Six degrees
Salvador Dali's has become the latest name used to relieve cash-rich mainlanders of their spare change. An exhibition in Central has brought the surrealist's paintings to life, smothered them in precious gems and adorned them with seven-figure price tags. Dali himself was as shocking: just as New York society was starting to fall for the Spaniard (below), he and his wife arrived at a masquerade ball thrown in his honour dressed as a kidnapper and the recently kidnapped Lindbergh baby ...
The 1932 abduction and murder of the 18-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was dubbed 'the biggest story since the Resurrection' and conspiracy theories over the crime still abound, with various oddbods, including one African-American woman, claiming to be the child. The case deeply affected arguably the most popular writer of the time, who immediately borrowed it for a story arc in Murder on the Orient Express. That writer was Agatha Christie ...
In 1926, Christie herself vanished, for 11 days, sparking a huge manhunt and even prompting author Arthur Conan Doyle to seek the help of a medium in locating her body. She remained unable to explain her disappearance up to her death, in 1976. With about four billion books sold, Guinness recognises Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time, with her works ranking in sales behind only those of Shakespeare and the Bible. The Lindbergh case came to her when she was writing the book in Istanbul's Pera Palace Hotel ...
Built in 1892 to accommodate well-heeled travellers alighting from the luxury train, the hotel was a showcase of 19th-century technology, being the first in the Turkish city to be equipped with an electric lift and offer hot running water. Then, as today, the Pera forms the heart of the city's cultural district and has welcomed luminaries including Queen Elizabeth, Jackie Kennedy and Sarah 'the Divine' Bernhardt ...
Arguably the most famous actress of the 19th century, if not ever, Bernhardt was a notorious liar. She embroidered her life story so much that it became an indecipherable cacophony of unlikely anecdotes. What is known about her is that years of leaping around on stage took their toll and, at the age of 71, after enduring years of agony, she insisted on having her right leg cut off. At the time, it was rumoured, possibly by Bernhardt herself, that she had turned down a US$10,000 offer for the limb, from showman P.T. Barnum ...
Having been dead at the time, it was unlikely Barnum could have made the offer. Another falsehood attributed to him was that he coined the phrase 'There's a sucker born every minute'. After a lifetime spent scamming the public with sideshows and circus freaks, the 'Shakespeare of advertising' was himself ripped off: a poster advertising his tiger spectacle was copied and featured in a priceless masterpiece by Salvador Dali.
