Thematic splendour no more

Never mind Xmas. It's been quite a couple of weeks for clearing the "list of people still alive" from our "Dead or Alive" list. In the past few days alone Kenneth Kendall, Jack Klugman, Charles Durning and Gerry Anderson have died - and Richard Rodney Bennett too...

Here's the musical moment for which perhaps the latter will most be remembered - the score for the classic Murder on the Orient Express:

Richard Rodney Bennett - Murder on the Orient Express

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (29th March 1936 - 24th December 2012). RIP.

Just purse your lips and blow...

There are many people who are described as a "legend" these days, but there is only one Lauren Bacall...

One of Hollywood's most stunning actresses, who celebrated her 85th birthday yesterday, Miss Bacall set the movie screens alight on her debut in 1944 in To Have and Have Not when she smouldered the infamous line "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow."

From that moment on, the studios and the hot-blooded fans queued up to pay homage to the former Betty Joan Perske and a star was born...



Seven decades (and about seventy movies) later the diva is still working, with three films in production just this year, and remains one of the most beautiful women on the silver screen. Many happy returns to the lady who defines what it is to be "a legend".

Lauren Bacall - To Have and Have Not - How Little We Know

Murder On The Orient Express trailer

Lauren Bacall on IMDB