As you might have guessed from the title, this week’s theme is Kings. Not quite sure where I’m going to go with that but I thought I’d kick things off with a few words about the guy we’ve known until recently as Prince Charles. Now of course he is King Charles III so before I get to him, I’ll just backtrack and start with the original King Charles.
King Charles
The first King Charles was of course, Charles I. Charles fell out with Parliament over his idea of the divine right of Kings. He was determined to govern without the assent of Parliament and this led to civil war. Charles was defeated and ultimately executed in 1649. One of my favourite historical films was Cromwell in which Alec Guinness gives a wonderful performance as Charles.
Cromwell ruled the country as Lord Protector until his death in 1658. His son took over for a while but was not as successful as his father. Parliament then voted to restore the monarchy and in 1660 Charles II returned to Britain from exile in Europe. Charles, like his father, had his own disputes with Parliament and he too ended up dissolving parliament in 1681, ruling without them until his death in 1685. His last words were apparently to do with his mistress, Nell Gwyn. ‘Do not let poor Nell starve’, he is supposed to have said.
I’m not a great fan of the royals but I’ve always respected Queen Elizabeth. Her quiet dignity and bearing were an inspiration to many. Since her death in 2023 her son Charles has ascended to the throne and I’m happy to see that so far things seem to have continued just as they did before. There was a time when I thought the best way forward for this country was with a president but could a president unite the country in the way that the Queen and her son Charles have done? The Queen has shown herself to be above nationalism, party politics and religion in a way that a president could never do and I hope the new king will continue that tradition.
The Lion King
The Lion King is an animated Disney musical. It was produced in 1994 and was apparently inspired by the Shakespeare play Hamlet. The film features the voices of various well known actors including Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons and even Rowan Atkinson. The story concerns Simba, a lion cub, who is meant to succeed his father as King of the Pride Lands but he is tricked into thinking he is responsible for his father’s death by his uncle who is known as Scar. Scar assumes the leadership when Simba flees into exile.
The film started life as an animated drama but later evolved into a musical and features original songs by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice.
The King of Rock and Roll
On the 16th of August 1980, a young woman called Ginger Alden was disturbed when her boyfriend got up from bed to go to the bathroom. It was around 9am but the two had not gone to bed until 6am that morning. Ginger fell back to sleep but when she awoke, sometime after 2pm, her boyfriend was not there. She went to look for him and found him on the floor of the bathroom, dead. His name was Elvis Presley.
Elvis was the man who had transformed popular music and inspired a generation of musicians that came after him. It could be argued that he single handedly created the youth generation because before he came along there was no youth culture, you were either a child or an adult, there was nothing in-between.
Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8th, 1935. The family moved to Memphis when he was 13 and the young Elvis went to school there graduating in June, 1953.
Elvis was a great music fan interested in rockabilly and rhythm and blues as well as southern gospel music. In 1953 and later in 1954, Elvis paid to have a disc made in the recording studios of Sun Records. The owner, Sam Phillips, was on the lookout for a performer who could bring a wider audience to the black music on which he focussed. He invited Presley to work with two musicians, guitarist Scotty Moore and upright bass player Bill Black. One great result of a session the new group had together was a recording of a song called That’s All Right. The record took off after it aired on local radio stations and along with live performances the small group began to take off locally.
In 1955 JD Fontana joined the group as their drummer and also Colonel Tom Parker took over as Presley’s manager, negotiating a recording contract with RCA. Elvis released Heartbreak Hotel in 1956 and it became a number 1 hit.
Presley created the rock n roll explosion but by the late 60s and early 70s he was no longer a driving force in music. Groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had moved the medium forward and Elvis, addicted to prescription drugs, was a bloated shadow of his former self. He died in the bathroom of his home in 1980.
Musical Interlude
When You Are a King.
The King of Hollywood.
Clark Gable was born on the 1st of February 1901 in a small town in Ohio. His mother died when he was only 10 months old and he lived with his uncle and aunt on their Pennsylvanian farm until his father remarried in 1903. He got on well with his stepmother who adored him but he left school aged 16 to work in the Firestone tyre company. He left home for good at the age of 21 after a row with his father who ridiculed his desire to become an actor.
His first wife, Josephine Dillon was 14 years older than him but she encouraged him to make the rounds of the film studios. With his second wife Ria, he moved to New York for work in the theatre and after some success was given a screen test by Irving Thalberg at MGM. Thalberg hated the test but even so, Gable was given a part in a western, The Painted Desert. As a result, Gable was given a second screen test which led to a contract at MGM.
His early films were of little note but a great success was Red Dust filmed in 1932 in which he starred with Jean Harlow. Gable played a plantation manager involved with Jean Harlow as a wisecracking prostitute and the film’s success made Gable MGM’s most important leading man.
In 1939 MGM loaned Gable to producer David O Selznick to play the part of Rhett Butler in Gone with The Wind, Margaret Mitchell’s story of the American Civil War. If ever there was a man born to play a part, Gable was born to play Rhett Butler, the dashing southern gentleman who falls for Scarlett O’Hara played, after a much publicised search, by Vivien Leigh.
Gable had a number of marriages, actually five in total, but the one that perhaps meant the most to him was his marriage to Carole Lombard. The two were a great match and married during the filming of Gone With the Wind. They bought a ranch in Encino, California and settled down to a happy life. When the USA entered the war, Lombard offered their services to the Government and the President felt that Gable could best serve the war effort by making patriotic war movies. Lombard went on a tour selling war bonds. On the last leg of her journey, returning to California by air, the aircraft crashed and all aboard were killed. Gable was devastated and not long afterwards volunteered for active service.
David Niven mentions the visits he had in England from Gable in his book Bring on the Empty Horses. His wife once found Clark in the garden of their small cottage, his head in his hands, crying for his dead wife.
Gable survived the war and in 1955 found love again with Kay Williams, marrying for the last time. His last picture was playing the part of a modern day cowboy in The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. Every day he came on set on time and knowing all his lines but usually was kept waiting while Monroe and Clift, both with troubles of their own, were either late or failed to appear.
He died of a heart attack not long after the film was completed. His pregnant wife gave birth to a son after his death.
Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr was an American Baptist minister and was one of the leaders of the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. He led marches and non violent protests for the right to vote, for desegregation and other civil rights. In 1963 he led a march to Washington where he gave his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.
The head of the FBI considered King a communist sympathiser and a dangerous radical. They spied on his private life and bugged his phones. King won the Nobel peace prize in 1964.
In 1968 he was planning more protests in Washington when he was assassinated.
Sources: Elvis, We Love You Tender by Dee Presley. Clark Gable: In His Own Words compiled by Neil Grant and Wikipedia.
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