What prompted Vivien Leigh’s dark journey into madness?
Did her many miscarriages so unhinge the beautiful actress that she ended up a sex-crazed harridan, screaming obscenities at those she loved?
The bald truth about Patrick Stewart
The actor best known for his role as Star Trek’s Captain Picard comes across as pompous, chippy and point-scoring as he reminisces about directors and fellow stars
Complicated and slightly creepy: the Bogart-Bacall romance
Lauren Bacall was 25 years younger than Humphrey Bogart. Unlike his previous wives, she stayed – though Roger Lewis finds something creepy about their relationship
The utter vileness of Richard Harris
Brawling, boozing and womanising, those vaunted hell-raisers of the 1960s – Peter O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton and, of course,…
Norman Scott has the last word on a very English scandal
Norman Scott’s long-anticipated memoir reveals the British Establishment at its worst, says Roger Lewis
Keeping yourself angry, the Hare way: We Travelled, by David Hare, reviewed
A character in David Hare’s Skylight claims she has at last found contentment by no longer opening newspapers or watching…
Terence’s stamp: The Art of Living, by Stephen Bayley, reviewed
Rumours reach me that the libel report for Stephen Bayley’s forthcoming biography of Terence Conran was longer than the book…
Even the Queen wasn’t spared Prince Philip’s bad temper
Though the indefatigable Gyles Brandreth met and interviewed Prince Philip over a 40-year period, His Royal Highness managed to give…
Beauty and the beast: Jane Birkin’s love affair with Serge Gainsbourg
I met Jane Birkin’s parents, who flit across these pages. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an actress in Noël Coward…
‘Social distance shaming’ is getting nasty
Rudeness is spreading like a virus
Homage to Clement and La Frenais, the writing duo who transformed British comedy
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson remain pre-eminent as writers of television comedy, but their closest rivals Dick Clement and Ian…
Biography is a thoroughly reprehensible genre
I saw a biopic about Morecambe and Wise recently. The actors impersonating the comedians were not a patch on the…
Broken dreams
In the expensive realm of musical comedy, it’s impossible to predict what will take off and what will crash and…
They sought paradise in a Scottish field — and found hunger, boredom and mosquitoes
Dylan Evans, the author of this book, was one of those oddballs who rather looked forward to the apocalypse, because…
A Stratford Stalin: the nasty, aggressive and stupid world of Joan Littlewood
If Stalin had been a theatre director he’d have resembled Joan Littlewood. What an outstandingly unpleasant woman she was —…
Paul Merton’s is the most boastful autobiography in years
Has there ever been a nun or a priest who wasn’t a bent sadist? Because here we go again. At…
The mad, bad and sad life of Dusty Springfield
Call me a crazy old physiognomist, but my theory is that you can always spot a lesbian by her big…
Charlie Chaplin, monster
No actual birth certificate for Charles Spencer Chaplin has ever been found. The actor himself drew a blank when he…
The harrowing, inspiring life of Andrew Sachs
Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative…
The abstract art full of 'breasts and bottoms'
Is there any such thing as abstract art? Narratives and coherent harmonies seem to me always to emerge from the…
As Luck Would Have It, by Derek Jacobi - review
Alan Bennett once overheard an old lady say, ‘I think a knighthood was wasted on Derek Jacobi,’ and I know…
A Rogues’ Gallery, by Peter Lewis - review
Like Mel Brooks’s character the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, Peter Lewis has met everyone of consequence. Though he doesn’t mention being…
Relish — and cultivate — your grievances
Roger Lewis 15 December 2018 9:00 am
Grudges make the world go around, according to Sophie Hannah. They are ‘an important and fascinating part of human experience’,…