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unusual facts about The Cat's Whisker


The Cat's Whisker

in his pre-film director days, captured the 'energy and excitement' of this night life in Soho for Picture Post and these atmospheric images resurfaced in the Soho Nights exhibition by The Photographers' Gallery, London, December 2008-February 2009.


Blood and Bone

Ernest "The Cat" Miller as Mommie Dearest, an underground fighter billed as "The Homicidal Homosexual"

Claudia Harrison

Her film and TV credits include Point of Rescue film, The IT Crowd (2006), New Tricks (2007), Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow (2001), where she acted alongside Kirsten Dunst and Eddie Izzard.

Hand jive

In 1957 when filmmaker Ken Russell was a freelance photographer, he recorded the teenagers of Soho, London hand-jiving in the basement of The Cat's Whisker coffee bar, where the hand-jive was invented.

HMS Evadne

The Evadne (now Marala) was the setting of the 2001 film The Cat's Meow, in which she represented William Randolph Hearst's yacht, the Oneida.

Margaret Livingston

In the Peter Bogdanovich film The Cat's Meow (2001), Livingston, played by Claudia Harrison, is depicted as having an affair with Ince at the time of his death.

The Cat's Me-Ouch!

The title, The Cat's Me-Ouch! is a parody of the title of Tex Avery cartoon Cat's Meow, released on January 25, 1957, remake of Ventriloquist Cat (1950).

The short features a tiny bulldog who would go on to make another appearance in the final Tom and Jerry cartoon produced by Chuck Jones, Purr-Chance to Dream in 1967.

Victor Slezak

Victor Slezak (born July 30, 1957) is an American stage, television and screen actor who has appeared in numerous films, including The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Beyond Rangoon (1995), The Devil's Own (1997), The Siege (1998),The Cat's Meow (2001), Timequest as John F. Kennedy (2002) and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005).


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