When Hugo Vickers was commissioned in 1980 to write the authorised biography of Cecil Beaton, he was granted privileged access to the photographer’s friends and staff and all his private diaries and letters.
Many of Beaton’s circle had been the ‘Bright Young Things’ of the 1920s. Others were louche aristocrats, renowned former beauties, movie stars and writers, not to mention Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother.
By then in their 70s and 80s, most welcomed the chance to gossip. Over the next five years, Vickers asked them about everything from Cecil’s homosexuality to his extraordinary costume designs for My Fair Lady and his bizarre love affair with Greta Garbo. Many of their recollections duly appeared in Vickers’ best-selling biography.
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Viscount Runciman of Doxford, sociologist from a dynasty of shipowners and intellectuals – obituary
He was brought up as the bright only child of an inheritance that combined wealth, connections and a high sense of public duty
22 December 2020 • 3:14pm
Lord Runciman: appointed in 1991 to chair the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice in England and Wales, to probe high-profile miscarriages of justice such as the convictions, subsequently quashed, of the ‘Maguire Seven’ and ‘Guildford Four’
Credit: Brian Smith
The 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford, who has died aged 86, was a classical scholar and historical sociologist as well as a leader of the British shipping industry in which his family had prospered. He was also president of the British Academy, chairman of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice and a City regulator.