Family Weekly j 'September 1, 1963
The men and women who have fascinated
this adventurous foreign correspondent
could not all be judged for their virtue but they
have all been violently independent
nothing. Half an hour later she was
called to the set, where she had to play
a washwoman. "Action" was called,
and Sophia scrubbed and scrubbed.
Take One was followed by Takes Two
and Three and Four. All the time, the
merciless sun beat down, and perspi
ration poured down Sophia's face.
Between takes she looked at me and
put her tongue out I quailed.
Finally the director released the
exhausted cast for lunch. Sophia,
soapy to the elbows, came after me
at a run. "Apologize!" she shouted.
"I apologize," I said.
"I thought you would," she said.
"Let's go eat some spaghetti."
A story which illustrates how no
one can meet Sophia Loren without
loving her.
Lowell McAfee Birrell also
is amusing, but there the resem
blance ends. A big, attractive, con
vivial man, he likes to drink and tell
stories which sound taller because
they are true. In Rio some time ago,
Birrell kept me laughing in spite of
Lowell Birrell
myself, telling me how he frustrated
attempts by American authorities to
have him extradited from Brazil.
Conspiratorially he told me, "I have
five Important businessmen coming
to my office, and the deal, if it comes
off, is a big one."
Nobody else in Rio, neither the
American Embassy, the press, nor
his lawyer seemed to know what the
deal was, but I believed him when he
said it would be big because Birrell,
in the words of Fortune Magazine,
"has wrecked more corporations,
duped more investors, and engineered
the theft of more money than any
other American in this century."
A former associate of the late, un-
lamented Serge Rubinstein, Birrell
was indicted in New York on 69
counts of grand larceny, and his em
bezzlements were estimated at as
much as $14,000,000. Doubtless he
reasoned that if one hag to be a
crook, one might as well do it on the
grand scale.
Birrell wears monogrammed silk
shirts and blue silk suits and spends
as much as $6,000 a month on enter
taining, taxis, and a luxury apart
ment But he has no bank account
and owns nothing in his own name.
As none of the stolen money was
mine, I must admit I look forward to
meeting him again.
Another free spender and high
liver, but on a legitimate level, was
Baron, the great English court
photographer, who died in 1956 at
'the age of 49. A lifelong bachelor,
he had been caught at last and was
engaged at the time to Sally Ann
Howes, who subsequently starred in
"My Fair Lady" on Broadway. Born
Baron Nahum of a Sephardic fam
ily in Manchester, England, he be
came famous as the photographer of
the Royal Family, the confidant of
Prince Philip, the most eligible bach
elor in England, the escort of many
of the most beautiful women in Eu
rope, and a sportsman who lost most
of the fortune he earned at the horse
Baron Nahum
track and the gin-rummy table.
Toward the end of his life, Baron
decided he wanted to write his auto
biography, but he ran against a snag:
he was a bad writer. So he asked me
to ghost his book for him. We had
hilarious holiday in Rapallo, Italy,
and he returned to England for a
minor operation onan arthritic hip.
Something happened. There was
blood clot, and he died. London has
never been the same for me since.
My last two choices are blood rela
tives, although they otherwise have
nothing to do with each other. Some
time ago, while researching a book I
was writing called "Kings Without
Thrones," I interviewed the heads of
most of Europe's royal houses. All
were admirable men, but one stood
out the legal kaiser of Germany,
head of the House of Hohenzollern.
He is Prince Louis Ferdinand of
Prussia.
The Prince lives with his beauti
ful Russian wife. Princess Kyra, and
1 '77' " 1
(w
Prince Louis Ferdinand
their numerous children in a pleasant
villa near Bremen. Whereas the other
pretenders were careful in their
choice of words, Louis Ferdinand
said precisely what he thought about
everything, and it was often rude.
He is quite frank about such matters
as an early and brief attraction to
National Socialism; a certain Anglo
phobia; a considerable early pleasure
in alcohol; his pursuit of the movie
star, Lily Damita, across two conti
nents before the war; and the dis
tress he caused his exiled grand
father, the late Kaiser Wilhelm.
And he has a nice modern humor.
"Any chance of a restoration of the
monarchy?" I asked.
He twinkled. "You never can tell.
In the last election I got one vote for
President Might be the beginning
of a ground swell. But Prince Ernest
August of Hanover got one vote, too.
Neck and neck, you might say."
Lastly, Professors Paul Nm
bans, inventor of cellular therapy,
which, he claims, rejuvenates the eld
erly. He treated Pope Pius XII, Som
erset Maugham, and aepostedly, Adttn-
auer and the Windsors. Orthodox
medicine rejects his system, and he
is, without doubt, the most contro
versial figure in world medicine. His
system is to inject his patients with
fresh cells taken from the fetus of
a calf. Those suffering from kidney
trouble are injected with fresh kid
ney cells, those with eye complaints
with eye cells, and so on.
Professor Niehans is Swiss, an
aristocratic man in his late 70s, and
the acknowledged illegitimate grand
son of Kaiser Friedrich, which makes
him the uncle of Louis Ferdinand.
He is a testimony to his own treat
ment, walks erectly, and never wears
a coat even in winter. "I have enough
fresh cells in me to invigorate an
army," he told me with a laugh.
I am cautiously against cellular
therapy, but I spoke to a friend of
Maugham's, who said, "I saw Willie'
Maugham before he went to Niehans'
km
Paul Niehans
clinic in Lausanne, and I thought he
was dying. His skin was like parch
ment and his voice was a dotard's.
Then I saw him when he came back
and he seemed like a new person."
Thus I see we have two movie
stars, a royal prince, a court photog
rapher, a novelist man falsely
charged with murder, an embezzler,
and a medical luminary; two Ameri
cans, two Englishmen, a German, a
Mauritian (de Marigny), an Italian,
and a Swiss. I met one of them in a
small German' village, one in Kansas,
one in Rio de Janeiro, one in Lau
sanne, Baron in London, de Marigny
in Havana, Loren in Rome, and Flem
ing used to be my boss.
Which, come to think about it is
probably par ia the career of for
eign correspondent
Family WMkly, September 1, 1M1