"History from the forties of Columbia"

A review of Columbia Pictures Corporation Ltd by Derek Clifton written on Tuesday 20th of October 2009

I was working in the Department of Publicity and Exploitation for Columbia in those days under the Press Manager, Alan Earl Tucker. The Director of that department was H.F. Kessler Howes - a nice enough chap but long liquid lunches made him volnerable with Tucker usually picking up the pieces. Tuckers Secretary at the time was Pamela Diamant. He was her lover but still a hard taskmaster. For example, if she made an error in a press release he would insist that it be typed again (this is pre-correcting ribbon)

and would reduce her to tears as she became tired at the end of the day, with me waiting in the wings to expedite the copy down to Fleet Street. With tears flowing she would say to him "Alan, you didn't treat me like this when we were together last night!" Tucker would reply, "Last night I wasn't paying you, today I'm paying you!" Hayworth was, arguable, their bigest star at the time and I was in the foyer of the Empire Leicester Square at the European Premier of Down to Earth, in which she starred with Larry Parks, Roland Culver, George Macready and other Columbia regulars. The Queen was pursuaded to attend. Hayworth had not sat through the film but was being regalled by the press boys in the bar and was well oiled when she announced to them that, underneath her gold lama dress she was naked. After the film the principles gathered in the foyer to be introduced to the Queen,

who was approaching down the staircase. It was deathly quiet as one might expect on these royal accasions, when a Hayworth wisecrack rang aloud saying,

"Hiya Queenie, your'e looking swell tonight!" Jack and Harry Cohn had her in the limmo in about ten seconds flat and she was on the plane next day. Soon afterwards she was suspended by the studio after she ditched Orson Welles and ran off with the Aga Khan but that is another story>>>>>>>>.

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