The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 53

Obituaries 52 Section2 53 THE INDEPENDENT Wednesday 26 March 2014 THE INDEPENDENT Wednesday 26 March 2014 Mahmoud Abbas, President, Palestinian national authority, and chairman, PLO, 79; Norman Ackroyd, artist, 76; David Amess MP, 62; Alan Arkin, actor, 80; Graham Barlow, former england cricketer, 64; Pierre Boulez, conductor and composer, 89; Fiona Bruce MP, 57; James Caan, actor, 74; Kyung-Wha Chung, violinist, 66; Professor Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and writer, 73; Lord Graham of Edmonton, former MP, 89; Lillian Greenwood MP, 48; William Hague MP, Foreign secretary, 53; Shirley Harrison, former chair, human Tissue authority, 65; Baroness Hayman, former Lord speaker, house of Lords, 65; Erica Jong, writer, 72; Barbara Keeley MP, 62; Keira Knightley, actress, 29; Kerry McCarthy MP, 49; Patrick McFadden MP, 49; Maria Miller MP, secretary of state for culture, Media and sport and Minister for Women and for equalities, 50; Paul Morley, journalist and broadcaster, 57; Leonard Nimoy, actor, 83; Eric Ollerenshaw MP, 64; Harry Rabinowitz, conductor and composer, 98; Diana Ross, singer, 70; Lucy-Ann Scott- Moncrieff, former President, Law society of england and Wales, 60; Stephen Shaw, Independent complaints assessor, crown Prosecution service and department for Transport, 61; Sir Stephen Silber, high court judge, 70; Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, former First sea Lord and chief of the naval staff, 62; Patrick writer, 65; Vice-Admiral Sir Jonathan Tod, 75; Turner QC, former MeP, 85; Stephen Tyler, singer and songwriter, 66; Bob Woodward, journalist and author, 71. BIRTHDAYSBirthdays Diana Ross, singer, 70 EPA Michael Lay, a former builder, was the real- life inspiration behind the heavy-drinking lead character, Johnny Byron, in the transatlantic hit play Jerusalem, written by Jez Butterworth. Lay collapsed with a heart attack while waiting for his local village pub, the Moonrakers in Pewsey, Wiltshire, to open. Lay would go every Friday to buy a lottery ticket and then wait for the pub to open at 4pm. Describing him as village Jerry Kunkler, landlord of the Moonrakers, said, he just collapsed outside the pub just as I was about to open it up.

Micky liked to have a chat with our barmaids so why he got in early. He was an early-doors Lay, known locally as from his habit of saying, can do or can do gained a certain fame after it emerged that But- terworth had based the charismatic and eccen- tric Rooster on him. Butterworth had lived in Pewsey for a short time in the 1990s and got to know Lay who, following a divorce, was living in a caravan in the trees rabbits on the railway In the play, Rooster, an ageing motorcycle stuntman played by Mark Rylance, lives in a caravan in the woods, surrounded by what he calls a of educationally subnor- mal Butterworth was among the younger drinkers who knew Lay as and was serenaded by his tall tales. The village is a very English sort of Jerusalem. For Butterworth, it provided a clear vision of the endangered rural landscape.

Renamed Flin- tock, Pewsey became the notional Jerusalem in the play, and Lay, as Rooster the anti-hero, was transformed into an almost allegorical figure. Butterworth fashioned Rooster as a kind of country philosopher. is a lie, prison a waste of time and women are he advises. Lay put it more succinctly: just think you should enjoy But he did share Roost- nostalgia. village just gets he said.

build one big Co-Op store and it kills all the other stores. It is a total When Butterworth worked on the script with Rylance, he and the director, Ian Rickson, sent Rylance to Pewsey to meet the original Byron. However, they did not get off to the most auspicious of starts. Lay, by then living in a house in the village which housed a bar billiard table, refused to let the actor in, telling him to Unperturbed, Rylance returned with a bottle of whisky. The two hit it off and suit for the races inspired Roost- suit for the bulldozers.

Jerusalem opened at Royal Court Theatre in July 2009 to universal acclaim, becoming the theatrical event of the sum- mer before moving to the West Apollo Theatre the following year. All shows were sold out in days and the play was nominated for six Laurence Olivier Awards, with per- formance as the charismatic Falstaffian figure, drinking through St Day as he faces eviction from an illegal encampment, winning best actor and Ultz winning best set design. The Royal Court production moved to The Music Box Theatre on Broadway, where once again it opened to rave reviews and packed houses. Rylance beat Al Pacino, playing Shy- lock in The Merchant of Venice, to the 2011 Tony Award for best leading actor in a play. Rylance, acknowledging that he had based the rhythms of speech on Lay, said he wanted to give the Tony the guy in Wiltshire who very much inspired Jez to write the play.

I think really like it. He was very gener- ous with me and invited me into his house and talked with me for six hours or so on different occasions about his life as a Romany Gypsy man in Lay said, someone wants to give me a Tony Award, fair play to them. I suspect the only Tony in Lay admitted that he and was known for his tall stories. He once boasted of drinking 43 pints of Guinness in an afternoon, although this kind of behaviour resulted in bans, or at least two-pint curfews, at several of pubs. outlook remained the same he disliked the anonym- ity of city life, preferring the intimacy of the country.

still do what I want to do. I just take life as it he said. Michael Valentine Lay was born in 1940. His mother Daisy cleaned locally, while his father, according to Lay, was Lay, who was convicted of dealing cannabis and served time in prison, used to run a JCB excavator, doing building work locally. Rylance recalled an instance that seemed to sum him up.

He remembered him falling backwards down some stairs at the Apollo. was standing next to me in his suit and fedora, glass in hand, and then he was gone rolling backwards down a dozen steps. When I turned in horror he was just rolling to his feet at the bottom of the stairs, glass upright in hand and fedora still intact. He walked back up to me and continued our conversation without remark. He certainly had a magic to him, did Mickey Aside from horse racing, Lay also enjoyed nature, in particular bird-watching, and claimed that he had been able to imitate them but with their demise had resorted to watching Springwatch on television.

When asked on how he rated accent in the role, Lay said with a wink, it takes years to perfect, MarTIn chILds Michael Valentine Lay, builder: born 14 Feb- ruary 1940; twice married (twice divorced; four children); died Pewsey, Wiltshire 27 December 2013. The actress and dancer Patrice Wymore made a pleasant impression as a contract player at Warners in the early 1950s, but she will best be remembered as the third and final wife of the famed swashbuckling star Errol Flynn, hero of such films as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). The couple met while filming the western Rocky Mountain (1950) in New Mexico Flynn was 17 years senior. They married the same year, and lived initially on yacht before purchasing a coconut plantation in Jamaica. They had a daughter, but eventually roistering life style and addiction to alcohol and drugs separated them, though they remained married until his death in 1959.

Born Patricia Wymore in Kansas in 1926, she was the daughter of vaudevillians, with whom she performed from the age of six, becoming an accomplished singer and dancer. She made her Broadway debut in the hit musical, Up in Central Park (1945), and later had roles in the short-lived musical comedy Hold It! (1948), for which she won a Theatre World award as and the revue All for Love (1949). During the five-month run she was spotted by a talent scout for Warners and signed to a contract. She made her screen debut in Tea for Two (1950), inspired by the stage hit No, No Nanette and one of the best musicals that the studio made with their major star, Doris Day. As an acerbic showgirl Wymore displayed an offbeat personality and telling way with dialogue, and she partnered dancer- choreographer Gene Nelson in the number She also figured in the song of the executing impressive pirou- ettes and backward that became a trademark.

After playing leading lady to Flynn in Rocky Mountain, she was cast in another Doris Day musical, a biography of the lyricist Gus Kahn, See You In My Dreams (1951). In a role loosely based on the and singer and actress Ruth Etting, she was a Follies star who tries flirting with Kahn, and is warned off by his wife (played by Day). She sang Me or Leave (later performed by Day when she played Etting on screen), and had an amusing scene where, reading the sheet music of in the for the first time, she asks, sort of cock-a-mamie lyric is After playing herself and singing in It was the 17-year-old football phenomenon Pele who dominated the headlines when Brazil won their first World Cup in 1958, but the most enduring image of the tournament in Sweden was of Hilderaldo Bellini, captain of the Sele- cao, holding aloft the Jules Rimet Trophy. It was the first time the coveted golden bau- ble had been brandished quite so flamboyantly the result of requests from photographers for a picture, rather than undue tri- umphalism from the dignified Bellini and it became a seminal moment in the sporting history, preserved forever as a statue at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. In a side containing the likes of the incom- parable Pele, the gloriously unorthodox winger Garrincha and renowned defenders such as Djalma and Nilton Santos, the captain attracted relatively scant global attention, but in his homeland they appreciated his worth as immense.

He was a tall, slim central defender who concentrated on winning the ball simply and efficiently then passing it into the custody of his more extravagantly gifted team-mates, confident that they could overcome any oppo- nent with their spectacular flair. The 11th of 12 children born to an immigrant Italian lorry driver, Bellini played his youth football for his home-town club Itapirense before turning professional in 1952 with Vasco da Gama, with whom he won three Rio state championships and a variety of cups. Having been converted from full-back to centre-half, he made his full international debut in a World Cup qualifier against Peru, a 1-1 draw in Lima in April 1957, then established a regular slot and, as a natural leader, rose quickly to become captain. He played in all six matches in the Patrice Wymore Actress and dancer who gave up her career to care for her daughter and her ailing husband, Errol Flynn Starlift (1951), the all-star movie about Holly- scheme to entertain troops in Korea, she starred opposite Kirk Douglas in a logging adventure, The Big Trees (1952). In two musi- cals starring Virginia Mayo, Working Her Way Through College (1952) and Back on Broadway (1953), she had her finest dancing opportunities, partnering the Blackburn Twins in the former.

After filming The Man Behind the Gun (1953) with Randolph Scott she gave birth to her daughter Arnella and retired from the screen to bring up the child and care for the increasingly debilitated Flynn. Arnella, a one- time fashion model, died of an apparent drug overdose in 1998. In an interview she gave in 2000, Flynn said she had stopped listening to the roguish sto- ries about her husband and described Jamaica as the retreat from the pressures of Hollywood. In Jamaica, she recalled, were very busy doing nothing. We spent most days rafting.

not to say there be a party on the drop of a In his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways Flynn described her as an warm and woman who cook Indian and dance and sing. He also wrote: ever tried harder than Pat to make me Wymore returned briefly to acting in 1955, co-starring with Flynn and Anna Neagle in a UK-produced screen version of the Ivor Novello operetta Rhapsody, and in 1957 she took roles in five episodes of televi- sion series, Errol Flynn Theatre. On death, she inherited the plantation, plus a mansion and a cattle ranch, but she returned to acting occasionally, appearing in summer theatre musicals including Guys and Dolls and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and television shows including Perry Mason and 77 Sunset Strip. In 1960 she took a small role in 11, starring Frank Sinatra. Later she opened a bou- tique and started a wicker furniture manufac- turing business in Portland, Jamaica, where she was also noted for philanthropy and her work for the community.

TOM VaLLance Patricia Wymore, actress, dancer and singer: born Miltonvale, Kansas 17 December 1926; married 1950 Errol Flynn (died 1959; one daughter deceased); died Portland, Jamaica 22 March 2014. Hilderaldo Bellini Composed defender who provided the solidity that helped take Brazil to victory in the 1958 World Cup Bellini lifts a replica of the Jules Rimet trophy in a recreation of the seminal image from 1958 REuTERS Wymore in 1952: she said she stopped listening to the stories about her husband gETTY Mickey Lay Country barfly who inspired Johnny Byron, the charismatic central character of the hit play 1958 World Cup finals, though Welsh fans still contend that he was lucky not to face the mighty John Charles, who was injured for the quarter-final in Gothenburg, in which Brazil defeated Jimmy valiant side by the only goal. Bellini cut a composed, mas- sively influential figure in 5-2 victories over France in the last four and the host nation in the final, both of which were illuminated by the emerging genius of Pele. However, the captain had slipped behind the Santos stalwart, Mauro, by the time of the 1962 tournament in Chile and he was held in reserve as Brazil retained their crown, but he bounced back in time for the 1966 World Cup finals in England, featuring in a 2-0 victory over Bulgaria and a 3-1 defeat to Hungary, both at Goodison Park. That signalled the end of Bel- 51-cap international career, but he played on at club level for Sao Paulo, whom he had joined in 1962, then finished his playing days with Atletico Paranaense at the end of the dec- ade.

IVan POnTInG Hilderaldo Luiz Bellini, footballer: born Ita- pira, Brazil 7 June 1930; played for Vasco da Gama 1952-61, Sao Paulo 1962-67, Atletico Paranaense 1968-69; capped 51 times by Bra- zil 1957-66; died Sao Paulo 20 March 2014. Lay outside his local in Pewsey: was an early-doors said landlord Jerry Kunkler joHN lAwRENcE He concentrated on winning the ball and giving it to his more gifted team-mates She was the daughter of vaudevillians and was singing and dancing on stage from the age of six Footballer. Born: 1930 Entertainer. Born: 1926 Builder. Born: 1940 He once boasted of drinking 43 pints of Guinness in a single afternoon.