Remembering Charlie Fawcett

This post is in remembrance of my very dear and departed friend, Charles Fawcett.

Most of you have heard of Charlie's Angels - but did you know that this was actually based on a true story.   I know -- because Charles Fawcett is the famous Charlie -- and I was one of the original Angels (not 3 women + 1 guy like in the TV show / movies ... but 4 women).   One day I'll tell the real story ... but let's just say we had some adventures together.

Here's to you Charles -- I'll never forget you.

Picture taken from the 300 Spartans

Still Thinking about Charlie Fawcett

Here's a picture of Charlie Fawcett at the beach. We miss you Charlie.

More about Charles Fawcett

By Kate Jackson Kate.Jackson@Mirror.Co.Uk 23/02/2008

A note by the Author of the blog: Contessa Isabella Vacani

Thank you Kate Jackson for the journalistic piece on Charles Fawcett. What did Charlie do from 1960 to 1980? I know to a certain extent but that part off his life will appear in a book written by me. 

The Dolce Vita Years in Rome are not mentioned at all by Kate Jackson. His deep and abiding friendship with Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni and Pier Paolo Pasolini and Sergio Leone have not even been dipped into.

Then there are his exploits in the Congo. Indiana Jones is a poor wannabe attempt to be Charles Fawcett, assuming the producer and director ever had the rare honor of meeting Charlie. And Charles helped thousands of disenfranchised and hunted Congolese and Europeans. I don;t think he made one bloody farthing. Diamonds, rubies, gold, sapphires, and cash was his for the asking AND THE TAKING.......but Charlie had really learned all there was to know about the Mastership Game. It wasn't about power or wealth or charisma, it was about mastering yourself. a By wanting nothing you obtained everything. 

There are the Moroccan Years. King Mohammed and his son the late King Hassan respected and I would even venture to use the word hebekh - love as far as their feelings for Charlie were concerned. King Hassan's sisters adored him.

I met Prime Minister Hoveyda of Iran through Charlie. The late Shah Pahlavi entrusted him with what was left of his tattered government when he fled the country in 1978. Hoveyda was a gentleman, but in a Revolution such as the one the Imam(Ayatollah Khomein ) was conducting, Hoveyda had to be executed. Khomeini did not show him the same compassion he had extended towards Khomeini when he convinced the Shah in the 1970's to spare his life and send him into exile. And where did he go? To Saddam Hussein's Iraq for a few years and then to France.

The Expeditions Charles made with Andres del Amo to the Amazon from Madrid as a launching point are never talked about. I saw many photographs taken of these particular adventures.

It goes without saying that the tribesmen Charlie respected in Afghanistan bore no resemblance to the thugs, assassins and merchants of drugs, slaves and death which Charlie Wilson (the U.S. Congress) and the Saudis assisted with billions in armaments.

To my family and to me, Charlie's most rare and precious quality was the fact that he was very much his own man. He was an artist who knew how to mix colors and therefore knew that the use of only black and white in works of art are almost not pleasing to the eye. They are too stark. Life is usually a long series of grays except for Charles. He had vermillon, purple, gold, bright greens and blues. 

I know that for many years Charlie agonized over the fact that he could not be with his daughter. I seem to remember a period when he had no clue where Marina was.

"Somewhere in Argentina, but it's a vast country."

 I think she was deliberately kept from Charlie. That is the only time that I remember seeing a glimpse of anguish in his eyes. 

 Charlie was uncompromising in his integrity and in his spirituality throughout his life. That is why I understand from the depths of my soul why April Fawcett will never adjust to the loss of her husband and soul mate. Why should she? Who could even come close to that tower of humanity that was Charles Fawcett.?

Now you can have a go at Kate Jackson's excellent article about Charlie but I am sure that she did not really know him. Few people did although he came in contact with men and women and too numerous to mention.

Contessa Isabella Vacani  

 

Adventurer, freedom fighter, liberator, film maker, jazz musician - no one could accuse Charles Fawcett of not living life to the full.

His story spans the globe, taking in major wars, breathtaking feats of daring, risky rescue missions and more than a hint of celebrity and spice.

You probably won't recognise his name - although Charles was a hero, he was modest with it. Yet most novelists would be hard-pressed to dream up a plot as extraordinary as the life of this incredible man, who has died aged 92. His funeral took place in London this week.

"What he wanted more than anything was to help humanity," says his widow, April Ducksbury, who lives in Chelsea, London.

"He would rescue anybody - it didn't matter who they were. People felt safe with Charles because they knew he really wanted to help them."

If you've seen the film Charlie Wilson's War, you'll remember Julia Roberts' character Joanne Herring talking about a friend's documentary footage of the Afghan war.

That friend was Charles Fawcett - whose film helped persuade America to provide the mujahedeen with arms to fight the invading Soviets - and it was narrated by his pal, Orson Welles.

"He thought he was a Jack of all trades and master of none," recalls his film-maker friend Pierre Sauvage. "It wasn't true at all - Charles had many talents. He believed everything was in our reach, nothing seemed to intimidate him."

Born on December 2, 1915, in Waleska, Georgia, Charles was orphaned at six. He, his brother and two sisters were raised by aunts in South Carolina. At Greenville High School, he learned to wrestle and play American football.

In his teens he ran away to Washington DC and, at 15, he claimed to have begun an affair with his best friend's mum, declaring: "If that's child molestation I would wish this curse on every young boy."

His wanderlust kicked in early and he set off around the world - working his passage on steamers to the Far East via the Panama Canal.

On returning to the US he picked up trumpet tips from Louis Armstrong and honed his wrestling skills before heading to Europe. He scratched a living by wrestling in backstreet theatres in Poland until the start of the Second World War.

Believed to have joined the Polish army, Charles was only in barracks for a week before he fled the Nazis.

After hitch-served hiking to Paris, he joined the Ambulance Corps.

An affable man, he befriended a relative of the commander-in-chief of occupied France and socialised with senior German officers - all the while passing back information to the French Resistance.

By impersonating a German ambulance crew, he helped free a group of British prisoners of war who were under French guard.

Next he joined the RAF, but had to quit as a Hurricane pilot after falling ill with tuberculosis. Charles spent most of 1943 recuperating in an Arizona TB clinic before rejoining the American Ambulance Corps in Italy, in 1944.

Towards the end of the war, he served with the French Foreign Legion.

He also married six Jewish women to provide them with an American visa so they could leave their concentration camp.

His bravery earned him high praise from Jewish groups for his role in helping defeat the Nazis. And in January 2006, at Holocaust Memorial Day in Cardiff, Charles was honoured by Tony Blair for helping rescue so many victims.

Speaking from his wheelchair on stage at the Millennium Centre, Charles said: "I thought we could make a difference. It's a responsibility people have."

But although he appeared fearless in the face of danger, April says he was often terrified. "In Marseilles, in 1940, he worked alongside American humanitarian Varian Fry to rescue refugees," she says. "He didn't feel he had great protection and it was a very dangerous city."

"He said later he was scared all the time of being taken by the police, but he never showed it."

And he was the most scared during the Greek civil war - when he avoided the ban on foreign involvement by disguising himself as a journalist to fight the Communists.

Once the Second World War ended, Charles reinvented himself as an actor, appearing in around 100 B-movies. His final screen appearance will be in Pierre Sauvage's And Crown Thy Good, about Varian Fry's mission in Marseilles.

His movie star friends included everyone from Orson Welles to William Holden. He co-starred with Sophia Loren and was the lover of one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, Hedy Lamarr.

"He was an extraordinary ladies' man," recalls Pierre. "He was handsome and a devil of a charmer - it's thought he met his Waterloo in April Ducksbury."

In 1956, Charles helped to rescue refugees from the Hungarian uprising. Then he spent three years in the Belgian Congo, during the civil war in the early 60s, where he flew out those who were unable to escape the fighting. But it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in June 1979, that signalled his longest mission.

Without a second's thought, he told his fiancee he was off to help the Afghan resistance fighters - April had to wait another 12 years to marry the love of her life. Fortunately for Charles, one of the things April loved about him was his desire to help other people and she was happy to wait. They finally tied the knot on March 30, 1991.

April says: "He said he wouldn't marry until the Afghan war was over.

We had an Afghan wedding at a house in Los Angeles and were married by a Muslim mullah. It was the most appropriate thing we could do."

Charles's heroics earned him a slew of decorations including the French Croix de Guerre and the American Eisenhower medal. Sadly, all of them were stolen en route to Washington for President Reagan's inauguration. He finally "retired" at 75.

"After the Afghan war he felt his time was over," says April. "He was 75, he couldn't do anything else on the big cases. He felt the world was in a terrible mess. He didn't know what else to do."

Despite being a recognised hero, there was one area in which Charles felt he didn't shine - as a father.

He had little to do with Marina von Berg, his only daughter from a past relationship, until they were reunited when she was 21.

"Charles felt very sad that Marina wasn't in his life," says April. "But he didn't know what to do. He felt he'd been a hopeless father - he was embarrassed to intrude in her life."

Towards the end of his life, Charles successfully fought cancer. But it was an overactive thyroid and its treatment with radioactive iodine which finally felled this great man. "The treatment made him lose his immediate memory," says April. "He couldn't write or have discussions with me any more.

"It was a terrible shame and very sad to see. He loved life, he was always so interested in everything. In the end, he just gave up."

On Wednesday, April and Marina travelled to Paris - a city Charles adored - and scattered his ashes in the Seine.

"People say I'm lucky to have spent 47 years with him, but that's not much consolation now he's gone," says April. "He was a very kind, very good and very generous man. A real hero."

1915 Born in Georgia Dec 2

1921 Orphaned, taken in by aunts

1930 Age 15, has affair with pal's mum

1932 Travels to Far East via Panama

1935 Trumpet tips from Louis Armstrong

1936 Wrestles in theatres in East Europe

1939 Joins Polish army.. leaves after a week

1940 Joins war ambulance corps

1942 Trains to fly RAF Hurricanes

1943 Is treated for TB in Arizona

1945 Joins Foreign Legion, fights in Alsace

1945 Marries six Jewish women

1948 Fights in Greek Civil War

1949 Begins acting in B-movies

1956 Rescues Hungarian refugees

1957 Makes Boy On A Dolphin with Sophia Loren

1960 On rescue missions in Belgian Congo

1980 Goes to Afghanistan to fight mujahedeen war against the Soviets

1991 Marries April after 30-year engagement

2008 Dies on February 3

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/02/23/a-life-less-ordinary-89520-20328568/

Charlie Wilson's War

This is the title of a book by an excellent journalist, George Crile that deals with Afghanistan and how American involvement escalated during the Russian Occupation of Afghanistan. I would have added a parenthesis – How The U.S. Got Shafted.

A motion picture is now making the rounds with Tom Hanks as the womanizing and party loving Congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson. He enlists the aid of an attractive Southern belle Joanne Heeren played by Julia Roberts. Certain puppet masters in Hollywood are talking loudly about the film being Oscar nomination material.

What??? The film is pure kaka. Don’t actors ever read books? In particular, do they deign to read the original books from whence their scripts; changed, re-changed, drafted, re-drafted, censored, added on, subtracted, invented re-invented and censored some more originated?

Probably not. I always considered Ton Hanks a creative, courageous and innovative actor unafraid to tackle challenging roles. Well. Querido Tom, con esta pelicula te has ido al cuerno. Bien, beloved Tom, with this film you have perched on the horns of the devil - in plain English, you have gone to hell.

During the Conquest of India in the eighteenth century, Britain’s foremost spy, who remains unequaled to this day- Captain Richard Burton highly recommended leaving the Northwest Frontier of which Afghanistan comprises a large chunk. “To the fate to which Allah has destined for them whatever that may be.”

The soldiers of the British East India Company received such brutal defeats at the hands of the tribesmen, which then as now call Afghanistan their Homeland that the English turned their backs on the Northwest Frontier. Burton favored striking a rapprochement with Iran. One could sit down in a warm tent by the fire, enjoy pilaf and roast lamb, quaffed down with Shiraz limes and rosewater and palaver about doing business. Which is not to say that Burton did not return to the Khyber Pass, the Swat Valley, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Kandahar.

In my opinion, Richard Burrton’s exploits, his writings, books, essays, reports, and vast knowledge of the world and its peoples render him the best spy the world has ever known. As an explorer he would discover the source of the Nile. As an ethnologist his observations of various tribes and their traditions in India, Indonesia, Africa and the Middle East are unequaled to this day. He was fluent in over 26 languages. Most probably he was a Sufi. We owe the translation of the Kama Sutra as well as the Ananga Ranga to him. One of his greatest achievements was his superb A Thousand and One Nights’’ from the Alf Layla WA Layla, a collection of stories within stories often plagiarized into “The Arabian Nights.”

Sindabad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, The Thief of Baghdad, Aladdin and the Jhinn, The Rose and Pearl and countless others have been made into block busters . Disney has reaped billions out of Burton’s great literary works and guess what - they did not pay a farthing!

Burton made a pilgrimage – a Haj to Makah disguised as a Persian from Afghanistan. Do we realize what this means? He was perfect in dress, speech, demeanor, and attitude. His prayers and intonations so impressive that no one was any the wiser. Discovery would have signified instant death. But then, he was not a white man impersonating a Muslim. He was a Muslim.

One would venture to say that with the brilliant examples of Burton anyone venturing into Afghanistan would take the time to read his books. Even several biographies would bave been of great value. How does one quantify Hubris?

Afghanistan was tacitly a Soviet sphere of influence. The Bolsheviks did not suddenly discover it. They inherited this tres cordiale entente from the Czar. They doubtless knew of the horror stories vested upon the English. It happened to be true. The Czar’s Secret Service had all of Richard Burrton’s books on every topic. His accounts of the war in the Northwest Frontier was a must read. Even the women in their dazzling colored turquoise burkhas fought the invaders and occupiers. They abused the men sexually. This was done by repeated acts of fellatio on the men. At a certain point, blood instead of sperm would flow into their mouths. After much ululation, the women would flay the men alive and mount them. Curved daggers sliced off their penises and testicles piece by piece. The immediate cause of death would be suffocation. The women stuffed the soldier’s sexual parts into their trachea, impeding the flow of air. The men suffocated slowly and horribly to the sound of the women’s frenzied whoops. Therefore, the prudent Soviets kept out of the Northwest Frontier. Indeed, few Russians could be found lollygagging about.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 because they had no other option. The heirs of Josef Stalin forgot that treaties and political entendre lasting centuries are meant to be broken at the right time. The United States broke “ the understanding”. They needed an “Arc of Instability” in Central Asia close to Iran, Pakistan, and Russia. They trained a group of fanatic religious thugs, zealots and fighters called Mujahiddin to overthrow the pro-Soviet regime of Babrak Karmal. They succeeded, but only if we view history as a brief spasm of time.

A dear friend of mine, one of the rare Gentlemen left in the world, Charles Fernley Fawcett, embarked on a personal series of journeys into Soviet occupied Afghanistan. The money he spent came from his own hard earned money. It’s true that the Fernleys and the Fawcetts were an old landed Anglo-American family antedating the American Revolution in which they played an important role in the Carolinas and in Virginia. Charles had a lucrative career as a fine character actor. I’ve never known him to be out of work in all the years I’ve known him. Amidst danger of every sort Charles made documentary film after documentary film. I reiterate, financed by him alone. Danger was ever present in Charles’s long life. He had served with the O.S.S. in Europe. In Lisbon, seventeen Ashkenazi Jewish women owe their lives directly to him. He married all of them without any thought of private gain. The documentation they presented to the authorities in Lisbon and in New York were proper and could not be challenged.

The valiant struggle the various tribesmen were putting up against the superior firepower of the Soviets was like a toy puddle’s piss in the ocean. I will not mention the tribe Charles admired the most because he has not authorized me to do so. Even if he had done so, the quicksand situation confronting everyone who has had anything at all to do with Afghanistan and I might add Pakistan would surely place Charles in more danger than he is already.

I must say that both Charles and April Fawcett (his wife) are relieved that the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” does not mention him by name. There is a scene where Joanne- Julia Roberts tells Congressman Wilson.” I would like you to see a documentary filmed in Afghanistan by a friend of mine.”

That scene is one of the few that is true. Charles Fawcett had given the video to Joanne since he had known her for quite a few years.

That was Charlie Wilson’s introduction into the Afghan war. Indeed, dear straight-arrow, ethical and idealistic Charles Fawcett had introduced Joanne to Wilson in the hope that he would be moved enough to stir up the House of Representatives and the Senate. Billions of U.S. dollars were appropriated. The Saudis saw more than a few golden opportunities handed to them. What an effortless way to spread Wahabism. Bring on the Taliban, and bring on the fanatics. Billions of dollars pelted down upon Afghanistan. Only a fraction of this largesse was ever bestowed on the honest and ethical leaders of the tribes. Those which Charles from first hand experience would the interests of their people before their own.

Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan. We would all have to be dumb oxen not to realize that they would have high stakes in the Mastership Game. One of the leaders on whom they had pinned so many of their hopes was Ahmed Shah Massoud, known as The Lion of the Panshir.

The movie makes much ado about Massoud - “The Lion of the Panshir”. Excuse me the CIA, the Saudis, the Secret Intelligence Service of Pakistan, the Soviets, and most of all the Mujahiddin: all wanted Ahmed Shah Massoud stone cold dead. There was a price on his well-formed head dead or alive. A short time before the 11th of September 2001, Massoud was brutally assassinated. Someone posing as a journalist had blown him to bits. There was still a price on his head. Significant? I would say so. Massoud, a Sunni was someone who could reflect, ruminate even ponder. No one wanted a reasonable man. The Intelligence reports could not have been more wrong. Massoud was not anyone’s man. In other words he could not be bought.

The film makes much ado about Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Shiite thug and bandit. Hetmatyar is crafty and so ruthless he would not hesitate to gun down a brother or a sister if he thought they had betrayed him. He would not even stop to question whether the information/suspicion implanted in him could be true.

Today Hekmatyar reigns supreme in the opium business. Afghanistan supplies 80 % of the world’s consumption. The Taliban are back in full strength. Where once they burned the opium fields, they now actively encourage it. Wars cost money. Opium provides it. Wars make money. It is the best business in the world. Some might say the best racket. That too brings in cash, not commodity money, debt money or printed money – real money probably backed by gold and silver.

That is the reason why my friends Charles and April Fawcett are not going to waste their time to watch “Charlie Wilson’s War”. It mocks Untouchables like them. A few weeks ago, Charles celebrated his 90 some odd birthday. He was lucid and joyous, but nauseated and angry at how everything went so gruesomely awry in Afghanistan.

It makes a mockery of all of the men, women and children who have died so far in that tragic country. As I write this, the blood lust goes on unabated. Afghanistan has been blown back to the Stone Age.

I was in Afghanistan in 1979 a few weeks before the Soviet Union invaded. It used to be one of the most exquisitely beautiful countries in God’s creation. The Grand Canyon, the Sierra Nevada and the Himalayas paled before the kaleidoscope of colors that one witnessed in silent awe over its snowy mountain peaks, its jeweled rocks and its plains with its rarefied air.

As we near the end of 2007 and approach with hope and prudence 2008, the bombing continues. But there is nothing left to blast! Its majestic mountains, its snow which shown like diamonds, its turquoise dawn and its violet sunsets. Everything’s gone. Not even a hundred years will suffice to rebuild that once naturally dazzling country.

Boycott the movie. Why would anyone want to see lies, blood and more lies? Read Richard Burton’s accounts instead. Read James Michener’s book on Afghanistan “Caravans.” His imagery is superb. A few Sufi masters who fled to England have written masterful accounts of their country. Those works are the only ones, which will give you a view of the beauty.

Charles Fawcett has his memories of Afghanistan, as do I. They are indelibly imprinted on our hippocampus. The world could use more men like Charles Fernley Fawcett. May he live to be a century. I pray they are around somewhere but I have yet to meet them.

It’s time that God have mercy on Afghanistan and its entire people because no one else in the various governments seem to show any quality of mercy.

Author’s Note:

I have written a book on the circumstances which led to my invitation to visit Afghanistan and my experiences whilst there. The book is called "Turquoise Dawn, Purple Dusk and Velvet Nights.”