Winston Churchill once had a mutually mystifying conversation with Irving Berlin (the songwriter) under the mistaken impression that he was Isaiah Berlin (the philosopher). Isaiah Berlin tells the story as follows:
ISAIAH BERLIN: ... this occurred in the spring of 1944 - I should say February or March. What happened actually was this.
Mrs Churchill said to Winston:
"Irving Berlin is in town, he has been very generous to us" - he'd given a large sum of money to - a war charity, I don't know which, with which she was connected.
"If you meet him, do tell him we are very pleased with him." Mr Churchill said,
"I want him to come to lunch." She said,
"No, no, no, I did not mean that. I mean, if you meet him in the Churchill Club," she said,
"just pat him on the shoulder and say we are very grateful to him."
"I want him to come to lunch," he said, but she couldn't understand why.
Well, Irving Berlin sat next to Winston Churchill, who said to him, "Mr Berlin, what is the most important piece of work you have done for us lately, in your opinion?"
Poor Berlin obviously couldn't quite make out what this man had said. After some hesitation,"
"I don't know, it should be A White Christmas, I guess." And Winston said
"Are you an American?"- there was this thick American accent. Berlin said,
"What? Why? Why? Yes." Then Winston again turned to Mr Berlin and he said,
"Do you think Roosevelt will be re-elected this year?" Irving said,
"Well, in the past I have voted for him myself, this year I am not so sure." At this point Mr Churchill became rather gloomy, he couldn't understand who he was dealing with. He still thought it was me. Obviously my despatches were quite coherent, but he obviously had an idiot before him.
Finally Winston said,
"Mr Berlin, when do you think the European War is going to end?" Berlin said,
"Sir, I shall never forget this moment. When I go back to my own country I shall tell my children and my
children's children that in the spring of 1944 the Prime Minister of Great Britain asked me when the
European War was going to end."
Winston was very displeased about this: he really more or less lost his temper, got up - lunch was over.
Poor Irving Berlin went off to the Savoy, where he was sharing rooms with Sir Alexander Korda, and he said to Korda,
"You know, Mr Churchill is probably the greatest man in England, or in the world maybe, but I don't know what it was, I somehow felt we did not click. I don't know what it was. Now she is a wonderful woman, I could talk to her always. With him, I don't know, something, something - I just can't make it out." Winston immediately went to a Cabinet meeting, after lunch, told them the story with the greatest pleasure.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 28, 2007, at 6:12 PM, joanna wrote:
>
> > At one time, Miles was married to Cicely Tyson
> and, by virtue of that,
> > was invited to dine with President Reagan at the
> White House. No one
> > seemed to know who he was. During dinner chat,
> Nancy turned to him and
> > said, "So, Mr. Tyson, what have you done with your
> life?"
> >
> > "I changed the course of music four times."
> replied Davis in a
> > gravelly
> > voice, "What have you done? Beside fucking the
> president?"
>
> She also gave the best blowjobs in Hollywood!
>
> Doug
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