December 20, 2019 – davidbruceblog #2

Flowers

• After witnessing a particularly good performance, balletomanes often throw flowers — which sometimes leads to problems. A balletomane once threw a “remarkably solid and heavy water lily” which hit Margot Fonteyn in the chest. Another regular ballet-goer discovered that flowers were easier to throw when they were weighted, so Ms. Fonteyn quickly learned to keep an eye in his direction whenever she came out for bows after a performance.

• A reporter once interviewed ballerina Anna Pavlova at her home, Ivy House, in England, where he was surprised by the scent of mimosa, because the mimosa tree was not in flower then. The mystery was cleared up where they entered the conservatory, in which stood a flowering mimosa tree.

Food

• Andy Warhol worried about gaining weight. He liked expensive Teuscher chocolate, but he never swallowed it. Instead, he would enjoy chewing it up, and then he would spit it into a napkin. Mr. Warhol also had his own way of eating in expensive restaurants. He said, “When I order in a restaurant, I order everything I don’t like, so I have a lot to play around with while everyone else eats. Then, no matter how chic the restaurant is, I insist that the waiter wrap the entire plate up like a to-go order.” Mr. Warhol then left the food in a place where a homeless person would find it and eat it. While Mr. Warhol was still alive, quite a few homeless people in New York found a Grenouille dinner on a window ledge.

• Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and his wife once dined with Fred Astaire, who kept his head bent over his bowl of soup. They asked if something was wrong, and Mr. Astaire replied, “Can’t you notice anything?” They said that they could not, and he said, “I’ve got a new toupee and I wondered if it showed.” By the way, according to clothes designer Bob Mackie, Mr. Astaire always wore long underwear while performing his dance numbers in his many movies — the long underwear absorbed his sweat. Also by the way, Mr. Astaire was not a reader. He once asked his son-in-law about the story of Romeo and Juliet. His son-in-law explained that it was like West Side Story.

• At a hotel in Buffalo, New York, a couple of members of the Merce Cunningham dance troupe had a large can of sardines for breakfast on the eighth floor. They ate all but five of the sardines, which they then flushed down the toilet. On the first floor, dancer Sandra Neels went to the ladies room. Floating in a toilet bowl were two of the sardines.

• When David Niven, Jr. opened a restaurant in London — Drone’s — he decorated it by putting baby pictures of famous movie stars on its walls.

Gays and Lesbians

• Do writers have rivalries? According to gay author Edmund White, the answer is yes. Long ago, gay author Gore Vidal dined with publisher Jonathan Burnham at the River Café. On the table were tall bottles of wine as well as tall bottles of olive oil. Mr. Vidal mistook a bottle of olive oil for a bottle of wine, poured olive oil in his glass, and took a drink. He sputtered and then said to Mr. Burnham, “You saw that and you didn’t stop me. You want me to die so your writer Edmund White will be King Fag!”

• Rudolf Nureyev once went to a see a controversial play about homosexuality that was running in London’s West End. During intermission, he went to the restroom. A reporter saw him, and sensing a story, asked him, “Aren’t you Rudolf Nureyev?” Mr. Nureyev replied, “Not at the moment,” then vanished.

***

THE COOLEST PEOPLE IN THE ARTS

KINDLE

SMASHWORDS (VARIOUS FORMATS)

BUY THE PAPERBACK