Category: Remembrances
Absent Friends: Dave Brownell, Randy Mason, Don Peterson
Brooks Stevens: The Seer Who Made Milwaukee Famous
Packard Tales and Memories of Bud Juneau
Clarence B. “Bud” Juneau, the Packard Club’s longtime Vice President for publications, passed away March 25th, leaving his many friends bereft. This was my contribution to a special edition of The Packard Cormorant, Fourth Quarter 2021, published in his honor. —RML
Memories of BudBud Juneau gave me my first real job. I don’t mean “work,” the things we do for some entity which pays us. I mean what we do individually, hoping for pay and solely responsible for success or failure. For me, this began with Bud.
In 1975 I resigned as senior editor at Automobile Quarterly and set out to be an independent motoring writer.…
Sean Connery Remembered: James Bond and His Motorcars (Update)
The Red Phone in the Bond flat gives its loud, distinctive jangle. It’s the Chief of Staff. “At once, please, James. Special from ‘M.’ Something for everyone. Crash dive and ultra hush. If you’ve got any dates for the next few weeks, better cancel them. You’ll be off tonight.”
The archetypal, irreplaceable 007 In 2020 Sean Connery, the original James Bond, died at 90 at his home in Nassau. “He’s one of the few actors on the planet I truly mourn,” a friend writes. “He was great man and dignified, and stayed that way his whole life.”…Graham Robson: “He Was Always, Triumphantly, in Touch”
Remembering Lee Remick as Lady Randolph Churchill
May 2021 marks thirty years since we lost dear Lee Remick. She was the accomplished actress who brought Winston Churchill’s mother vividly to the screen.
One of the finest-ever Churchill films, Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill, is available on CD. It was originally a television documentary, “The Life and Loves of Jennie Churchill,” broadcast on ITV in Britain and PBS in the USA in 1974. Co-starring with Remick were Ronald Pickup as Lord Randolph Churchill and Warren Clarke as young Winston.
Lee and GregIn 1991, two months before she died, we held an award dinner for Ms.…
He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020
“Why are you buying expensive pills over the counter?” asked Dr. John Mather. We were in an elevator during a 2001 Churchill Conference. “Don’t you have an honorable discharge from the Coast Guard?” He was then a Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service and Assistant Inspector General at the Veteran’s Administration. I’d never thought my four years with the USCG worthy of anything special, but I did have my DD-214. Mather said I was entitled: “We issue cheap pills.”
In the lift with us was Luce Churchill, married to Sir Winston’s grandson.…