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 New York in bloom
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Painting a beautiful scene in Central Park. 2:45 PM. Photo: JH. |
April 20, 2009. A beautiful spring weekend in New York with temperatures briefly reaching into the 70s and the tulips and daffodils blooming. On my way to dinner on Saturday night, with the FDR moving quickly though crowded, the cabbie told me it was the busiest Saturday night they’d had in months. We figured the great day raised everyone’s spirits and the town was out.
Last Tuesday saw the death in England of Sir Clement Freud, one of three grandsons of Sigmund Freud. Sir Clement, or “Clay” to his friends and family, is survived by his two older brothers – the elder Stephen, and the painter Lucian. Having arrived with their parents in London at the outset of the Second World War, escaping the Nazis. The Freuds, because of the brothers Lucian and Clement, became quite famous and accomplished aside from the reputation of their grandfather.
The Daily Telegraph of London had an excellent obit of Sir Clement clearly portraying the nettlesome nature of his witty and creative personality. Eclectic is the word that comes to mind. He was a public man who expressed himself quite freely in public without concern for how people might take him.
Another take on him came from my friend Margo Howard (who writes the “Dear Margo” on Wowowow.com), which I share with you before the Telegraph piece:
I first met "Clay" Freud at Hugh Hefner's house when "the mansion" was still in Chicago. It was the hub of social life for newspeople and visiting celebrities. It was great fun because the place was run like a hotel: 24 hour kitchen, household staff, and drivers.
Sunday night was Movie Night -- with popcorn of course, and libations. Dinner to follow. When the large Picasso that served as a kind of room divider was retracted into the ceiling, the movie screen came down.
The time I am remembering had to be in the late 60s or early 70s. I was in my late 20s or early 30s with a new press card and a soon-to-be ex-husband. Clay plunked himself down in the chair next to me. After the movie he very gently hit on me, and when that didn't fly we spent a lovely evening talking. I basically listened to him tell great stories. He was quite a raconteur. The two that were noteworthy and that I remember even now were the following, and I have never seen them in print.
He said Grandpapa had a wicked and dry sense of humor. He remembered walking through the public gardens (in Vienna?) and some poor soul was having an Epileptic fit on the ground. People were throwing coins. Young Clement had never seen anything like this before and asked Freud what was happening. The answer was that the man was having a neurological episode and it was tradition to throw coins. "But why aren't you throwing coins, Grandpapa?" "Because," he said the answer came, "he's not doing it well enough." Some people have said this sounds too good to be true, but it did come from a member of the family ... even if that family member was known as a performer.
The second story was actually fascinating -- if less entertaining. He said that all the five Freud grandchildren were quite rich, and no one really had to work. This was thanks to the Freud estate, though it had not been Grandpa Freud's intention. What he had meant to happen was to leave his real property and estate to his two children. The grandchildren were an afterthought, and so to them he left the publishing rights to his work. Of course he had no idea what posterity would make of him, and imagined the royalties would be a token for the children.
Farewell, charming man. |
From the Daily Telegraph - London
Sir Clement Freud, who died on April 15 aged 84, experienced the fullest and most public of lives as a gourmet, gambler, restaurateur, nightclub owner, lover of cricket, petanque and the turf, humorist, broadcaster and for 14 years a Liberal MP; for four decades he was also a witty and well-loved participant on the radio panel show Just a Minute.
Most men with such varied interests could be said to have enjoyed them, but Freud, having ruthlessly marketed himself as a celebrity, was unable to conquer a dyspeptic nature. This manifested itself in a lugubrious manner which made him less popular with those who knew him – even in that most tolerant of clubs, the House of Commons – than with those who heard him on the radio.
Freud’s near-lifelong estrangement from his artist elder brother Lucian was not of his making, however. When the then Clemens Freud looked like winning a boyhood race round a Vienna park, Lucian called out: “Stop thief!” and Clemens was seized by passers-by.
In England the bearded Freud, who bore an uncanny resemblance to King Edward VII, became a household name appearing in dog food commercials alongside an equally mournful bloodhound named Henry.
His journalistic output was prodigious, running the gamut from the New Yorker to the pre-Murdoch Sun. He was at his best writing on food and drink (he had been an apprentice at the Dorchester and trained at the Martinez in Cannes). He wrote about recalcitrant head waiters, overrated chefs and curmudgeonly customs officers, waging a ceaseless battle against their arrogance, even though not always free of the trait himself .
Once, having waited 25 minutes for turtle soup, he told the waitress: “If you are making fresh turtle soup it is going to take two days, and we do not have the time. If it is canned turtle soup, I do not wish to eat here if it takes you 25 minutes to open a can.”
Writing on cookery did have a downside. Freud observed that there was nothing more depressing than “when you are served up some miserable, inedible dish and the hostess leans over proudly to announce: 'It’s one of yours.’ ”.
Freud broke into journalism in 1956 as a sports writer for the Observer, first tackling food in 1961 as cookery editor of Time and Tide on the back of his success as proprietor of the Royal Court Theatre Club; he later wrote for the Observer and Telegraph magazines, doubling as a daredevil reporter who suffered frostbite on an RAF survival course.
He was a columnist and diarist for The Sunday Telegraph (initially on the City page), News of the World, Financial Times, Daily Express, Radio Times, The Times, Punch and the New Yorker. He wrote books for children, inventing “Grimble”, the sensible son of criminal parents, and regaled adults with Freud on Food and The Book of Hangovers.
Though Freud did appear on television between commercials, his hangdog, oyster-eyed look was not deemed a success. On the radio, however, his spontaneity and capacity to amuse were tailor-made for any programme requiring a facility with words and a quick wit, with Just A Minute the ideal vehicle. He was, unsurprisingly, an award-winning after-dinner speaker, despite, or perhaps because of, his rudeness toward other guests.
He lived by his wits, not least at the backgammon table. He was — until sacked for betting illegally in his own casino — a director of the Playboy Club in London and of Playboy International. Yet despite his involvement in the racy side of life, he said of Soho strip clubs: “As a piece of eroticism I prefer kipper fillets with brown bread.” A jockey in his youth and the owner of more than 40 racehorses, he was an accomplished pilot and once sailed from Cape Town to Rio.
Freud ('Clay’ to his colleagues) strove to be a serious politician but was never accepted as one. During his early years in the Commons he was greeted with barks whenever he rose to speak. Never at his best in the chamber, he was a victim of his reputation as a funny man, which got in the way of determinedly serious performances. Though never short of a provocative opinion, he could seldom punch his weight.
Due to the Liberals’ limited numbers he served as their spokesman on several subjects. His one notable achievement came in 1978 with an Official Information Bill that would have repealed the controversial catch-all Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, and established the right of freedom of information two decades before the more timid measure promoted by Tony Blair’s government. Freud secured a second reading despite entrenched opposition in Whitehall; it was some way through its committee stage when the Callaghan government collapsed.
Despite his unfortunate manner with colleagues and staff — he got through him nine secretaries in eight years — Freud was revered in his Isle of Ely constituency. An apparently freak by-election victor in 1973 owing to his celebrity status and the Heath government’s unpopularity, he cultivated his constituents — who initially pronounced his name as “Fried” — and they re-elected him to his seat (from 1983 North-East Cambridgeshire) at four general elections.
A grandson of Sigmund Freud, Clemens Raphael Freud was born in Austria on April 24 1924 to the architect Ernst Freud and his wife Lucie. Freud — who never practised as a Jew — escaped with his family to Britain after the Anschluss of 1938 and earned an immediate reputation for bumptiousness at The Hall, Hampstead. He completed his education at Dartington Hall and St Paul’s.
He worked at the Dorchester until called up for war service with the Royal Ulster Rifles; his introduction to Army life was, inevitably, bizarre. Apprised of Freud's origins, his CO sent for him and observed: “Mr Freud, I don’t quite know how to put this, but are you sure you’re on the right side?” By 1946 he was serving as a liaison officer at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. On demobilisation he headed for the continent in search of haute cuisine, before becoming catering manager of the Arts Theatre Club.
In 1952 he became proprietor of the Royal Court Theatre Club, making it a highly successful avant-garde dinner-and-dance venue in still-drab post-war London. He pioneered a menu of quality, took the stage with a decidedly lewd cabaret turn, gave Dudley Moore his first break and honed his skill in attracting headlines. He won two libel actions — one against the Daily Sketch for reporting that he arranged “hot babies” for his members (they were in fact young actresses babysitting at £1 a night), the other against the Empire News for stating that he aimed to break the four-minute mile on a diet of brandy. |
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Sigmund Freud with his wife Martha Bernays and her sister, Minna. |
Early in 1963 the Royal Court reclaimed the premises for its own use. Freud then ran a succession of restaurants — one at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park — and wrote and broadcast prolifically. He entered the realm of satire on David Frost’s Not So Much A Programme, the supposedly “safe” successor to That Was The Week That Was, but it was 1967 before his television career took off.
He was hired by Quaker Oats to appear with Henry advertising Chunky Meat Minced Morsels, a product made mainly from whalemeat which the firm’s executives said tasted “gritty, but quite good”. Freud accepted an “enormous fee”, declaring: “I get more than Henry. I don’t have a dog and I don’t eat dog food, so I can be neutral.”
The advertisement was a succès fou, winning awards in San Francisco, Tokyo and Berlin. The next year he began his association with Just A Minute, with Nicholas Parsons in the chair and Kenneth Williams and Derek Nimmo his initial fellow-panellists.
By now he was a celebrity in his own right. When George Best, at the height of his footballing fame, held a house-warming party, Freud was there, rubbing shoulders with Sir Matt Busby, Bob Monkhouse, Lionel Blair, Tommy Trinder and Imogen Hassall. The party — inevitably — attracted headlines, a police car allegedly having ferried in fresh supplies when the drink ran out.
Freud’s foray into politics came as a total surprise, giving rise to the suggestion that it was a stunt. Moreover with earnings he estimated at £55,000 a year, he did not need the parliamentary salary. Stunt or no, Freud waged an effective campaign in the Isle of Ely following the death of the Conservative Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, whose most memorable act had been to urge Harold Macmillan to quit at the height of his troubles.
On July 27 1973 he captured the seat, not even contested by the Liberals at the previous election, by 1,470 votes, picking up £3,000 in winnings having backed himself at 33-1. His election, mocked by some as the “theatre of the absurd”, put the parliamentary party back into double figures. And in February 1974 he was re-elected with a majority of 8,347. Freud inadvertently voted twice, having failed to cancel a proxy vote in Suffolk, where he had a home.
His first appearance in the House was unpromising, voting mistakenly with Labour on prices and incomes. But he made an impact as an impresario, setting up a saloon car race between MPs and peers, presiding over the formation of a parliamentary cricket club and being co-opted to the catering committee. He blotted his copybook when the Berkeley Hotel, of which he was a director, advertised gourmet evenings at the Commons with Freud for £13 each — cancelled after complaints that they violated Parliamentary privilege. But he had Fleet Street behind him when he resigned from the committee over a £20,000 order for German crockery made without Wedgwood, the previous supplier, being asked to tender. |
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Sir Clement Freud. |
Freud was not a party man. He had a habit of throwing tantrums at the Liberal assembly, either with delegates or the management of the conference hotel; one appalled him so much that he sought volunteers for an escape committee. He was a passionate but fitful education spokesman, upsetting some colleagues by pressing for legislation to let some children leave school before their 16th birthday.
He gave strong support to Peter Hain during his trial on bank robbery charges which turned out to have been concocted by South African intelligence. And when the Jeremy Thorpe affair broke in 1976, Freud was the only Liberal MP to urge that he stay on as party leader. He remained loyal to Thorpe, sitting close to him when the conspiracy charge against him came to court and being there to celebrate his acquittal.
With Thorpe forced to stand down, Freud backed David Steel to succeed him; Steel improbably made him spokesman on Northern Ireland, but he did the job soundly until moved to the arts portfolio after the 1979 election. More plausibly, he took the chair of the party’s finance and administration board.
His Parliamentary commitments did not limit his wider activities. In 1974 he was elected Rector of Dundee University, winning re-election three years later ahead of the soft porn star Fiona Richmond. He also used his political appeal to advance a lifelong commitment to children’s welfare.
A former secretary of the Refugee Children’s Fund, he set up, with Jonathan Aitken, a Parliamentary Den of the Good Bears of the World, providing teddies to children in hospital, and was later president of the Down’s Children Association. |
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More controversially, he remained a director of the Playboy Club until, in 1981, the police blocked renewal of the licence of its Clermont casino on the ground that Freud had gambled there while a director; he was said to have called bets on the roulette wheel even as the ball was dropping. Sir Hugh Fraser, whom Freud had beaten in an amateur National Hunt race, was also named. The Playboy board sacked Freud despite his claim to have lost overall over the years, and Beefeater Gin dropped him from its commercials.
In 1983 Freud held his seat for the Liberal/SDP Alliance by 5,195 votes despite adverse boundary changes. A clue to his continuing local popularity came when he sponsored a management buy-out of March Concrete, the biggest concrete pipeworks in the country, saving 60 jobs. In 1987, with Alliance fortunes waning, he finally lost to a Conservative; Steel secured him a knighthood.
After briefly considering a comeback at a by-election, Freud became a consultant to THF (later Forte), and later to the InterCity division of British Rail, pioneering a more palatable buffet car sandwich. His first creations were poached salmon and dill with mustard mayonnaise and Chinese leaves on oatmeal bread, and corned beef with red tomato chutney.
For many years Freud lived in a house in Boundary Road, St John's Wood, which he bought from BR to turn into a “dream home”. With more than the purchase price spent on refurbishment, Freud and the designer Jon Bannenberg became embroiled in a complex lawsuit. In later years he lived in Wimpole Street, at Walberswick in Suffolk and in the Algarve.
In 1950 Freud married the actress Jill Raymond; she, their three sons and two daughters survive him. |
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