The Steeple Times

Category: CREATIVES

  • Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld (AKA “Vlad” Restoin Roitfeld)

    Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld (AKA “Vlad” Restoin Roitfeld)

    Vladimir Restoin RoitfeldThe Paris-born son of fashion editor Carine Roitfeld and Equipment shirt brand founder Christian Restoin, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld is the founder of New York art dealership of the same name. He’s the godson of the photographer Mario Testino and has dated the fashionista Giovanna Battaglia and “the female Roman Abramovich” Goga Ashkenazi. Restoin Roitfeld – described by Forbes as a “gentleman [who] means business” – has worked on exhibitions at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Sotheby’s S2 Gallery and Phillips de Pury. His set includes the “billionheir” Andy Valmorbida, the Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos and the artist Marco Perego.

     

  • Eli Wallach (1915 – 2014)

    Eli Wallach (1915 – 2014)

    Eli WallachOne of the finest ever “method actors”, Eli Wallach was a star of the stage and screen between 1945 and 2010 and once had to ask the director John Hutson for advice on how to play a drunk because he was a strict teetotaler. Brooklyn born and the son of a sweet shop owner, Wallach once stated: “The big secret in acting is listening to people” and added: “As an actor I’ve played more bandits, thieves, warlords, molesters and mafioso than you could shake a stick at”. In his final big screen appearance as Julius Steinhardt in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010, he used “ominous whistling” when he forgot his lines.

     

  • Anna Smith

    Anna Smith

    Anna Smith photoFormer Daily Record chief reporter Anna Smith has covered conflicts from Somalia and Rwanda to Kosovo. She was one of the first journalists on the scene after both 9/11 and the Dunblane massacres and now writes crime novels full time. In September 2014, she summed up the feelings of many when she wrote an impassioned plea to her fellow Scots to “vote No for the whole UK”.

  • Julia Child (1912 – 2004)

    Julia Child (1912 – 2004)

    Julia ChildCredited with bringing French cooking to Americans, Julia Child was a lady who once stated: “I believe in cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food”. A female equivalent of Keith Floyd and born in Pasadena, California, Child was too tall to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps in the Second World War but found work in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). She was sent to Ceylon to register, catalogue and channel “a great deal of highly classified communications” and after the war moved to France with her husband (who had also worked for the OSS). Having attended the renowned Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, cookery became Child’s love, life and vocation and a whole series of books and television series followed. Her kitchen is now on display in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. and her legacy lives on in the form of The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts.

     

  • Robert F. Kennedy III (AKA “Bobby Kennedy III”)

    Robert F. Kennedy III (AKA “Bobby Kennedy III”)

    Bobby Kennedy IIIA writer and film producer, Robert F. Kennedy III featured on the Town & Country ‘Most Eligible Bachelors’ list in September 2014. The son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his first wife, Emily Black, this Brown graduate has 1,200 followers on Twitter and is most typically photographed in a fedora. His credits include AmeriQua and ELEW: Live from Infinity and of politics, he tellingly once stated: “People that… get into politics too early, before they’ve had a chance to express themselves and kind of be free and do what they want to do, end up being the most corrupt politicians”.

     

  • Gérard Depardieu

    Gérard Depardieu

    Gerard Depardieu 2Vineyard owner and French actor Gérard Depardieu admitted to drinking up to 14 bottles of wine a day in September 2014 but also claimed he is “never totally drunk, just a little pi**ed”. (more…)

  • Sir Donald Sinden CBE, FRSA (1923 – 2014)

    Sir Donald Sinden CBE, FRSA (1923 – 2014)

    Sir Donald SindenBorn in Devon, Sir Donald Sinden was one of only two people known to have attended the funeral of Oscar Wilde’s lover (more…)

  • Keith Floyd (1943 – 2009)

    Keith Floyd (1943 – 2009)

    Keith FloydThis wine loving chef was brought up in a council house but educated at Wellington. After finding that he and the army were “mutually incompatible”, Keith Floyd took a job as a vegetable peeler. From this humble start, he progressed to owning a number of restaurants and presenting cooking shows for the BBC. Married four times and bankrupted twice, Floyd left just £7,500 in his will.

  • Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (1880 – 1963)

    Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (1880 – 1963)

    Sir Adrian Carton de WiartThis British Army officer served in the Boer, First World and Second World Wars. He was shot in the face twice in WWI and lost his left eye and was shot once through the skull, hip, leg, ankle and ear. In 1915, he lost his left hand and tore off his own fingers after a doctor refused to amputate them. Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart also survived two plane crashes, escaped capture twice, was branded a “model of chivalry and honour” by Winston Churchill and won a VC in WWII. Of the 1914 – 1918 conflict, he later wrote: “Frankly, I enjoyed the war; it had given me many bad moments, lots of good ones, plenty of excitement and with everything found for us”. Aside from his military might, Evelyn Waugh modeled the character of Brigadier Ben Ritchie Hook in his Sword of Honour trilogy upon this twice married, Oxford educated aristocrat and in retirement he is said to have enjoyed indulging in “pursuing salmon and snipe”. In male company he is described as having been “a delightful character [who] must hold the world record for bad language”.

     

     

  • Henry Cavill

    Henry Cavill

    Henry Cavill 2This Jersey born actor was educated at Stowe and has appeared in everything from Midsomer Murders to The Tudors. Henry Cavill didn’t quite beat Daniel Craig to play James Bond but as Superman he’s claimed plaudits galore. As a child he was nicknamed “Fat Cavill” but now he’s the one having the last laugh. He claims he could not live without a brown leather jacket he owns and has an interest in Egyptology.