HAZEL BOSKINS, (nee Basil Hoskins, 1930-2005)

It was a dark and stormy night and you could have knocked me over with a feather when the postman rang twice. (I was advised to insert this opening sentence by a writer friend.) A letter read:

"I am a friend of Basil Hoskins and have the unhappy task of writing to tell you of the death of Basil on 17 January of this year. Baz had not been well for some time and he died after a fall in his home. You are named a beneficiary in Baz's will and I wonder if you could contact me regarding this matter. The funeral will be held on Tuesday 8 February at 11 AM and Baz will be buried next to Harry in the churchyard at Salehurst. Yours, Gilbert O'Brien."

I replied immediately saying how sorry I was to hear the sad news, and how appreciative I was that I had been contacted. Another letter came back with an old black and white photo of Basil "taken about the same age as you were when you met him." And indeed there was Basil at 24, impossibly blond, all arms and legs, dressed in the shortest of short shorts.

A Funeral Program was also enclosed. The order of service included "Feste's Farewell" from TWELFTH NIGHT. When I looked it up, it went:

Come away, come away, death.
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it;
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown:
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My corpse where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand, thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never finds my grave,
To weep there.

After that cryptic ditty came the Eulogy, which was followed by the unpronounceable "Abendempfindung," by Mozart, and finally the exit music: "Send In The Clowns," which given the title sounds more like entrance music. (Basil had had a big success in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC)

To say the memories came flooding back is an understatement.

When I arrived in London from Toronto in 1960 I had an MA in Psychology and not much else. I had chosen London because when I had visited there a few years earlier as an undergraduate, I felt at once, for reasons that I cannot still explain, that I was home at last. As soon as I finished college, I found my way back, like the proverbial homing pigeon…with only the vaguest of desires, tempered by a strong admonishment from my Mother: "Don't be writing back for money!"

My degree served me well though, and I got a job right away doing research for a company that was the marketing subsidiary for the Guinness Beer People. My first assignment was not, as I had anticipated, a report on beer, but rather a study on electric blankets, which were just making their appearance in England. Though they made perfect sense in the damp, cold, climate where central heating was a rarity, the Brits were firmly convinced that they would be electrocuted if they used them. How to get around this problem was the object of my research.

The sleeping blankets were only available at Harrods, and it was an accepted fact that only the richest and most eccentric people in London shopped there. I was handed the names and addresses of ten customers and directed to interview them. And in the next two weeks I met the ten most interesting people I had ever met in my life. They were all mad, whimsical, exotic creatures, who must have found me (a "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Canadian," as one of them called me) as odd as I did them. Yet they invited me into their homes for tea, and on one occasion even for drinks. I couldn't tell them that I was researching electric blankets, as it would compromise the study, so God knows what they made of my apparent fascination with their electrical appliances.

One of the addresses on my list was in Bryanston Square, as chic a location in London as money and position could afford. I rang the bell and I could hear someone grumbling down three flights of steps. An old woman answered, and I asked if Basil Hoskins was in, and she wanted to know what for. As I was explaining my study on electrical appliances, a tall, blond man appeared at the top of the stairs asking, "What's the problem, Viv?" "Oh nofink sir. Oi'll get rid of 'im." "I am sorry to trouble you Mr. Hoskins; I just wanted to discuss your appliance," I shouted as the door was being shut in my face.

"Send him up Viv," said Basil.

I was ushered into a sitting room with a huge roaring fireplace, and a beamed cathedral ceiling. The place was furnished with that haphazard style the English seem to have mastered, which simply reeks of taste while eschewing fashion. "Would you care for a sherry?" asked Basil. "Sure" said I, who couldn't even afford a beer. While he was pouring the drinks, I looked around the deliciously overstuffed room. It was just before Christmas and the beams were festooned with hundreds of Christmas Cards. "Isn't Michael naughty?" Basil said, pointing to a card of two men, the older one with his arm around the younger. "Michael who?" I asked. "Redgrave! Imagine putting your new boyfriend on your Christmas card?"

I had seen Michael Redgrave's HAMLET, and according to his bio he was the father of the Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave, and the husband of actress Rachel Kempson. "But,,…. but he's married" I gasped. "Oh my dear," came the reply," he's as gay as a goose. Now what is it you want to know about my appliance?"

I had never met anyone who knew a famous actor before, never mind a famous homosexual actor. And never anyone who called me "my dear." Nor anyone who seemed so willing to discuss his appliances with a total stranger. In the course of conversation (which after the second sherry veered sharply away from electric blankets) I discovered that Basil Hoskins was an actor as well. And that he was currently at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in ROSS starring Alec Guinness. And that he also shared the flat with another actor called Harry Andrews, who just happened to be a movie star, and whom I later on discovered was thought of as the equal of Olivier, Richardson and Gielgud.

Before I left, giddy with excitement and a little tipsy from three Sherries, (and with very few answers about electric blankets), Basil suggested I come to see him in ROSS. He said he could arrange for a ticket in his name. Of course, I went, failing to disclose that I had already seen the production. I was invited backstage afterwards and met Sir Alec and the rest of the cast. And thereafter, and until the end of the run we had lunch after every Wednesday matinee.

By 1962 I had developed asthma so badly I had to leave the country. But the friendship with Basil and by this time Harry continued. I visited them every time I went to London, which was pretty often. We saw each other when Harry came to Los Angeles in A PATRIOT FOR ME. Later when they moved from London to the country, I stayed with them at their converted Oast House (a barn-like structure where hops are dried in the making of beer) in the tiny town of Salehurst, Sussex. Salehurst was so small in fact, that it boasted only a pub and St. Mary's Church. Once again, their home had that tastefully "undecorated" look, with the added delight of an enormous garden.

It was a sad day when Basil called many years later to say that Harry had died. They had laid him to rest in St. Mary's with his hat and cane on display on a chair near the front of the nave. Without a moment's hesitation, I hopped on a plane and went to Salehurst. God knows Basil had a million friends who were no doubt taking great care of him, but somehow I wanted to be there as well. And Basil and I stayed drunk for an entire week. I remember vividly him howling with laughter when he came downstairs each morning to find me cleaning the Aga. (A giant stove thing that was kept alight all the time) It was encrusted with years of spills and burns, and just begged to be scrubbed. And scrub I did. When I left I hoped that Basil not only had had a few good laughs, but also a nice clean stove.

The Oast House became unmanageable after Harry's death and Basil moved to a regency cottage in Robertsbridge, a slightly larger town not far away. Not wanting to part with any of the memorabilia of his life with Harry, he crammed every corner of the house with all their flotsam and jetsam. Basil and I spent many happy nights there, sipping sherry and chatting about events in our lives, one of which was the arrival in his life of a young man called Adam. As I rolled my eyes heavenwards, Basil quickly corrected my insinuation, stating that Adam was straight and married and had a child. But they had been in a play together, and found in each other a soul mate.

The last time I visited Basil, he said he had the flu. Why he wanted me to visit him was a mystery, since he spent most of the time in bed. But we did have a lovely dinner hosted by the joyous Joyce Redman (TOM JONES). But Basil was just not himself and when I left, I said to myself I would never see him again. What prophetic words.

I wrote a thank-you note when I got home and received no reply. My Christmas card went unresponded to (the first time in forty years). Realizing something was amiss, I then wrote asking for forgiveness for whatever I may have done to embitter him. I got a terse reply saying, "I don't know what you are talking about. Everything is fine." Another Christmas followed without a card. I knew then that the friendship was over. And it pained me greatly.

Then I got the death notice from his executor, and went to the Cathedral, lit a candle (the Catholics do understand ritual) and said my goodbyes to Basil.

The next letter I got from the executor stated that most of the inheritance was going to Basil's terrier and two charities, but that the remainder would be split between ten of us. I thought a lovely hundred pounds would be a sweet reminder that Basil had thought enough of me to include me in his will, and as Gilbert pointed out, Basil had been out of sorts with everyone. So I was happy to hear that it wasn't just me he had been cranky with.

Two astonishing pieces of information followed. One was that each beneficiary would be getting ten thousand pounds, almost twenty thousand dollars. I nearly fainted. And secondly that somehow Adam had been left out of the will. Both Gilbert and I understood that it was just an oversight on Basil's part. But Gilbert did point out that Adam had taken it badly since he was the one who discovered Basil's body and had located the will as well. And with a little child in tow, he could use the money.

Without a moment's hesitation, I told Gilbert to split my share with Adam and to contrive a situation to make it look like he discovered a missing directive of Basil's. I didn't want this Adam guy, whom I didn't know from Adam, to be beholden to me. The gift had to appear to come from Basil.

I have to confess that I love doing good deeds that cost me nothing. It is so "noblesse oblige!" And so what Basil would have wanted.

© Bruce Gray 2005