London days
Jeffrey Bernard
The Celebrity Bulletin put out by Durrants is a fascinating joke to me. it's not so much that I don't give a hoot to know that Lauren Bacall is residing at the Beverley Hills Hotel this week, it's what comprises a celebrity that intrigues me. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read in this week's bulletin: 'John Bay, American actor, has arrived from Chicago and will be staying at the Savoy for an indefinite period.' Now Mr Bay is something of a celebrity in his own rather small circle, but in no way could he be described as a celebrity in the international charts. It so happens that Mr Bay and 1 shared a dressing rpom at the Theatre Workshop in Stratford way back in 1965, and that was a pretty hysterical experience. We were performing in a play by Frank Norman called 'A Kayf Up West'. John Bay played a mad poet and I was Bill the burglar. Mr Bay's interests in those days (I believe they haven't changed) were monsters and Groucho Marx. Consequently one very rarely heard Bay's real voice. He either spoke like Groucho or Vincent Price or anyone else who might have invented a monster of some sort. Our dressing room walls were plastered with photographs of monsters and anyone who popped in to see us must have left concluding we were both of us quite mad. It was at that time that a generous girl who used to frequent Soho told me that she woke up one morning with a dreadful hangover and couldn't think where the hell she was. She opened her eyes and there, on the ceiling, saw a gigantic poster of Groucho Marx. 'Christ,' she said, 'I'm in bed with John Bay.' As I say, I'm somewhat puzzled as to just what constitutes a celebrity. Perhaps it's anyone who's at the Savoy for 'an indefinite period'.
I was quietly sipping a drink in the Swiss Tavern in Old Compton Street last week when a Health Inspector from the Westminster Council dropped in. He said there had been a complaint from a customer — he didn't say which customer or explain the nature of the complaint — and began to sniff around and do his inspecting. The ensuing conversation was fairly amusing as Charlie Stevenson, the guvnor, showed him around. I think Mr Stevenson got most of his material from working men's clubs when he lived up in Yorkshire. 'We've got no mice behind the snack bar,' he told the inspector. 'The rats have killed them all.' The inspector then pointed to the carpet Which, over the years, must have soaked up gallons of blood and beer. 'Yes,' said Charlie, 'We'll get the floor retarrnacd.' What interested me most about Charlie's line in chat was his explanation of how the most famous of all North Country comedians gets his material. Apparently he auditions comedians for spots in the clubs and writes down all their patter as they utter. When they've finished he simply says, 'Sorry, I can't give you a job, I've heard all those jokes before.' They go straight into his act, of course.
Lunching in the Coach and Horses in Greek Street yesterday I was joined by the Poet Logue. The conversation got around to collecting books and Mr Logue told me that he has a vast number on the subject of Napoleon. I was more than a little surprised. I've always thought of Napoleon as one of history's prize shits but Logue wasn't having any of that when 1 said so. Neither would he agree with me that he was a fairly Squalid and boring man in his private life. As Logue got up to go it all fell into place. Napoleon and Logue are dead ringers. Same height, same size, same hair. I hope the same doesn't apply to me. I've got quite a few books on Cromwell and am awaiting the warts.
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