Джеффри Бернард: Жизнь в Сохо и «Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell»

English journalist (1932–1997)

Jeffrey Joseph Bernard (/b//ər/'/n//ɑr//d/; 27 May 1932 – 4 September 1997) was an English journalist, best known for his weekly column "Low Life" in The Spectator magazine, and also notorious for a feckless and chaotic career and life of alcohol abuse. He became associated with the louche and bohemian atmosphere that existed in London's Soho district and was later immortalised in the comical play Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell by Keith Waterhouse. He was played by his friend Peter O'Toole when the play first opened. The title refers to a notice The Spectator would put in the place of Bernard's column on occasions in which he was unable to write.

Bernard was born in Hampstead, London, and was the youngest of the three sons of the English architect Oliver Percy Bernard (1881–1939) and his opera singer wife Edith Dora Hodges (1896–1950). His siblings were the poet Oliver Bernard, and the photographer Bruce Bernard. He was a paternal cousin to the actor Stanley Holloway. Bernard attended Pangbourne College for two years before his parents responded to the college's protest that he was "psychologically unsuitable for public school life". He later briefly served in the British army but went AWOL.

Even while at school, Bernard had begun to explore Soho and Fitzrovia at age 14 with his brother Bruce. Seduced by the area's lurid glamour, he moved there at 16, supporting himself in a variety of jobs that were at odds with his middle class background, including boxing booth attendant, building labourer, dishwasher, stagehand, kitchen assistant and coal miner. His fellow miners mocked him for bringing his lunch wrapped up in pages from The Times. He later took up photography with the encouragement of his second wife Jackie Ellis and often collaborated with his best friend Frank Norman. In 1962, Norman and Bernard worked together on a collection of writing and photography based on Soho called Soho Night and Day. "I think we were drunk for a year," Bernard later reflected. The duo obtained an advance of £100 for the collection, but Bernard lost his payment playing roulette. Though married four times (Anna Grace in 1952, Jackie Ellis in 1959, Jill Wilsworth in 1966 and Susan Ashley Gluck in 1978), he often remarked, only half in jest, that alcohol was the other woman. He was a womaniser and had numerous affairs. His drinking, gambling, violence and infidelities ensured each marriage failed. In the case of his third wife, Wilsworth divorced Bernard in 1973 after he punched a woman in The Coach and Horses. He sought treatment for alcoholism and was sober for two years before returning to the bottle. His lifestyle had an inevitable effect on his health and reliability, and the magazine often had to post the notice "Jeffrey Bernard is unwell" in place of his column. Instead of the regular notice, The Spectator announced, "Jeffrey Bernard has had his leg off". Bernard died at his home in Soho at age 65 on 4 September 1997 of renal failure after turning down further treatment by dialysis.