WATCH REED BIRNEY READ “LONG SUNSET: MEMOIRS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL’S LAST PRIVATE SECRETARY”
BOOK #13 IN OUR '40TH READINGS AT CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS' VIDEO SERIES
Anthony Montague Browne closely attended to Winston Churchill as his last private secretary right up to Churchill’s death in 1965. Mr. Montague Browne did not keep a diary but he did write a splendid book about his Churchill years, published in 1995, LONG SUNSET: Memoirs of Winston Churchill’s Last Private Secretary. It is Book #13 in our 40TH READINGS AT CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS video series, as read by the incomparable, Tony Award-winning actor, REED BIRNEY.
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ANTHONY MONTAGUE BROWN (1923-2013) was an RAF pilot during the war and a diplomat before and after his time with Winston Churchill from 1952-1965. We now also know that, during his early Churchill years, Mr. Montague Browne had an affair with Jane Portal, one of his boss’s principal personal secretaries. In 2016 — three years after Anthony Montague Brown’s death — DNA testing proved that he was, in fact, the father of Portal’s son, Justin Welby, who is, to this day, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
REED BIRNEY is an esteemed American actor acclaimed for his stage work, including a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for The Humans in 2016; three Off-Broadway Obie Awards; and a special Drama Desk award in 2011 honoring the sum of his acting career. On screen he starred in the films Mass (2021), and The Menu (2022), and had recurring roles in Gossip Girl (2007–2009), House of Cards (2013–2017), The Blacklist (2014–2015), and Home Before Dark (2021–2022), among many others.
40th READINGS AT CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS
toasts the best 40 books about Winston Churchill published during our forty year existence.
We launched the series on April 11 with actor JOHN LITHGOW reading THE LAST LION.
You can watch that reading: HERE