Sun-Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1953 - 1954), Sunday 7 November 1954, page 21


EDDIE CHAPMAN

are

Fo:

MAY VISIT SYDNEY

Plans

r Ex-spy

BY A STAFF CORRESPONDENT

LONDON, Saturday Former British spy and master safe-breakers Eddie Chapman may visit Sydney next year.

GONDOLIER'S VISIT TO LIFEBOAT CREW

P i e t r o Vettemutti, magnificently uniformed gondolier to the Mayor of Venice,

was shown how to handle a surfboat at North

Bondi yesterday.

He is pictured above with, at right, the captain of the surfboat team,

Keith Woods.

Gondolier Pietro was one of a dozen visitors in aborted uniforms who brought a splash of colour to Bondi yesterday.

Among them, in scarlet and silver, was Henri

I Michel, a Copenhagen post

' man.

Also in the party was Jack Adams, in the uniform of a London bus driver.

The party, here as guests of the K.L.M. airline, includes a French taxi driver, a German enginedriver, a Belgian tram conductor, and a Norwegian sea captain.

He and his famous high-speed ex-naval patrol boat, the Flamingo, may arrive in Sydney about the middle of next year.

Mr. Colin Scrimgeour, chairman of directors of Associated TV. Pty. Ltd., and top British independent film producer Tony Farnborough are planning to shoot scenes of the yacht's hectic career in and around Sydney.

Also with Chapman is likely to be Billy Hill, selfconfessed London mobster who recently claimed "I was Britain's Al Capone."

Earlier this year, the Fla-Dingo and her crew were de-ported from Tangier and Italy.

Fooled Nazis

Chapman twice parachut-ed into Britain from occupied France during World

War II.

He pretended to work for the Germans and fooled them by passing valuable information to the British.

He is now barred from the Gold Coast, France, Italy, Corsica and North

Africa.

He admitted freely that the Flamingo was being used for smuggling.

Producer Bernborough, who has just finished making To Paris With Love," star-ring Alec Guinness and Odile Versois, said this week:

We plan to film part of the Flamingo story in Mediterranean ports and part somewhere around Sydney.

Rennie, Bogart

"As yet we've fixed no stars, but I would like Michael Rennie or Stanley Baker ('The Cruel Sea") to play Eddie.

The ideal choice for Billy Hill would be, - of course, Humphrey Bogart, but it's only a chance in a million that we could get

him."

Chapman said, "My book on the Flamingo will be finished in about a week.

"If the Australian trip comes off I want to do some

exploring in New Guinea." I