News about Paul Gallico

XCLUSIVE: Peter Tarnoy, 84, (left), said he was'very aware' of the repercussions' of breaking his commitments to spying for the Soviet Union in a 'application' (right) to Communist spy bosses in 1974. Mr Tarnoy spent years providing communist'military equipment' from the Ministry of Defense's top-secret Porton Down laboratory (inset), according to state files.

VINER OF BRITAIN: Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is a complete charmer on paper. In fact, it started on paper as a 1958 book by American writer Paul Gallico titled Flowers For Mrs Harris. On film, however, it only charms intermittently, Lesley Manville being the exception. She is a joy in the role, and anyone who watched the enthralling Paul Thomas Anderson film Phantom Thread (2017) will be as amazed as she adapts. This picture was about haute couture in the 1950s and the one after that, but Phantom Thread Manville's story was at the forefront of the rarefied world looking out. Here, as widowed Ada Harris, a domestic cleaner who used to be dubbed a charwoman, she is looking in.

Lesley Manville paved the way for her latest film Mrs Harris Goes To Paris in her chic all-black ensemble. The 66-year-old posed with co-stars at the Curzon Mayfair cinema in central London, which had a miniature Eiffel Tower behind them to set the tone for Paul Gallico's newly released adaptation of Paul Gallico's 1958 novel. After seeing one being worn by a wealthy client, Ada, a hard-working housekeeper who decides she wants to spend her life savings on a Dior dress, has taken on the role of widowed cleaning woman Ada.