Word: duchesses
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...jaunt with Grandmother through an exotic bazaar in Beersheba, Israel, pert, 16-year-old Nina Roosevelt* spied the cutest souvenir ever, begged Grandma to bargain for it with the canny Bedouins. Obligingly, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt shelled out $77 for a scrawny baby camel (named "Duchess" by Nina), which, if Daddy approves, will stalk the Roosevelts' Hyde Park estate until it gets big enough to deserve permanent residence in any interested...
...misery of the human condition still lay ahead of him. In the movie (filmed in Rome because the Alba family prevailed on Franco to lock the moviemakers out of Spain), "Paco" Goya is a beardless, hot-blooded youth (Anthony Franciosa) newly arrived in Madrid from the sticks. The duchess (Ava Gardner), a democratic type who prefers saloons to salons, eyes him ravishingly after he rescues her from a ruffian in a tavern. In a twinkling, Paco packs off to the South to love and limn her for the ages...
...Naked Maja (Titanus; United Artists) refers to the title of the celebrated nude painted by Spain's great Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) and identified by sentimentalists-though not by art historians-as a well-buffed study of his mistress, the Duchess of Alba. A reproduction of the portrait flashes onscreen briefly along with the titles, but this is just about the last note of authenticity in what may be the most inept movie biography since Cecil B. DeMille tore Cleopatra from the pages of history...
...Origin of Species. He would bribe maidservants with a guinea in order to investigate whether or not they had tails: discovery of a vestigial caudal appendage of course would help the Darwinian faction. His scientific passion caused his social ruin during the visit of a German grand duchess whose family was reputed to be fitted with a Darwinian decoration...
Most of the other Vanbrughs had their troubles with women, too. Francis Vanbrugh (born 1772) was a frail and handsome man given to fainting fits, who spent ten long years being hopelessly in love with the proud Duchess of Avalon. When she finally capitulated and came to his room, Francis, "maladroit as ever," took the occasion to die. Then there was Thomas Vanbrugh (born 1861), a captain in Prince Albert's Regiment of Assam Light Infantry in India, who gallantly disgraced himself during a native uprising when he ordered a retreat solely to save the local British Resident...