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The Empress of Ireland: A Chronicle of an Unusual Friendship
Christopher Robbins was a struggling journalist in London when an ex-pat American hipster masquerading as a German count introduced him to an elderly Irishman, purportedly the "greatest Irish filmmaker ever."
Brian Desmond Hurst had made some thirty films in his long career (including A Christmas Carol, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Simba, and Playboy of the Western World), and was close friends with people such as John Ford, Noel Coward, Sean O'Casey, William Butler Yeats, and a slew of other notables - from the exalted, such as Lord Mountbatten, to rather less exalted Guardsmen and rent boys.
When the eighty-year-old, gay Irishman Hurst hired the young, straight Englishman Robbins as a screenwriter, an unlikely but profound friendship formed. The hilarious adventures of one of the world's ultimate Odd Couples is described here with humor and insight, tinged with heartbreak.
Brian Desmond Hurst had made some thirty films in his long career (including A Christmas Carol, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Simba, and Playboy of the Western World), and was close friends with people such as John Ford, Noel Coward, Sean O'Casey, William Butler Yeats, and a slew of other notables - from the exalted, such as Lord Mountbatten, to rather less exalted Guardsmen and rent boys.
When the eighty-year-old, gay Irishman Hurst hired the young, straight Englishman Robbins as a screenwriter, an unlikely but profound friendship formed. The hilarious adventures of one of the world's ultimate Odd Couples is described here with humor and insight, tinged with heartbreak.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
343 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2005
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175 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Robbins
72 books27 followersChristopher Robbins began his career in journalism at the age of sixteen when he started writing jazz criticism for the Daily Telegraph. Since then he has written for numerous newspapers and magazines in Britain, Europe and the USA.
The Empress of Ireland won the Saga Award for wit, along with exceptional critical acclaim. In Search of Kazakhstan was short-listed for the Authors’ Club Best Travel Book Award 2008 in the UK and (under the title Apples Are From Kazakhstan) for the Best Travel Books of 2008 in the US. Air America, a worldwide bestseller when it was originally published, was made into a film starring Mel Gibson.
The Empress of Ireland won the Saga Award for wit, along with exceptional critical acclaim. In Search of Kazakhstan was short-listed for the Authors’ Club Best Travel Book Award 2008 in the UK and (under the title Apples Are From Kazakhstan) for the Best Travel Books of 2008 in the US. Air America, a worldwide bestseller when it was originally published, was made into a film starring Mel Gibson.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
November 27, 2009
Brian Desmond Hurst was a soldier (a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign), a film director (his best remembered effort being the Alistair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol"), and, in the end, equal parts dreamer, grifter and raconteur.
We meet up with Hurst well into his twilight years. Journalist Christopher Robbins is sent to meet the openly gay (and still quite frisky) Hurst, who is searching for a fresh young talent to pen a screenplay about the events leading up to the birth of Christ. A chance encounter of the luckiest sort. Together they travel to Morocco, Ireland and Malta. The friendship that develops, and is so lovingly documented in these pages, is obviously life changing for Robbins. Hurst understood well the business of living in the moment; and though he may have been a bit of a schemer, he opened up a new world of discovery, adventure and infinite possiblities for Robbins.
The years pass, the script gets written and bandied about, but the film is never produced (neither is Hurst's promised autobiography). What remained were the author's copious notes detailing, not only their shared adventures, but many of Hurst's ribald and hilarious stories reported seemingly verbatim. The man was the Irish Scheherazade. Along the way we are introduced to a rogues' gallery of eccentric characters, some royal, some famous, some criminal, some perverted, but all colorful and brilliantly remembered. This volume is often laugh out loud funny. However, Hurst's memories of growing up poor in Ireland, of his family struggles, and the absolute horror of his war experiences, are told with a poignant and shattering clarity.
This has proven to be one of those rare books for me. I never wanted it to end. There aren't enough superlatives in the dictionary to adequately discribe this uniquely rendered memoir. Once read, I defy anyone to forget Brian Desmond Hurst or "The Empress of Ireland."
We meet up with Hurst well into his twilight years. Journalist Christopher Robbins is sent to meet the openly gay (and still quite frisky) Hurst, who is searching for a fresh young talent to pen a screenplay about the events leading up to the birth of Christ. A chance encounter of the luckiest sort. Together they travel to Morocco, Ireland and Malta. The friendship that develops, and is so lovingly documented in these pages, is obviously life changing for Robbins. Hurst understood well the business of living in the moment; and though he may have been a bit of a schemer, he opened up a new world of discovery, adventure and infinite possiblities for Robbins.
The years pass, the script gets written and bandied about, but the film is never produced (neither is Hurst's promised autobiography). What remained were the author's copious notes detailing, not only their shared adventures, but many of Hurst's ribald and hilarious stories reported seemingly verbatim. The man was the Irish Scheherazade. Along the way we are introduced to a rogues' gallery of eccentric characters, some royal, some famous, some criminal, some perverted, but all colorful and brilliantly remembered. This volume is often laugh out loud funny. However, Hurst's memories of growing up poor in Ireland, of his family struggles, and the absolute horror of his war experiences, are told with a poignant and shattering clarity.
This has proven to be one of those rare books for me. I never wanted it to end. There aren't enough superlatives in the dictionary to adequately discribe this uniquely rendered memoir. Once read, I defy anyone to forget Brian Desmond Hurst or "The Empress of Ireland."
October 15, 2020
Perfectly cozy.
November 28, 2020
This may be the wrong book to have read during an election and a pandemic. While it has plenty of funny bits, the author and his friends frustrated me with their lives of gossip, drinking and dodging bill collectors. I kept waiting for someone to actually get something done, but perhaps that is missing the point.
June 19, 2019
One of the best books I have read in a long time. It's a wonderfully moving and often very funny memoir about the life of Irish film director Brian Desmond Hurst. One to reread.
October 19, 2024
A memoir of the friendship between a struggling freelance journalist and an almost forgotten film director regally living out his retirement in 1970s Britain, this book is for the most part a fabulous read. Any writer would kill for this material and its wonderful cast: aristocrats, rent boys, triple agents, Guardsmen, theatrical knights, obliging landlords and milkmen, crooks, novelists, drug dealers, transvestites, and so on. I thought the first three sections were the best, one sparkling, random, eccentric figure flying in after another, so that the reader is equally wrong-footed and delighted. For example, in Tangier, we learn that:
one of the gay bars hidden down an alley was known as the Scotch House. The only connection… with Scotland was a large black man standing on a small platform in one corner, dressed in a mini-kilt and holding bagpipes. On the hour and the half-hour he solemnly erected his handkerchief-sized tartan, to the sound of ‘Scotland the Brave’. An exhausted wheezing of the pipes accompanied the subsequent lowering.
Afterwards I wondered whether the author was drawing too heavily on the autobiography he and Brian Desmond Hurst had worked on: the sections on Gallipoli and Malta, although interesting and sobering, felt blocky and tonally at odds with the rest of the book. Regardless, Hurst’s anecdotes are highly entertaining, and maybe because he comes across as a completely three-dimensional figure – lively, full of fun, engaging, frustrating, self-mocking, self-dramatizing, sincere – I was never bored by him or his stories, as I usually am by the well-worn recollections of the perpetual raconteur.
The falling away of the duo’s friendship in later years is rather sad, and clarified for me the occasional doubts I had (since both Robbins and Hurst were permanently strapped for cash) over who was paying for what on the foreign research trips they undertook for the religious film Hurst was planning as his comeback.
one of the gay bars hidden down an alley was known as the Scotch House. The only connection… with Scotland was a large black man standing on a small platform in one corner, dressed in a mini-kilt and holding bagpipes. On the hour and the half-hour he solemnly erected his handkerchief-sized tartan, to the sound of ‘Scotland the Brave’. An exhausted wheezing of the pipes accompanied the subsequent lowering.
Afterwards I wondered whether the author was drawing too heavily on the autobiography he and Brian Desmond Hurst had worked on: the sections on Gallipoli and Malta, although interesting and sobering, felt blocky and tonally at odds with the rest of the book. Regardless, Hurst’s anecdotes are highly entertaining, and maybe because he comes across as a completely three-dimensional figure – lively, full of fun, engaging, frustrating, self-mocking, self-dramatizing, sincere – I was never bored by him or his stories, as I usually am by the well-worn recollections of the perpetual raconteur.
The falling away of the duo’s friendship in later years is rather sad, and clarified for me the occasional doubts I had (since both Robbins and Hurst were permanently strapped for cash) over who was paying for what on the foreign research trips they undertook for the religious film Hurst was planning as his comeback.
March 17, 2021
If you have ever wanted to find out more about Uncle Monty in Withnail and I, how he came to be an elderly hedonist with an eye for young men and a fund of scurrillous stories, then this is the book for you. And it comes with the bonus of being mainly all true. Film director Brian Desmond Hurst, the subject of the book, depicted rather ludicrously planning to come out of retirement in the 1970s with a biblical epic, was in fact behind some of the best British films of the 40s and 50s, eg. Theirs is the Glory (precursor of A Bridge too Far), Malta Story and Scrooge. A book of fascinating details and anecdotes (not all hilarious: the descriptions of the young Hurst's part in the Gallipoli campaign make grim reading) which I can whole-heartedly recommend. And Hurst was a lifelong Catholic. He gives a very modern-sounding account (for a man born in 1895) of his faith: 'I am a member of a faith which is unshockable. The pronouncements of God's minions are subject to fashion and politics - Jesus preached love and forgiveness and never condemns or comments on sexual love between men, or even outside marriage for that matter... Jesus had a soft spot for sinners... My own belief is that the soul finds Hell through acts of unkindness and cruelty, not sexual peccadilloes. God is love, Christopher, not some repressed hanging judge.' Ideally (when such things are possible again) it should be read sitting in a London pub on a weekday morning...
August 14, 2020
A very amusing and humane memoir of Brian Desmond Hurst, who in his time was a well regarded Irish film director, although in early 1970’s London when the author first met Brian, he was in his late seventies.
Nearly half way through the book Christopher Robbins records his suggestion that Brian write his memoirs, but much later (2004) performed this in what reads like an act of fond remembrance, as he puts it:
I knew even then that together they pictured a vanished and more elegant world but at the time saw them at the time as little more than well-spun yarns.
Now I realize their true worth. Brian told stories as a way to process life, to parcel up the pain, order the chaos and confusion, and endow the pointless with meaning. Experience was held on to and made valuable by transmutation into anecdote, preferably amusing. Brian put at least as much effort into the story of his life as he did his life’s work of film.
In reading this book, I initially enjoyed the rakishly flamboyant anecdotes of decadent Tangiers and the criminal Big Freddy, before appreciating the overall story making arc of Brian’s life, including his recollections of Gallipoli in the First World War.
I read the, as ever, elegantly produced Slightly Foxed edition.
Nearly half way through the book Christopher Robbins records his suggestion that Brian write his memoirs, but much later (2004) performed this in what reads like an act of fond remembrance, as he puts it:
I knew even then that together they pictured a vanished and more elegant world but at the time saw them at the time as little more than well-spun yarns.
Now I realize their true worth. Brian told stories as a way to process life, to parcel up the pain, order the chaos and confusion, and endow the pointless with meaning. Experience was held on to and made valuable by transmutation into anecdote, preferably amusing. Brian put at least as much effort into the story of his life as he did his life’s work of film.
In reading this book, I initially enjoyed the rakishly flamboyant anecdotes of decadent Tangiers and the criminal Big Freddy, before appreciating the overall story making arc of Brian’s life, including his recollections of Gallipoli in the First World War.
I read the, as ever, elegantly produced Slightly Foxed edition.
September 4, 2019
If you know who Brian Desmond Hurst is, I need only report that Christopher Robbins is a fine anecdotist who accurately, amusingly, and affectionately describes the unusual characters and scenes that make up the time he spent with Hurst collaborating on a film. If you do not know him, I can set the stage no better than by reporting that Hurst the film director made Scrooge, the quintessential Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim and offering Robbins’ opening scene: Brian walking into the pub at 11am bearing an orange for the barkeep to make his breakfast mimosa with; builders taking an early pint insult "the old queen"; Brian buying them a round of drinks and, as the cowed and sheepish men mutter their thanks, delivering the exit line, I am not an old queen, I am the Empress of Ireland.
September 21, 2020
This is a well written account of a grand film in the making that did not materialize in the end and its larger than life Irish director. There is a parade of colorful characters, exotic places and the high end gay world of the film industry. And all is wonderfully and humorously experienced and rendered by Robbins! A delightful memoir!
April 14, 2022
This is a memoir of a relationship, a friendship, between the author and Brian Desmond Hurst. It is a wonderful reminder of both good writing and a life extraordinarily lived. I’m glad I heard someone mention this book in a podcast that sent me to it. Brian Desmond Hurst was certainly a unique human from beginning to end. What a life!
January 27, 2021
Meh....
February 16, 2021
This is the best unintended consequence of an unmade film I could imagine.
It’s the kind of perfectly written biography you have to constantly remind yourself is not fiction.
It’s the kind of perfectly written biography you have to constantly remind yourself is not fiction.
July 21, 2021
A beautiful story of friendship. Exquisitely written.
December 11, 2021
Sweet, inspiring. I read this based on John Banville's recommendation in the NY Times Book Review section, and am glad I did.
March 23, 2022
Hilarious!
October 21, 2022
A series of delightful anecdotes, I never got bored once, surprisingly well written if a little old fashioned and colonial at times
April 10, 2025
Robbins was a journalist in London in the 60s when he was introduced to Brian Desmond Hurst, an elderly Irish gay man described as the "greatest Irish filmmaker ever". If his name isn't familiar, he made thirty films, including the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol (the best, in my opinion). He made Irish dramas in the 30s before coming to London. He went on to do propaganda films during the war, including The Lion Has Wings, about the RAF, and continued to work till the early 60s.
But when Robbins met him, he was idle, living on credit, enjoying drinking and hanging out with an ever changing group of film people, rent boys, artists, gay soldiers (Hurst's favorite men), disreputable European "royalty", and anyone he met down the pub who seemed interesting. He had an idea for another movie and after he learned Robbins was a writer, hired him to write the script - though pay for the job never really materialized. It was a drama about the events leading up to Jesus' birth and the politics of King Herod's court (and it sounds like it would have been interesting). Hurst, Robbins, and a Welsh guardsman who was his current favorite traveled to the Mideast to look for locations. They spent most of their time meeting with other movie people and eating huge meals.
Hurst sounded like a wonderfully fun guy to be around, with so many stories of films, actors, filmmaking, drag queens, and criminals. But in the latter half of the book, he asks Robbins to write his biography where we learn his life had been hard. He came from a working class family and left school early. Robbins had heard his funny stories about recovering from hepatitis when he was in the British Army at a hospital in Egypt, playing pranks on the nurses and other patients. But he hadn't talked about fighting at Gallipoli and what trench warfare was like. Robbins was shaken, and so was I.
I really enjoyed this book. So many funny stories, and Robbins' fondness for its fascinating subject is obvious.
But when Robbins met him, he was idle, living on credit, enjoying drinking and hanging out with an ever changing group of film people, rent boys, artists, gay soldiers (Hurst's favorite men), disreputable European "royalty", and anyone he met down the pub who seemed interesting. He had an idea for another movie and after he learned Robbins was a writer, hired him to write the script - though pay for the job never really materialized. It was a drama about the events leading up to Jesus' birth and the politics of King Herod's court (and it sounds like it would have been interesting). Hurst, Robbins, and a Welsh guardsman who was his current favorite traveled to the Mideast to look for locations. They spent most of their time meeting with other movie people and eating huge meals.
Hurst sounded like a wonderfully fun guy to be around, with so many stories of films, actors, filmmaking, drag queens, and criminals. But in the latter half of the book, he asks Robbins to write his biography where we learn his life had been hard. He came from a working class family and left school early. Robbins had heard his funny stories about recovering from hepatitis when he was in the British Army at a hospital in Egypt, playing pranks on the nurses and other patients. But he hadn't talked about fighting at Gallipoli and what trench warfare was like. Robbins was shaken, and so was I.
I really enjoyed this book. So many funny stories, and Robbins' fondness for its fascinating subject is obvious.
April 24, 2007
This is a great memoir about someone completely different from the author. It is not often that biographies are so subjective. Pretty unique.
UNIQUE. what a word.
The Empress of Ireland reminded me of a diverse array of other books. The perspective and protagonist are very much like Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories; it is not surprising then, when the man who inspired Mr Norris (i think that's his name) of Berlin Stories appears in Empress.
The abundance of openly homosexual content was a mixture of The Scarlet Professor and a bio on Fassbinder. Now that I think about it, much more in line w/ Fassbinder than the Professor, who basically died from hiding his feelings, unlike Brian Desmond Hurst.
The whole writing of the screenplay scenario that lends itself as a reason for any contact between the author and Hurst is something that also kept me into it. I guess one could say subjective reasons.
One last thing before I keep writing forever; the Gallipoli chapter, completely unexpected and unlike any other part of Empress, is unbelievable. I haven't read any war memoirs describing such a cruel, absurd and completely horrifying experience outside of concentration camp descriptions. Strange you would find this in a battle between the Irish and the Turks, both fighting for quite arbitrary reasons.
If you're Irish, you'll probably like the book even more. Unless you're VERY Irish, i.e. very religious, in which case the whole gay thing might make you very uncomfortable...
-j.d.
UNIQUE. what a word.
The Empress of Ireland reminded me of a diverse array of other books. The perspective and protagonist are very much like Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories; it is not surprising then, when the man who inspired Mr Norris (i think that's his name) of Berlin Stories appears in Empress.
The abundance of openly homosexual content was a mixture of The Scarlet Professor and a bio on Fassbinder. Now that I think about it, much more in line w/ Fassbinder than the Professor, who basically died from hiding his feelings, unlike Brian Desmond Hurst.
The whole writing of the screenplay scenario that lends itself as a reason for any contact between the author and Hurst is something that also kept me into it. I guess one could say subjective reasons.
One last thing before I keep writing forever; the Gallipoli chapter, completely unexpected and unlike any other part of Empress, is unbelievable. I haven't read any war memoirs describing such a cruel, absurd and completely horrifying experience outside of concentration camp descriptions. Strange you would find this in a battle between the Irish and the Turks, both fighting for quite arbitrary reasons.
If you're Irish, you'll probably like the book even more. Unless you're VERY Irish, i.e. very religious, in which case the whole gay thing might make you very uncomfortable...
-j.d.
July 9, 2021
4.5 stars
It is perhaps rare to pick up and read the biography of someone that you have never heard of, written by an author you don't know, but in this case it is well worth getting to know both these men, by the end of the book you will feel both are old friends and your own life better for having known them.
Others have summarised the book well here, a memoir/biography that arose from the sudden invitation by the accomplished film director Brian Desmond Hurst to a young journalist with no screen-writing experience to develop a script for a upcoming biblical epic. Although the film was in the end never made the pair made a lasting friendship and this book chronicles the personal growth of the biographer who is introduced to new worlds by his elderly companion. Filled with hilarious anecdotes and incredible salacious stories, the book is ultimately very touching and moving, the discovery that the Director had served at Gallopili and the horrors that he experienced there provide the very opposite of comic relief (whatever that may be) sandwiched between trips to Ireland, Malta and time spent at home in London, each of which provides substantial humour and adventure.
So, to return to the starting point, this is a biography of someone most of us really don't know (the book cover doesn't even mention the subjects name), but by the end this is someone that you already miss and admire, a biography that brightens your faith in humanity and shines light into your own life.
It is perhaps rare to pick up and read the biography of someone that you have never heard of, written by an author you don't know, but in this case it is well worth getting to know both these men, by the end of the book you will feel both are old friends and your own life better for having known them.
Others have summarised the book well here, a memoir/biography that arose from the sudden invitation by the accomplished film director Brian Desmond Hurst to a young journalist with no screen-writing experience to develop a script for a upcoming biblical epic. Although the film was in the end never made the pair made a lasting friendship and this book chronicles the personal growth of the biographer who is introduced to new worlds by his elderly companion. Filled with hilarious anecdotes and incredible salacious stories, the book is ultimately very touching and moving, the discovery that the Director had served at Gallopili and the horrors that he experienced there provide the very opposite of comic relief (whatever that may be) sandwiched between trips to Ireland, Malta and time spent at home in London, each of which provides substantial humour and adventure.
So, to return to the starting point, this is a biography of someone most of us really don't know (the book cover doesn't even mention the subjects name), but by the end this is someone that you already miss and admire, a biography that brightens your faith in humanity and shines light into your own life.
August 23, 2016
Excellent book.
The story of the largely forgotten 'magnificent old (Northern) Irish bugger', Brian Desmond Hurst. A Belfast protestant who converted to Catholicism, he directed many films, most memorably 'Scrooge' with Alistair Sim. The book is written from the point of view of a young journalist who meets him in his later years, still leading a fairly outrageous life in London, Ronnie Wood even makes a rare appearance. He decides the journalist will write his next film, the story of the lead up to the birth of Christ. They visit Ireland, Morocco, and Malta as they try to make the film, and their friendship grows. Touches on his experiences in Gallipoli, and also in Hollywood where he met his best friend, John Ford. Lots of larger than life characters, whatever I write won't capture the fun and love for the often difficult director as he tries to keep up his heavy drinking into his eighties, well worth a read.
The story of the largely forgotten 'magnificent old (Northern) Irish bugger', Brian Desmond Hurst. A Belfast protestant who converted to Catholicism, he directed many films, most memorably 'Scrooge' with Alistair Sim. The book is written from the point of view of a young journalist who meets him in his later years, still leading a fairly outrageous life in London, Ronnie Wood even makes a rare appearance. He decides the journalist will write his next film, the story of the lead up to the birth of Christ. They visit Ireland, Morocco, and Malta as they try to make the film, and their friendship grows. Touches on his experiences in Gallipoli, and also in Hollywood where he met his best friend, John Ford. Lots of larger than life characters, whatever I write won't capture the fun and love for the often difficult director as he tries to keep up his heavy drinking into his eighties, well worth a read.
December 28, 2020
I stumbled upon this book quite accidentally and I am ashamed to say that I vaguely knew who Brian Desmond Hurst was. This is the story of the most unusual friendship and the most extraordinary life that Brian had. The book is so alluring and funny, full of wit and charm. Christopher Robbins really transcended the storytelling and it completely captivates the reader into the war stories, travel adventures and the most fascinating characters of forgotten times. What a gem!
May 23, 2016
This was a rambling story told about an interesting character. While I liked the writing style, the organization left much to be desired and could have used a good editor. I also couldn't quite get the point of the memoir until the very end and other than that it was a challenge book, was not very motivated to finish. Not worth reading. 2 stars
May 3, 2011
Christopher Robbins account of his long friendship with Brian Desmond Hurst, a gay eccentric East Belfastman who directed 30 films which included Scrooge and The Malta Story with Alec Guinness. Hurst was a colourful character - a great read.
June 22, 2010
too much emphasis on his sexual orientation. really a pointless book.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews