bridiequilty:

One night I was at Ciro’s and Greer Garson was there with a publicist named Harry Crocker, who was a scion of the Crocker family of San Francisco, the Crocker Bank founders. Harry Crocker was working in Hollywood as sort of a companion to stars. He was Charlie Chaplin’s publicity man for a whole, and Greer Garson and Harry were sitting at a remote table in the back of Ciro’s. As was often the case with stars out on the town, I was invited to sit down and talk with them. I had finished taking pictures of the stars in the club that evening, and was just hanging around waiting to see if any other things would happen or any other stars would show up.

While I was at her table, Greer heard a song; the band was playing one that was very dear to her, a World War II song—“A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” At that moment, Greer Garson—and this was just unbelievable from the image I had of her—reached into her purse, one of these evening purses with rhinestones and all that sort of stuff, and took out a little harmonica about an inch or an inch and a half long. It was the kind that some of those harmonica players would keep in their mouths and then all of a sudden start playing and the audience would wonder, “Where did that come from?” She put it in her mouth, and the next thing I knew, she was playing the song with them, on that tiny harmonica. My eyes just popped out of my head. I could not believe that this English woman who was almost queenly in her image, would pull out a dinky little harmonica and start playing it.

Gene Lester