Humphrey Wynn writes: Your obituary of Belle Chrystall (July 24) does scant justice to her charm and beautiful diction as a radio actress in the late 1920s and 1930s. In those “wireless” days she graced many a broadcast play; she had a euphonious name, but — in that era before the Radio Times had become a magazine of celebrities — we could only guess what she looked like.
Now, thanks to the photograph you published, we know that she looked as lovely as she sounded; and she was selfless indeed to give up her successful career in favour of marriage and a family.
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Richard Carter writes: As Belle Chrystall’s son-in-law, may I comment on the question of her age and name. I have, from Belle’s papers, a copy of her birth certificate. This confirms what the family has always known, that she was indeed named Belle, and Belle was her only given name. Chrystall was her father’s family name and originated, I believe, in the Aberdeen area. She was born at Fulwood, near Preston, on April 25, 1910.
There is also some confusion about her education. It was Belle’s daughter Chrystall, my wife, who was educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and who studied law at King’s College London. Belle stopped work mainly to ensure that she was able to devote herself to her daughter. It was a great pity that she did not find a way to combine family and work as she was truly gifted and able, even in later years, to make the written word live through her reading.
Gerald Moggridge writes: Your excellent obituary of Bob Hope (July 29) paid special tribute to his career in films — not only in the “Road . . .” series but also in films such as Monsieur Beaucaire and The Paleface. However, in this second category you omitted his role in The Princess and the Pirate. In it he played the part of an itinerant showman, “The Great Sylvester, master of disguise”, and the plot gave him glorious opportunities to dress up (and ham it up) as a gypsy woman, an old man, and the villainous pirate Captain Hook.
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He did the three of them brilliantly, all the while keeping up a steady stream of one-liners. There were fine supporting performances from character actors Walter Slezak and Walter Brennan. The female lead was played by the charming Virginia Mayo and there was a “surprise” walk-on part, literally in the last few seconds, when Crosby came on, for one of those cinematic in-jokes. I recall that one of the impressions left with audiences was that everyone involved in the making of this film actually enjoyed making it.
Keith Brace writes: The attack by Roger Lewis on the late Alexander Walker (obituary, July 22), and specifically on Walker’s biography of Peter Sellers, surely needs an answer. I do not know in what way Walker’s book was “authorised”, a claim which Lewis challenges. I do know that, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Michael Sellers, the actor’s son, speaking to The Times, angrily urged his father’s fans to stay away from the forthcoming film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, based on Lewis’s own 1994 biography. Michael Sellers went on to comment: “The film is based on 800 pages of unintelligible rubbish.”
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Alex Walker — a kind, generous friend of my wife and me for many years — had his enemies, but Lewis is not even a serious enemy. Or a serious writer at all? Blake Morrison wrote of Lewis’s bizarrely destructive biography of Anthony Burgess: “This is an idle, fatuous, self-regarding book.” Like his attack on Alexander Walker?
If you would like to add a personal view or recollection to a published obituary, you can send your contribution by post to Times Obituaries, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT; by fax to 020-7782 5870, or by e-mail to tributes@thetimes.co.uk