#Bela Zola

[undergroundrockpress]

Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach recording a song at the Pye studios in London. 29th November 1964. Photo by Bela Zola.

[pateralba]

Bir asker, Tiflis'teki 1 Mayıs 1960 kutlamaları sırasında oğlunu yağmurdan koruyor. Fotoğraf Bela Zola tarafından çekildi.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Gloria Holden (Dracula’s Daughter, The Life of Emile Zola)— She deserves to be alongside Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as the hottest classic movie vampires. She was the first major examples of the reluctant vampire and the lesbian vampire and should have gone on to become an iconic scream queen. Her voice, her amazing gowns, and her EYES! I would let her eat me any day

Alma Rosa Aguirre (Nosotras las Taquigrafas)—no propaganda submitted

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Gloria Holden:

She made an indelible impression on me in the title role in "Dracula's Daughter" as an elegantly tormented sapphic vampire failing to repress her urges to feed on women. What can I say, I'm gay.

ooooh my god. oooooh my god. She's got the cold high society woman with secret anguish thing nailed down. Also her role as Dracula's Daughter actually inspired Anne Rice. ok.

We owe Gloria Holden for the Interview With the Vampire book and the gay awakenings of baby goths everywhere.

Her performance in Dracula's Daughter inspired Anne Rice and she's name dropped in Queen of the Damned. A queer icon, for sure. And surely this poll needs some horror movie queens?

i'm nominating her particularly for her work as a lesbian vampire in dracula's daughter (1936), which was about as overt about the concept that she was trying to suck this unsuspecting lady's blood in a gay way as it possibly could be under the hayes code

Gifset: https://www.tumblr.com/down-in-dixie/700742136441831424

Gifset 2: https://www.tumblr.com/junkfoodcinemas/687098898667405312/draculas-daughter-1936-dir-lambert-hillyer

[paolo-streito-1264]

Bela Zola. Tea time at Waterloo Station, London. 3rd April 1957.

[hooked-on-elvis]

Elvis Presley with fans before press conference in Germany, March 1960. Photo by Bela Zola/Daily Mirror.

[gacougnol]

Brigitte Bardot

Cannes Film Festival

France, 2nd May 1955

(Photo by Bela Zola/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

[igotsnothing]

Shuffle your ‘on repeat’ playlist and post the first ten tracks, then tag ten people.

Oh, yes: tag game me! I was tagged by @akitasimblr, who is one of the first simblrs I ever followed. I love her edits, her sims (Maria and her "Woof-Woof" live in my heart rent-free), the Harper legacy (OMG, what a lesson on how to play legacies and I am failing splendidly...) and of course, LE CHAT. I was also tagged by my dear @greighish, who is the kind of person who when they enter the scene, they class up the joint, conversations get smarter, the air quality gets better, the silver polishes itself...You get the (museum-quality) picture: cool writer, music connoisseur, creative simmer, and kind and lovely human.

Thanks for the tag, friends!❤️

Umm... so nevermind that most of the selections on my playlist consist of morbid-sounding titles that make me seem like a hella off-brand Wednesday Adams. I am actually quite cheerful and upbeat when I'm lip synching to Pantera’s “Walk”.

Deadcrush- alt-J

The Actor- alt-J

Ave Plague- King Plague

Half Life- Zola Jesus

Wolf Like Me- TV On The Radio

Forever Suffer- Dark

The Killing Moon- Echo and the Bunnymen

Bela Lugosi Is Dead- Bauhaus

Taro- alt-J

Riverside- Agnes Obel

Who is gettin' tagged? Cool peeps: @crabbeychick, @silentsundown, @box-of-sims, and @ladysakuraavalon. You know the drill: feel free to ignore, etc. etc. etc. ❤️

[ludmilachaibemachado]

Paul Atkinson, guitarist of The Zombies, with his fiancee Molly Molloy, an American go go dancer, in London, 15th September 1967. Photo by Bela Zola💐💐💐

Via @isabelfutre on Instagram💐

[playlistjunkie]

The 99 Best Halloween Songs Your Party Playlist Needs ASAP

Cosmopolitan - 8/3/23

Bloody Mary - Lady Gaga

I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow

Superstition - Stevie Wonder

Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon

Halloween - Misfits

Highway to Hell - AC/DC

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) - David Bowie

The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden

Dracula's Wedding - Outkast

Is It Scary - Michael Jackson

Cemetery Drive - My Chemical Romance

Dracula - Gorillaz

Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones

Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeah

Unholy - Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras

Goo Goo Muck - The Cramps

Haunted - Taylor Swift

I Love the Dead - Alice Cooper

There Will Be Blood - Kim Petras

Nightmare - Halsey

Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites - Skrillex

Monster - Lady Gaga

Take What You Want - Post Malone

Disturbia - Rihanna

Feed My Frankenstein - Alice Cooper

Everyday Is Halloween - Ministry

She Wolf - Shakira

Bury a Friend - Billie Eilish

Dracula’s Wedding - Outkast feat. Kelis

Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.

Monster - Kanye West feat. Jay Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, and Bon Iver

Spellbound - Siouxsie and the Banshees

Season of the Witch - Donovan

All Around Me - Flyleaf

Tombstone, Baby - Peaches

Somebody’s Watching Me - Rockwell

Monsta’ Mack - Sir Mix-a-Lot

Witchy Woman - Eagles

Enter Sandman - Metallica

Love Potion No. 9 - The Clovers

Black Magic Woman - Santana

Suspiria - Goblin

I Was a Teenage Werewolf - The Cramps

Debaser - Pixies

Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac

Time Warp - from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Release the Bats - The Birthday Party

X Files - Génération TV

Dead Man’s Party - Oingo Boingo

Howlin’ for You - The Black Keys

Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar

Cold - The Cure

Ghost Ride It - Mistah F.A.B.

I Put a Spell on You - Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran

Halloween Theme - John Carpenter

Monster Mash - Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers

Bela Lugosi’s Dead - Bauhaus

Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby - Cigarettes After Sex

Night - Zola Jesus

The Haunted Man - Bat for Lashes

Red Right Hand - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Never Land - Sisters of Mercy

Tainted Love -Soft Cell

The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Primus

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah - Tracy Morgan and Donald Glover

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper - Blue Öyster Cult

Turn Off the Light - Kim Petras feat. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

Ghost Town - The Specials

(Ghost) Riders in the Sky - Johnny Cash

Are You Ready for Freddy - The Fat Boys

Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie

Devil in Me - Halsey

Zombie - The Pretty Reckless

Seven Devils - Florence and the Machine

Black Magic - Little Mix

Kill V. Maim - Grimes

Brujas - Princess Nokia

Mothercreep - FKA Twigs

Hang Me - Tancred

Haunted - Beyoncé

Bring Me to Life - Evanescence

Stranger Than Earth - Purity Ring

Bitch - Allie X

Roses - ABRA

Chimera - HANA

Gemini Feed - BANKS

Baby You're a Haunted House - Gerard Way

Zombie - The Cranberries

Spooky Scary Skeletons (Dma Illan Remix) - Andrew Gold

The Monster - Eminem feat. Rihanna

This Is Halloween - from The Nightmare Before Christmas

A Nightmare On My Street - DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince

Antichrist - The 1975

I'd Rather Be Burned As a Witch - Eartha Kitt

I Was All Over Her - Salvia Palth

Baby One More Time - The Marías

Thriller - Michael Jackson

[kinonostalgie]

Actor Sean Connery at The Savoy Hotel before heading to Las Vegas to shoot the latest James Bond film " Diamonds are Forever". He is pictured with the Rolls Royce which took him to the airport. 11th April 1971

Iconic Actor Sean Connery, known for his portrayal of James Bond, is captured in this timeless photograph at The Savoy Hotel before embarking on an exciting journey to shoot the latest installment of the legendary franchise, 'Diamonds are Forever. ' Taken on April 11th, 1971, this image showcases Connery's undeniable charm and suave demeanor as he poses alongside a sleek Rolls Royce that transported him to the airport. During the 1970s, Connery was at the peak of his career and had become synonymous with the iconic character of James Bond. His magnetic presence and impeccable acting skills captivated audiences worldwide. This print by Bela Zola perfectly encapsulates a significant moment in cinematic history when Connery embarked on yet another thrilling adventure as Agent 007. The combination of luxury car and esteemed actor creates an aura of sophistication and elegance. As one gazes upon this snapshot from Memory Lane Prints, it transports us back to an era where glamour reigned supreme in both film and fashion. It serves as a reminder of how movies have the power to transport us into fantastical worlds while leaving an indelible mark on popular culture. This image captures not only Sean Connery's larger-than-life persona but also pays homage to his contribution to cinema during this golden age. It stands as a testament to his enduring legacy as one of Hollywood's most beloved actors.

[thelenazavaroniarchive]

15th May 2024.

𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟒. The Daily Mirror ran an article about Lena Losing weight since her appearances on Opportunity Knocks, with a photograph taken by Bela Zola on the 26th April.

𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟕. The Sunday Mirror had a piece about how Lena was growing up, to publicise her appearance at the upcoming Royal Show in Glasgow, with a full length photograph by Harry Fox,

𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟖. The Nottingham Evening Post reviewed the SOS charity Variety Show held at The Theatre Royal the previous evening.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. The Evening Times mentioned Lena in an article about the opening of The Kelvin Centre in Glasgow, and also advertised her cabaret show in June.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. The Wishaw Press had an advert for the Kelvin Centre, including Lena in June.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏; the newspapers weekend tv pages listed Lena’s appearance on Saturday Night At The Mill.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. The Kent & Sussex Courier mentioned that White Rock Pavilion was soon opening for the summer season, and that Lena would be doing a Sunday concert there.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. The Brighouse Echo mentioned that Lena was one of the stars who would appear at the British Outdoor Show-World Championships in Roundhay Park, Leeds on the 16th and 17th.

On Saturday 16th she signed records at Woolworths, Birmingham in the afternoon, and in the evening she appeared in 'Saturday Night at the Mill'. On Sunday night she was at The Grand Theatre, Leeds so this was probably the day she appeared in the Show-World Championships.

𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟒. In Australia, The Canberra Times TV page listed a repeat of a Lena show on Channel 3 at 1:35pm.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟕. In The Louth Standard, The Embassy Theatre, Skegness advertised Lena's show on Saturday 30th at 8:10 pm.

Monday 15th May 2000. The Daily Record ran an article about Dorothy Solomon putting Lena on a diet as soon as she became famous:

LENA WAS PUT ON DIET AT 10; Star's long battle with anorexia began the moment fame's door swung open ... and her showbiz agent beckoned her inside.

Author: Morgan, Kathleen

Date: Feb 15, 2000

Publication: Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland)

ISSN: 0956-8069

SHE set out on the path to fame as a healthy, happy 10-year-old with a voice to die for and everything to live for.

But by the time the world had woken up to Scottish singer Lena Zavaroni's talent, her agent had put her on a diet. Lena's new eating regime was meant to be a healthy and nutritious diet.

But it sowed the seeds in the mind of the young star and her on a roller- coaster ride that would lead to her tragic death at the age of 36.

She was on a crash course to self-destruction and she still wasn't even old enough to leave primary school. Now, for the first time since the anorexic star's death last October, her family have spoken about the agony of watching Bute-born Lena starve herself.

They have recalled how the happy little 10-year-old singer was suddenly put on a diet after moving from her Rothesay home to stay with her London agent, Dorothy Solomon.

Soon afterwards, Lena started to complain about being too fat for her skimpy stage outfits.Lena's cousin Martha has described how the singer became obsessed with her weight after she moved south to the bright lights of London.

The big move came soon after her 1974 appearance on Opportunity Knocks - the talent show that would transform her from a schoolgirl into a star who would later rub shoulders with Frank Sinatra.

Martha said: "Lena said something to us about feeling a little bit overweight.

"But she came from Rothesay, with fish and chips and cans of baked beans and spaghetti, so Dorothy put her on a sort of healthier diet."

Martha's husband David added: "Lena was plump, but all the kids on the island were full of fish and chips, because that's all they ate."

Lena, whose father Victor worked in the family-owned fish and chip shop in Rothesay, was then introduced to a life of relative luxury at Dorothy's London flat.

She was surrounded by all the good things in life - but soon learned the art of self-denial.

The girl who was raised by Victor and mother Hilda, along with sister Carla, suddenly had a new maternal figure in her life.

She put her complete trust in Dorothy, eating what she was told and being careful to be on her best behaviour in her agent's plush Park Lane flat.

Martha said: "Lena had to be on her best behaviour. It was don't touch this or don't break that. Dorothy became her mother in a sense."

In a television documentary, The Real Lena Zavaroni, to be screened on Channel4 on Wednesday, February 23 at 10pm, David added: "When she came to Dorothy's house, she began eating beautiful food, such as desserts with cream. Suddenly, it was: 'What's going on here?' It was something she had never had before."

Soon the tell-tale signs of an eating disorder began to show, but no one dreamed that Lena would ever be diagnosed anorexic by the age of 16.

David recalled: "She did say: 'I've got to wear all these silly costumes and try and get into them and be with it for the TV'." Dorothy was convinced Lena was going to be the new Barbra Streisand.

After her history-making appearance on Opportunity Knocks, she took the singer on tour in Japan and America with her hit album Ma.

While other children were still in the playground, Lena was singing in the White House and was meeting President Gerald Ford, comedian Jerry Lewis and, of course, the legendary Frank Sinatra. With such a hectic performing schedule, Dorothy knew that Lena had to leave Rothesay far behind.

The agent compared Lena's life with her to staying at boarding school.

She said: "It was awkward because Victor and Hilda were on the island with Carla.

"Lena would phone them every night and went home on the school holidays.

"It was like being at boarding school, really."

The agent admitted she wasn't the maternal type and had never wanted any children of her own. She said: "I stuck to dogs and horses. Children were never in my plan."

Lena's insatiable appetite for work hid the emotional turmoil that was going on behind her broad showbiz smile. Dorothy complained that she was legally obliged to wait until Lena was 14 before she could increase her workload from 39 to 80 appearances a year. The singer also launched her own television show. Dorothy said: "Until children are 14, they can only do 39 dates a year."

She added: "There wasn't the great opportunity when she had her hit song to appear a lot and make lots of money."

But by the age of 16, Lena was finally diagnosed as anorexic. The truth about her life-threatening condition shocked her family, admits her father Victor. He said: "When Lena came home, she was very thin. I thought it was maybe a transition between being a teenager and an adult. "I never thought in a million years she wasn't eating."

Later, he was to beg with Lena to eat on a daily basis, pleading with her to think of her family if not herself.

Looking back, Martha says the family should have known Lena was vulnerable to anorexia nervosa, a condition which doctors believe could be hereditary.

The singer's mother Hilda suffered from mental illness and died in 1989 after an overdose of drugs and alcohol. Lena subsequently attempted suicide herself.

Martha said: "Lena's mother was a really wonderful, bubbly person. "But she had a nervous disposition and when Lena became famous, she found it very difficult to cope. I'm not saying it was actually the fault of Lena's mother, but there's a possibility this is where Lena's problem stemmed from."

After sending Lena to psychiatrists, hypnotherapists and acupuncturists, her family ran out of ideas. The last resort was a stay at Canada's Montreux clinic, which led to the three-and-a-half stone Lena undergoing pioneering brain surgery at a Cardiff hospital. But she developed an infection and her frail body wasn't able to recover.

Dorothy was concerned that the operation was too risky for her former protege, but Lena was determined to go through with it.

The singer had never lost the stubborn streak that had pushed her relentlessly through a gruelling career.

Shortly before a probe was inserted into the area of Lena's brain that controlled her emotions, the singer was planning her comeback.

Dorothy said: "I thought it was a drastic step, but she was determined to have it done. Lena asked me if I thought she could make a comeback and I said 'yes, of course she could'."

But Victor believes Lena might not have lasted much longer, even if she hadn't had the operation.

He said: "I wish I had said to her not to have the surgery, but you just don't know. For how much longer would she have been here?"

It was a sad end to a fragile life that was on a slippery slope from the moment Lena took her first steps to stardom all those years ago.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Record.

𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎. The John Hannam Archive Volume 1 was released, this is just a short sample of his interview with Lena, Sadly John died on the 22nd September 2021.

[byneddiedingo]

Ivy Close and Séverin-Mars in La Roue (Abel Gance, 1923)

Cast: Séverin-Mars, Ivy Close, Gabriel de Gravone, Pierre Magnier, Georges Térof, Gil Clary, Max Maxudian. Screenplay: Abel Gance. Cinematography: Gaston Brun, Mac Bujard, Léonce-Henri Burel, Maurice Duverger. Art direction: Robert Boudrioz. Film editing: Marguerite Beaujé, Abel Gance. Music: Arthur Honegger.

The plot is operatic, the technique is novelistic, and the aim is tragic. Abel Gance's La Roue (aka The Wheel) never satisfies on any of those counts, but it's not without a lot of effort on his part as well as his actors and technicians. At its premiere, it ran for somewhere between seven-and-a-half and nine hours (depending on which source you trust), spread over three days, and was a success, earning praise from Jean Cocteau among others. Gance then produced a cut that ran for two and a half hours, which was the version most people saw for many years until film historians set about to reproduce the original. That restoration is the one I sat through for sevenish hours spread over four nights on the Criterion Channel. I have seen seven-hour movies (and some that seemed like it) before, most notably Bela Tarr's Sátántangó (1994). The urge I usually have afterward is to try to justify the expenditure of time, typically by categorizing it as an "immersive experience." That approach works with films like Tarr's, which has a grounded reality to it that provides a look into a human existence other than my own, which is the aim of all narrative art. It's less easily justified when the film is as preposterous as Gance's is in many ways. I said it was operatic in its plotting, and here it's useful to think of the melodramatic excesses of works like Verdi's Il Trovatore, based on a florid Spanish play that involves foundlings, mistaken identities, and people torn between passion and duty. La Roue has a foundling, survivor of a train wreck, rescued by a railroad engineer who raises her along with his own son, allowing both of them to believe they are siblings, which works until she blossoms into a young woman and first the father and then the son realize they're in love with her. The treatment of this story evokes, as others have noted, the novels of Victor Hugo and Émile Zola, but it also reminds me of Thomas Hardy's works, in which fate (which Hardy calls "hap," or the blind workings of chance) forestalls any efforts by the protagonists to chart their own course. And since the story involves a kind of incestuous passion, the legend of Oedipus comes to mind, and sure enough Gance quotes Sophocles in one of the intertitles. But of course it's a movie, and that necessitates a good deal of spectacle, starting with the train wreck that sets the plot in motion. La Roue is never dull, and it's sometimes emotionally affecting, but it's not an opera (although Arthur Honegger's score suggests its potential in that regard) and it's not a novel or a tragedy. It's a movie, and one with a great deal to watch if you're willing to commit seven hours to it, but I think you have to be devoted to learning about the craft of movie-making to profit much from it.   

[xtruss]

The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II! It Seemed That Everyone in The World Was Here.

— By Mollie Panter-Downes | June 5, 1953 | Letter From LondonJune 13, 1953 Issue | May 5, 2023

Photograph by Bela Zola/Getty Images

June 4

This Coronation, the older generation of the young Queen’s subjects say contentedly, was the last they ever expect to see. It was probably the most superb and certainly the most moving one that anybody now living has seen. To lots of English, going over every minute of the big day in endless discussions, it seems to have been a vast prize package that made up for the long years of drabness. Its complicated rituals and pageantry contained elements of the ancient magic of the Old Testament, of Hans Christian Andersen, and of “The Golden Bough;” a bit of “Plain Tales from the Hills;” and various antique traditions treated with brilliant modern showmanship, and it turned out wonderful. Everything turned out wonderful but the weather, and even that, Londoners loyally declare between their sneezes, could not spoil it.

On Sunday, the nation asked God to save the Queen in services held in big cathedrals, in the dank Norman chill of little country churches, and on village greens under the undenominational sky. Having made their peace with Heaven, citizens spent Monday stocking up on the big day’s bodily needs. There were long queues at all the bakers’ shops for bread (which ran out, making it almost seem that housewives had panicky ideas of preparing for a prolonged siege), and other queues for sweets to assuage the pangs of thirst, for bottles to do the same thing more festively, and for plastic raincoats to pop prudently into the basket, along with the thermos flasks and the sunglasses. Right up to the last minute, there was a great bustle of workmen hammering and heaving decorations into place along the route. Householders clambered precariously out on their window sills with their mouths full of tacks and their hands full of red-white-and-blue streamers, and a stroll around the sights was enlivened by the risk of a shower of potted hydrangeas, crashing from the hands of florists’ men feverishly fixing shop and hotel fronts with banks of fresh flowers.

Suddenly, after all the doubts and rumors about how many visitors were going to turn up for the Coronation, it seemed that everyone in the world was here. Bus conductors, benignly eying cargoes of passengers who sounded like a Berlitz school with the roof off, bawled “Picc-dilly Cir-cus” to longhaired Dyaks in lounge suits, lovely Indian ladies in dragonfly-colored saris, and unidentified Asian exotics in striped robes and intricately tied headdresses. All day, taxis with their tops down cruised along the processional route (though cruised is maybe hardly the word for the slow crawl through the wedged traffic) with people perched all over them waving Coronation balloons, sucking pop bottles, and gaping up at the banners. By midday, the curbs along the Mall, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, and other key spots for viewing the next day’s show were crowded with people setting up housekeeping in the gutter among their bundles and their bits of shabby bedding as handily as though they were back in the old blitz days of sleeping in the tubes. (“Run along to the lady two places down, Mavis, and ask her if she can oblige with a tin opener.”) They had brought their food, their radios, their cards for patience, their old people, who were swaddled in rugs and leaned against lampposts as though they had grown there, and their infants, who placidly chewed on Coronation ribbons pinned to stout maternal bosoms and stared with interest up at the sky, which unkindly darkened and hurled chilly rain on them. The route instantly sprouted acres of sodden mushroom shapes, as people squatted under small tents of blankets or rubber groundsheets. As a demonstration of damp mass devotion, the huddled Coronation-eve multitudes would have mightily astonished the English of other days, who sometimes lampooned their monarchs and sometimes died for them but would never have thought of risking pneumonia for them. It was sad that the Queen did not get the traditional royal weather, which (as one of the “Golden Bough” touches) is supposed to react to the presence of the royal person with beaming skies.

Coronation Day dawned cold and dry, continued cold and wet, and appeared to be about to usher in a new ice age as well as a new Elizabethan Age. It was the meanest June day that anyone can remember. In its glum early light, alarm clocks started to buzz all over London like a swarm of irritable hornets, and the first groups began to traipse through the streets toward the bus and tube stations, where they bought the morning papers and read the great news about the Everest climbers. The police had artfully encouraged citizens to leave their cars at home by ruling off a large Coronation area in which motoring was forbidden, and by issuing passes for various official parking lots that were so far away most people gave up and took to the bus or their own feet. Scotland Yard was also, it developed, extremely canny with its constant propaganda to the effect that if holders of tickets for the official stands did not get along to their places bright and early, they might find it impossible to struggle through the crowds later. This worked fine for everyone but the obedient members of the public, who were in their seats, virtuously munching their breakfast hard-boiled eggs, by six or seven o’clock, as requested, and viewed with no pleasure at all the ease with which less docile late-comers strolled into their seats, cool as cucumbers and pink with delightful sleep, two, three, and even four hours later.

As early as five-thirty, there was a great to-ing and fro-ing outside the Abbey of ushers, officials of one kind and another, and early arrivals in curious, resplendent garments. Loudspeakers were everywhere, and the B.B.C. filled in the moments when there was nothing to look at by relaying jolly dance music and warnings to householders, passed on from the R.S.P.C.A., not to forget to feed their pets in the excitement of the day and to be sure to see that no feathered friends had nested in Coronation bonfire piles to be set alight that evening. At the Abbey and all around Parliament Square were stands resembling the high, scalloped galleries of a medieval tilting yard, painted clear blue and yellow, and decorated with shields and little pennants flying aloft. These stands were full of visitors from the Commonwealth nations, which had sent by air magnificent floral decorations for them. The Canadian and Ceylon sections were banked with masses of strange flame-yellow and parakeet-green blossoms, and from one corner jutted a fabulous floral umbrella (mournfully appropriate to the day) composed of massed lotus buds and orchids, which had been flown in as a present to the Queen from India. In the icy morning air, these lovely things looked as nipped as some of the fine dark faces in the Ceylon stand.

The ladies hurrying into the Abbey also looked fairly unhappy in their regulation gowns of pale brocade; short, stiff matching veils flowing from the backs of their heads; and only brief fur wraps covering their bare arms and bosoms. The warmest-looking, most envied guest was a stout African chief who arrived in a cozy mantle that seemed to be made of colored blankets. The males certainly outshone the females in their splendor, with a perfectly stunning sartorial diversity of scarlet tunics; gold-laced velvet coats; stovepipe trousers showing off thin, horsy legs; Highland kilts showing off brawny ones; blue cloaks blazing with decorations; spurs; swords; and fancy-dress hats, trimmed with bottle-brush plumes or swan feathers, that they nursed tenderly in the crooks of their arms, as though carrying valuable roosters.

The peers and peeresses were pure Tenniel, needing only flamingos and croquet hoops to complete the absurd and gorgeous picture. One peer drove himself and his lady to the Abbey in a small gray car, which appeared to be occupied by two splendid, bulging polar bears. Only the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Marquess of Bath availed themselves of the old privilege of the nobility—rarely exercised now that the stables of the great country houses are either closed or used as tearooms for visiting tourists—of showing up in style in their family equipages. The Bath coach was pale canary, with buttercup-yellow liveries for the powdered footmen and coachmen, and the Shrewsbury turnout was blue and pale yellow. (The Earl’s footmen, clinging gamely to the back of the jouncing thing, were his butler and his brother-in-law, going along for the ride.) The hours of waiting for the Queen’s arrival at eleven o’clock were nicely diverted, too, by the spectacle of the various small processions that, by miraculous stage management, passed under Big Ben right at their scheduled moments. At eight-forty-five, the Lord Mayor’s gold-and-scarlet coach, which was built in 1735 and looks a mite uncomfortable in 1953, rumbled across the square amid its marching guard of Cromwellian pikemen. At nine-thirty, the Speaker rode across from the House of Commons in his painted coach, a square, rickety vehicle looking like a tea caddy on wheels, which shook abominably on its antique springs and was guarded, according to tradition, by a lone trooper of the Life Guards, jogging in the rear. The person who, apart from the Queen, really stole the show, though, was the enormously tall, powerfully built, and engaging Queen Salote of Tonga, the tiny British protectorate that at the outbreak of the Second World War stoutly cabled the allegiance to the Crown of its thirty-four thousand souls before anyone else had got around to reaching for a pencil. Queen Salote won the spectators’ hearts by riding in an open carriage through one of the day’s cold downpours, and beaming and waving as though she loved every soaking moment of it. (The three other carriageloads of sultans and sultanas in her procession stopped and cautiously had their tops closed to protect their dazzling jewels and cloth-of-gold garments.) Sir Winston Churchill, beaming like a moon from out of the midnight blue of his Garter finery, also got a big, affectionate hand when he arrived in the carriage procession of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. Each Prime Minister had his own mounted escort—Pakistan lancers in gauzy black-and-silver turbans for Mr. Mohammed Ali, scarlet-uniformed Royal Canadian Mounties for Mr. St. Laurent, slender, elegant Singhalese in white tunics with white pennants fluttering from their lances for Mr. Dudley Senanayake, of Ceylon, and so on. Mr. Nehru was wildly cheered. Dr. Malan was politely cheered by some. The Queen’s approach was signalled by the squealing rapture, high above the great clamor of bells, of the thousands of school children watching her go by along the Thames Embankment. She looked happy and unexpectedly bridal—the white dress, the bouquet of white flowers, and the handsome husband (who was cheered all for himself, and warmly, when he appeared with her later in the day on the Buckingham Palace balcony).

Together with the rest of the world, the crowds outside the Abbey heard the immense ceremony begin with the Recognition—the tremendous, thrilling fanfares from the trumpets and the ringing, shouted injunctions, four times called to the four corners of the ancient walls, which indeed had ears, to God to save Queen Elizabeth. Everyone then settled down to listen, which in the wet and drafty stands presented some slight problems. Was it all right, for instance, and not an awful bit of lése-majesté, to gulp a surreptitious cup of coffee while the Queen’s hands were being touched with the golden spurs of chivalry and she was receiving from the Archbishop the “kingly sword” with which to protect the right and punish the wrong? But at last it was over. The Queen had been crowned with the huge, hideous, sacred St. Edward’s Crown (and there was an astonishing emotional silence in the packed streets when this moment came). The trumpets shrilled again and the Tower guns roared, to the alarm of the neighborhood pigeons, and hundreds of Her Majesty’s subjects uncoiled themselves thankfully out of approaching rigor mortis and struggled along for a nip of something strong and reviving at the bar beneath the Abbey stand.

The return parade began in pouring, relentless rain, which turned khaki uniforms to greenish black as they clung to the soldiers’ backs, took the crispness out of the marvellous Pakistan turbans, and so bedewed the Foot Guards’ bearskins that they looked as gray as the grizzled mops of the elderly Fiji chieftains. The stout white-stockinged calves of the footmen on the royal carriages were pale-strawberry pink with the dye from their crimson velvet pantaloons. But the rain could not dampen the mad excitement of the crowds camping out on the sidewalks and watching the old glamorous, Kiplingesque trimmings of Empire swing by—the dark faces and the white, the smart scarlet tarbooshes of the Africans, the turned-up Australian hats, the wild-looking men from Papua and Samoa, the small, neat Gurkhas, and the Pakistan pipers hung round with leopard skins. The British regiments were also quite a sight in their various bottle-green or scarlet frogged tunics, their plaids, their colored pants and their fur caps, and with their standards decorated, by tradition, with bouquets of fresh white roses or laurel wreaths or sprigs of bay. The most comical sights in the parade were the mounted Navy and Air Force officers, who joggled along unhappily on their restive horses, which they patted beseechingly from time to time. It was the first really remarkable show of men marching wonderfully in all their wonderful-looking prewar finery that London had seen since the war. It culminated in the expected but somehow extraordinary spectacle of the gleaming, barbaric coach, slowly rolling along like a ponderous golden juggernaut, with (as it appeared to some sympathetic onlookers) its dedicated sacrifice inside—a young woman looking pale, grave, and extremely small under a crown which, as a painful reminder that uneasy lies the head that wears one, blazed with more than three thousand weighty, luminous stones, including the great, rough ruby that Henry V wore in his helmet circlet at Agincourt.

The end of the day was celebrated with floodlighting, fireworks on the river, champagne flowing expensively at gala dinners in all the big restaurants, beer and community singing flowing in the pubs, and people flowing down the Mall and Constitution Hill to floodlit Buckingham Palace, before which they squeezed together and swayed and shouted for the Queen. An innovation that brought the age of the palais de danse right up to the Palace gates was loud, raucous dance music, broadcast with an intensity that must have shattered the nice quiet evening the maternal section of the crowd was audibly hoping the Queen was having with the “Jook” after their tiring day. There was not much dancing. Here and there, a couple jived under the trees to something called a Coronation samba, and a ragged conga line determinedly shuffled along the Mall, under the arches and the suspended golden crowns that, when floodlit, are certainly the most beautiful sight to be seen in London. The crowd was good-tempered and orderly, wildly cheering the Queen when she appeared on the balcony, and then grabbing the children and starting to trudge home to bed.

The bitterly cold evening and the showers probably kept thousands of people off the streets. St. James’s Street, where the clubs were hung with brilliant heraldic trappings, behind which their members were, no doubt, toasting Her Majesty in their cellars’ remaining vintage port, was soon as silent as on a wet Sunday afternoon, and in Berkeley Square, pretty as a Watteau féte champétre with its rain-soaked rose garlands looped among the trees, the canned nightingale, installed for the season, gurgled to only a few peacefully strolling lovers. Groups of white-coated workmen began to appear and started pulling down the wooden traffic gates. The great day for Elizabeth and for England was over—or maybe, as people seem emotionally to believe, it had just begun. ♦

— Published in the print edition of the June 13, 1953, issue, with the headline “Letter From London.”

[chicinsilk]

Tippi Hedren at Claridges Hotel, 23rd August 1963.

(Photo by Bela Zola Mirrorpix Getty Images)

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[decadesfashion]

Jean Shrimpton by Bela Zola, 25th October 1967.

[swanlake1998]

maria tallchief photographed by bela zola/mirrorpix