“The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat” has been shortlisted for National Book of the Year in the Philippines.
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“The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat” has been shortlisted for National Book of the Year in the Philippines.
Speaking at the book launch in New York for “The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat”, co-written with Beth Day Romulo. Special thanks to event organizer Maritina Romulo and sponsors: the Carlos P Romulo Foundation in Manila, the Philippine-American Press Club and the Philippine Consulate General in New York.
Fielding questions from the end of the table during a press conference before the book launch of "The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat" at Philippine Consulate General, New York.
Book signing at the launch of THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT at the Philippine Consulate in New York.
Excellent reviews on Amazon.
Another review of my new book now available on Amazon.
Beth Day Romulo, with one of her “blonde cockers”. Beth and I co-authored her life story in the THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT, published by Anvil Publishing House and available in print or eBook on amazon.com.
THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT, which tells the story of her life with Philippine statesman Carlos P. Romulo, was recently nominated for National Book of the Year. Media coverage of the book has been outstanding, including the book review below under the headline "Love and a Foreign Affair"...
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/529998/lifestyle/book-review-love-and-a-foreign-affair-in-the-writer-the-lover-and-the-diplomat
Now available in print or eBook on Amazon…
Co-author Beth Day Romulo at the book launch in Manila of THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT. The event was held on her 91st birthday.
Just received the author's copies of THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT, which has been shortlisted for National Book of the Year. It’s now available in print and Kindle E-Book editions on Amazon… http://www.amazon.com/dp/971273093X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_awdo_PT6zvb1PX7FV9
Front page media coverage of my book, “The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat”, co-written with Beth Day Romulo … http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/194216/carlos-p-and-beth-romulo-their-remarkable-romance
Now available on Amazon…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/971273093X/ref=olp_product_details/190-5643553-2090564?ie=UTF8&me=
THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT, co-written with Beth Day Romulo, is now available in print or eBook on amazon.com... http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/971273093X/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new
Final Cover Design THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT. A shoutout to the art department at Anvil Publishing.
Snow outside but cozy inside at one of the many pre-dawn writing sessions in my writing studio, also know as the corner of the living room at 1431 Waggaman Circle, McLean, VA
The lobby of the Peninsula Hotel in Manila, where I started researching and writing THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT, co-written with Beth Day Romulo.
PHOTOS: American writer Beth Day Romulo and Philippines legendary statesman and military hero Carlos P. Romulo
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Overview
Now Available on Amazon…
Title: THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT
Subtitle: Life with Carlos P. Romulo
Co-authors: Beth Day Romulo and David F Hyatt
When she sits down to talk to Carlos Romulo, she expects just another interview but the American writer and the Philippine foreign minister soon find themselves on a trajectory to romance and international intrigue in direct conflict with his government.
THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT is the life story of Beth Day Romulo. It covers nine decades and touches down on four continents while chronicling significant historical events that she has witnessed and written about. In co-writing her story, what strikes me most is her resilient journey from a crushing heartbreak at a very young age to a purposeful life of international travel, romance and adventure.
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
This is the story of a most unlikely love affair between a country girl from Indiana and Philippines foreign minister Carlos P. Romulo, a top diplomat of the 20th century. The book offers fresh insight into the special relationship between the United States and the Philippines as U.S. foreign policy pivots back towards Asia to counter the growing military power of China.
SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS
When Philippine President Marcos learns that his top diplomat is seeing an American writer, he is livid. Sensitive negotiations are underway with the U.S. over military bases in the Philippines. Marcos, fearing an international scandal, confronts Romulo. What follows is a heated clash between the president and his foreign minister — with Beth Day in the middle. At the urging of Romulo, Beth leaves behind her life as a New York writer and moves to Manila, where she eventually witnesses the collapse of the government of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.
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See link below for a preview of Chapter One -“La Côte Basque 1972”
http://davidfhyatt.tumblr.com/post/90960821308/photo-american-writer-beth-day-romulo-and
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Follow on Twitter @davidfhyatt
LAUREN BACALL REVISITED
By David F Hyatt
Lauren Bacall would have turned 90 today. She suffered a massive stroke in her Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park a few weeks ago. Bacall had lived such a long life that a generation (or two) of moviegoers had either forgotten all about her or never knew why people made such a fuss over her.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
Lauren Bacall was the last living link to the studio system that existed during the golden age of Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s when the influence of movies on mass culture was dominant.
That studio system is the focus of one of the chapters of my new book The Writer, the Lover and the Diplomat, which I co-wrote with Beth Day Romulo. The book is Beth’s life story covering nine decades and touching down on four continents. Beth is an American writer who has published 28 books and, at the age of 90, still writes a weekly column on global affairs. The book chronicles significant historical events that she has witnessed and written about.
In the 1950s, Beth spent quite a bit of time in Hollywood researching and writing a book about MGM during Hollywood’s gilded age. Beth met and talked with a number of Lauren Bacall’s Hollywood friends, including Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Katherine Hepburn. Here is an excerpt from the book, starting with the opening of the chapter entitled “Hollywood Days”. This is Beth’s life story so it’s written in her voice.
EXCERPT ONE: When I first met her, I had the impression she wasn’t sure she wanted to waste her time with me. She was reserved and shrewd and had a reputation for being difficult. But I managed to get through the initial resistance by asking her some sensible questions that showed I knew something about her background. Then she opened up and my interview with Katharine Hepburn turned out just fine…During the Golden Age of Hollywood, Hepburn was one of many headline players at MGM. …company wealth was measured in terms of the numbers of such players that the studio kept under contract. Louis B. Mayer’s personal goal was to amass the largest stable of stars by a single company. And he succeeded. MGM kept around 60 on contract for over 20 years.” Mayer liked to tell his employees, “We are the only company whose assets all walk out the gate at night.”
(See link for a sample chapter from the book - http://davidfhyatt.tumblr.com/post/90960821308/photo-american-writer-beth-day-romulo-and)
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REEL-TO-REAL ROMANCE
Like her good friend Hepburn, Lauren Bacall became a Hollywood icon. Bacall’s trademark look, with her turned-down face and upturned eyes, started when she was trying to cover up a bad case of the nerves during her screen tests for her first film “To Have and Have Not.” The year was 1944 and she was 19. She writes about it in her autobiography Lauren Bacall By Myself. She said she was quivering so much that she tried to keep her head steady by pressing her chin down against her chest and tilting her eyes upward. It worked. Her on-screen presence is smoldering. It became known simply as “The Look” and it blended well with her other trademarks: her husky voice and sultry sensuality.
Bacall starred opposite Humphrey Bogart (Bogie) in “To Have and Have Not.” It was not only the movie that launched her career, but it also marked the beginning of one of Hollywood’s most memorable love stories.
Bogie and Bacall fell in love during the shooting of “To Have and Have Not” and were married a couple of years later. She was 20 and he was 45. Despite the age difference, they were happily married for 13 years and had two children, a boy and a girl. Bogart passed away from throat cancer in 1957. Bacall was only 32. But before Bogie died, they appeared in a series of extraordinarily successful Bogart-Bacall movies: “The Big Sleep”(1946), “The Dark Passage” (1947), and “Key Largo” (1948).
Bacall wasn’t like most actors and actresses. For one thing, she embraced aging and refused to turn to plastic surgery to remove facial wrinkles, Bacall said, “I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.” On balancing marriage and career: “I put my career in second place in both my marriages (she married Jason Robards in 1961) and it suffered. But I don’t regret it. If you want a good marriage, you have to pay attention to that. If you want to be independent, go ahead. You can’t have both.”
Lauren Bacall was a self-described “anti-Republican… a liberal with a capital L.” Once, during an interview with Larry King on CNN she said “being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind.”
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YOU KNOW HOW TO WHISTLE, DON’T YOU?
Bacall was feisty and made friends easily and then kept them for life. Sally Quinn, writing in The Washington Post, said “She was funny and razor sharp, mischievous, iconoclastic, self-deprecating and openly vulnerable.” Quinn was married to former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee who Bacall adored. She once said he was the one man who reminded her of Bogie. Each year, on Ben’s birthday, Bacall would make the same toast “that had him and the rest of the men under the table.” She would lower her voice and do an exaggerated impression of how most moviegoers thought of Lauren Bacall. Then she would look deeply into Ben’s eyes and say, “From my lips to your lips, from my eyes to your eyes, if I’m asleep wake me, if I don’t want to, make me.”
Quinn says it was Bacall’s accessibility that made her so special: “She was normal, unlike many movie stars who have to travel with an entourage, Betty (as she was called) made fun of that, and her friends…always felt that she was one of them.” Quinn said the great director Sidney Lumet once told her that Betty was one of the few actor friends he had because “she didn’t require the hand-holding that so many movie stars do and didn’t give off the feeling of deep insecurity and neediness of most of them.”
The New York Times described her as “the actress whose provocative glamour elevated her to stardom in Hollywood’s golden age and whose lasting mystique put her on a plateau in American culture that few stars reach.”
It’s ironic that her most memorable line came in her first movie (“To Have and Have Not”) when she was only nineteen. There’s a scene where, as she’s leaving a room, she turns to Humphrey Bogart’s character, Steve, and says, “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you…? You just put your lips together and… blow.”
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KEY TO PHOTOS: The photos above are shots of Lauren Bacall from a handful of her movies. Photo No. 3 is an iconic picture of Bogie and Bacall. Photo No. 4, the one with her legs dangling from a piano that’s being played by Vice President Harry Truman, was taken at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in February of 1945 when she was only 20. Two months later Franklin Roosevelt died and Truman became president.
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Related Links:
For the best Lauren Bacall movies: http://top-best-movies.com/best-movies-with-actor/lauren-bacall.html
For the classic movies of Bogart and Bacall. thegoldenyears.org/bacall.html )
PHOTOS: American writer Beth Day and Philippines Foreign Minister Carlos P. Romulo
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THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK
By David F. Hyatt
Title: THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT
Subtitle: Life with Carlos P. Romulo
Authors: Beth Day Romulo and David F. Hyatt
I first met Beth Day Romulo in Manila in 1983. At that time, I was a foreign correspondent and the VOA Southeast Asia Bureau Chief in Bangkok. The Philippines was part of my “news beat.” I had heard from a correspondent friend at NBC that Beth’s husband, Carlos P. Romulo, was good friends with the Aquino family. Romulo was the Philippine foreign minister and I wanted his reaction to the assassination of popular opposition leader Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino.
CARLOS P. ROMULO
Romulo was 82 years old; his health was frail and he was weak but, when I asked to see him, he responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!” He invited me over to his house on a Saturday afternoon. Beth answered the door and led me into a large bedroom where Romulo was stacking some pillows behind him before turning and greeting me with smiling enthusiasm and a hearty handshake. At first I sat across the room but he asked me to come closer. “I’m too weak to talk very loud for very long,” he explained. On several occasions, when I thought he was getting tired, I got up to leave but he insisted I stay a little longer. “We have much to talk about,” he said. And he was right. For more than three hours, I sat at the foot of his bed. I remember thinking, “I’m listening to one of the world’s truly great statesmen.” (Romulo co-founded the U.N., was named one of the top diplomats of the 20th century, and was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He also rose to the rank of General in both the U.S. and Philippine army and was a top adviser to General Douglas MacArthur. Out of respect, Romulo was often referred to simply as “General.”)
General Romulo died the following year.
But I never forgot that Saturday afternoon or how generous he was with his time despite his failing health. I left their home that day feeling as if I owed him a great debt of gratitude.
RECONNECTING WITH BETH DAY
In the summer of 2012 I was in the middle of writing a book about my foreign correspondent days. I was working on a chapter that focused on the Philippines and the Aquino assassination and General Romulo. As I was researching, I came across the Carlos Romulo Foundation web site which contains a rich treasure of rare photos, footage, radiograms and other historical documents and anecdotes (www.carlospromulo.org). I was excited to learn that Beth Day was still alive. (She was 26 years younger than her husband.) On a whim, I did something I had never done before. I clicked “Contact Us” and wrote, “My name is David Hyatt. I used to be a foreign correspondent with the Voice of America in the 1980s and I interviewed Carlos Romulo. I understand that his wife is still alive. If at all possible, I would like to talk to her about that time period for a book that I’m writing that includes General Romulo.”
To my delight, I received a reply that same night from Liana Romulo, one of the General’s granddaughters who oversees the foundation web site.
Liana has written a number of books and essays. One of her essays, which is posted on the foundation web site, is of special note. It’s entitled “Laughter in a Funeral Parlor.” In it, she describes how General Romulo crisscrossed the U.S. (mostly by train) from 1942 to 1944 speaking in 466 cities and towns, successfully rallying American support to help oust the Japanese Imperial military from the Philippines. General Romulo, one of the greatest orators of his time, had a flair for the dramatic and always laced his speeches with humor. The New Yorker described him as “the hottest thing to hit the American lecture platforms.”
Liana’s essays make for fascinating reading as she meticulously documents a pivotal time in both Philippine and American history and underscores the historical significance of US-Philippine relations. Her essays are even more relevant today with the recent pivot in U.S. foreign policy back to Asia, giving new importance to the special strategic partnership between the United States and the Philippines as a counter to the growing military power of China. (Here’s a link to the essay… http://carlospromulo.org/2010/01/laughter-in-a-funeral-parlor-part-1-of-2/ )
In her reply to my request, Liana wrote,
“Of course, Mr. Hyatt. My grandmother lives here in Manila. I see her at least once a week. She’s 88 years old and of sound body and mind. Just write me a letter and I will hand carry it to her.”
I wrote the letter and waited. One week passed. Then two weeks and three and so on. I began to wonder whether a response would ever come. Then one day, when I checked my Inbox, there was an email from Beth Day Romulo. I opened it with great anticipation, only to read that she had turned down my request, saying that “it was a very long time ago.”
I thought for a few minutes and decided to reply with a “thanks-for-your-consideration” email, and attach the chapter that included stories about her husband. Within a few days, I received another email from Mrs. Romulo. She said the stories brought back a rush of nostalgia about her life with General Romulo and she shared some stories of her own. She added that if I was ever in Manila to please look her up. But what also got my attention was this PS -“I have all of these notes but I no longer have the energy to write my autobiography.” (She has published 28 books.) I volunteered to help and outlined a range of possibilities from cheering her on from the sidelines to total collaboration. After going back and forth for months, she made her decision in the first week of January 2013. She opted for total collaboration based on one condition: that my name “get equal treatment on the book cover”.
THE PENINSULA HOTEL IN MANILA
Two weeks later I arrived in Manila at midnight on a Sunday> I was unpleasantly surprised by long lines at airport immigration, followed by traffic backups. It was 2 am before I checked into the Peninsula Hotel in the Makati area of Manila. But by 10 am, I was ringing the doorbell at the Romulo house, ready to begin the project.
I interviewed Beth Day Romulo extensively for this book. Each morning at 10 I would arrive at her home and then spend the next six to eight hours interviewing, researching, and taking notes. She gave me folder after folder of memorabilia and personal notes and historic photos to help with the book-writing project. Then each night I would return to the Peninsula Hotel, where I would pour over the notes while eating dinner in the Lobby Cafe. In fact, it was at the Peninsula that I first started writing the book. ( http://manila.peninsula.com/en/default )
THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT.
When I returned home to the Washington, D.C. area, I began writing in earnest, waking up before dawn to write a couple of hours before going to work. I also wrote during lunch hours and weekends. Each time I finished a chapter I would email a copy to Beth for her review. It took almost a year to write the book but for some reason it didn’t quite feel right. Beth was once told that her life was like a movie. And I agree. We had what we thought was a final draft but it didn’t excite like a movie.
Within a day or two of leaving my day job in November of 2013, I woke up in the night with an epiphany, an “aha” moment. Beth’s story needed a narrative arc that would read more like a novel. Chronology needed to take a backseat to dramatization. But I didn’t want to say anything. After all, we had a “finished” product. And what if the new version didn’t work out? What if it fell flat? What if no one liked it? So I kept quiet and worked full time on a major rewrite. Month after month I rewrote, reworked, and restructured the entire book and suggested a new title: THE WRITER, THE LOVER AND THE DIPLOMAT. I emailed a copy to Beth. Weeks later she replied. She was thrilled with the new version. She thought it read well and was ready for prime time.
Beth Day Romulo is now 90 years old. Her life story is fascinating. She has witnessed and written about significant historical events. And I’m thrilled for her that her life story will soon be in print and available online.
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RELATED LINK:
For an overview of the book…
http://davidfhyatt.tumblr.com/thewritertheloverthediplomat
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