{"id":195450,"date":"2025-10-12T18:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T18:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/195450\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T18:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T18:24:15","slug":"nicky-haslam-on-cecil-beatons-fashionable-world-at-the-national-portrait-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/195450\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicky Haslam on Cecil Beaton&#8217;s Fashionable World at the National Portrait Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One wishes the show had a soundtrack of Beaton commenting on his sitters, about whom he gave vivid, telling, details. He described his great friend Mona \u2014 Mrs Harrison Williams \u2014 as having a complexion of \u201cpink, and wet, marble\u201d and on meeting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/london\/audrey-hepburn-marc-bolan-blue-plaques-london-b1210852.html\" title=\"Audrey Hepburn and Marc Bolan to get blue plaques in London\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Audrey Hepburn<\/a> noticed \u201cher child-like head, as compact as a coconut, with its cropped hair and wispy, monkey-fur, fringe\u201d. Even his on-off inamorata, Greta (which he always pronounced Grayta) Garbo, of whom there are strangely few images on view, has a \u201cknife-like mouth with lips permanently moistened by her adder-like tongue\u201d. He could be cutting too. During a sitting for Coco, Katharine Hepburn heard Cecil say he needed some shaving foam. She barked: \u201cWhy can\u2019t you men just use soap and water like my father?\u201d Beaton purred \u201cMaybe that\u2019s why you have such rough skin, Kate dear.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One wishes the show had a soundtrack of Beaton commenting on his sitters, about whom he gave vivid,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,19663,85283,1120,96,8900,85284,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-195450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-audrey-hepburn","12":"tag-cecil-beaton","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-national-portrait-gallery","16":"tag-nicky-haslam","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}