, accompaned by the usual media frenzy." "And there was talk of an off-screen romance between Burton and Genevieve Bujold, his co-star in Anne of the Thousand Days." ""l think of nothing but you, of you and me playing dog and bitch, of you and me playing horse and mare, of you and me in every way, I want to fill you up night after night," "I want to fill you up with sons..."" ""Bastards, they would be bastards"." "On the 3rd of July 1973 the Burtons announced their separation." "Burton told reporters:" ""You can't keep clapping a couple of dynamite sticks together without expecting them to blow up"." "Richard was a great roarer when drunk, but in the negotiations which preceded the divorce settlement," "Liz proved to be much the tougher bargainer." "She came away with the jewels, the art collection and the house in Mexico." "It was small consolation." "Like George and Martha in Virginia Woolf," "Richard and Elizabeth couldn't let each other go." "Their emotional involvement seemed as strong as ever." "The rhythms of their lives continued." "While Burton kept afloat on a sea of drink, surviving repeated warnings that he was at death's door," "Liz battled her way gamely through the ritual obstacle course of reporters and cameramen..." "They were both heading towards a brief reunion." "In October 1975" "Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were remarried in Botswana in southern Africa." "The bride wore a green dress trimmed with lace and guinea fowl feathers." "The groom a red shirt, red socks, white slacks and a large drink." "Liz had begged Burton to stop drinking, but the boozing began with the honeymoon." "As ever, it made him moody and belligerent." "With a huge effort Burton climbed back on the wagon." "There was one last fling at the Dorchester to mark Burton's 50th birthday, but within four months the marriage was over." "Richard and Elizabeth had believed that they could survive on the physical passion which had united them on the set of Cleopatra." "Their friends knew better." "In December 1976," "Liz married an American politician," "John Warner, the Republican senator for Virginia." "She still moved in the same circles as Burton." "Acquiring expensive things remained a passion." "But now the inseparables were sometimes conspicuously separate..." "When they did meet," "Burton's eyes would fill with tears and he would tell her in his native Welsh," ""l love you more than the world itself"." "The steady Warner offered Taylor a respite from Burton's Boozing and brawling, but Taylor's temperament could take only so much peace and quiet." "The political hurly-burly was no substitute for the cocooned chaos of her own celebrity." "By now Liz had gained weight, and was rumoured to be addicted to a cocktail of pills and drink." "Like many another troubled star, she took the cure at the Betty Ford Clinic." "Thereafter the press cruelly turned watching Liz gain and lose weight into an international spectator sport." "Burton's drinking problem had been curbed by his marriage to Susan Hunt in 1976." "But even her monumental patience finally snapped in 1982." "In 1983, Richard and Elizabeth were reunited for the last time, co-starring in a Broadway production of Private Lives," "Noel Coward's comedy of divorce." "Their lives had been anything but private, but the enduring public fascination with the Burtons ensured that they received salaries of $70,000 a week, then a Broadway record..." "The old chemistry still crackled." "What would it be like playing on stage together?" ""l don't find that it will be any different, do you?"" ""No I just think you push it out a little louder and a little longer than one does in front of the camera..."" ""You will probably try and upstage me more"" ""No, no you don't upstage, I'll teach you about that, you down stage."" "Later Burton explained that comedy roles were rare" ""l've only once played life comedy and that was on Broadway and it was successful..."" ""l though that was in real life"." "And how did Taylor rate Burton as an actor?" ""One of the finest actors..."" " "One of the finest!" - "Sorry..."" "The scrum of reporters and photographers prompted a wit to observe that it was just like a crowd scene from Quo Vadis?" "one of the Fifties epics in which Burton starred." "The final separation came on the 5th of August 1984 when Richard Burton died of a brain haemhorrage at his home in Switzerland." "He was laid to rest on a Swiss hillside but buried as a Welshman." "His fifth wife, Sally Hay, presided over the funeral." "Elizabeth stayed away out of deference to her." "Inside the coffin, Burton was dressed from top to toe in red, the Welsh national colour." "A copy of Dylan Thomas' collected verse lay on top." "At Richard Burton's funeral service in Wales," "Sally Burton dominated proceedings." "But at the memorial service held in London," "Elizabeth was the centre of attention, sitting in the front pew with Burton's family." "There is something heroic about" "Liz Taylor's capacity for survival." "Like Cleopatra she has defied the passing of time..." "Burton once wrote that the world had always been amused by "us two maniacs"." "One day, perhaps, the party will be resumed, in another place." "He was the world's greatest actor, inheritor of the mantle of Garrick and Keane..." "She was one of the world's greatest beauties..." "Together Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were the King and Queen of the British theatre." "Vivien was the luckiest and unluckiest of stars." "A ravishingly petite brunette with striking blue-green eyes, she set out to win her man and succeeded." "For a while their love burned with a fierce passion." "They seemed to live charmed lives." "Awards were showered on them." ""and finally may I say what a deep happiness it has been to me to have received these awards at the hands of one so dear and precious to me as she who has bestowed them"." "The public saw a magical couple." "But they did not see the manic-depression which preyed on Vivien Leigh." "Born in Darjeeling, in India," "Vivien Leigh had been bitten by the acting bug by the age of seven." "Her first role was Mustard Seed in a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream." "In 1931 the aspiring actress married an older man," "Leigh Holman, had a daughter and launched herself on a stage and film career." "Laurence Olivier also got off to an early start." "His precocious genius was noted when, as a 14-year-old schoolboy, he played Katharine in The Taming of the Shrew." "By 1930 he was established as a dashing romantic lead and married to actress Jill Esmond." "In 1930 Olivier had appeared on Broadway with Esmond in Noel Coward's comedy of divorce, Private Lives." "The next stop for the couple was Hollywood." "The talkies had arrived and stage stars were in demand." "Olivier was to be the new Ronald Colman but he struggled in Hollywood." "He was chosen to star opposite Greta Garbo in Queen Christina and then replaced by Garbo's old lover" "John Gilbert..." "Gilbert was a tragic star." "His career was in free fall and he was drinking heavily." "His reunion with Garbo was suffused with melancholy." "Gilbert's day was gone," "Olivier's lay just around the corner." "But his marriage was as unsatisfactory as his film career." "Although she was to bear Olivier a son," "Esmond preferred the company of women to that of her husband, who resumed his glittering career on the London stage." "Vivien Leigh, now a rising star, had her eyes on Olivier." "In 1935 she told a friend that some day, she was going to marry him." "The man who brought them together was the Hungarian-born Alexander Korda, the self-ordained Tsar of the British film industry." "At Denham, outside London," "Korda had built his own version of Hollywood in fields not yet swallowed up by the suburbs." "To Denham came extras, writers and technicians, just as they swarmed into the movie factories of the major American studios." "Here, on the Denham lot," "Korda built a fragile version of Hollywood's Babylon." "Sets sprang up where cows had grazed." "And in Denham's huge water tank was moored a galleon for Fire Over England, an Elizabethan epic in which Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier co-starred for the first time." "They played the romantic leads and, amid the histrionics of the plot, fell in love." "How could I learn names" "But one day, Your Grace, the pistol will be loaded," "And as the shot echoes across the sea to Spain, the Armada will sail, and then there will be fire over England!" "Vivien was the complete opposite of the cool Esmond - exciting and unpredictable." "The affair did not go unobserved by Korda, who immediately paired Olivier and Leigh in a thriller, 21 Days." "In the summer of 1937, while filming 21 Days," "Leigh rented a house in the country near Denham." "During filming Korda gave his two stars a week off to stage a production of Hamlet at Elsinore Castle in Denmark." "They had now decided on a life together." "But first they had to finish 21 Days." ""Who the hell are you?"" "'You'd better ask my wife' 'l only say a man's got to pay for his pleasure... what do you say, twenty pounds, it can be arranged.'" "'Keep back'" "'Get out you filthy..." "Larry!" "Wanda!" "'Do stop pretending everythings over, and I'm afraid'" "21 Days was considered so bad that it was shelved for two years." "Meanwhile, Leigh and Olivier set up house together in Chelsea, the London village by the Thames." "After a triumphant season at the Old Vic theatre," "Olivier returned to America." "He had conquered Shakespeare but not the studio system." "Now he was cast as Heathcliff opposite Merle Oberon's Cathy in Wuthering Heights." "It was a turning point for Olivier, earning him his first Oscar nomination." "Director William Wyler was the first to coax a film rather than a stage performance from him." "The intensely competitive Vivien Leigh was running hard to catch up." "In A Yank at Oxford she played a flirtatious wife who clearly found Robert Taylor's mortar board irresistible." "No doubt, the mother in you." "Oh, now I believe you're pulling my leg." "Well, I'm restraining myself the best I can." "You wicked boy." "But Vivien had her eyes fixed on a higher prize..." "For three years producer David O Selznick had been planning his film version of the Margaret Mitchell novel" "Gone With the Wind." "In his search for Scarlett O'Hara he had screen tested almost every leading lady in Hollywood, including Paulette Goddard." "But Goddard and a small army of hopefuls had to yield the prize to Vivien Leigh." "It was an extremely fortunate coincidence that Vivien and Olivier had the same agent," "Myron Selznick, the brother of David O Selznick." "Filming on Gone with the Wind had already begun when Myron Selznick introduced Vivien to his brother on the set." "Atlanta was going up in flames and in the glow" "Selznick saw his Scarlett." "She looked a million dollars but could she play the tempestuous Southern belle?" "The screen tests showed that she was as fiery as the flames of Atlanta" "Vivien's relations with co-star Clark Gable were initially wary." "And she balked at the cotton wool Selznick had stuffed down her corsage to give her a cleavage." "But her obvious excitement at securing the part, and her remarkable stamina over months of shooting and endless rewrites made Vivien's Scarlett an epic performance to place alongside the epic quality of Selznick's production." "Her Best Actress Oscar was a foregone conclusion." "Gone With the Wind was premiered in Atlanta in December 1939." "The excitement was intense as Vivien Leigh arrived on the same plane as David O. Selznick and co-star Olivia de Havilland." "There could be no denying that it was Viviens' day." "De Havilland, and Clark Gable and his wife Carole Lombard, had to take a back seat to the British newcomer." "Atlanta's population had swelled from 300,000 to 1.5 million as vast crowds waited to catch a glimpse of the stars on their drive into the city." "All eyes were on Vivien Leigh." "It was her first experience of the American publicity machine." ""Ladies and gentlemen I've spent quite a good deal of my time on Peach Tree Street this year and now that I'm here it feels well just as if I were coming home and the warmth and kindness of your wonderful welcome" "has made it the happiest home coming I could possibly imagine." "I greet you and I want to thank you with all my heart"." "It was a golden time for Vivien and her Larry-Boy, as she called Olivier." "After conquering the New York stage he had signed to play" "Maxim de Winter in Rebecca." "It was, perhaps, his best film performance, playing an attractive man made vulnerable by a secret past." "Vivien had been desperate to play Maxim's mousy wife, but the part went to Joan Fontaine." "For once, she had failed to get her way." "On the 3rd of September 1939," "Britain declared war on Germany." "Leigh and Olivier heard the news in California aboard Douglas Fairbanks Jr's yacht." "Larry got drunk and shouted at fellow sailors," ""This is the end!" "You're all doomed!"" "But the show went on." "In the spring of 1940, the couple sank their own money into a disastrous New York production of Romeo and Juliet." "It was becoming increasingly difficult for Larry and Vivien to strike a personal and professional balance in their lives." "Unlike Olivier," "Vivien Leigh was always at home in front of the camera." "Even in romantic froth like Waterloo Bridge." " Hello." " Hello." "You know, I..." "I thought about you all last night." "Couldn't sleep a wink." "You managed to remember me at last, then." "Yes, barely managed." "Myra, what do you think we're going to do tonight?" " Well, I..." " No, you won't have time for that." " For what?" " For hesitating." " No more hesitating for you." " No?" "Well, what am I going to do instead?" "You're going to get married." "Larry and Viv's long wait to be free for their own marriage ended in August 1940." "They were married in a three-minute civil ceremony in Santa Barbara." "Vivien had captured her Larry-Boy at last." "Then came a huge screen success when Korda paired them again in a patriotic costume drama," "That Hamilton Woman." "Olivier played Lord Nelson and Leigh his fabled mistress" "Emma Hamilton" "The idea for the film had been suggested to Korda by Winston Churchill, and its blend of romance and wartime propaganda never failed to reduce the sentimental British war leader to floods of tears." "It also stoked sympathy for Britain in isolationist America." "The Oliviers had returned to England in January 1941." "In a blitzed and ration-bound London," "Hollywood seemed light years away." "Leigh was gripped by depression." "She suffered bouts of insomnia and became increasingly possessive of her husband." "Perhaps in an attempt to escape," "Olivierjoined the Fleet Air Arm, but faulty hearing confined him to non-flying duties." "This left him with plenty of time for filming and beating the drum for the war effort." ""All the stars that we've got on stage, screen and radio have promised to give us their support and we will give you the very best entertainment that we possibly can, and in any case with such an inspiring name sake" "I hope we will not shame you too much"." "And Scarlett O'Hara lent a hand." ""And I'd like to wish that the boys who fly in this plane will have the greatest good luck always, always"." "On occasion Olivier's Shakespearian bombast went way over the top." ""We will attack, we will conquer, and may god bless our cause."" "More effective was Olivier's superb screen adaptation of Henry V, which he directed and in which he starred as the warrior king." "But Olivier's triumph was overshadowed by his wife's increasing mental instability and the news that she had been diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis." "After Henry V came a mesmerising performance by Olivier as Richard lll at the Old Vic..." "But who was the man underneath the make-up?" "Even off the stage, Larry was always "on"." ""l should like to take this occasion to express my deepest gratitude to all my associates whether artists, technicians or crew with whom, so many of whom with whom so many of which... ahh... I was terrified of that on ladies and gentlemen," "what I'm trying to say is that we've all be together a great many times and its just so much nicer because of that thank you very much"." "By 1945 the Oliviers were the theatrical equivalent of royalty." "They bought Notley Abbey, a medieval hunting lodge and the perfect backdrop for a modern Henry V." "But the strain of competing with her husband was playing havoc with Leigh's increasingly delicate mental equilibrium." "When he denied her the part of Ophelia in his film of Hamlet, she flew into paroxysms of rage." "Olivier's electrifying performance in the title role earned him his only acting Oscar and ensured that Hamlet was the first British film to win a Best Picture Oscar." "Olivier had chosen the 18-year-old Jean Simmons to play Ophelia." "At the premiere Simmons not the 33-year-old Vivien Leigh was the centre of attention." "Leigh began work on film version of Anna Karenina." "Playing Tolstoy's doomed heroine only served to darken her mood." "Like Anna, she had left her husband and child." "Olivier's knighthood, in June 1947, did little to cheer her." "In 1948 the Oliviers took the Old Vic company to Australia." "The trip turned out to be a public relations and theatrical triumph for the Oliviers, who sparkled together in School for Scandal." "The Australians gave the Oliviers a royal welcome." "Their visit became a dress rehearsal for King George Vl and Queen Elizabeth's tour in the following year." "Behind the scenes there were tussles and tears." "At one point the couple almost came to blows just before Vivien stepped on stage." "Larry and Vivien were still in love, but when hysteria gripped her she became a stranger to her despairing husband." "Later he told Vivien," ""l lost you in Australia"." "Fatally, Olivier also found a protege there, a young actor called Peter Finch." "Olivier encouraged Finch to come to England, where he launched him on a career whose trajectory might follow his own." "Exhausted but seemingly happy, the Oliviers returned from Australia." "It was a grey homecoming from the blinding light of Australian landscapes." "Meanwhile Peter Finch was finding his feet at Ealing Studios in Train of Events." "Another train of events in real life would make Finch Vivien Leigh's lover." "The awards kept rolling in for Olivier's Oscar-winning Hamlet." "It was gratifying for Olivier, although privately he was dismissive of cinema." "The stage and the stage alone galvanised his full artistic powers." "For Vivien the escape from the demons which pursued her was work." "She was now excited by the prospect of a new role which she coveted every bit as much as that of Scarlett O'Hara... lt was another Southern Belle, but of a very different hue - faded rather than fiery " "the tragic Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams'" "A Streetcar Named Desire." "Directed by Olivier," "Vivien's Blanche was the finest performance of her career." "And one which she was later to repeat on film opposite the electrifying Marlon Brando." "Her identification with the nymphomaniac Blanche was so great that she began to ape her behaviour, seeking the kindness of strangers in a series of fleeting sexual encounters." "It was Vivien's last memorable screen performance, and it won her a deserved second Oscar." "But her triumph could not ease the tensions which were threatening to overwhelm her marriage." "Larry had allegedly embarked on a homosexual affair with their friend Danny Kaye." "The first, unexpurgated draft of his autobiography admits his many homosexual affairs." "The Oliviers buried personal anguish under professional achievement." "At the St James's Theatre they alternated Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra with Shakespeare's" "Antony and Cleopatra." "When, in 1957, the theatre was threatened with closure," "Vivien led a spirited but unsuccessful campaign to save it." "She even harangued the House of Lords from the public gallery." "All to no avail." "The theatre became an office block." "The strain of his marriage was beginning to tell on Olivier." "Vivien was smoking heavily, which was bad for her tubercular lungs, and drinking heavily, which was bad for the medication she was taking." "She veered between elation and the deepest melancholy." "Try as they might, they could not restore the past." "Divorce would provide an answer, but Vivien and Larry were trapped by public acclaim, scrabbling in the ashes of a great passion which had now cooled." "It was while playing Macheath in a film version of The Beggar's Opera, that Olivier began an affair with a 22-year-old actress, Dorothy Tutin." "It was not long before Vivien took her revenge." "She had signed to make a movie in Ceylon, Elephant Walk." "Her co-star was to be Peter Finch." "On location, Vivien took Finch into her bed." "Olivier turned up, saw what was going on, did nothing and departed." "Finch told Vivien they must end the affair." "She had been abandoned by both men, but it was Olivier's desertion in Ceylon which most affected her." "When filming resumed in Hollywood," "Vivien suffered a complete nervous collapse." "She was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor and flown back to England heavily sedated." "Cruelly, perhaps, the cameras were waiting." "In spite of the smiles, the sadness was etched in her face." "Somehow Vivien rallied." "In 1955 the Oliviers appeared together at Stratford in Macbeth." "Macbeth is a domestic tragedy, and in playing it at Stratford the Oliviers were describing the sad contours of their own marriage." "1956 saw a double tragedy." "Alexander Korda, the man who 20 years earlier had brought Larry and Vivien together, suffered a fatal heart attack." "Olivier was about to direct The Prince and the Showgirl, in which he was to co-star with Marilyn Monroe." "The news cameras lingered on" "Marilyn and her new husband Arthur Miller." "During filming Vivien suffered a miscarriage." "Olivier was now about to tackle his biggest challenge, playing Archie Rice, the broken-down comedian in The Entertainer." "While taking the play on tour," "Larry began a new affair with a young actress in the cast " "Joan Plowright." "But according to John Gielgud," "Larry talked wistfully of his years with Vivien and how she had given him the finest and the most painful moments in his life." "He knew that he had failed to respond to Vivien's devotion to him, and that this had added to her mental anguish." "They were divorced in 1960." "In 1965, two years before she died," "Vivien made her last film," "'Ship of Fools' 'lf you can't get when you want you'd better damn well settle for what you can get.'" "Vivien had got and given far more than that." "A beautiful but limited actress she reserved her deepest passion for her Larry-boy." "But in the final count, Olivier's deepest passion had coursed through his art." "Not long before she died, Vivien told a friend:" "'Thirty years ago I said that this was the man I was going to marry  And what do you think, -l'm still hopelessly in love with him.'" "To the day of her death she kept his photograph by her bedside." "A young and beautiful Olivier, the Romeo which Vivien knew no other woman would ever completely possess." "They met on a movie set and turned a thriller into a love story lt was one of the greatest real-life romances in the history of Hollywood." "Humphrey Bogart was 43 and Lauren Bacall was just 19." "The love which blossomed on the soundstage of To Have and Have Not lasted long after the final wrap." "It lasted for the rest of Bogart's life" "As a married couple they were grown-up and sexy." "Katharine Hepburn observed that when Bogart and Bacall fought," ""it was with utter confidence of two cats locked deliciously in the same cage"" "Humphrey Bogart was born in this house in a fashionable part of New York in 1889..." "He was the son of a society doctor, whose wife Maud was a successful freelance illustrator." "The young Bogart was educated at Trinity School and then the Phillips Academy in Andover," "Massachussets." "He was not a success at Phillips Academy, from which he was expelled in May 1918." "He immediately joined the US Navy but saw no action." "Bogart eventually drifted into acting." "The first and briefest of his four marriages was to the actress Helen Menken." "1924 found him playing in the melodrama Nerves alongside Paul Kelly and Mary Phillips, who was to become Bogart's second wife  Quick-tempered and hard-drinking," "Bogart pursued an erratic career on Broadway." "But at least one critic was moved to write of him that he was "as young and handsome as Valentino and as graceful as any of our actors."" "In New York Bogart made a few two-real movies." "They were fitted around his stagework, but it was not long before he went to Hollywood." "The talkies had taken over and the studios wanted actors with stage experience." ""And then you killed him, you poisoned him"" ""Your trying to force me into saying something that isn't true and this is not true"" ""And in your haste to get away you forgot something"." "Bogart was signed by Fox studios, but his movie career failed to catch fire." "On Broadway he had been a romantic leading man, but the image didn't gel in Hollywood." "Back on Broadway he co-starred with Leslie Howard in The Petrified Forest." "And scored a big hit as the doomed mobster Duke Mantee..." "When the play was filmed by Warners, Bogart repeated the role" ""What's the matter with you Duke do something"" ""Shut up, shut up, give me time to think"." "Bogart's performance persuaded Warners to typecast him as a snarling heavy and occasional tough guy hero, always in the shadow of the studio's gangster A-team of James Cagney," "Edward G. Robinson and George Raft." ""Everybody stay quiet and keep where they are, they'll shoot the first thing that moves."" ""Put that gun away"" ""When I'm good and ready, that friendship stuff don't mean a thing to me, this guys got enough on us to..." " "He won't talk" - "He'd better not"." ""You've been horsing us around for long enough, we ought to break your crummy neck for leaving us stuck out on the road with a busted wheel and lifting our load"." ""Please don't ask me to talk he'll kill me"" ""Now you help me to prove that he was responsible for this and I'll put him where he won't kill anybody"" ""You don't know what he's like he stops at nothing, people just disappear and are never heard of again I don't want that to happen to me"." "It was while filming Marked Woman with Bette Davis in 1938 that Bogart met a busty but none too beautiful actress called Mayo Methot." "She became his third wife." "She was a poor choice." "Mayo was, if anything, an even bigger drinker than Bogart." "Not only was she a boozer, she was also a brawler." "Bogart's pet name for Methot was "Sluggy"." "The legend of the Battling Bogarts began on their wedding night, which they spent apart after a furious row." "Their roller-coaster marriage ride was keenly tracked by the gossip columnists, but the truth was rather sad." "It was the tale of two alcoholics locked in a punishing mutual dependency." "By now Bogart was a familiar fourth-billed face in Warner movies." "In the Western Virginia City," "Bogart played a gunslinger gloriously named Whip McCord." "The movie's star Errol Flynn led the premiere parade in Reno..." "Bogart and Methot trundled behind in a wagon." "Bogart's breakthough came in High Sierra as the soft-hearted hoodlum" "Roy Mad Dog Earle." "What's the matter?" "Yellow?" "Come and get me, buddy." "Come and get me." "Top billing arrived as the private eye" "Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, the directing debut of John Huston." "It transformed a slightly wooden supporting actor into the cynical but soft-centred "Bogie" of movie myth." ""What have you ever given me beside money, you haven't given me any of your confidence any of the truth, haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else"" ""What else is their I can buy you with"." "Sam Spade was the first in a long line of Bogart heroes, iconic, seemingly self-sufficient men in tightly belted trenchcoats." "The war now took a hand." "In November 1942 the Allies landed in North Africa." "In January Churchill and Roosevelt met in Casablanca." "Warners had just the movie to coincide with the conference." "In Casablanca opposite Ingrid Bergman," "Bogart played the wounded, world-weary expatriate American Rick." "They turned production-line dross into movie gold." ""l don't buy and sell human beings"" ""That's too bad that's Casablanca's leading commodity"." ""l know a good deal about you than you suspect, I know for instance that you are in love with a woman, perhaps a strange circumstance that we both should love the same woman"." ""lf you know how much I loved you, how much I still love you"." "I was willing to shoot Captain Renault and I'm willing to shoot you." "All right, Major, you asked for it." "In Casablanca," "Bogart cemented his screen personally - the loner whose tough exterior hides tenderness and vulnerability." "A man like himself or, at least, Bogart's own image of himself." "For some time director Howard Hawks had been looking for a leading lady to match Bogart with a strong female presence." "He found her on the cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine..." "Hawks' wife had drawn his attention to a tawny-haired, almond-eyed young model in New York," "Betty Joan Perske." "She had an extraordinary beauty, smouldering with a kind of go-to-hell insolence that made her seem older and wiser than her 19 years." "Hawks brought her to Hollywood, put her under contract and changed her name to" "Lauren Bacall." "The former Betty Joan Perske loathed Lauren and has always been known as Betty to her friends." "After changing her name," "Hawks changed her voice, deepening it by hours of reading aloud out of doors..." "After four months" "Lauren Bacall was ready for the cameras" "She was to co-star with Bogart in To Have and Have Not..." "Their first meeting was a low-key affair which failed to quicken any pulses." ""Well, when I first met Bogie he just said hello to me and said I saw your test and he said we'll have a lot of fun together, ha, I don't think he realized at the time quite how things would turn out," "but he was right we did have a lot of fun together"." "To Have and Have Not was very loosely based on a Hemingway novel." "Hawks had bought the rights simply because Hemingway bet him that he couldn't make a film out of it." "At first it was something of an ordeal for Lauren Bacall." "Bogart stepped in to help." ""He was tremendously helpful to me, because I really knew nothing, I hadn't a clue what I was doing," "19 years old ga ga, you know in California working with this big star, and Howard Hawks, scared to death." "And I just never um, I mean their was so much I didn't think about"." "This is not evident in the finished product." "Bacall's cool, teasing delivery of her lines - notably when she tells Bogart how to whistle," ""You just put your lips together and blow"" " suggested that she had been up all night writing the script." "Three weeks into shooting, it was obvious that Bogart had fallen in love with Bacall." "Hawks recalled," ""The funny thing is that Bogie fell in love with the character she played, so that she had to keep playing it for the rest of his life."" ""l'm hard to get, Steve, all you have to do is ask me"" ""You know what your getting into, it's gonna be rough"." ""What did you do that for"" ""l was wondering whether I'd like it"" ""What's your decision?"" ""l don't know yet... lt's even better when you help."" "By now Bogart's marriage to Mayo Methot was in free fall." "Their public rowing cut short a morale-boosting tour of North Africa and Italy." ""On our trip overseas my wife and I saw thousands of American boys and African, Italian you could be awfully proud of them"." "For 12 months after To Have and Have Not," "Bogart and Bacall met secretly wherever they could, holding hands in Bogie's car in the quiet palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills..." "To Betty Bacall, Bogart seemed gentle," ""diametrically opposed to the parts he played."" ""Bogie's theory was always when your dead, that's it, you know you've got to press on, this life is for the living and it wasn't that he was unemotional or tough because he wasn't he was tough in his beliefs," "but he wasn't tough emotionally at all"" "But they could meet openly on the movie lot." "Their next film together was Howard Hawks' screen version of the Raymond Chandler thriller" "The Big Sleep, with Bogie cast as private eye Philip Marlowe." "Sometimes I wonder what strange fate brought me out of the storm" "To that house that stood alone in the shadows." "As I probed into its mysteries, every clue told me a different story." "But each had the same ending." "Murder." "Every instinct warned me to beware that something more dangerous," "More deadly than I'd ever known before, was in that room." "And suddenly... I liked that." "I'd like more." "In retrospect it's amazing that Bogie's marriage to Mayo Methot lasted so long." "Mayo was paranoid with jealousy and Bogie was back on the bottle." "Howard Hawks and his wife tried to defuse the situation by fixing Bacall up with Clark Gable, who had lost his wife Carole Lombard in a plane crash in 1942." "But Bacall wouldn't play." "Bogart and Bacall were married quietly at a friend's farm in Ohio in May 1945." "Mayo Methot had spent six weeks in Reno so that Bogie could get a quickie divorce." "During the ceremony bride and groom wept buckets of tears." "Later, Bacall was to write," ""He cried at every one of his weddings..." "And with good reason"." "Fourth time around" "Bogart was full of apprehension." "He told producer Mark Hellinger that Bacall was a "tigress"" "and that he had the feeling of a mouse about to be torn apart by a cat." "After the wedding" "Bogie gave Bacall a small silver whistle on a chain as a memento of To Have and Have Not." "Whatever his fears," "Bogart was entering a period of great stability and happiness." "There were few more contented Hollywood couples than the Bogarts." "Marriage to Bacall removed Bogart's dependence on drink, although he never gave it up." "In 1948 they had a son, named Steve after the character Bogie played in "To Have and Have Not"." "Bogie was to prove a devoted father." "Four years later, they had a daughter, Leslie." "Bacall kept house for Bogie at their home in Los Angeles." "She cooked, gardened and entertained their friends in the movie business." "They did everything together." "Bacall was equal to coping with her husband's sudden flashes of temper, usually fuelled by drink... she remained unfazed by his legendary pastime of needling his drinking companions to the edge of physical violence." "In 1947 the husband and wife team were paired for a third time in an overwrought melodrama, Dark Passage..." "This lacked the magic of The Big Sleep." ""You won't tell me because you think I'll come their you think I'd follow you"" "You'd be insane to follow me I'd..." ""Do you think I'm insane to pick you up on the road, was I crazy to let you stay here?" "There were times during the making of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre when the Bogarts must have thought they were crazy." "Bacall joined her husband for the location shooting in Mexico." "The going was rugged, the creature comforts non-existent and the catering primitive in the extreme." "When it collapsed Bacall found herself cooking for the actors and crew." "The conditions did not prevent Bogart turning in a remarkable performance as the paranoid gold prospector and three-time loser Fred C. Dobbs." ""l know exactly what you mean, you want to take it all for yourself and cut me out, I know you for what you are, a long time I've had my suspicions about you and now I know I've been right"" ""So that's your stinking game is it informing, I knew you were an informer I knew it all the time"" ""Take a look down that mountains this means all our funerals, if I'm right in what I'm thinking may the lord be with us, they're not soldiers they're bandits"" "In 1947 there were bandits of another kind abroad in Washington." "A congressional committee, chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, was investigating the infiltration of the Hollywood studios by Communists..." "Twenty-nine writers and directors were summoned to appear before the committee." "One of them was the writer John Howard Lawson." "Chief interrogator was J. Parnell Thomas, assisted by a young Richard M. Nixon." "Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" "I am framing my answer in the only way in which any American citizen can frame" " Then you deny it?" " ...his answer to a question which invades his..." "Absolutely invades..." "Then you deny..." "You refuse to answer that question, is that correct?" "I have told you, and I will offer my beliefs, my affiliations and everything else" "Excuse the witness." "...to the American public and they will know where l stand, as they do from what I have written." "Stand away from the stand." "I have written for Americanism for many years." "Stand away from the stand!" "And will fight for the Bill of Rights which you are seeking to destroy." "Officer, take this man away from the stand." "Bogart and Bacall joined a deputation of Hollywood liberals which flew to Washington to protest at the treatment of the witnesses who had declined to testify." "The mission to Washington fizzled out in near-farce and, under heavy pressure from the studios," "Bogart and Bacall distanced themselves from the protest..." "Their friend John Huston later recalled the fear which infected Hollywood at the time." ""Um, in the light of ensuing events why I regard it as a mistake that Bogey did this, he should have stuck to his guns, but I quite understand why he didn't, particularly as time went on," "um any opinion contrary, by the way J Parnell Thomas was a thief who went tojail... but the man who followed Thomas," "Senate McCarthy made a nightmare out of his decade" "Back home, the Bogarts and Huston tried to salvage some pride with Key Largo, a movie version of the allegorical play by Maxwell Anderson about the threat of fascism in America..." "The Bogarts' co-star was Edward G. Robinson, whose mild socialism had made him virtually unemployable." "Try to stop me from wiping you all out." "What'll that do, boss?" "Forget it." "Her kind's a dime a dozen." "I say smack her and let it go at that." "Smacking her isn't enough for such an insult." "He'd have to kill her." "Then he'd have to kill the rest of us, because we witnessed it." "It's kill us all, or nothing." "After Key Largo," "Bogart and Bacall's screen careers took different directions." "In films like How to Marry a Millionaire, with Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable," "Bacall revealed a flair for stylish comedy." "Marilyn revealed other qualities." "But, without Bogart," "Bacall seemed unable to rekindle her youthful fire." "These mild shenanigans were light years away from the static which had crackled between Bogie and Bacall in the Big Sleep." "But Bogie, Howard Hawks and Bacall's intoxicating combination of youth and sexual candour were no longer there." "In 1951, Bacall joined her husband on location in central Africa, where he was filming The African Queen, co-starring Katharine Hepburn and directed by John Huston." "Hepburn was struck by the air of intense privacy radiated by Bogart and Bacall." "In the African Queen" "Hepburn played a prim spinster missionary and Bogart the gin-soaked captain of the rusting river-tub of the title." "They battle the elements, a German gunboat and each other." "Bogart's grizzled Charlie Alnutt was a benign version of the twitching Fred C. Dobbs..." "Hepburn's missionary had a touching primness." ""Well I ain't sorry no more you crazy psalm singing skinny old maid"." "Bogart's performance won him a belated Oscar, a sentimental gesture, perhaps, for an off beat role." "At the ceremony a friend advised him just to growl," ""lt's about time", but Bogie showed a sentimental streak by thanking everyone under the sun." "His son Steve shared in the triumph." "But at this stage in this career," "Bogart reserved his best performances for complicated men like the malevolent, washed-up screenwriter Dixon Steele of ln a Lonely Place." "Or the manic Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny." "Did they reflect aspects of his own character?" "As Raymond Chandler once remarked," ""Bogart is very good at playing Bogart"." "And he was very good as Queeg and Dixon Steele." "By the early 1950s" "Bogart's style was increasingly becoming a thing of the past." "He was a symbol of the old Hollywood, whose horizons were shrinking and nerve failing." "The studio system which had made Bogie a star was now crumbling." "Bogie's hair was also falling out in handfuls but, typically, he didn't give a damn about appearing in public without his rug." "A new breed of actor had also invaded Hollywood." "In 1954 Marlon Brando won the Best Actor Oscar as the broken-down pug" "Terry Molloy in On the Waterfront." "Bogie's last film, The Harder They Fall, had a boxing theme." "He played a disillusioned sports writer." "He also sparred with Method actor Rod Steiger, a fascinating contrast in styles which Bogie shaded on points." "In 1956 Humphrey Bogart was diagnosed with throat cancer." "An operation and a punishing regime of treatments failed to arrest the disease..." "Bogie had always been an enthusiastic and skilful sailor, but now his sailing days were drawing to a close." "Growing steadily weaker," "Bogie toughed it out, with Lauren Bacall in constant attendance." "He lost his appetite and stones in weight, but not his black sense of humour and love of drink and conservation." ""l remember his last days, um, when he was very, very ill indeed, he was too weak to come down the stairs." "Their was one hour a day when they received guests and this was observed right up to the finish." "He was too weak even to be lifted down the stairs." "Their was a dumb waiter and he used to crowd himself into this dumb waiter and come down to the first floor where he was then put into a chair and wheeled into the drawing room and have drinks and talk" "and that's the last picture I have of Bogey and quite in keeping with the image" "I have of him altogether, his whole life"." "Bacall was with him to the end." "Bogart told a friend," ""She's my wife and my nurse." "So she stays home." "Maybe that's the way you tell the ladies from the boards in this town."" "Humphrey Bogart died in a coma in the early hours of the 14th of January 1957." "At his funeral three days later," "John Huston, who had established Bogart's screen persona in the Maltese Falcon, pointed out that his life, although rich and full, was not a long one measured in years... after twenty years of struggle " "false starts, failed marriages and alcoholism - he had enjoyed 15 years of success... and 12 years of happiness with Betty Bacall." "Paul Newman is one of Hollywood's 24-carat superstars, the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history." "He reached the top of the tree in the mid-1950s, and by the dawn of a new century had defied advancing years to remain an actor of presence and power." "Since 1958" "Newman's co-star has often been his wife Joanne Woodward, long recognized as one of the most intelligent and sympathetic actresses working in movies and television." "Both Newman and Woodward have lives which stretch far beyond film and keep them in the public eye." "Their long-lived marriage bears testimony to their determination, their love for each other and their ability to survive the knocks that afflict even those who are outrageously blessed by fortune." "Famous as they are, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward have always jealously guarded their privacy... ln a world which often refuses to grow up, they are the genuine article, a truly grown-up couple." "Paul Newman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 26th of January 1925." "His father was Jewish, the prosperous proprietor of a sporting goods store, and Newman and his brother were raised in the suburb of Shaker Heights." "In World War ll, Newman served in the Pacific as a US Navy radioman, third class, in the back seat of carrier-borne bomber aircraft." "After the war, he studied at Kenyon College, Ohio, and Yale School of Drama, before making his way in New York." "In 1949 he married his first wife," "Jacqueline Witte, whom he had met while working in repertory theatre near Chicago." "But it was in New York that Newman's acting career took off... lt was the so-called "Golden Age" of American television and there was plenty of work for ambitious young actors." "New York became the forcing ground for a new generation of actors who would soon take Hollywood by storm." "At the beginning of 1953, Newman landed a part in Joshua Logan's Broadway production of Picnic." "He also understudied Picnic's star," "Ralph Meeker, who played the sexy braggart who turns a small Kansas community upside down." "Newman earned excellent notices, and filled in for Meeker when the star of the show took a vacation." "The understudy to Picnic's two female leads was a 23-year-old blonde with a languid Southern drawl and a steel-trap mind... her name was Joanne Woodward." "During the 14-month run, she and Newman became friends." "Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia, in February 1930, and was to play many Southern roles in her career." "As a young girl she always dreamed of acting, and one of her most vivid childhood memories was of attending the premiere of Gone With the Wind, in Atlanta, in December 1939." "Colossal crowds lined the city's streets to greet the movie's stars." "Like Paul Newman," "Joanne came to New York, after Louisiana State University, and a spell at a community theatre in South Carolina." "Woodward's unwavering aim was to be a great actress rather than a star, like her heroine Bette Davis." "In New York, both Newman and Woodward were members of the Actors Studio, presided over by the mercurial Lee Strasberg." ""l got it only only at one moment actually, when you sort of smiled to yourself there was a kind of a fiendish, not exactly, but a kind of strange glee"." "Here, Woodward and Newman rubbed shoulders with classmates James Dean," "Rod Steiger, Julie Harris, and Marlon Brando, with whom Paul was often compared early in his movie career, much to his displeasure." "Thirty years later he recalled being accepted by the Studio." ""ln those days you had to do two auditions... you did one audition for some of the older students who had been with the studio for a long time and then your final audition was done with... for Kazan and Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford." "And, uh, this girl had passed her first audition and the actor she was working with got ajob and she asked me if I'd do the second one." "So technically I was not... but I was so nervous and so rattled by this experience... I'd just come out of school... that that somehow translated into something they confused with being enraged and uh... so I got in by what I thought was trickery in any case... but whatever it was I was really wound up like a rubber band that day" "and uh l simply was allowed in."" "Newman's Broadway stint in Picnic had attracted the attention of Hollywood, and in 1954 he signed a contract with Warner Brothers." "It was a decision Paul was later to regret." "At the end of the decade it cost Newman half a million dollars to escape studio boss Jack Warner." "But it was money he would quickly recoup." "However, Newman's first at Warners was a disaster," "The Silver Chalice, in which he starred as a slave called Basil." "Years later, when the movie was shown on TV, he took out a newspaper ad disowning it." ""Oh, no I took an ad out in the Los Angeles Times with a funereal wreath around it... two columns and about six inches, 8 inches in which I said that I apologise every night at seven o'clock" "for having unleashed this thing on the unsuspecting audience." "It backfired incidentally - people thought that was charming and they tuned and it had very high ratings."" "Things could only improve, and they did when Newman played boxing champ" "Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me." "Pier Angeli was Rocky's wife." ""No place in this man's army for a wise guy." "Do you understand that?" "..." "Ah wait a minute, you might be a Captain and all that but you don't impress me so hot." "If you're so tough come on outside..." "You've given me lot of reasons why not... but I still haven't heard the one thing that will convince me..." "Well, what about them other guys?" "Smearing it all over the front page, what a rat I am, what a liar, what a no good," "Graziano he's a no good criminal, a coward, a yellow rat, remember that Graziano, the scum of the slums..." "Stop it!" "You know, I've been lucky somebody up there likes me"." "And somebody in Hollywood liked Joanne Woodward, who had followed Newman to California and signed with 20th Century-Fox." "She made her screen debut in 1955." "Two years later she played a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder in The Three Faces of Eve." "Lee J. Cobb was the concerned psychiatrist." "For Woodward, it was the kind of part, and performance, that guaranteed an Academy Award." ""Maybe he wants to get Barnie away from me..." "You mean divorce?" "Maybe not that, but if he can make me believe I'm losing my mind... ls that what you think he's trying to do?" "..." "Well, I don't know what else it could be the way he tells it " "Am I?"" "Personality No. 2 was a hard-drinking good-time girl..." ""Oooh, don't you want to give me one?" "..." "Well, I've never seen you take a drink before..." "There's a lot of things you aint seen me do before that's not saying I don't do 'em."" "The third character enabled Woodward to pull all the stops out." ""Oh, please Mama, please Mama, don't make me Mama, please don't make me Mama..." "Tell me what happened, Jane, under the house." "She made me..." "she made me kiss her, no!"." "Woodward's Best Actress Oscar for 1957 was a shoo-in." ""l can only say I've been daydreaming about this since I was 9 years old and thank you very much, thanks most of all to mother and father who've had more faith in me than anyone could have." "Thank you"." "Years later, she recalled the emotion..." ""Then it was a special thrill, yes, because I was young enough for it to be really exciting and meaningful l had just come into Hollywood." "I'd only done two pictures before that and I'd been raised on movie magazines." "And the idea of winning an Oscar was the most exciting thing in the world and I'm glad that it happened when it happened..." "Uh I think the excitement only last for about five minutes, you know, by the time you get back to your seat with the... it's you realize it's in fact a statue and as you say it's not a competition" "but I loved it... it was wonderful."" "The studio bosses were unsure what to do with Woodward - who was not a screen goddess in the mould of Marilyn Monroe." "It was simpler to play safe, casting her in the role of a Southern temptress, which she did to a tee in The Long Hot Summer opposite Orson Welles and Paul Newman." "Newman and Woodward were now living together, very discreetly." "Newman's marriage to Jacqueline Witte had produced three children but had collapsed, and by January 1958 he was free to marry again." "Newman and Woodward passed from items of hot gossip to wedlock." "The wedding was not in Shaker Heights or in Georgia but, uncharacteristically, amid the neon splendour of Las Vegas." "The couple honeymooned more decorously at the Connaught Hotel in London." "Before and after their wedding, Paul and Joanne spent much time at the California home of writer Gore Vidal, who became a lifelong friend." "Vidal presided over a raffish set in Malibu." "He remembered it as a..." ""This is a colony of actors, writers, directors... somewhat sealed off from the rest of the world... everyone has dogs up and down..." "When we lived here we had a cocker spaniel... we had that house... I think it's about the third house from here." "Mr and Mrs Paul Newman, Howard Austin and me and a blacker cocker spaniel everything was the weekend we were all I was at Metro," "Paul was at Warner's, Joanne at Fox... one weekend we counted a hundred people who had just arrived... I didn't know... I knew hardly anyone so I thought they were Paul's friends, or Joanne's... they didn't know anyone" "and we suddenly were the place to come on Sundays, where there would be a hundred strangers wandering around and none of us could say get out for fear it would be the other person's friend."" "In 1960," "Newman starred in the first of his "H" movies," "The Hustler, playing pool player Fast Eddie Felson to Jackie Gleason's Minnesota Fats." ""Big John." "Do you think this boy is a hustler?" " Sausage." " Bratwurst." "Piper Laurie was Newman's crippled girlfriend..." ""Maybe it would be better is we leave each other alone." "I've left my things at the hotel - l'll bring them over later... I'm not sure " "I don't know... what do you want to know and why?"." "Two years later came Hud, with Newman in the title role of the "man with the barbed wire soul"." "It was a huge hit, and established Newman as a favourite with male and female moviegoers alike." "Less happy were the attempts to establish Newman and Woodward as a romantic screen partnership in movies like A New Kind of Love." "Somehow the chemistry never quite worked, however hard Paul and Joanne tried." ""Hello, cherie"." "As the 50s turned into the 60s," "Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman became involved in a wider world than movie-making." "As their friend Gore Vidal observed," ""After Jack Kennedy was elected President," "Paul became more active politically"." "Since that time, the Newmans have never wavered in their commitment to liberal causes." "And that commitment has flavoured their choice of movie roles..." "When Paul played private eye Lou Harper in 1966, he supposedly based the character on Bobby Kennedy." "It was an interesting choice... I like dangerous games." ""Your husband keeps lousy company Mrs Sampson." "As bad as there is in LA and that's as bad as there is..." "What do you do this kind of crummy work for anyway?" "..." "Are you trying to be funny?" "I do it because I believe in the United Nations and South East Asia and so long as there's a Siberia, you'll find Luke Harper on ajob..." " Are you putting me on?" "..." " l don't think so."" "Then Newman moved on to one of his biggest box-office successes of the decade as the Christ-like convict in Cool Hand Luke..." ""You've got to get used to wearing them chains after a while Luke or you'll never stop listening to them clinking." "They're gonna remind you of what I've been saying... I wish you'd stop being so good to me Captain." "Don't you ever talk that way to me..." "Never!" "Never!"" "By the summer of 1965," "Paul and Joanne had three children of their own." "Keeping things in the family," "Paul decided to boost Joanne's career by making his directing debut in 1968 with the bittersweet Rachel, Rachel, in which Woodward played the spinster New England teacher of the title." ""Oh, you must have had a lovely evening dear, to have stayed out so late..." "Well, we drove around, it was a lovely evening." "No offence, I was just looking for a little action, I thought maybe you might be too..." " love baby love... - what?" "..." "Love, it's for you..." "You know you really make me lose my train of thought..." "Why didn't you get married like a normal woman and have children like your sister Stacey did"." "The movie was a huge critical and commercial success, and Woodward won the New York Critics" "Best Actress Award." "Newman remarked," ""Joanne gave up her career for me... to make the marriage work." "That's one of the reasons I directed this film with her"." "Before Rachel, Rachel was released," "Paul had co-produced and Joanne had co-starred in a more mundane movie, the motor racing drama Winning." "It was the prelude to a dramatic change in Paul's life, and the start of a new career." "In the succeeding years" "Paul became a top-class professional motor racing driver." "In 1979, driving a Porsche 935, he finished second in the Le Mans 24-hour race." "Later he became the joint owner of the Newman-Has Indy car team." "His commitment to racing was total..." ""lt's something that I'd always been fascinated by and simply never had the time to do and uh when I found time and I was fortunately able to afford good equipment, safe equipment." "It's just if you manage to get through a turn at the absolute limit of adhesion it's a good feeling, like a skier or a line in the Hustler." "You know whatever you do if you do it good you got to get a good feeling from it"." "In the 60s, most everything Newman did in the movies was also good," "climaxing in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Robert Redford, who had been Joanne's choice as Sundance, as Newman recalled..." ""She read the script and she said it's marvellous and the only guy that can play it is... is Bob Redford." "Other people don't remember it that way but I remember it that way."" "Working on the movie," "Newman and Redford established an easy rapport." "Which carried through to their performances on screen." "In 1969 and 70," "Newman was No.1 at the box office..." "Two years later, he and Redford struck box office gold again with the crime caper The Sting." "However it was not such a golden time for the Newman's' marriage." "In 1969 they placed an ad in the LA Times declaring "We Are Not Breaking Up"." "They had never pretended to be a fantasy couple and often joked that they had nothing in common." "But they stuck together, personally and professionally." "In 1972 Newman again directed his wife in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds, in which Woodward played an eccentric and demanding small-town slattern." ""lsn't that funny, one day you can be the best dancer in the whole school, make a great cheesecake, then you're history"." "The role of Beatrice Hunsdorfer was exceptionally demanding..." "Co-starring was Joanne's daughter Nell Potts, playing Beatrice's child Matilda." ""l've just got to pull us all together..." " Do you understand..." " l understand Momma."" "The movie proved a strain on the Newmans' marriage, although they could laugh about it later..." ""l will only interject one thing." "In all the years that Joanne and I have been going together and have been married, uh, she has only brought one character home with her after shooting." "Not the voluptuaries that she's played, not the sensual, stylish ladies." "One character that she chose to bring home that was Beatrice Hunsdorfer." "And I had a lot of meetings late at night in town... because..." "I had a lot of dinners elsewhere."" "Deeper pain struck in 1978 when Newman's son by his first marriage, Scott, a struggling actor, died from a drug overdose." "In March 1987" "Newman finally won the coveted Best Actor Oscar as an older Fast Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money." "Now Tom Cruise was the Young Pretender..." ""We gotta race horse here, thoroughbred..." "You make him feel good, I teach him how to run..." "You're an incredible flake..." "but that's a gift..." "This is Fast Eddie Carson, who the hell are you?" "... I'm hungry again... I want his best game... you couldn't deal with my game Jack, your outmanned..." "Do you smell what I smell?" "..." " Smoke?" "..." " Money!"." "Long-established with Joanne in Westport, Connecticut," "Newman embarked on a third career in the 1980s." "This was the launching of Newman's own food products, a hobby which has grown into an international money spinner." "All the profits are channelled into charity." "Paul is also the driving force behind the Hole in the Wall Gang, a network of summer camps for children with cancer and blood-related diseases, and their brothers and sisters." "The Hole in the Wall Gang operates in America and Europe." "And is a source of great joy to the Newmans." ""lt's to provide a place for kids to kick up their heels and raise a little hell outside of the... the atmosphere of the hospital or their homes and to be with other kids who are sick and who are having fun" "and that becomes the normal... I've done some interesting and rewarding things in my time but nothing that um can come close to this." "Um it's not that they said thank you for a good time but thank you for changing my life."" "Paul Newman has been voted one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World..." "He has won a Best Actor Oscar and has also been an accomplished movie director." "But one suspects that all this achievement and adulation means little to Paul and Joanne when compared with their lives together and the trials they have weathered and overcome." "Paul once said," ""Being famous means you're not anonymous any more." "Nobody can come to respect their anonymity until they have lost it"." "In their seventies, both are most firmly not quitting the business." "As husband and wife..." "And as actors of strength and sympathy," "Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman have much more to give us." "In the Hollywood of the mid-1950s there was no more glamorous or handsome husband-and-wife team than Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh." "They were made for the movies and the movies were made for them." "Their faces smiled out from the covers of movie magazines - visions of impossible glamour." "They were married for 11 years." "Many of their loyal fans refuse to believe that Tony and Janet are not married still." "Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in New York in 1925." "He was the son of Jewish immigrants from Hungary." "He had a tough upbringing during the Depression, and in later years Hollywood publicists would glamorise Curtis's "delinquent youth"." "But in the best Dead-End tradition he was guided from the path of crime by a sympathetic school truancy officer." "Tony's parents were Orthodox Jews, but there was a bigger influence on his life than the synagogue." "He was hooked by the movies." ""l was born in 1925, so the silent movies had just finished by the time I was old enough to go to the movies, which was 1930-31 so I must have seen those early first movies and I had no other way of seeing it," "I mean I saw it for the first time just like anyone else around me did." "Look how lucky l was because I saw those moving figures on that screen talking... I said that's for me." "I couldn't imagine any other thing I'd want to do"." "Bogart and Cagney were his heroes..." "This guy's got enough on us to..." " He won't talk." " He'd better not." "As was debonair Cary Grant, with whom Tony was to co-star over 20 years later in Operation Petticoat." "The movies had cast their spell over Bernie Schwartz." "But Hollywood seemed an impossible dream to a Jewish boy from New York." "When the United States entered World War ll," "Bernie joined the US Navy and served in the Pacific aboard the submarine Dragonette." "Bernie whiled away days on the Dragonette fantasising about becoming an actor." "He was eventually discharged from the Navy after sustaining an injury while loading torpedoes." "But not before he had seen endless reruns of a Cary Grant actioner of 1939," "Gunga Din." "Of such stuff dreams are made..." "While on leave," "Bernie had paid a visit to the famous Hollywood Canteen, where the stars entertained the troops." "It was another small step on his own path to stardom." "After leaving the Navy," "Tony took advantage of the Gl Bill to study acting at Erwin Piscator's" "Dramatic Workshop in New York." "A stint in a Greenwich Village production of Golden Boy took him straight to Hollywood." "An East Coast talent agent had spotted him and in 1949 he was signed by Universal, joining hopefuls like Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie in the final flowering of the old-style studio system." "James Stewart was on hand to give a warm welcome to Universal's latest recruit." "At the MGM studio, there was another young hopeful," "Janet Leigh." "Born in California in 1927," "Leigh had studied music at the College of the Pacific before eloping, aged 15, with 19-year-old John Carlyle." "The marriage lasted only a few months, and later Janet married bandleader Stanley Reames..." "The elopement left a scar, as Leigh recalled over 50 years later." ""Well, the scar was that I realized that you know I had done wrong, and somehow it always made me feel that I wasn't good, that I was a bad person because of that, that I had made this mistake." "I made my parents very unhappy... I was ashamed." "That was the scar."" "Leigh's big break came when retired MGM star Norma Shearer spotted her photograph in the ski lodge where Janet's mother worked." "The beautiful Mrs Reames was whisked to Hollywood tojoin a massive studio machine which could boast" ""more stars than there are in the heavens"." "Mrs Stanley Reames became Janet Leigh." "Green and unsophisticated, but ravishingly beautiful, she made her debut in 1947 opposite Van Johnson in The Romance of Rosy Ridge." "All those nights I was away from the farm." "I dreamed of nothing but being up here." "Place all fixed up and you waiting for me as I came up the trail." "It's our, Lissy." "Nothing's gonna keep us from having it now." "She soon gained confidence, co-starring with Van Heflin in Act of Violence in 1948." "Janet divorced Stanley Reames a year later." "She was moving up the Hollywood ladder." "Meanwhile, at Universal, Bernie Schwartz was undergoing a similar, if slightly less spectacular, transformation into Tony Curtis." "He was well down the cast list in movies like City Across the River, playing the hoodlum he might himself have become." "But he made an impression in 1950 in The Prince Who was a Thief, as a Bronx Ali Baba with a spectacular haircut." "Tony also had a clear-eyed appreciation of how to get on." ""l quickly surmised or kinda figured out what I thought, Michael, was necessary for me to become successful because once I got out there I released that I was allowed in and no-one was going to get me out, you know," "because I looked around and I saw all the people surrounding me and I didn't see anyone who was better or worse than I." "You know I found myself among many ignorant people and I being an ignorant person at the time felt I had as much chance as anyone else, but you have to play the game... you have to find a way of influencing the people around you," "to use you a bit more than someone else, and the way you did that was by observation, by seeing what the morays and the requirements were for you and you quickly decided what you were willing to do and what you were willing not to do" "and each one of us, I speak for myself at the time with 1500 young players... I speak now only of actors and actresses... I'm sure this process works for everybody - writers, directors in the movies and also I'm sure in other professions." "I decided quickly where l felt I should put the emphasis and what I should de-emphasise, you know." "I found everybody used to poke themselves and say really I hate the way this guy talks... her comes the gangster... I mean I like the New York sound so I just embellished it... I made it sound even tougher than it did, you know," "and if I felt I was in a circle of people that didn't like it so much I toned it down." "But I did realize that I must improve myself."" "And improve he did, in the process receiving 10,000 letters a week begging for a lock of that famous hair." "While Curtis served his apprenticeship at Universal," "Janet Leigh's career was relaunched at RKO by that extraordinary Tinseltown Svengali," "Howard Hughes." "Hughes was taking time off from his aeronautical adventures to test RKO to destruction." "Janet's third for RKO was Jet Pilot, a kind of Cold war remake of Ninotchka, in which she played a Soviet spy romancing fighter pilot Wayne." "There's a lot of action." "In the air And on the ground." "While the storyline spins wildly out of control." " Have you had many..." " Many what?" "... women." "High drama alternates with slapstick." "Give me back my skirt!" "One minute I want to kill you and the next minute I want to kiss you and..." "Kiss you and" "Kiss you." "is this a collision course I'm flying?" "Drop your dive brakes." "You're right on top of it." "Even by Hughes' eccentric standards," "Jet Pilot remains a remarkable curiosity." "And, inevitably, he stepped in to romance his leading lady." "Leigh recalls..." ""He wanted to date me and he wanted to marry me and I didn't want to date him and I didn't want to marry him." "I mean I kept saying why don't you act like a normal human being and ask me out, because he would arrange to be where l was, you know, I would have a date with somebody and there would be all of a sudden a third place" "and then it would be for him and I'm thinking I don't like being manipulated." "I mean I may be naive and I'm from a small town but I'm not dumb." "So I said to him... he said well, alright, will you go out with me, and I said no." "I was kind of bad, I mean that was being bitchy." "But then I thought aha, I said okay. I'll go out with you with my mother and father because I lived with my mother and father and I thought that would turn him off and he said alright," "so I went out with him with my mother and father at the Sportsmen Lodge and the three of them had a wonderful time... well they were the same age, you know." "To me he was an old man."" "It was while she was making Jet Pilot that Leigh met the considerably younger Tony Curtis for the first time." "He later wrote," ""lt just devastated me to look at this woman." "I just wanted her to be mine"." "But their studios were not so ecstatic." ""Well, they acted as if they didn't like it at the beginning, what the motive of that was I still don't know, because I realized after we were married that they couldn't wait to rush us into the pictures together you know," "because they were exploiting... that may be the word... exploit isn't the proper word but it certainly didn't bother them, you know." "I'm sure there was some..." "I remember there was some opposition to it like two or three people at the studio said why incumber yourself at this time in your career." "I didn't think it was the fact they felt they didn't like the idea that made it attractive to me."" "Tony and Janet were married in New York on the 4th of June 1951." "Jerry Lewis was the best man." "The couple honeymooned in Paris." "Back home the studios, reconciled to their newjoint property, prepared to put a brave face on it." "It did not take their executives long to realise that the Curtis-Leigh marriage provided the perfect platform for a screen partnership." "Tony and Janet would make five movies together." "Janet remembers..." ""But Universal felt that his appeal as the Bobby Sockster idol or something would diminish but didn't seem to hurt Douglas Fairbanks Jnr." "We just said look our careers depend on the fact that we're single... we don't have much of a career anyway, so to heck with it and what happened was just the opposite." "Our appeal grew rather than diminished and I remember one time we arrived in Boston and you know hundreds of people were there and this one little girl just got right alongside me and said you know when are we going to have our baby," " and it was just like..." " That was scary." "and it was just like they lived the ideal couple with us."" "Tony and Janet's first movie together was the 1953 Houdini, a breakthrough for Tony that established him as a bankable leading man." "Years later Janet revealed:" ""ln our work together, there was no question about billing." "My husband came first... I was his wife, and I wasn't going to emasculate him and take top billing just because I'd been in the business longer." "When I was single, it was me, career." "When I was married it was husband, career." "That's the way it had to be for me."" "For their fans," "Tony and Janet were Hollywood's perfect couple, the Fifties teen set equivalent of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford." "Movie-goers couldn't get enough of Janet and Tony." "Fan magazines fought for every scrap of information about them." "The Curtises obliged, even moving into a mansion near Pickfair, the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, the golden couple of the silents." "They were Hollywood's new Golden Couple, and were soon to be teamed again." "The early Fifties saw a slew of Technicolor knights in armour adventures, among them MGM's Knights of the Round Table." "Universal's contribution was The Black Shield of Falworth, distinguished by Tony's firm jaw and Janet's heaving bosom." "The movie contains the oft-quoted line delivered by Tony " ""Yonda lies da cassel of my fadduh"." "But Curtis wanted more than the adulation of the bobby-soxers." "He yearned for critical respectability." "As he put it..." ""Because I'd been able to create myself I didn't change my name from Bernard Schwartz to Tony Curtis because I wanted to get into the movies primarily but because I wanted to be my own man, I wanted to be a creation of myself... I don't want to be part of a background of someone else's wishes and ideas," "and morays and religion... I want to be my own fellow." "And that's what I started and tried to do and it was through the audience's support that I was able to make it, not because of some producer because he would just shoot me down and hire someone else " "he couldn't care less about me."" "The success of the 1956 Trapeze had established Curtis alongside stars like Burt Lancaster and Gina Lollobrigida." "But critical recognition of Curtis' range as an actor came in a rush with The Defiant Ones, which co-starred Sidney Poitier." "Go on, tell me all that big talk about Charlie Potatoes," "When the chains of and nobody's chasing you." "Come on." "You can't, can you?" "You can't because you're nothing." "You're not even a man!" "You're a monkey on a stick." "That cracker mob back there, they pull the string and you jump." "A year earlier, Curtis had been superb as the press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success." "Grovelling on all fours to Burt Lancaster's vicious JJ Hunsecker." "Sidney, I don't do this sort of thing." " What sort of thing?" " This sort of thing." "You need him for a favour, don't you?" "So do I." "I need his column tonight." "In 1956 Tony and Janet had their first child, a daughter, Kelly." "Janet recalls..." ""Er, we were married in 51 so it was five years later before I had Kelly." "I had a few miscarriages you know, so we very much hoped for a baby." "It was a very big moment."" "Another big moment came in 1959 with Tony's sizzling comic performance in Some Like lt Hot." "During location shooting for Some Like lt Hot," "Tony was able to create a legendary impersonation of Cary Grant." "Janet was there, too, along with daughter Kelly." "Some Like lt Hot remains a classic comedy, but working with volatile co-star Marilyn Monroe proved to be an ordeal for the affable Curtis." "Marilyn's antics stretched his usual good humour to the limit." "In 1958, Janet had a second daughter," "Jamie Lee." "And she was once again teamed with Tony in the full-blooded adventure of The Vikings." "Filmed on location in Scandinavia," "The Vikings pitted Tony against an eye-patched Kirk Douglas, in exceptionally violent and vengeful mood." "I want this slave alive." "The sun will cross the sky 1,000 times before he dies." "And you'll wish 1,000 times..." "After dealing with Tony," "Kirk turns his one good eye firmly on the fair Janet." "If you touch me, I'll kill myself." "There's a sword to do it with." "Because I'm going to touch you." "Come on." "Kick!" "Bite!" "Scratch!" "Come on." "I will not lift one finger to resist you." "At the peak of their success, fault lines began to appear in Tony and Janet's marriage." "The perfect couple's relationship was unravelling." "During the summer of 1961," "Janet holidayed with the Kennedy family - with whom she and her husband had become close - before returning home to mourn the death of her father." "In March 1962," "Tony and Janet officially separated." "It was a time of great pain but Janet retains many happy memories of her 11 year-marriage." ""l think that what happened is, um, I never negate the beginning of our relationship... I never will or have because that wouldn't be true." "I mean what we started together was wonderful and um why would we have got married."" "After a divorce in Mexico," "Janet married stockbroker Robert Brandt." "Tony Curtis was also soon remarried, to Christine Kaufman, his co-star in Taras Bulba." "I love you, Andrei, I will always love you." "You know that. I love you." "But I can't let you fight against your own people." "I can't do it." "You're a Cossack, Andrei." "I'm a man before I'm a Cossack." "Don't let them use me." "Kaufman and Curtis were divorced in 1967." "Tony has married three more times." "It is all too easy to allow Janet Leigh's marriage to Tony Curtis to overshadow her power as an actress." "In 1958 she was superb as the bride in jeopardy in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil." ""Hold her legs"." "And in 1960, with Alfred Hitchcock and a motel shower, she reached her peak in Pyscho." "In 1980 she appeared alongside daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog, reminding audiences of what they had been missing during her absence from the screen." "In 1984 Janet published her autobiography," "There Really Was a Hollywood." "The launch, which she attended with her daughter Kelly, was a fitting reminder of the days when she was one of Hollywood's brightest stars." "After the Fifties," "Tony Curtis' career combined a great many potboilers with some outstanding performances..." "As Albert de Salvo in The Boston Strangler..." "And Senator Joe McCarthy in insignificance." "In the 1980s, Tony emerged from alcohol and addiction to establish himself as a sought-after painter." ""The same time I was making movies I was painting, I was drawing, you know." "One didn't take..." "one didn't overload the other." "I am not an actor who paints or a painter who acts."" "He remains a fluent raconteur of the days, fifty years ago, when he became a star." "Every picture tells a story." ""That first Western l was in was called the Kansas Raiders." "The first horse I saw was in New York City pulling ice wagons, and there I am dressed as a cowboy and they throw me on this horse and off we go." "I fall off the horse and the horse takes off." "One of the guys came running over and says see if Tony's alright and the stuntmen say Tony?" "We've got all the actors in the world we need... we only have four horses and off they went after the horses!"" "Although the glamour of the early Fifties has long faded," "Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis retain a special place in the hearts of movie fans." "In the realm of nostalgia, they are still together." "Janet Leigh reflects on the shifting perceptions of her past." ""lt... it's funny, when you write a book... you talk about days gone by and it's so easy to put today's head on those young shoulders and that's not a true depiction of what it was," "because it's easy to say today what is obvious, you know... what is obvious and you can look back and say obviously, but not then."" "Time has moved on, but the memories remain, of a handsome and glamorous couple in the full flush of stardom." "Who were able to move on from their youthful successes..." "Let's not question flesh for wanting to remain flesh."