Belle and Sebastian, White Horses and Robinson Crusoe

The French actress, writer and director Cecile Aubry died recently. She had a short acting career after the war and during the shooting of a film in Morocco, says her Guardian obituary, she met and married:

Si Brahim El Glaoui, the oldest son of the pasha of Marrakech. They were married in secret because she thought that a marriage would harm her Hollywood career.

In the event that career did not last long, but she went on to have a succesful career as a writer and in television.

When I was very young there were three imported television series that were shown in every school holiday: Belle and Sebastian, White Horses and Robinson Crusoe.

Belle and Sebastian was adapted by Aubry from her own novel. It's young star Medhi turns out to have been Aubry and El Glaoui's son.

Looking at the opening now, there is more than a hint of 'Allo 'Allo about the long narration that follows the titles. "I shall say this only once." You could also here Mehdi piping a song over the close of each episode.



Then there was White Horses. The song was credited to "Jacky", who was in reality Jackie Lee. She reached the top 10 with it and later had a hit with the theme song from Rupert.

The opening titles of White Horses are on Youtube, but cannot be embedded. I am not sure I would want to wake up and find a horse's head sticking throught the window like that. Anyway, here is the song...



And then there was Robinson Crusoe. The flashback to his earlier life you got in the middle of every episode was boring, but the music was wonderful - though you don't get much of it here...