David Alexander Reginald Herbert (3 October 1908 – 3 April 1995) was a British socialite, memoirist and interior decorator. He was the second son of Reginald Herbert, 15th Earl of Pembroke. He spent his first few years in Castletown, Ireland. At the age of four, he moved to the family home of Wilton, near Salisbury. Attending preparatory school at Wixenford, he later was sent to Eton. He had brief stints as both a film actor, appearing in 1930's Knowing Men, and as a cabaret performer. He briefly shared an apartment with Noël Coward in the East End, and was satirized by Lord Berners as the character Daisy Montgomery in his 1936 satiric novel, The Girls of Radcliff Hall.
He spent almost fifty years in Tangier, Morocco where he was known for his vibrant personality and frequent lavish parties. He was referred to by Ian Fleming as 'the Queen of Tangier'. He died of kidney failure in 1995 and was buried in the cemetery at Saint Andrews' Church. He had been a devout Anglican. On his tombstone was engraved, "He loved Morocco".
His books, with vitality and wit, recall his years in the company of such figures as Cecil Beaton, Lady Diana Cooper, Noël Coward, Paul and Jane Bowles, Cyril Connolly, Brian Howard, Osbert Sitwell and Tallulah Bankhead. These include Second Son: An Autobiography (1972), which included a foreword by Paul Bowles and photographs by Cecil Beaton, Engaging Eccentrics: Recollections (1990), his second volume of autobiography, and Relations and Revelations: Advice to Jemima (1992), a book of memories and opinions written in the form of advice to his great-niece Jemima.
Famous quotes containing the words david herbert, david and/or herbert:
“Satire exists for the purpose of killing the social being [for the sake of] the true individual, the real human being.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Fantasy is a product of thought, Imagination of sensibility. If the thinking, discursive mind turns to speculation, the result is Fantasy; if, however, the sensitive, intuitive mind turns to speculation, the result is Imagination. Fantasy may be visionary, but it is cold and logical. Imagination is sensuous and instinctive. Both have form, but the form of Fantasy is analogous to Exposition, that of Imagination to Narrative.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)