Tony Bayre

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British "singer, wit, racing driver, film star, impresario, and composer" who gets "shot to death on the stage of his own night club" -from the book's blurb.

Bigger than Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, and James Dean rolled into one- or going to be, for at twenty-seven to-day he was still on the up-and-up. Who had put London on the map again- "we may not breed World Heavyweights, but we have Grizzly"!


Whose "Nuclear Cha-Cha" had swept the world from Stockholm to Denver, Toyko to Milan. Who had won the Golden Disc, for topping a million records, two years in a row with his fantastic White Spirituals-- "the total expression of the Ache of our Age." Who was going to break all world records and win it yet again with his new Apocalypsos.


Who had outdeaned Dean by being engaged to a beautiful Italian star who had died in an air disaster ; by racing at Le Mans. Who had been elected the Motion Picture Personality of the Year, whose Oscar-winning performance in You and The Night has been hailed even by the New Statesman- "here, at last, we have an intelligent Valentino." Who was now making a tuppence-halfpenny whore out of Julia Deville, the noblest actress of the British stage.


Who had been described by Life as the biggest thing to come out of Oxford since John Henry Newman; who has set a big wind blowing through the cloisters by offering fifty thousand pounds towards the restoration of his old college. Who played Chopin at his Club, quite well, in evening dress against a severe velvet backcloth, with a naked girl leaning motionless against the grand piano.


Who was said to toy with drugs, to read Jaspers-- pronounced with a Y, some German johnny-- to be planning to visit Russia "to import a few necessary neuroses," as he had replied to the Russian minister's invitation. Who was a fake, Moore knew, a fake among fakes, a genuine fake-- who qualified for hatred.

From page 9 of Message from Sirius by Jenkins, Cecil. London : Published for the Crime Club by Collins, c1961.