How Do I Know This Crap?

From today's Observer 'This Much I Know' column:

"My grandfather Tommy Douglas was the first socialist to come to power in North America. He introduced a provincial healthcare system in Saskatchewan, which was ultimately adopted as the federal healthcare system. Having grown up as part of that legacy, my choice to become an actor is quite selfish, really." Kiefer Sutherland, actor.

That, and the alcohol intake, got me to thinking about other examples of Hollywood and the left. Not the obvious ones, John Howard Lawson, Vanessa Redgrave and the rest can stay in the Green Room. I'm talking about the really obscure stuff. The ones that get you the "You sad bastard" looks when you try and crowbar these gems of useless information into conversations to show how well read and well rounded you are.

Off hand, I can think of another four - biscuit tin roll please:

• Elsa Lanchester - Brilliant comic actress. Best known for her starring role in James Whales' Bride of Frankenstein, but also appeared in such other brilliant films as The Private Life of Henry VIII, Lassie Come Home and even had a bit part in one of my favourite films of all time - sorry Lassie - Sullivan's Travels. Why am I rambling on about her? 'Cos she was the daughter of Edith Lanchester, Social Democratic Federation Executive Committee member in the 1890s.*
• Angela Lansbury - Star of such brilliant films as Gaslight, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Manchurian Candidate, she is best know for twee afternoon crime mystery drama, Murder She Wrote. The double mystery was how the show lasted so long on the schedules and how someone as decent as her Grandfather ever became leader of the Labour Party in the 1930s. (Cue the Ernest Bevin quote.)
• Gordon Warnecke - My Beautiful Laundrette star who wasn't Daniel Day Lewis, was the son of SPGB member Harry Warnecke. (Always said that the Party had the best critique of the phenomenon that was Thatcherism.) Just a shame that Gordon couldn't have done his old Dad a favour with a bit of product placement. A couple of back issues of the Socialist Standard on the table in the Laundrette would have done nicely. They would have looked nice on the big screen. He has since done his penance by going to that Actor's Hell, otherwise known as guest starring in The Bill.
• Saffron Burrows - Aye, I choked on my cornflakes one Sunday morning when I discovered from reading the paper that she was the daughter of a couple of SWP members, and that she herself was a supporter of the Respect Coalition. I kind of like that preconceived notions of lefties being disarmed by this information, though I still wouldn't give the SWP the steam off my tea.

How do I know this crap? To paraphrase Billy Bragg: "If you've got a Pub Quiz list, I want to be on it."

* From Ken Weller's brilliant 'Don't Be A Soldier: The Radical Anti-War Movement in North London 1914-1918' (Journeymen Press 1985): "Elsa Lanchester came from a radical background. Her mother Elsa Lanchester was a member of the Executive of the SDF in the 1890s, and became a cause celebre when she lived in a free union; her family committed her to a lunatic asylum in consequence. In 1918 Elsa had founded the Children's Theatre in Soho, which seems to have had strong radical connections. Elsa Lanchester was a member of the ILP after the War."