FREE PHOTO: What About My Grandad?

I wish I'd been there when this was taken.

Today’s photo shows actor Anthony Quinn on the set of Lawrence of Arabia in 1962. He’s in costume as Bedouin tribal leader Auda abu Tayi, and he’s talking to King Hussein of Jordan. (I don’t know the source to credit it, it’s all over the internet, so apologies)

The most interesting thing about this photo for me is whether or not there is anything awkward about this conversation.

Family tree time. The wily old Sherif Hussein who reportedly kicked the Arab Revolt off himself by firing a shot from his balcony, had four sons. Number one (Ali) was a bit of a weakling. King Hussein in the picture was the grandson of Abdullah, the second son. However, all of the attention in this film went to Faisal, (Alec Guinness) the third son. Abdullah does not appear as a character, even an extra, anywhere on IMDB for the film.

We have Lawrence to blame for this (not O’Toole, the shorter, less good looking version). He talks in Seven Pillars of Wisdom about how he knew the first time he met Faisal, that he was the one he had come to look for, the potential leader who could unite disparate Arabs against Ottoman rule.

It all sounds very romantic, but Lawrence was an epic bullshit artist and this is him at his best. He preferred Faisal because he was more pliable than his short-tempered brother, Abdullah, who was far less likely to fall into line and do as he was told. Simply put, he’d be harder to manipulate, and he was less willing to jump on the Lawrence bandwagon, and so Lawrence preferred to work his brother instead.

For his part, I think I remember one passing reference to Lawrence in Abdullah’s own memoir, so the feeling would appear to have been mutual. He did accuse the Englishman of witchcraft at one point, but it could have just as easily been a backhanded compliment as much of a criticism, because the context isn’t clear.

In reality, at first the revolt was as much Abdullah’s as it was Faisal’s. Even when the attention shifted to his younger brother, who happened to be the one positioned to move north towards Damascus into the limelight, he was there plugging away with his men thanklessly to the south. He too harassed the Hejaz railway, and made the lot of the Turkish garrison in Medina absolutely miserable.

So the one thing going through my head looking at this photo, is did King Hussein know that his grandfather was being written out of history? And it did it matter to him? Doesn’t look like it. He even lent some of his troops as extras, but I hope he at least brought Abdullah up on set and pointed out his grandfather’s crucial (and ignored, at least in the west) contribution to the revolt.

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If you’d like to visit Jordan with me, I run trips every year to trace the Arab Revolt. We drag you all over the desert with a Bedouin camp, and you’ll get to see Petra too.