< Previous8 CONTENTS 70 articles 46 LORD OF THE DANCE Only a decade after Christoph Waltz won his big break, he is now surveying Hollywood from the summit. 60 LIVE AND LET LIVE The legend of James Bond has been preserved for ever in its archive. Nick Foulkes gets up close and personal. 70 ISLES OF MAN Britain has a reputation for stylishness and suavity that must be respected whatever the season, whatever the weath 84 THE CALL OF THE WILD The influence of nature on style feels particularly poignant at this time. academy 98 RAKE CREATION If Britain has proved anything, it is that in unfamiliar territory, it rises to the challenge and adapts accordingly.9 CONTENTS compendium 116 TRUE BLUE Men of all stripes come together for a preview of Audemars Piguet’s [Re]Master timepiece. 120 PRECISION & BEAUTY David Mason has spent the past decade resuscitating the fortunes of several British labels. How has he done it? 124 DASHING When Coldplay guitarist Guy Berryman isn’t on the road with the biggest band in the world, he can be found at his English country home indulging in one of his passions: car restoration and collecting. 130 RAKE INCARNATE Bond’s nemesis Blofeld was inspired by a real- life villain.We also need to talk about those collars... 124 contents10 Letter from the Editor This edition of The Rake Middle East is brought to you from the strange new reality that is the world of pandemic-induced self-isolation. I’m writing these words from home. You are likely reading them at home – perhaps having added this copy of the magazine to your shopping basket during a rare and exhilarating trip to the local supermarket. Occasional grocery excursions now punctuate our collective Groundhog Days the way weekend staycations, restaurant visits and after-hours bar-hopping once did. Le sigh. There are so many exquisite ways in which to while away time that I failed entirely to really appreciate until now. I imagine you are also discovering how much things you once took for granted mean to you, or perhaps how surprisingly little you miss others. Most of all, though, I think our thoughts turn to the people whose absence in our socially distanced lives cannot be satisfied by WhatsApp texts and Zoom chats alone. A serious amount of feels is going to get dished out once this is over. The changes to our lives feel seismic and strange. Days unencumbered by external routines are now relentlessly ours to define, and it’s not easy admitting that we may not be the disciplined, goal-oriented masters of our fate that we previously believed we would be, given an abundance of time (shut up at the back there, Type A freaks). Each of us, in our microcosm, is experiencing a cycle of the good, the bad and the abundantly monotonous. It sucks. For those of us with a roof over our heads and enough to eat that gaining the Covid-19 stone is considered a problem, a reminder to count blessings is important, even if it feels a little grating by now. Being alone with your thoughts can be an uncomfortable place to be – we are so used to the distractions of work and personal engagements, that to be forced into a quasi-meditative state when all we really want to do is avoid reality… well, suffice to say I won’t criticize your methods of escapism if you won’t be judgy about mine. I’m not sure about your sartorial standards, but mine are almost non-existent. Dressed daily in workout gear, I convey the entirely false impression of exercising almost constantly. Right now, I need my clothes to feel comforting and reassuring – a hug made of cotton-mix lycra. I look forward to dressing up again and my wardrobe will of course be stringently re-arranged by colour by then, but honestly, I just look forward to seeing you amazing people again. With the news that the much-anticipated return to the big screen of James Bond in No Time To Die has been postponed until November, this edition of The Rake was always intended to coincide with the film’s global release. Our cover star features Christoph Waltz, and our fashion shoot features Hum Fleming, Ian Fleming’s great niece. There are Bond-themed articles throughout, which I hope that you will enjoy alongside anticipating the November release of the film. I have faith that things will have returned, if not entirely, then at least partly to a semblance of normality by then. As for the rest, perhaps this time of forced introspection may yet prove to bring some unexpected and positive dividends. Insert the uplifting hashtag of your choice here, and enjoy the issue. Jola Chudy Editor-in-Chief @jolachudy @therakemiddleeast here, and enjoy the issue. Jola Chudy11 MASTHEAD PHOTOGRAPHY SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHERS Efraim Evidor Adel Rashid STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Fritz Asuro Aasiya Jagadeesh Ajith Narendra Jes Luisse PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION GROUP PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Kyle Smith PRODUCTION MANAGER Denny Kollannoor MARKETING AND CIRCULATION RETAIL MARKETING MANAGER Praveen Nair ITP GROUP CEO Ali Akawi CFO Toby Jay Spencer-Davies The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the reader’s particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review. PUBLISHED UNDER LICENSE FROM REVOLUTION INTERNATIONAL LTD. AND COPYRIGHT (2020) ITP MEDIA GROUP PO Box 500024, Dubai UAE Tel +971 4 444 3000 www.itp.com INTERNATIONAL EDITION FOUNDER & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Wei Koh EDITOR Tom Chamberlin tom@therakemagazine.com ART DIRECTOR Rob French rob@therakemagazine.com ONLINE EDITOR Aleksandar Cvetkovic aleks@therakemagazine.com CHIEF SUB-EDITOR Stephen Wood PA TO THE FOUNDER Sarah-Flynn Jones sfj@therakemagazine.com EDITORIAL ASSOCIATE BENEDICT BROWNE benedict@therakemagazine.com ONLINE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Anna Prendergast anna@therakemagazine.com DIGITAL IMAGING ARTIST Ciwie Goh CONTRIBUTORS EDITOR-AT-LARGE Nick Scott FASHION EDITOR-AT-LARGE Tom Stubbs CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Nick Foulkes CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Simon Crompton ASIA EDITOR-AT LARGE Christian Barker CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Stuart Husband | James Medd Joycelyn Shu | Josh Sims | David Smiedt CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER Kim Lang CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Luke Carby | Andy Barnham CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR Lee Sullivan RAKE HOUND IN VALHALLA Brando Koh Esq. INTERNATIONALLY LICENSED EDITIONS ITP MEDIA GROUP MIDDLE EAST EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jola Chudy jola.chudy@itp.com THE RAKE JAPAN CO. LTD. JAPAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kentaro Matsuo matsuo@therakejapan.com HUBERT BURDA MEDIA RUSSIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alexander Rymkevich a.rymkevich@burda.ru CEO Ali Akawi MANAGING DIRECTOR Sue Holt DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR, ITP MEDIA GROUP Anil Bhoyrul anil.bhoyrul@itp.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jola Chudy jola.chudy@itp.com DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Lucy McMurray CONTRIBUTORS Nick Foulkes Nick Scott SOCIAL MEDIA Daria Gorian daria.goiran@gmail.com Asif Somji asif@styledindubai.com ADVERTISING GROUP COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Joe Chidiac joe.chidiac@itp.com +971 58 286 4578 | GROUP COMMERCIAL MANAGER Aline Ghorayeb aline.horayeb@itp.com +971 52 641 3926 arbiter MAJOR LEAGUE; CLASS ACT14 One bright, balmy Hollywood morning in the mid 1930s, David Niven presented himself at Stage 29, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer, for a screen test, “made up like a Piccadilly tart” and feeling ridiculous. When his turn came, he recited — “out of my panic” — an old schoolboy limerick featuring an old man of Leeds who swallowed a packet of seeds, with unfortunate foliage-bearing results for his nether regions. It wasn’t exactly a Hamlet soliloquy, but Hollywood had a vacancy for a stiff-upper-lipped Brit — the society hostess Elsa Maxwell had urged Niven westward, saying “nobody out there knows how to speak English, except Ronald Colman” — and a few weeks later, Niven was enrolled at Central Casting as “Anglo-Saxon Type No.2008”. It was a billing that Niven more than lived up to over three decades in Hollywood, playing, as he put it, “officers, dukes and crooks” in such films as The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Wuthering Heights (1939), and 1956’s Around the World in 80 Days. His clipped vowels, pencil moustache, military bearing (he’d spent three years in the Highland Light Infantry) and slightly sardonic air made him the archetypal Englishman abroad, an outsider at the heart of the studio system, incredulous not only at his profession — “it’s just playing children’s games in front of the grown-ups,” he remarked in a 1972 interview — but also at counting the likes of Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart among his best friends. When he won the best actor Oscar for Separate Tables in 1958, he announced, on reaching the podium, that he was “loaded with lucky charms”, though any casual onlooker of his career would have noted the British mix of chutzpah and winging it that, with the requisite dollop of good fortune, had got him there. Niven was born in Belgravia in 1910; his father, an army reserve lieutenant of Scottish descent, was to die five years later at Gallipoli. “I had not seen him much, except when I was brought down to be shown off before arriving dinner guests or departing fox hunting companions,” Niven later wrote in his bestselling memoir The Moon’s a Balloon. His mother, of French descent, was “very beautiful, very musical, very sad, and lived on cloud nine”. Widowed and cash-strapped, she married the Tory MP Sir Thomas Comyn-Platt, who rattled his cufflinks at Niven “when I made an eating error at mealtime”, thus inaugurating his lifelong habit of cock-snooking at authority figures, be they chilly stepfathers, sadistic sergeant-majors or boorish studio heads. Young Niven bounced from school to school, a “self- appointed jester to the upper classes”. Provided with a “grubby little garret” at the heart of St. James’s, he lost his virginity at 14 to a prostitute called Nessie, who had ‘rooms’ in Cork Street. (She helpfully provided him with a book of pornographic photos before taking him in hand.) He eventually washed up at Sandhurst. “It was never pleasant to be treated like mud,” he wrote, “but Sandhurst, at least, did it with style.” His subsequent three years in the Highland Light Infantry were spent mostly in Malta. He rose to 1st lieutenant, but had little to do but burnish his handicap at the Marsa Polo Club, which he described as “mounted suburbia”. By now there were major diversions: a friendship with the actress Ann Todd had led to his becoming “incurably stage-struck”, and he’d also discovered girls: “I had a heart like a hotel, with every room booked.” His frustration with the army boiled over when he insulted a visiting major-general, and he resigned his commission, rather than face a court martial, in 1932. The epithet ‘dashing’ could have been coined for Niven — he looked as if he’d been born in a dinner jacket — and he once said that, if 30 people in a room loved him while one person found him eminently resistible, he would make a beeline for the hold- out until they were comprehensively conquered. He now worked his connections, sailing off to New York and trying his hand as a wholesale liquor salesman and promoter of a rodeo-equestrian show (both hobbled by local mafias) before taking Elsa Maxwell’s advice and moving to California, where he took a room in Loretta Young’s mother’s house. Young smuggled him into the Fox studio under a rug on the floor of her limousine, and he was instantly smitten: “It was a dream world. I just gaped and gaped and wondered if I could be a part of it.” It took time, including an abortive (and hair-raising) audition before an imperially frosty Mae West (four decades In an extraordinary career that spanned 50 years and nearly 100 movies, David Niven had ample opportunity to become who he was: the Englishman abroad. Still, you got the impression that he couldn’t believe his luck. THE LOVELIEST JOKE by stuart husband ALAMY “It was never pleasant to be treated like mud,” Niven wrote, “but Sandhurst, at least, did it with style.”WHO IS THE RAKE David Niven photographed in 1960.16 ALAMY , REX FEA TURES , GETTY IMAGES later she would relent, declaring, “Niven has charm where other men only have cologne”), but Niven took director Frank Goulding’s advice — “just be yourself” — and when the legendary Samuel Goldwyn saw Niven’s scabrous screen test, he signed him to a seven-year contract with a starting salary of $100 a week, a small fortune in the mid thirties. Niven, typically, celebrated by joining the Hollywood Cricket Club. He’d arrived at the height of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The studio system cranked out star vehicles for its demi- gods and goddesses, and their publicity corps struck sweetheart deals to keep the gossip columnists at bay. Niven graduated to starring roles in the likes of 1939’s Bachelor Mother (with Ginger Rogers) and Raffles, while his memoirs are filled with carousing (“I made the rounds of Chasen’s… visited two German lesbians in Encino… ”), yachting excursions (“We sailed over to Catalina Island and dropped anchor in Cherry Cove… Frank Sinatra moored alongside us and sang all night”), and playdates at San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst’s fantasy castle, “where I often slept in Richelieu’s bed”. He and his Charge of the Light Brigade co-star, Errol Flynn, set up a “bachelor establishment” at 601 North Linden Drive in Beverly Hills, rented from Rosalind Russell, where they would smoke the plentiful supply of kif that Flynn had brought back with him from a North Africa trip. Flynn, as Niven wrote in his sophomore memoir, Bring on the Empty Horses, would prepare to entertain the ladies. Later, Niven would rent a Santa Monica beach house from Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies, where the roistering reached such a pitch that Carole Lombard and Cary Grant christened the place “Cirrhosis by the Sea”. (The naming may have had a pejorative ring for the slightly starchy Grant, whom Niven called “the perfectionist… the first day he walked into my house he straightened the pictures and promised he could cure my liking for Scotch whisky by hypnotising me”.) This idyll was rudely interrupted by what Niven called “the latest intercontinental lunacy”, and he returned home the day after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 to enlist, the only Hollywood Brit to do so. Told that, at 29, he was too old for the RAF, he ended up as lieutenant-colonel in a commando squadron known as Phantom, which participated in raids on Guernsey and Dieppe. He remained tight-lipped about his service, though it’s alleged that he urged his men into action by exhorting: “Look, you chaps only have to do this once, but I’ll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!” He encountered Churchill over dinner at Ditchley Park (Churchill harrumphed: “You did a fine thing to give up a most promising career to fight… mark you, had you not done so, it would have been despicable!”), and Ian Fleming, a fellow member of Boodle’s, then “stuck in Naval Intelligence” Niven returned home the day after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 to enlist, the only Hollywood Brit to do so. WHO IS THE RAKE Left to right: Niven with a child actor in 1947; with fi rst wife Primula Susan Rollo on their wedding day; fi lm posters for Bachelor Mother (1939) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946).17 Clockwise from top left: Niven escorts Lynne Frederick, the widow of Peter Sellers, from his memorial service (1980); with wife Hjördis Tersmeden in 1954; with the cast of Vampira (1974); with Tersmeden in 1971; with the cast of Ask Any Girl (1959); having received his Oscar (1959); with Doris Day on the set of Please Don’t Eat The Daisies (1960); with Tersmeden at Café de Paris, 1974.Next >