D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A VA N E S S A N O E L C E L E B R AT E D J A M A I C A ’ S U P C OM I N G S U G A R C A N E B A L L
Eva Costka
Andrew Lauren and Vanessa Noel
Revealing Big Secrets. In a recent issue of The New York Review of Books, Russell Baker, the distinguished former New York Times reporter and op-ed columnist, reviewed the new Leonardo DiCaprio film directed by Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar, about the longtime legendary head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. Baker, in his review, points out that the film goes easy on the founding director who ruled fearsomely like a dictator from 1935 until his death in 1972. Most Americans, including children of that era, were aware of his presence on the national scene, often seeing him speaking directly to the camera in movie newsreels. He was America’s Top Cop and he had a penchant for personal publicity. The F.B.I 26 QUEST
Ann Rapp
was his lair. He was assumed (by children at least) to be pure and perfect, and of course everyone believed it because that was The American Way for most of us. Those who thought otherwise kept their mouths shut for obvious reasons. After Hoover’s death, it came out that he had an active homosexual social life and even had a yen for crossdressing when in likeminded company. This was the kind of secret he kept on others which could threaten and even destroy marriages, careers (both professional and political), and private lives. The irony still flattens some people’s disbelief. Russell Baker neutralizes the “shock” with common sense: “It is a rare life that hasn’t a few deplorable incidents in
Anthony Haden-Guest, Christopher Mason and Peter Lyden
Larry Leeds and Elliot Rabin
Felicia Taylor and Connie Phillips
its chronicle. As Willie Stark observes in Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men, ‘man is conceived in sin, born in corruption, and passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud,’ and when someone looks deep enough for dirt, ‘There is always something.’” I laughed out loud when I read that. Coincidentally, I had only moments before finished Hal Vaughan’s book Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War (Knopf). My interest in Chanel—a name I’ve been familiar with all my life—came a couple of years ago when I bought a small, beautifully published paperback called The Allure of Chanel, by Paul Morand. However, when I opened it up to have a look, she got me right away. The book is
an “as told to,” as it were, and the woman’s dynamic and recalcitrant personality is compelling. Reading it, I could see she was a very difficult person to be around. Although she was orphaned at a very young age and brought up in a Catholic orphanage, she grew up to have a rich life full of highprofile love affairs with very wealthy princes, dukes, and businessmen who showered her with gifts and affection. She also had friendships with many of the creative giants and luminaries of her age — including Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Cocteau, and Misia Sert, who was probably her closest female friend. The world knows what happened: Coco Chanel became the foremost designer of women’s clothing
PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N
Jeanne Chisholm and Ben Ali Haggin