I watched Royal Wedding (1951) last night was surprised to see that Fred Astaire's leading lady was the daughter of British PM Winston Churchill, Sarah. Eldergays, what can you tell me about her?
With that face - was Churchill Downs named after her?
by Anonymous | reply 1 | September 21, 2021 8:42 PM |
She died a hopeless alcoholic.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | September 21, 2021 8:42 PM |
She looks like a Mountbatten
by Anonymous | reply 3 | September 21, 2021 8:46 PM |
a Mountbatten
by Anonymous | reply 4 | September 21, 2021 8:52 PM |
I am more interested in her affair with American ambassador to Britain John Winant. He was a rising progressive politician who was very much presidential quality. It is believed the failure of the relationship contributed to the depression that led to Winant's suicide in 1947. Winant had a miserable marriage with a NYC socialite.
He twice served as Governor of New Hampshire: from 1925 to 1927, and from 1931 to 1935. He served his later terms during the Great Depression and responded in several ways. He oversaw an emergency credit act which allowed the state to guarantee debts of municipalities so that local governments could continue. He pushed through a minimum wage act for women and children. During the depression, Winant fought to keep improving the state's highways while reorganizing the state banking commission and pursuing more accurate accounting of state agencies' funds. Working closely with the federal government, Winant was the first governor whose state filled its enrollment quota in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Subsequently, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Winant to be the first head of the Social Security Board in 1935, a position he held until 1937. At the time, it was rumored that Roosevelt appointed Winant to prevent him from running for President in 1936, but Winant never admitted to Presidential aspirations. The next year, he was elected to head the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, from January 1939.
In 1941, Roosevelt appointed Winant ambassador to Britain, and Winant remained in that post until he resigned in March 1946. In a 2010 book, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour, the author Lynne Olson described Winant as dramatically changing the U.S. stance as ambassador when succeeding pro-appeasement ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Upon landing at Bristol airport in England in March 1941, Winant announced, "I'm very glad to be here. There is no place I'd rather be at this time than in England." The remark heartened a country that had come through the Battle of Britain and was in the midst of The Blitz, and it was featured dramatically on the front pages of most British newspapers the next day.
The new ambassador quickly developed close contacts with King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill even though the U.S. was providing only military aid and the Axis was not yet at war with the U.S. Winant was with Winston Churchill when he learned that Pearl Harbor had been attacked on December 7, 1941. Winant, according to the book, had an affair with Churchill's second daughter Sarah Churchill during that time.
President Harry S. Truman appointed Winant US representative to UNESCO in 1946. In 1947, Winant was only the second (and last) American citizen, after General Dwight Eisenhower, to be made an honorary member of the British Order of Merit.
In what amounted to a eulogy, The New York Times wrote of Winant two days after his death:
Here was a man who truly loved mankind and tried all his life to make the lot of his fellow-men better and happier... Governor Winant was a liberal Republican. When President Roosevelt summoned him to a larger field as head of the Social Security Board, his political opponents called him "a Republican New Dealer."
He is much more interesting than Sarah ever was. But I would love to see a story about their affair.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | September 21, 2021 8:57 PM |
I was trying to type the name of Louis Mountbatten's wife which begins with an E, but since the first 5 letters are also the name of a well-known DL troll whose name must now be forbidden, the only letter that comes out is "a". The point being, that Sarah Churchill looks very much like E. Mountbatten.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | September 21, 2021 9:27 PM |
Good heavens, I’m from NH and I’d never heard any of this. A true humanitarian. It sounds like he was dealing with depression; nowadays he could’ve been helped with medication.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | September 21, 2021 9:28 PM |
In spite of not needing to do so for money, one must respect that she was willing to get her ass up at dawn and get to the set or get to rehearsal on time to work. She was the original leading lady on Broadway opposite Robert Sterling in Gramercy Ghost, which remained a summer stock and community theatre perennial well into the 1980s, and you can still occasionally find a theatre company doing it.
She also would go into the hinterlands and be a "star" in summer stock, and the one recollection I've read of her in that rustic milieu says she was lovely to work with and wonderful in the show. Can't remember which play though. She did No Time for Comedy in stock with Butterfly McQueen, according to an ad on Ebay now, and also did productions of Rain and Pygmalion.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | September 21, 2021 9:37 PM |
Winston Churchill was a fucking Racist white supremacist.
Fuck him!
by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 10, 2021 4:39 PM |
Maybe he was just gassy.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | December 10, 2021 4:46 PM |
Yeah if that piece of shit Churchill never existed colonialist England would have been plowed over by the Nazis and all those immigrants would have had to stay in their countries where they belong. All those Poles and their stinking cabbage.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | December 10, 2021 4:49 PM |
YES single handedly defeated the nazis! The man was an original superhero
by Anonymous | reply 12 | December 10, 2021 5:11 PM |
He didn't "single-handedly" defeat anyone
by Anonymous | reply 13 | December 10, 2021 5:12 PM |
She look like a man.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | December 10, 2021 5:15 PM |
I thought the upper classes frowned upon their ladies being in showbiz.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | December 10, 2021 5:31 PM |
To R6, they were both "upper-class English Sluts". Also, they all drink like fishes. a Mountbatten fucked Nehru.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | December 10, 2021 5:43 PM |
It's a Mountbatten not A.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | December 10, 2021 5:45 PM |
Yes Churchill fought Hitler in a cage and beat the shit out of him ending the Nazi reign of terror.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | December 10, 2021 5:49 PM |
She looks like Rachel Creed's sister on "Pet Sematary."
by Anonymous | reply 20 | December 10, 2021 5:52 PM |