Odd this day

2 min readMay 12, 2023

Happy it-would-have-been-your-120th-birthday, Wilfrid Hyde-White, the man who got lots of Hollywood offers after being in George Cukor’s Let’s Make Love, and said “I couldn’t turn them down, particularly when you consider what a lousy actor I am.”

b/w photo of Wilfrid Hyde-White in a three-piece suit. He is holding his glasses away from his face as if he’s just removed them, and is squinting at something out of shot

This was something of a theme for him, having also said “I learned two things at RADA — I can’t act and it doesn’t matter.” His greatest skill, in fact, was spending more money than he had.

b/w photo of Wilfrid Hyde-White in a suit with a flower in his buttonhole. He is lighting a cigar and smiling at the camera

When he died, his Telegraph obituary said: “However great his income, it never kept pace with his rate of expenditure”, and the Inland Revenue started bankruptcy proceedings in 1977 because he owed them £10,000. “Is it only £10,000?” he asked, “I thought it was much more.”

Apparently, most of his money went on horses. The obituary continued…

When he did eventually appear his dealings with the court lost nothing in the telling. Apparently the Official Receiver asked: “If you cannot tell us how you spent such a large sum in so short a time, perhaps you can tell us what will win the Gold Cup at Ascot this afternoon?” “Of course, dear fellow Hyde White replied, and named the winner, although he warned the Receiver to limit his investment. “We don’t want to have to change places do we?”

Playwright William (brother of Prime Minister Alec) Douglas Home once told him he’d underplayed Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady, and WHW said

Well, why not? What’s the point of trying to compete with that old bugger Rex?

Wilfrid Hyde White and Rex Harrison in Harrison’s study in My Fair Lady

#LifeGoals all round, I think

In other marvellous news today, it is the 374th anniversary of clergyman and diarist Ralph Josselin picking at his belly button — not for the first time

I did not medle with my navel for above a weeke, but the lint stucke in it, I perceive it is not best to lett the lint stick in it, but wash it out, of this day I found it was somewhat sore, where- upon I washed it as formerly, it savoured very much was full of white stuffe; it looked a litle red and open. I thinke yett that it was not rawe it continued well above 8 weekes through gods mercy unto mee and I hope in god he will command his blessing on me therein. — from the **Faber Book of Diaries**, 1987

…and it’s the sixth anniversary of this highly enjoyable sentence appearing in the Times:

In 1989 Ryder was arrested in Jersey for cocaine possession and, when he was asked if he wanted an advocate, he replied: “I don’t want any poncey southern drinks.”

Odd this day

Written by Coates

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