Free Did You Really Shoot the Television? by Max Hastings Page B

adored, as he did the play’s star, Cyril Maude. From the ship, he wrote to his wife full of hopes:
26 March 1923
    Adorable Bill,
    No, I’m not a bit worried about the London failure. They are cowardly and incompetent and one can only pity them. The play is a great success in Australia. Sir George Tallis cables: ‘Winter opened splendidly. Excellent performances. Prospects good. Think undoubted success.’
    We shall succeed here, don’t you worry. How I will fondle you when I come home. I almost reel when I think of pressing your hair to my face. Billie, I love you, I love you. If you don’t spend at least £10 on yourself, I shall be angry . Everything you have on when I come home must be new to me…There is a certain amount of dancing every night, but the ship rolls too much for it to be enjoyable. Maude is splendid company. I have had the entire story of his past life, as I fancied I would, not to mention complete details about all his family…Cyril is very perturbed as to whether to be a bad man for the rest of his life or very religious. I have persuaded him to be very religious. We lunch today with Lord Chichester in the Ritz Carlton restaurant. His name is ‘Eggy Eric’.
    There is a priest on board, and there will be mass tomorrow in the card room. I was amused to find that the water is rough in the swimming bath.
    From the St Regis in New York a fortnight later, he wrote:
About a million damned Irishmen have just marched down Fifth Avenue because of St Patrick’s Day. I longed for a machine-gun. Did all the shows. David Belasco rang me up this morning and offered me seats for The Comedian on Thursday, and Kiki on Friday . Kiki has been running for years and is said to be wonderful. Here’s a letter I’ve had from Mac. I think I’ll write to him now – and Beryl. I’ll buy them both wrist-watches – and for you a handbag, silk stockings, & (I hope) some undies. [On dress rehearsal night] over 1000 dollars advance booking yesterday! Laurette Taylor has asked me to dinner and is going to show me the film of Peg o’ My Heart at her house. She’s a darling, but I can’t fall in love with any more girls just now. Rather rotten for you about the drains – keep Weston up to the scratch. No, I’m not dancing, but I have a good time apart from aching for you.
    We open at the Gaiety (perfect theatre) on Easter Monday. Cast splendid. It will be a vastly better show than London. Peggy is a divine Effie…Everyone predicts gigantic success – but, oh dear, how often have I heard that word! Gave a dinner party and bought a bottle of whisky for two guineas. Saw Nazmura last night – worst play I’ve ever seen…Your eternal lover, BASIL.
    Mac wrote to his father from Stonyhurst: ‘Thanks awfully for your letters, you seem to be staying at a ripping hotel. I hear you are having filthy weather in New York. I should like if you please a present of a wrist watch from America, a little one. So with heaps of love and good luck to the success of the play…’
    However, to Basil’s bitter dismay, the New York venture failed. The play closed within a month. He returned to London, still the man who wrote The New Sin , a pillar of the Savage Club, friend of GeorgeRobey and Edgar Wallace, favoured literary protégé of Lord Beaver-brook. He was painted by the fashionable portraitist James Gunn, but though he was still in his early forties, Basil’s features already suggest a disappointed man, rather than a rising one. His income declined steadily. He had saved nothing in the good times. From 1925 onwards, his health declined rapidly. Late in 1926 he was diagnosed with bowel cancer, which had killed his mother Lizzie only six years before. The last months of his life were a torment of pain and financial fears. Like all the family, Basil had lived for the day, spent freely, taken no heed for the morrow. Royalty income from his plays had dried up. He was soon almost incapable of writing. The family lived in a rented