| The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site |
FRIENDS, Part Five
| Karim Debbagh was one of Bowles's closest Moroccan friends, who now runs a successful film production company, Kasbah Films, based in Tangier, Morocco and in Berlin, Germany. Bowles nicknamed him "Karim Snake", to differentiate him from another of his close friends, Karim Jihad Achouatte, who acted and sang in the film Night Waltz: the Music of Paul Bowles, produced by Owsley Brown III in 1999. Other photographs on this page include the British traveller and tycoon Martin Soames, and Mercedes Guitta, who ran a club-like restaurant at the Place de Kowéit for over fifty years. |
|
Filmmakers Karim Debbagh (left) and Frieder Schlaich (right) with the young Moroccan actor Saïd Zakir ("Allal") and a local werewolf, Tangier 1995 |
| Karim Debbagh |
|
Moroccan filmmaker Karim Debbagh and Paul Bowles. Debbagh now runs a film production company, Kasbah Films, with offices in Tangier, Morocco and Berlin, Germany. |
| Martin Soames |
|
Martin Soames was a British tycoon, stockbroker and traveler, whose Tangier home of six decades was a converted riding school. Soames was born in London on November 25, 1903. In his twenties he held a position on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and later he combined a life on the London Stock Exchange with that of a racehorse owner. In his youth he was also a steeple-chase jockey, cricketer, huntsman and a tennis player. During his first visit to Morocco in 1926, Soames fell In love with the country, and in addition to Tangier, he especially enjoyed the far south of Morocco bordering the Sahara. In 1935 he married Myra Drummand, an accomplished musician, when Tangier had only 20,000 inhabitants. Soames was an early backer of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver, and he was a director of Keith Prowse theatre and travel agency and the Peter Maurice Music Company. Among Martin Soames' many Tangier friends were Jane and Paul Bowles, Marguerite McBey, David Herbert, Christopher Gibbs, and the English artist Francis Bacon, who once used Soames' studio in which to paint. One of his homes in England was Hinton Ampner in Hampshire, a fine Queen Anne house with extensive gardens, which now belongs to the National Trust. A nephew is the Duke of Westminster. Martin Soames died on February 16, 1995, at age 91. Soames was survived by his son Richard Soames, a film financier and the president of Film Finances, Inc., which is headquartered in Los Angeles, and by his daughter Elfin, Lady Ebury. |
|
Paul Bowles during a visit to Martin Soames' villa on Rue Vasco da Gama, at the bottom of the Mountain, Tangier. |
| Rachel Muyal |
| Rachel Muyal, the former director of Le Librairie des Colonnes bookshop on the Boulevard Pasteur, with Paul Bowles, Tanger, Maroc, 1993 |
| Mercedes Guitta |
| Mercedes Guitta in her club-like restaurant at the Place de Kowéit, Tangier, summer, 2002. During the 50 years she ran Guitta's Restaurant, she served Paul and Jane Bowles, Barbara Hutton and Prince Andrew. Her father ran the restaurant at the old Hôtel Villa de France, and once served food to His Majesty Mohamed V. | Mercedes Guitta (1916-2003), summer, 2003, holding "Charlie", one of her many dogs, standing on the porch of her new Tangier apartment after she closed her restaurant. The Grand Mosque Mohamed V looms in the background. |
| Writer Gavin Young with Mercedes Guitta and Phillip Ramey in the bar of Guitta's Restaurant, Tangier, 1996 | Benjamin Folkman, Mercedes Guitta and Phillip Ramey, Tangier, 1996 |
Friends: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Previous (Part Four); Return to galleries listing.
All content herein is Copyright © 2008, PaulBowles.org and the Estate of Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles and by other copyright holders as indicated. By accessing this Web site, the official Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles Web site, you agree to all Terms and Conditions of Use. The recommended screen size is 1024 x 768 or greater, with the text size set to medium. All rights reserved.