John Julius Norwich - Cecil Beaton (129/136)

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John Julius Norwich (1929-2018) was an English popular historian, travel writer and television personality. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire and 'The Popes: A History'. [Listener: Christopher Sykes]

TRANSCRIPT: So then there was, of course, Cecil Beaton. Cecil was, again, a very, very old friend of my mother's. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know him, you know, and again, he was absolutely sweet. He was sweet to me, I remember, when he'd done the designs for one of those Oscar Wilde plays, I think it was Lady Windermere's Fan with Paulette Goddard who was acting in it. And he took me, just him and me, he took me down to Elstree to watch the filming. It was the first time I'd ever watched a film being made. And he was very, very good company, a very, very good raconteur, and, of course, a sensational, spectacularly good photographer, but he was also... I mean, he drew beautifully, you know, and he and Rex Whistler, I remember once, drawing each other. And Cecil's portrait of Rex was every bit as good as Rex's portrait of Cecil, you know. And he travelled around the world. He worked incredibly hard, produced God knows how many books, and he was a bit wicked sometimes, malicious, but for the sake of humour, but he was wonderful fun. Again, sadly, of course, he had a very bad stroke at the end of his life. One of the... one of the effects of which was that he couldn’t stop bursting into tears, which was very embarrassing. It's a known stroke symptom, I think.

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