The London Lounge

I had prepared this thread just before access to the LL had been interrupted last March:


The suggested title for this thread may strike some fellow members as an oxymoron. Yet, I think that the smoking stance in the images bellow adds a lot of panache to the gentlemen they depict.




F. Sinatra



Sartre (by Cartier Bresson)





Nöel Coward





Bond's Father




Bond's Father, again





Howard Carter





Mr Wilde





Churchill




Ibid (1929)




Ibid (1949)




Thomas Mann




Mr Hackett (by Scott Schumann)





Edward Fox as Edward VIII

Some great pictures. The modern screen Bond can be seen gulping gargantuan measures of Bourbon 'down in one' and that's still OK, on health grounds - as it seems to be OK on general safety grounds to have Bond tearing around in the Aston Martin after a few Vesper martinis on top. The films are devoid of any smoke at all - even though smoking seems to have been important both to Bond and to his creator. Last night we saw a DVD of Casablanca - I think that the modern world should remake it and clean it up - not the illicit love affair; not Rick Blaine's drunkenness - but all that terrible smoke: they should bring the film up to date and take the smoke out of Casablanca. If they cannot delete the smoke from the scenes, they should remake it - who actually needs Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson: let's have smokeless and go with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman - and if they do detest each other all the better for the mood of the shots - but just cut all that disgusting smoke. As for Now Voyager - who needs the moon or the stars when you can't light-up two cigarettes at once?
NJS

Fleming used to smoke about 70 cigarettes a day. After having been once told by his doctor to cut his daily amount of nicotine, he is reported to have said: “The proper function of life is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use the time”.

For those interested, I would highly recommend the wonderful book 'Churchill's Cigar', available here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Churchills-Ciga ... 0230528929. There is even a town in Australia named Churchill that has a giant cigar-like object in the town square!

Bishop of Briggs:

Did you know that Rachmaninov refused to concertize on Sunday evenings in the United States? It had nothing to do with being superstitious; he was simply addicted to Jack Benny's comedy show on radio. There's a diehard fan for ya!

JMB

Not to be outdone by his neighbour in Jamaica and the fatty that denied him his knighthood the first time round...

I thought that he was denied the knighthood for so long because of some infraction of wartime currency restrictions - or do you think that was just an excuse?
NJS

Michael Caine




Gary Cooper

Here are some more. Anyone have to hand that great Tallulah Bankhead photograph of her smoking and narrowing her eyes in a plume of smoke?



Clive Brook.



Jack Buchanan.



Terry-Thomas.



Peter Finch.



Lord Grade.


NJS.

Sir Arthur John Gielgud - notice the coat sleeves mit cuff.

storeynicholas wrote:Here are some more. Anyone have to hand that great Tallulah Bankhead photograph of her smoking and narrowing her eyes in a plume of smoke?
NJS.

I think I know which one you're thinking of but don't have it... Here's another one of TB that's not half bad either.


Rudolph Valentino


Garbo wouldn't be a bad addition to the thread?

shredder wrote:... Garbo wouldn't be a bad addition to the thread?

[1959]

Bogart:




Bacall:



and Mitchum:



Gloria Swanson:



FDR:



Charles Gray as Blofeld:




Lucy:




Steve:



Ray Milland




NJS

Pablo Picasso


Luchino Visconti


Jean Cocteau


Halston


And his muse, Elsa Peretti


Coco Chanel


Balthus