One of the first Mary Quant models, Prudence Bury was part of Swinging London at its beginning. Prue appeared with the Beatles in “A Hard Day’s Night” before Mary sent her to New York to introduce the miniskirt to America.
Prue’s birthday isn’t until the 24th, but I’d better take advantage of this brief video while it’s available. Unfortunately, the BBC iPlayer doesn’t work in America.
Prue recently appeared on The One Show, talking about her old boss and chum Mary Quant, as a preview of an exhibition about the fashion designer at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, aka the V&A. I’ll have to ask Prue who the woman is speaking, standing next to her. Prue was clearly looking for an opportunity to speak up, but without more video there’s no way to see if she succeeded.
Dame Mary Quant was a trailblazer for women in business. An exhibition of her work opens tomorrow at the @V_and_A. pic.twitter.com/FkQBYB6aRS
Legendary New York restaurateur Mike O’Neal has died. I refer you back to this post of mine from eight years ago.
Mike and his wife Christine Covey O’Neal at the Boat Basin Cafe
On this day in 1963, JFK was killed and the Beatles released their second UK album. It was also the second day of business for a new restaurant in New York City, called the Ginger Man, later to be renamed O’Neals’.
We talked to brother Mike some more and decided to risk it all… Mike decided that if he was actually going to run a restaurant in New York City, it might be a good idea if he learned something about really good food and preparation thereof… so he enrolled in Dione Lucas’s cooking school… When Mike told Dione what we were doing and why he was in the class… in a matter of weeks Dione had closed the business and thrown in her lot with us, with the result that soon after we opened we got a rave four-star review from Craig Claiborne, the restaurant critic of the New York Times. — from Talk Softly: A Memoir, by Cynthia O’Neal
The New York Times has this obituary for Mike, with something I didn’t know about his namesake restaurant:
It was immortalized as the place where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton meet for their last lunch in the 1977 movie “Annie Hall.”
After John Lennon had returned to Manhattan from his year-long “lost weekend” in Los Angeles, he and Yoko were regulars at the restaurant, and they befriended Mike and his wife Christine who, along with their sister-in-law Cynthia O’Neal, happened to be good friends with Prue Bury. Cynthia and her husband, actor Patrick O’Neal, lived in the Dakota Building, where Yoko still resides.
A Thanksgiving wish for Mike O’Neal from John, Yoko, and Sean Lennon
John and Yoko were impressed with the manager that Mike had hired for the restaurant, and they told Mike they wanted to hire him away to run their dairy farm in upstate New York. Mike had no objection and he was happy for his manager, who left to run the farm. John and Yoko had the O’Neals on their Thanksgiving wish list less than two weeks before John was killed.
Mike was a great guy, completely open, friendly, and funny. Prue says, “He was a very special man and the epitome of kindness.”
A while back I was contacted by Gary James, who has a Web site called Classic Bands. He asked to interview Prue Bury, and after checking some of his previous interviews I put him in touch with her. Gary transcribes his interviews, rather than posting audio, and here is the link to his conversation with Prue.
Prue Bury, March 4, 1964
I bought the original print of this photo on an eBay/UK auction. It should be here in a couple of weeks. The Australian seller says the date on the back of the picture is March 4, 1964, which places it during the filming of “A Hard Day’s Night.”
I wrote to Prue and said, “I don’t know what pictures you might be missing in your collection. I’m hoping that seeing this one is a surprise for you. It certainly is for me!” Prue replied, “Very much so! Never seen it before, where did it come from?” I don’t know, but perhaps the seller has more information. I’ve had a similar experience a couple of times, where I was shown a photo of myself I’d never seen before, and I had no recollection of it being taken. One of them was from my business trip in Saudi Arabia. I should see if I can find it.
Something worth emphasizing is that knowing everything I do about Prue, her connection to the Beatles may not be the least interesting thing about her, but it is far from the most interesting. Even Prue’s birth is compelling, with her mother carrying her during the family’s flight from occupied Belgium to England. She was born during the last of the Nazi Blitz attacks on London.
A few years ago, a retired A&R man (artists and repertoire) named Chris Peers contacted me, requesting help putting him in touch with Prue, which of course I was glad to do. Peers was involved with Chris Blackwell and Island Records at the beginning, before branching out on his own. One of the acts he worked with was the Spencer Davis Group, with Stevie Winwood, as he explains in this video. Peers told me that he had a heck of a time pitching the band in America, before finally landing a deal with United Artists.
And this, of course, was the song that broke the top 10 for the Spencer Davis Group in America.
