Cyril Connolly - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

• Cyril Connolly's name appears in a coda to the Monty Python song "Eric the Half-a-Bee", as a mishearing of the words "semi-carnally". Despite being corrected, the backing vocalists then sing "Cyril Connolly" to the melody of the song. The same comedians made another reference to Connolly in The Brand New Monty Python Bok, which includes a facsimile Penguin paperback, "Norman Henderson's Diary", complete with (invented) praise from Connolly

• The critic and publisher Everard Spruce in Evelyn Waugh’s “Sword of Honour” trilogy is a satire of Connolly

• Ed Spain, “the Captain” in Nancy Mitford’s 1951 novel “The Blessing” is a satire of Connolly

• Michael Nelson’s novel “A Room in Chelsea Square” (1958) is a thinly disguised homosexualised account about Connolly’s time editing “Horizon”

• Elaine Dundy’s novel “The Old Man and Me” (1964) is based on her affair with Connolly

• A film producer in Julian MacLaren-Ross’s 1964 thriller “My Name is Love” is based on Connolly. MacLaren-Ross repeated many of the descriptions verbatim in his later memoir of Connolly

• Connolly is quoted as saying "Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self" in Season 5, Episode 7 of Criminal Minds.

• Since the film A Business Affair (1994) is adapted from Barbara Skelton’s memoirs of her marriage to Cyril Connolly, Jonathan Pryce’s character Alec Bolton in the film is based on Cyril Connolly

• Connolly is also fictionalised in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. The principal character, eighteen-year-old Briony Tallis, sends the draft of a novella she has written to Horizon magazine and Cyril Connolly is shown as replying at length as to why the novella had to be rejected, apart from explaining to Briony her strong and weak points and also mentioning Elizabeth Bowen.

• Michael Lewis's book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game cites Connolly at the top of the first chapter - "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising." (Enemies of Promise")