Saturday 12 March 2011

This charming man...

In one of the collections we recently sorted through during our closure, we discovered this photograph of a very charming-looking man. He has been through the wars - literally - and we don't really want to throw him out, but if we can't identify him, we may have to. Can you help?

The thot plickens...
I've managed to extract the photo from the frame which looks like its been rescued from a fire. Phew! On the back it says that it was taken at Vivienne 20th Century Studios, London. So sadly not from Orkney, but maybe a film star?

8 comments:

  1. I can fill some details. Photographer Vivienne was in Orkney during the Second World War. During that time she corresponded with Winston Churchill. I wrote an article about the connection in an edition of the Scots magazine.

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  2. Vivienne was the mother of Anthony Beauchamp who is in the photograph.

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  3. Do you happen to know what regiment he was in? Florence Vivienne Mellish (his mother) said in an interview given many years after his death that he was the official artist for the 14th Army in Burma, but the badge on his arm is not of that unit.

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    1. Anna, I can't quite make out the badge details. Can you tell me which unit it depicts? In the meantime I'll check through my research about him

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    2. Well, that is exactly why I was asking :) I know what it is not: badges of the 14th Army in Burma looked distinctively different. I contacted one of the paid Forces information websites, their experts think it looks - most likely - like a Tri-Service badge, but, apparently, the idea was introduced only after the war, around 1946 (I am not an army expert, though, so can only repeat what the photo expert said). That's why I was curious whether you came across anything...

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  4. Thank you Monica for responding to my post on Tara's blog so quickly. We have had the photo on our wall for 3 years now hoping that someone would recognize him. Only this week one of our customers saw him and went home to look him up and discovered his name.

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  5. This man was formerly Anthony Entwistle, but changed his name to Beauchamp. He was indeed an official war artist stationed in Burma. After the war a few years later he opened a photography studio in London where he became what is called a society photographer photographing many people including emerging Hollywood stars inc Vivienne Leigh, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Munroe. He was also married to the second daughter of Winston Churchill - Sarah. The marriage however did not work out and they separated after a few years. In 1957 aged 39 he committed suicide. His book was published in 1958 after his death, its called Focus on Fame.

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    1. Many thanks, Carey for your reply. Now to the next part of the mystery - do you know why a picture of him would be on the wall of a hotel in Stromness, Orkney? It doesn't sound like he was a pin-up.

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