Do you remember Arthur the white cat, who appeared in a series of clever adverts for Kattomeat? This is an odd story from the late 1960s which involves the Russian Embassy in London and West Hampstead.
Spillers did not have time to enter a defence and the court agreed Arthur should be returned to Toneye. He went with a bailiff to collect Arthur from Sonja Colville’s cattery at Horndon-on-the Hill in Essex.
But Spillers subsequently contested the verdict, and the case went to the High Court on 20 February. The judge ordered Manning to return Arthur to Spillers who said they had legally bought the cat from Manning. But he refused, saying he had gone to the Russian Embassy and they had offered Arthur ‘political asylum’. Eager to follow the headline story, reporters rushed to the Embassy where an official said he knew nothing about it. The Embassy also received thousands of phone calls from the public demanding that the Russians return Arthur.
On 28 February the judge ordered Manning to be sent to Brixton jail for contempt of court until he appeared with Arthur and returned him to Spillers.
That evening, Terry Denton de Gray, a TV and theatrical agent, who lived in Kings Gardens West End Lane West Hampstead, heard his doorbell ring. When he answered the door, nobody was there but he found a cardboard box had been left on the step. Inside he found Arthur and phoned West Hampstead police station. The next day Spillers sent a chauffeur-driven Daimler car to return Arthur to the Essex cattery.
Reporters resolved the mystery of how Arthur got from East Finchley to West Hampstead. They discovered that a 23-year old Irish woman called Eileen O’Callaghan who lived in a bedsit in the same house as Toneye Manning, was told if anything happened to him she had to take Arthur to his agent Denton De Gray. To avoid the waiting press, she slipped out of the back of the house with Arthur in a box and went by bus to West Hampstead, where she rang the bell in Kings Gardens and ran away.
Toneye Manning was released from Brixton after 15 days, but he continued his case against Spillers who he claimed had removed Arthur’s teeth to make him use his paw to eat the cat food from the tin. The case appeared in court on 5 November 1969.
Manning, now living in Grosvenor Road Ilford, said that in 1964 Arthur belonged to his girlfriend, June Clyne a Australian actress. When they saw him eating with his paw, June approached the advertising agency Geers, Gross who were making an advert for Spillers’ cat food, and in 1966 Arthur first appeared in the TV adverts.
When June died in 1967, Manning and her mother in Australia both claimed ownership of valuable Arthur. To resolve the situation, in September 1967 Spillers paid Mrs Clyne £700 and Toneye Manning £700 to buy the cat. But in court Manning said the money he received from Spillers represented a fee to use Arthur in the adverts and he still owned the cat. Spillers presented evidence that this was untrue.
The judge asked to see Arthur’s teeth and heard evidence from a vet. In his summing up the judge called Manning a brazen liar who had forged documents. He dismissed his claim that Spillers had removed Arthur’s teeth and gave ownership to Spillers. Manning who conducted his own case, was ordered to pay Spillers’ costs which were estimated at £3,000 (worth almost £50,000 today).
 |
| Toneye Manning |
The Catnap
In April 1974 Arthur was stolen from a cattery in Abridge Essex where now he lived with Jeanne Green. In an article in The Sunday Mirror of 28 April 1974, Toneye Manning said the kidnappers had been in touch with him and were holding Arthur until Spillers agreed that he owned the cat.
Arthur was first discovered by 16-year old Lynda Taylor in a stable near Eaton Bray, about three miles from Dunstable. She left food for him, but she did not recognize him as the missing Arthur because he was dirty and bedraggled.
Arthur was later found near the stable by namesake Arthur Turvey, a 76-year old ex-publican who took him in thinking he was a stray. He rang the police and the RSPCA but they did not contact him, so Arthur stayed with the Turvey’s for eight days. Only when his son-in-law saw the cat eating with his paw did they realise it might be Arthur. They phoned a local paper who contacted the police. In a blaze of publicity, Jeanne Green collected Arthur and he returned with her to the cattery. The Turvey’s received the £500 reward from Spillers, a Harrods food hamper, and the promise of a kitten to replace Arthur.
Nobody was ever charged with taking Arthur from the cattery.
Between 1966 and 1975 there were 300 TV adverts for Kattomeat with Arthur and his latter replacements. The films were made in the studios of Streich Perkins Ltd in Charlotte Mews near Tottenham Court Road, and the actors, Peter Bull, Leo Mckern and Joss Ackland provided the voice overs. The branding campaign was so successful that in 1992 Kattomeat was renamed Arthur’s cat food.
You can see some of the TV adverts here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3kj1HKwqhc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzCEiei0ug
Terry Denton de Grey was an interesting character. He was born in Beverley Yorkshire in 1924 as Terence Roy Denton. He became a magician and escape artist called Devil Dare. Then he worked as a stunt man and actor called Denton de Gray. He appeared in several films including, Quatermass II (1955), and The Battle of the River Plate (1956). Terry worked on stage and appeared in TV programmes such as Charlie Drake and Monty Python. He most famously played Henry VIII in the medieval and fantasy shows which he ran until his death in 2006 in Kingston on Thames. He also had a theatrical agency in the 1960s.
 |
| Terry Denton De Grey as Henry VIII |
Comments
Post a Comment