Manoly Lascaris

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Emmanuel George "Manoly" Lascaris Greek: Μανόλη Λάσκαρη (August 1912 - 13 November 2003) was the lover of the Australian novelist and dramatist Patrick White. Lascaris was born in Cairo in 1912, the son of an American woman and her wealthy Greek-Egyptian husband. Lascaris met White while they both were servicemen in the Second World War. After the war, Lascaris and White lived together in Cairo, then moved to Australia, where they lived together at White's family farm. On White's mother's death they moved to her Sydney inner city property at Centennial Park. After White died on 30 September 1990, Lascaris lived there until his death on 13 November 2003. Lascaris was widely appreciated as an urbane and articulate advocate for the truculent and reclusive White.

Early Life

Lascaris was born in Cairo, the son of a wealthy Greco-Egyptian father from Smyrna in Asia Minor and an American mother. He was raised in Athens and Alexandria. ^[1]In 1941 he joined the Greek Army in exile in Egypt and soon after met White, who was then serving with the Royal Australian Air Force.

Cairo to Sydney

White and Lascaris lived together in Cairo for six years, before moving to a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney in 1948. When White's mother died, they moved to a home in Centennial Park, in inner Sydney, where they lived for the rest of their lives until White died and Lascaris. Although it was widely known that they were lovers, such matters were not publicly discussed in Australia at that time. Lascaris was sometimes referred to as White's "housekeeper." The relationship was not openly discussed until White published his memoirs, Flaws in the Glass, in 1981.

Later life

After White's death in 1990, Lascaris lived alone in the Centennial Park house until his health failed in 2003. He then moved into a nursing home, Lulworth, which had been White's childhood home. Marr wrote: "Patrick White believed coincidences were signs of divine order. Certainly they prove life always has more surprises to spring than art. A few months ago, when it was time for Manoly to move to hospital, he was taken to Lulworth, the old mansion at the back of Kings Cross that was once Patrick's childhood home. It was the closing of a circle that embraced Scone and Smyrna, London and Alexandria, the Whites and the Lascaris'."^{[citation needed]}

Appreciation

Lascaris was in many ways the gentle and urbane face of his life partnership with the prickly and difficult White^[2] White's biographer, David Marr, credits Lascaris with being the driving force who kept White to his literary labours, including the string of novels that won White the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. White referred to Lascaris as "the small Greek of immense moral strength who became the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design".^{[citation needed]}

Marr wrote in an obituary for Lascaris: "Everyone loved Manoly. He was courtly, intuitive and gentle. He protected people from White's outbursts of fury while remaining, at heart, absolutely loyal to his lover. 'There must be one person in the world Patrick can trust absolutely'"{{fact|date=October 2009))

After White's death in 1990, Lascaris lived alone in the Centennial Park house until his health failed in 2003. He then moved into a nursing home, Lulworth, which had been White's childhood home. Marr wrote:

"Patrick White believed coincidences were signs of divine order. Certainly they prove life always has more surprises to spring than art. A few months ago, when it was time for Manoly to move to hospital, he was taken to Lulworth, the old mansion at the back of Kings Cross that was once Patrick's childhood home. It was the closing of a circle that embraced Scone and Smyrna, London and Alexandria, the Whites and the Lascaris'."

^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ Webby, Elizabeth (2000), The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, Cambridge University Press, p. 235, ISBN 0521658438 
2. ^ Marr, David (2003-11-22). "Gentle foil to Patrick White's fury" (in English). Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027331090.html?from=storyrhs. Retrieved 2009-10-10. 

External links

• Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris - Vrasidas Karalis
• The "housekeeper" who lived in White's shadow emerges as a learned, opinionated man in Recollections Of Mr Manoly Lascaris