I can’t let the passing of Bernard Schwartz—a.k.a. Tony Curtis—go without some sort of tribute.
   I’ve bitten my tongue a few times this year on writing what I wanted to on this website. And with hindsight, I really should have just gone for it, as someone who preaches transparency. Yes, I do indeed have a sense of humour and a love for old movies, and dear Bernie Schwartz is one of the reasons this blog is named as it is.
   This blog did not start off all political. An early political entry was about the Mohammed cartoons in Jyllands-Posten, but generally, this was a marketing blog. It was called The Persuader for two reasons: the marketing book, The Hidden Persuaders, and the TV show, The Persuaders.
   While my German friends think Alarm für Cobra 11 is my favourite show, the truth is that it’s actually what they know as Die Zwei: a camp series made in 1970 starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. The rest of us know it as The Persuaders, or, if you are French, Amicalement votre—it’s still quite a popular show in France and not long ago, you could buy the DVDs at newsagents.
   When I visited Eze, France, in 2002, the first thing I thought of was not the parfumeries, despite owning Lucire, but the episode of The Persuaders, ‘The Gold Napoleon’. I understand from the official Roger Moore website at the time that Moore himself had read the piece.
   It was through Curtis and Moore that a kid in Newtown lived his fantasies of driving along the Corniches in sports cars in the 1970s.
   Of course rich playboys drove sports cars around the south of France, rescuing damsels in distress, and fought shady Mafia figures and dodgy politicians.
   The closest I got was bombing around in humble Opels and Peugeots around France and the dodgiest thing I ever fought in that country was food poisoning.
   And as I got older, with the ad libs that Curtis did in the series—including at least one reference to Bernard Schwartz—I began to think of the great matinee actor by his birth name. It’s why I Tweeted a farewell to ‘Bernie Schwartz’.
   I was a fan. As a kid, I thought Houdini was fabulous, and this stayed my favourite Curtis film for years. Unlike most of the tributes coming in today, I wasn’t that big a fan of Some Like It Hot, though I have seen it many times, and Operation Petticoat was a late-night filler for me. I’m old enough to have watched these as films on regular TV.
   I am aware that Bernard Schwartz could be a bastard. Sir Roger Moore, in his autobiography, mentioned that his co-star came in as a grump till he smoked a couple of joints. He called Joan Collins a ‘c***’ when filming with her on The Persuaders. Directors on the series had their share of complaints. He wasn’t particularly private about his private life, telling his friend, Walter Matthau, ‘Walter! It’s Bernie! I f***ed Yvonne de Carlo!’
   So while the serious film buffs go on about Bernard Schwartz and his 1950s’ classics, and The Boston Strangler, I will remember him for the 24 episodes of The Persuaders. Who cares that he made all of them while high? They shaped my childhood and I still think it’s a heck of a legacy.