Christoper Robbins was an impoverished writer in his twenties when he first stepped into the shabby Belgravia drawing-room of Ireland's most prolific film director. Brian Desmond Hurst was eighty years old and almost completely forgotten - over two decades had passed since the making of his most famous movie, an adaptation of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' starring Alastair Sim in 1951. He was now looking for a screenwriter for his swan song, an ambitious, biblical epic intended to be his ticket to heaven.
The author - a journalist who had never read a script - was asked to write the screenplay for the film, dubbed the "Box Office Blockbuster", and later undertook to record and transcribe the director's life story, which became known as the "Big Bestseller". A friendship was born between two men separated by nationality, sexuality, and fifty years in age, as the writer was drawn deep into Brian's world: A fabulous place inhabited by literary lions and thespian knights, eccentric aristocrats and feral rent boys, assorted publicans, celebrities, milkmen and sinners. And even a couple of saints . . .
A great raconteur, Brian Desmond Hurst captured the young writer's imagination during their adventures in London, Ireland, Malta and North Africa. The stories of a Belfast childhood, service in Gallipoli during the First World War and a long film career were told by a master. Aware that he had met the last of a grand and vanishing breed, the author was forever changed by the old directory's wit, wickedness, Celtic charm and vast appetite for life.
Very funny and genuinely moving, 'The Empress Of Ireland' is an inspiring portrait of a true original and Great Spirit - and a rare account of a unique and eccentric friendship.
