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Not David - the other one, Richard, the actor.
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RIP, a screen great and quite a philanthropist to boot.
I was shocked when I first saw him play Pinky Brown in Brighton Rock and enjoyed the total contrast of him playing Lt. Richard Lexy in The League of Gentlemen. Both classics.
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Very sinister as Christie in 10 Rillington Place. RIP old boy.
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I have heard it said that dear, dear, dickie got his knighthood by mistake. He saw a letter intended for David addresses to D Attenborough Esq and assumed it was for him - David didn't have the heart to tell him he was wrong!
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>> I have heard it said that dear, dear, dickie got his knighthood by mistake. He
>> saw a letter intended for David addresses to D Attenborough Esq and assumed it was
>> for him - David didn't have the heart to tell him he was wrong!
There's another version.
The secretary to the honours committee saw the name D Attenborough on the list of nominations. Being keen on matters Thespian his immediate thought was 'they mean Dickie' and changed D to R.
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Yeah, proper actor. Was he the older Attenborough brother? I suppose he must have been.
Played so many sinister parts though. I think of him as Pinkie or Christie rather than someone decent. But you let yourself in for that when you embrace a thespian career.
My usual petrol station down behind our old gaff in the Grove was at the open end of Rillington Place, a cul-de-sac. All the old buildings had been demolished and new ones built, and the name had been changed to Ruston Mews. But it was the same street and still is.
Christie was something else, a seriously sinister piece of work, perverse as well as wicked. I still remember how ignorant people were in the forties, easily hoodwinked by vulgar jumped-up rubbish. Like that helpless cat Timothy Evans and his poor wife. That tale can still make you shudder to the depths of your being. Fallout from that vast orgy of murder and perversion, the Second World War. People were so used to mass murder that small stuff like that just made them shrug.
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Read the autobiography of Professor Sir Keith Simpson. He did the PMs on all involved in Rillington Pace, even Christie.
He maintains that all the forensic evidence pointed to Evans killing his wife Beryl 'cos he couldn't cope with another child on the way. He didn't have the heart to kill Geraldine, the baby, though.
He was charged with killing the baby but not Beryl as the DPP knew there would be an easy conviction, with the same penalty and no defence of self-defence or provocation.
After Evans' execution the Christie business came out and he admitted killing the baby. He denied killing Beryl and was not charged. Two killers in the same house ? Always a possibility. Evans had the mental age of a ten year old.
After this, later , Evans was given a posthumous pardon for killing the baby. But as he wasn't charged or convicted with killing Beryl, he couldn't be pardoned for that.
So, on the face of what Simpson knew, Evans should still have been topped !
Interesting stuff !
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>> Evans should still have been topped !
Evans was a helpless idiot manipulated by the gothic brute Christie. No one would find a halfwit like that guilty of murder now. But the legal system was still Victorian and administered by ruffianly old beasts of judges. Evans shouldn't have been executed any more than that other idiot Derek Bentley, old enough to die for his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig's murder of a policeman.
Having been alive during all that stuff I am still of the opinion that some individuals ought to be killed for the good of everyone else. The problem though (in the cases of those who have actually done anything) is that one has to be sure of their guilt. Perhaps the wimpish modern line that killing people sends the wrong signals has something to be said for it. Death is so final too. You can let people out of jail if they were wrongly convicted, but you can't bring them back to life.
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>> My usual petrol station down behind our old gaff in the Grove was at the
>> open end of Rillington Place, a cul-de-sac. All the old buildings had been demolished and
>> new ones built, and the name had been changed to Ruston Mews. But it was
>> the same street and still is.
>>
>> Christie was something else, a seriously sinister piece of work, perverse as well as wicked.
>> I still remember how ignorant people were in the forties, easily hoodwinked by vulgar jumped-up
>> rubbish. Like that helpless cat Timothy Evans and his poor wife. That tale can still
>> make you shudder to the depths of your being. Fallout from that vast orgy of
>> murder and perversion, the Second World War. People were so used to mass murder that
>> small stuff like that just made them shrug.
>>
The properties in Ruston Mews now sell for a million plus, rather less in the days of Christie and 10 Rillington Place!
I don't have the year of the Christie murders to hand, but I think I was in my late teens. I remember the dreadful jokes that were going round at the time.
Christie was arrested on Putney Bridge, if I recall correctly - scope for more jokes.
The story of his murderous career makes an interesting read.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christie_(murderer)
Last edited by: Duncan on Mon 25 Aug 14 at 07:12
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Poor old Attenboroughs, only remembered by the parts they have played and their verbal mannerisms.
There was a third brother, John, who was an executive at Alfa Romeo.
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I heard the news of his death this morning on the Ferry coming back from Rotterdam.
Top Actor in the films I have seen him in.
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So many good films, so many good performances.
A quick glance in my video shelf reveals a stack of great films he acted in.
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>>Poor old Attenboroughs, only remembered by the parts they have played and their verbal mannerisms.>>
What a rather bizarre comment.
They are or will be remembered for their very considerable talents and ability, along with the fact that they are clearly decent and greatly respected individuals.
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>>
>> What a rather bizarre comment.
>>
>> They are or will be remembered for their very considerable talents and ability, along with
>> the fact that they are clearly decent and greatly respected individuals.
>>
I was looking at the posts on this forum and noticing that it seemed to have turned into a discussion of the characters of Christie and the other participants in the Rillington Place murders.
Of course Richard Attenborough had numerous other talents, but it was the creepiness of one of his characters that sprang first to people's minds.
That's what happens to actors, and in his way David Attenborough is an actor too.
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As were the actors in the gorilla suits with David A. I liked that.
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Sorry, reminds me of that Alas Smith & Jones sketch
www.youtube.com/watch?v=beCYGm1vMJ0
:)
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>> but it was the creepiness of one of his characters that sprang first to people's minds.
That's what happens to actors, and in his way David Attenborough is an actor too.>>
That is what great actors create through their ability to reveal a character's true mask or traits.
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AC you're wrong with the location of Rillington Place.
It was renamed Bartle Road, and is a road of social housing. Not the million+ houses you claim.
If you go down Bartle Road, there is NO number 10. And where number 10 Rillington Place stood there is a space between buildings with a simple tree. Its bordered on 3 sides by flats and pavement side by small wall and railings.
I can't get the URL on Google Maps for it. Maybe for that reason.
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Attenborough (Decd.) was the ultimate luvvie's luvvie!
Dwarling.
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>> I can't get the URL on Google Maps for it. Maybe for that reason.
Maybe because you're just wrong about that. And it wasn't I who said the houses in Ruston Mews are going for £1m plus, it was someone else. They're quite small and glamourless, and it's a dark little cul-de-sac.
Has Ruston Mews been renamed Bartle Road? It's possible. I haven't looked at it for some years. But I seem to remember that Bartle Road is somewhere else, not very far away, where there's a Post Office you have to go to to get parcels that haven't been delivered. It was never Rillington Place.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 25 Aug 14 at 15:29
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>> And it wasn't I who said the houses in Ruston Mews are going for £1m plus, it was someone else.
No. Twas I and the reason I said is because it's true - well, according to Zoopla anyway.
Linky thing:-
tinyurl.com/lf7luvd
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Thank you Zero, and a qualified apology to Mr X. But the account is a bit confusing in itself, as are the maps.
However I didn't remember that Bartle Road, which I remember having to enter from the other end, runs towards Ruston Close but (as I remember it) is closed off at that end, so you can't go from one to the other directly.
All the new-built small houses in that area look pretty horrid to me, but they aren't just near-slums as their predecessors were. Lancaster Road which runs nearby is mostly gentrified these days, but the bottom end of it was pure ghetto/slum when I was first in that area in the late fifties.
There are a couple of enclaves of those small Victorian workers' houses in the area which have been done up and gentrified, but many were demolished in the fifties and even more in the sixties/seventies and replaced with these ugly grey brick equivalents. Obviously it's more economical (I don't mean cheaper, just cheaper for what you end up with) doing up a big house than a small one, and people wanting to do that tried to get houses closer to Notting Hill Gate where they were bigger, generally nicer and in better condition.
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Attenborough pops clogs. - zippy
