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.
For Prue, on her birthday. Something Prue once said, that made me laugh out loud was, “I assure you, Douglas, not all men who are ballet dancers are gay!”
Armstrong-Jones had a distinctive approach to his casual photos of women, having them wear one of his shirts, it seems. Here is one he took of Prue…
… and one he took of another friend, who Prue says, “wasn’t Tony’s type.”
On the Facebook group devoted to the Wrecking Crew movie, about the legendary Los Angeles studio musicians, a question came up about the lady on the cover with Herb Alpert on the “What Now My Love” album. I chimed in with an explanation, and look who liked my comment!
Expiring today on Watch TCM is the 1963 movie “The Haunting,” with Claire Bloom wearing clothes by Mary Quant.
This should start at the right point to see Prue. There’s an introduction you can watch by going back a bit in the video.
https://youtu.be/Pcf4R1kzYiQ?t=787
Prue was with Mary Quant and Vidal Sassoon from the very beginning, and it’s a shame she wasn’t given an opportunity to talk about those days at the start of Swinging London.
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
— BBC The One Show (@BBCTheOneShow) April 5, 2019
This is a preview video for the exhibit.
https://youtu.be/e_6oZoFDd48
Legendary New York restaurateur Mike O’Neal has died. I refer you back to this post of mine from eight years ago.
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.
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.”
