The Proliferating of the One-man Churchill Play: One Review
Why do so many Churchill plays misquote Churchill and mangle the facts? Counterfactuals and misquotes spoil even decent impersonations.
Year: 2015
Churchill @ Hillsdale CCA, 4-7 Oct. 2015
I was pleased to be part of a program with Timothy Robert Hardy, the most inimitable and genuine actor to ever play the role of Winston Churchill; and Minnie Churchill, Sir Winston's granddaughter-in-law, an expert on Churchill's oil paintings. We were joined in presentations by two outstanding scholars, Andrew Roberts and John Maurer. CCA events are open to Hillsdale students, faculty and members of the College's President's Club.
Robert Hardy’s “Wilderness Years”
5 October 2015: Turning 90 this month and as vivacious as ever, Timothy Robert Hardy spoke tonight on “My Life with Churchill” at a Hillsdale College Churchill seminar, attended by over 500 registrants and 200 students, sponsored by Hillsdale’s Center for Constructive Alternatives. That afternoon I had the privilege to play Alistair Cooke, and introduce four excerpts from Tim’s inimitable portrayal in the documentary, “Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years.” Here is the introduction to the first excerpt, which may be viewed on YouTube (first 12 minutes). All four excerpts will be published later by The Churchill Project for the Study of Statesmanship.…
The Dallying Duke of Marlborough
This historical corner of the Web is exercised over the misquotes and tall tales about Winston Churchill that clutter the Internet—by everybody from Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III to assorted authors and politicians (see “Churchillian Drift”).
They range from RG III’s recent “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak” (nobody knows who said that, but Churchill didn’t) to the fiction that Alexander Fleming twice saved Churchill’s life.
But here’s an amusing example of Churchill himself destroying a Churchill myth—about his ancestor John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough. Reference is to the early pages of Marlborough: His Life and Times, vol.…
Hillsdale’s Online Churchill Course
Hillsdale College offers a free, not-for-credit, online course, “Winston Churchill and Statesmanship.” The six-week course is taught by Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn. It examines the life, lessons and legacy of Sir Winston. For further information contact onlinecourses@hillsdale.edu.
This course is part of the battery of new programs offered by The Churchill Project for the Study of Statesmanship, which I am honored to serve as senior fellow. I warmly recommend this illuminating, stimulating, and above all accurate, free course because it’s a mini-education on Churchill’s statesmanship, conducted by an indefatigable scholar and a friend of forty years. …
Urinal Humor: Churchill & Attlee
Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer cited an amusing encounter between Churchill and socialist Prime Minister Clement Attlee in the Members’ urinal at the House of Commons, circa 1951. Attlee is standing over the trough as Churchill enters on the same mission. Observing Attlee, Churchill shuffles as far away as possible.
Attlee: “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?”
WSC: “That’s right. Every time you see something big you want to nationalise it.”
I labeled this an unattributed quip in the “Red Herrings” appendix to my quotations book, Churchill by Himself. I am happy to say that I was wrong, thanks to the help of columnist Christian Schneider, who also recently published the quote in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. …
Viking’s Danube Waltz (7): The Pleasures of Prague
June 7-9th: Prague, Czech Republic
“You Must Remember This…”
Two full days in Prague, an optional extra on the Danube Waltz Tour, costs an additional $1500 per couple, and includes three nights at the very handsome new town Hilton. Breakfasts there are the same comprehensive assortment from nuts to soup that we encountered aboard ship. The coach ride from Passau, Germany, takes four hours through the historic Sudetenland, the dispute over which ended in the fateful Munich Agreement of 1938, last stop on the road to World War II.…
Churchill on Horses
“We need a horseman for our next president,” writes Gary Hodgson in the Fort Morgan Times, who then goes on to quote “the famous reining champion, team roper and all around cowboy…Sir Winston Churchill,” who allegedly said: “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”
Unless Mr. Hodgson has found a new attribution, that charmer is not Churchill’s. It’s listed in the “Red Herrings” appendix in Churchill by Himself, page 575, with this note:
Repeatedly attributed to everyone from Woodrow Wilson’s physician to Ronald Reagan. “Clergyman Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) is one person to whom the thought was attributed in his time.…
A Fresh Look at the Churchills and Kennedys by Thomas Maier
When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, by Thomas Maier. New York: Crown Publishers, 784 pages, $30, Kindle Edition $11.99. Written for The Churchillian, Spring 2015.
The most touching and durable vision left by Mr. Maier comes toward the end of this long book: the famous White House ceremony in April 1963, as President Kennedy presents Sir Winston Churchill (in absentia) with Honorary American Citizenship—while from an upstairs window his stroke-silenced father, Joseph P. Kennedy, watches closely, with heaven knows what reflections:
Whatever thoughts raced through the mind of Joe Kennedy—the rancor of the past, the lost opportunities of his own political goals, and the tragic forgotten dreams he had once had for his oldest son, could not be expressed.…
Viking’s Danube Waltz (6): Passau
June 6: Passau, Germany
continued from part 5… Once called “Batavia” or “Batavis,” Passau is a charmer of a medieval Bavarian town at the confluence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz, the last out of the Black Forest, spewing dark peaty water into the larger, faster-moving rivers.
With a population the same as Manchester, New Hampshire, it draws 1.6 million visitors per year, compared to 1 million down at Durnstein, population 400 and a tenth the size. Result: you can move around without masses of crowds and enjoy the transition architecture, Gothic to Baroque.
St. Stefan’s Cathedral has one of the largest organs in the world and the recital there is tremendous.…
