In times of conflict

An email from Sir Roger Moore concerning two prominent Hollywood Hungarians whom I failed to mention last week. Did you know that Bernie Schwartz, aka Tony Curtis, was Hungarian? As was the wonderful director Michael Curtiz. The latter pronounced the words ‘Bring on the empty horses’ during the shooting of The Charge of the Light Brigade, or some cavalry epic like it. He meant the props, but David Niven used the Hungarianism as the title of the second volume of his memoirs. Roger also pointed out that Taki means waterfall in Japanese, something I knew but had kept awfully quiet about until now.

And, speaking of the Land of the Rising Sun, are you aware that in July 1941 FDR froze Japan’s assets, shut off her oil, sent military aid to China under lend-lease and dispatched B-17s to Manila to prepare to attack Japanese islands? All this before Pearl Harbor, of course.