Word: gentleman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Beaton dines with Oscar Wilde's son, who tells him that when his father was disgraced, society was so outraged that even dogs called Oscar were renamed. He is with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor just before their wedding, and notes how hurt and surprised that naive gentleman was that so few of his friends had accepted invitations. He describes his rather comical romance with Greta Garbo, in which both of them circled like brilliant birds, not wanting to muss their pretty plumage with what would inevitably be a messy embrace...
Incredible as it seems, at 50, with four decades of performing behind him, Rubinstein had yet to catch on in the U.S. Then he signs with a "fat and important-looking middle-aged gentleman" named Sol Hurok, and soon America too is at his feet. When World War II drives him from his Paris home, he settles for a few years in Hollywood. There he earns huge fees for dubbing the sound track of films like Song of Love, buys a Cadillac and plunges into the party circuit with such elegant cronies as Charlie Chaplin, Thomas Mann and Marlene Dietrich...
...aides. "The question is always, 'Compared with what?' Compared one way, what they did, the Congress made pretty outstanding progress this past session. Compared another way, what they should have done, it was pretty poor." By most measures, that assessment would add up to a "gentleman's C" grade-at best...