Will Waspe
When I saw Glenda Jackson going into the Old Vic last week for re-opening night of The Misanthrope, she was looking as windswept, untidy and unglamorous as ever — but the press photographers gathered outside still wanted to take her picture. "Please, Glenda!" called one, to attract her attention. "Oh, all right, then," she said irritably, "just a quickie." The appeal of the woman is beyond me, but it Is clearly very real, for Hedda Gabler, in which she opens at the Aldwych this week, is already on its way to being a sell-out — whatever the papers may say. But the papers will undoubtedly be kind, as they always are to her. The Observer set the ball rolling last Sunday with a full-page piece by John Heilpern in which he called her "the finest actress of her generation."
More equal
I am surprised to find such a smattering of show business names listed on the notepaper of the Campaign for Homosexuality (and by no means all of them homosexuals, as far as I know). If there is one area of life where homosexuals achieved equality — to say the very least — long, long ago, it is surely show
business. Homosexuality never held anyone back as actor or writer, director or dancer — rather, perhaps, the contrary.
Non sequitur?
There must surely have been material for a play in a recent house-party at the former home of Sir Noel Coward at Les Avants in Switzerland. The late Master's two principal heirs, Cole Lesley and Graham Payn, were hosts to the honeymooning pair, actress Maggie Smith and dramatist Beverley Cross. The situation would unquesionably have inspired Coward. Perhaps it will suggest a theme to Cross.
Diplomatic
When Nat Cohen, chairman of EMI, announced his plans for the coming year at .the Savoy last week, the superlatives came , thickest. First they're' going to make more Agatha. Christie films because Murder on the 0i7ent Express is the most successful film ever made in England with British money. They are also doing The Nat King Cole Story. Furthermore one of their directors is hoping to go to China next month so that they can break into the world's biggest film market. It's been one of their best years for a long time. After all this, Alan Sapper, the union chief who brought Independent Television to a halt a few weeks ago, asked Mr Cohen what he thought of British film technicians. "British film technicians are the best in the world," was the very sensible reply. What else could he say?
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