It's All Lining Up!

On December 6th 2008 the BBC reported that Sunny von Bulow had passed away after 28 years in a coma. A lot of people, like me, were probably surprised to hear she was not already dead. Sunny von Bulow was of course the wife of Claus von Bulow who was first convicted and later cleared on appeal, of putting her in her coma. The appeal case is quite famously recounted in Alan Dershowitz’s 1986 book Reversal of Fortune or the subsequent film of the same name that had Glenn Close as Sunny and perennial baddy, Jeremy Irons, as Claus. I have always been intrigued by this case and the issues around it.

In stark contrast to the cold atmosphere of the film Reversal of Fortune, the film High Society is a warm, jolly, song filled romp and also features in my top five films. Who can resist Sinatra and Louis Armstrong pretty much playing themselves? Add to that Crosby who, despite being in his 50s by then, playing a playboy protagonist in the marriage of beautiful Grace Kelly. Finally to cap it all you get a fine, if somewhat overshadowed, performance from Celeste Holm. Well did you evah?

So why do I mention these two things? Because they are linked of course. Whilst on a very pleasant, and unseasonably mild, visit to Newport RI in March I discovered that the Sunny von Bulow owned and met her untimely fate in the very house where High Society was filmed. Clarendon Court is a typical (if there is such a thing) Newport mansion. Although High Society was filmed there some fifteen years before the von Bulows took possession it is still a bit a weird.

So there you have it; proof that everything in the universe is connected.

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Bazza