This Scottish producer’s life was immortalised in the 2013 crowdfunded film, The Last Impresario. Jewish and educated at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, White moved from being a Wall Street runner in the 1950s to the pinnacles of showbusiness in the 1960s and 1970s. Known for working on projects as diverse as Monty Python, The Rocky Horror Show, Enigma and White Mischief, this legendary playboy “can’t think about one good thing about growing old” and considers beautiful women to be “like living pictures”. White’s “Icarus-like downfall” into drugs and excess are well documented but, as he’d no doubt say himself, “the party must go on”.
Tag: West End
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Michael “Chalky” White
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Peter Wetherell: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
20 questions with Peter Wetherell, Mayfair’s leading estate agent
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
The revival of Mayfair as the best residential village of what is now called “Prime Central London” (PCL).
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“Better as a friend than an enemy”.
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Stuart Brayson
This singer-songwriter turned musical theatre composer began his career in the rock band Pop. His West End début with From Here To Eternity alongside Sir Tim Rice is already attracting much acclaim. -
Mapping anarchy
Anarchists issue a map of the corporations, individuals and places in Central London that they view to be the “hiding places of power”
“Activists and agitators” Stop G8 UK have published a map of those they think should be targeted in London’s West End.
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Daniella Westbrook (now also known as Daniella Jenkins)
A former Eastenders actress turned born again Christian whose car crash of a life is the envy of no one. She tragically destroyed her nose after wasting at least £250,000 on crack cocaine and even ended up being kidnapped and gang raped because of a drug debt. In 2013, twice married Westbrook announced: “I have given my life to the Lord”. Her story should be a lesson to many. -
Jerry Hall
Like a fine vintage, this Texan model and actress gets better with age. Mick Jagger’s former common-law wife was once engaged to Bryan Ferry and has dabbled with Kabbalah and other religions. A mother of four, Hall once stated: “I’m a very bad citizen. I’ve never even voted… I have zero interest in politics”. -
Penelope Wilton OBE
Yorkshire born and twice divorced, Wilton is the niece of actor Bill Travers. She’s performed widely but truly came to fame when she appeared alongside Richard Briers in the BBC’s Ever Decreasing Circles in 1984. As Rosemary in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads 2 and as Mrs Bibby in his The History Boys, she was brilliant but it is as Isobel Crawley in Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey that she is now best known. Wilton has most definitely got playing middle-class down to a tee and once commented: “I find talking about acting very boring, having to come out with platitudes about how terribly nice everyone is… I would much rather just do it”. -
Andreas Panayiotou
A self-made mogul and former champion boxer who cannot read or write fluently. He thinks “differently” and built a £400 million fortune by creating and then selling a buy-to-let empire of almost 6,000 rental properties. Panayiotou takes the view that it is “moral[ly]” right to pay taxes in Britain and of those who call Heath Hall, a £65 million property he developed in North London, as “impersonally hideous as a brothel”, he rightly responds: “These guys are just jealous”. This maverick is indeed a businessman worthy of admiration rather than envy. -
Sandi Toksvig
In 2013, this Danish-British former Liberal Democrat author and presenter stated: “The Duchess of Cambridge lacks a single [relevant] opinion”. The nation were far from impressed. “Toxic Toksvig”, as some refer to her, is a Cambridge educated lesbian and mother of three whose works number Hitler’s Canary and Heroines & Harridans. She started her career on the appropriately named Motormouth and once stated: “When I see comedian – and ‘comedienne’, of course I hate it – I think ‘Oh, really?’ because I think of myself as a writer and broadcaster”. Miaow! -
Dame Judi Dench CH, DBE, FRSA
Undoubtedly best known as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, Yorkshire born Dench briefly played Pru Forrest in the BBC’s The Archers. She’s an advocate for “more progressive drug policies” and only took the role of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride & Prejudice after director Joe Wright wrote to her and said: “I love it when you play a bitch. Please come and be a bitch for me.” There’s barely a role she hasn’t conquered.