Monte-Carlo
ID Courtesy Card to Monte-Carlo Beach
The twist here is that I was too young to have these cards but the system - in 1961 - was not geared up to dealing with 17 year olds. So I received my cards since the general assumption was that, as a newspaper columnist, I must be over 21. Everything worked out fine until some gamblers in the Casino de Monte-Carlo's exclusive Salon privés objected to "this kid" watching them lose their life savings. I was discretely taken aside, asked to produce my passport - and the game was up. However, I kept my Monte Carlo Beach card to the end.
Back to Friends, Heroes, Lovers, Memories
Please click here to send us your opinions!
To Top
Singer extraordinaire, Peggy Lee, in Monte Carlo
When I was 17 and in my second year of university, I wangled an assignment to write a column for an Irish newspaper - the Dublin Evening Mail (now defunct) - from Monte Carlo during my summer vacation. It might have helped had I known how to write in those days or had even the most primitive instructions in what to do. However, kind people often protect and help the young and foolish and such was the situation in my case. One of my helpers was singer Peggy Lee, then at the height of her fame, and visiting Monte Carlo to sing in the very exclusive Sporting Club. Look left - see the Kennedys. Look right - see Frank Sinatra. I took this photograph outside her dressing room using a borrowed flash since mine failed at the crucial moment. Or I did not know how to use it. The press were then thrown out so I dumped my gear in Peggy's dressing room - with her acquiescence - and joined her party for dinner. A great evening and a nice woman. As to her singing, the Sporting Club is open and directly by the sea so can be difficult acoustically. Peggy Lee had no problem. She captivated us all.
Back to Friends, Heroes, Lovers, Memories
Please click here to send us your opinions!
To Top
Kenneth Moore
Kenneth Moore was a major English movie star in the Fifties and Sixties. If you watch old movies late at night, you will have run across him. He tended to act the decent man caught in a difficult situation and I have a deep suspicion he genuinely was a decent man - and I put him in a difficult situation. I ran across him in Monte Carlo. Normally you would expect a celebrity like him to be on Le Beach - which was actually a pool and section of the Monaco coast reserved for the more affluent. However I found him on Monte Carlo's minute public beach and immediately accosted him for an interview. Bear in mind I was 17 and clueless and it was a less sophisticated age. Worst of all, I had neither notebook nor camera. I approached him - violated his privacy - ran back to my hotel - which was technically in France - and then returned to take this photograph. He had the goof manners to stay in place. Subsequently we met quite a few times and I came to like him enormously - although he kidded the hell out of me. Decency is an underused word. Kenneth Moore, as they say in Ireland, was a decent man. My favorite movie of his is Reach For The Sky where he plays the role of Douglas Baader, the British Air Force officer who lost both legs in a crash and went on to become a fighter ace and a leading commander in the air war against the Germans in World War II. Kenneth Moore movies were a staple of my schooldays - as were Westerns - so meeting him was rather like meeting Burt Lancaster or Gregory Peck. A few days later, on that same trip, I did meet Gregory Peck.
Back to Friends, Heroes, Lovers, Memories
Please click here to send us your opinions!
To Top
Monte-Carlo Beach
Le Beach was expensive and was the kind of place where you would find Winston Churchill in a corner of the bar and ex-Queen Soraya (the Shah of Iran had divorced her because she could not bear him a son) out on the Point watching the water skiing. The point about The Beach was not that it was madly luxurious but that it was exclusive. It consisted of the pool - which was normally edged by beautiful women wearing remarkably little, the bar - full of rich older men - and a sandy area (the sand had been imported) from which you could access the sea if you were daring. Just in case you were nervous of jelly-fish, there was a protective net patrolled by strong young men in skin tight white tee-shirts and white duck trousers. I first went to Mont Carlo on vacation with my parents - who were regulars - and finally returned to write a column which was tough as I was 17 and no idea what to do. But I had nerve so had some most educational - and a few downright unusual - experiences.
Back to Friends, Heroes, Lovers, Memories
Please click here to send us your opinions!
To Top
The scenery in Monte Carlo could be spectacular
Monaco is the principality and Monte Carlo is the town but the whole place is so tiny the two names tend to be used interchangeably. The routine, if you were one of the decadent rich, was to sun yourself at Le Beach during the day, gamble a bit in the evening, and then head out to one of the two exclusive clubs on the seafront - The Sporting Club and The Beach Club. In my case, I was working - trying to write a column - though it was hard to focus when faced with a woman such as Celine.
Back to Friends, Heroes, Lovers, Memories
Please click here to send us your opinions!
To Top
Changing of the guard outside Prince Rainier's palace.
There were also guarding Princess Grace - better known to many as film star Grace Kelly, an extraordinarily beautiful woman who you may have seen in High Society or one of a string of major movie hits. Monaco at that time was ruled by the prince but substantially owned by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis who went on to marry Jackie Kennedy. I never met Onassis but I did make it aboard his yacht where I met his then wife Christina - who was kinder to me than I deserved.
Back to Friends, Heroes, Lovers, Memories
Please click here to send us your opinions!
To Top
