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Posted on 06/14/2002 8:36:09 PM PDT by aculeus
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has been knighted at the Queen's birthday honours, only months after joking that he wanted to be awarded a title.
The newspapers had anticipated that former hellraiser Jagger would soon become Sir Mick, despite a life of prolonged rock and roll excess.
"You think 'this is great' and then are very surprised, thinking 'why is this?"' he said. "But I'm very happy - delighted."
Fellow 60s icon, pop artist Peter Blake - who designed the iconic cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - was also made a knight at the Queen's Birthday Honours.
"It's funny to be getting a knighthood at the same time as Mick Jagger - we actually lived 50 yards away from each other. It's nice that two Dartford boys are getting honours simultaneously," he said.
But the collage-specialist caused controversy last year with his championing of artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin in the Royal Academy of Art's traditionally painting-dominated summer show.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Sir Mick was being honoured because he is "one of the great rock stars of the last century who continues to bring a lot of pleasure".
Sir Mick, famed for his womanising and rock'n'roll lifestyle, revealed: "I've been teased. I've had people on their knees, and I've even had plastic swords waved at me."
Another famous name being recognised is playwright Harold Pinter, who becomes one of only 65 Companions of Honour.
Often described as Britain's greatest living playwright, he is currently battling throat cancer.
Some of his best-known works include The Caretaker, The Homecoming and The Betrayal and Oscar-nominated screenplays for The French Lieutenant's Woman in 1981 and Betrayal in 1983.
But he has also developed a reputation for his political radicalism, with stinging criticism of American and British bombing campaigns in recent years.
Trevor Nunn, due to step down as head of the Royal National Theatre on London's South Bank in spring 2003, is also knighted.
Nunn was director of The Royal Shakespeare Company for 18 years and has masterminded a string of hit productions including Les Miserables.
He has also directed such diverse hits as Cats, Starlight Express and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, and recently took his West End revival of Oklahoma! to Broadway.
Also honoured from the world of the stage is opera director Jonathan Miller, who first came to fame in the 1960s with the Beyond the Fringe team.
His knighthood comes after a long career directing major international productions but also peppered with stinging criticism of some aspects of the opera world.
Honours for novelists include a CBE for Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks and an OBE for Ian Rankin, the creator of dark crime fiction featuring Edinburgh detective, Inspector John Rebus.
Elsewhere in showbusiness there is an OBE for actor David Suchet, whose trademark role was as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Retirement honour
Video artist Steve McQueen, a Turner Prize winner, is also made an OBE in the diplomatic list.
And drag artiste Danny La Rue, who has raised thousands for the battles against Aids receives an OBE.
Former BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Sue MacGregor is made a CBE, just two months after her she left the early morning show.
An MBE goes to Posy Simmonds, the popular cartoonist, writer and illustrator of children's books.
And an OBE in the diplomatic list goes to Kenneth Annakin for services to the film industry.
He either directed or co-directed such famous films as Holiday Camp, Quartet, Trio, Swiss Family Robinson, culminating in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines.
So, did ER II say "Arise, Lady La Rue"? (I know, only an OBE.)
Oh god I feel soooo old.
Sir Ozzy I could handle. But Bill Clinton? No way!
I alway preferred the Kinks. I'll listen to a weak album by the Kinks just because I love the Kinks, and Ray Davies is such an interesting and creative songwriter that even his lesser material is worth hearing at least once. Plus he's quintessentially English. All this is just to say that Ray Davies should have been knighted before Mick ever was (Ray even wrote a song about Queen Victoria! And it was a GREAT song!) But Ray probably hasn't paid nearly as much in taxes to the British crown, and I have a feeling that's what this knighthood is really all about: keeping Mick happy so he won't change his legal residence.
BTW, another reason to prefer the Kinks: the Stones are sucking their fans dry, charging $350 a ticket to watch them go through the motions yet again. The Kinks treat their fans with a lot more respect. When I was in college, I had tickets to a Kinks show that was kicking off their "Low Budget" tour. But their keyboard player was held up with another band and the show got canceled at the last minute. The Kinks not only gave everyone who had bought tickets a refund, but they came back at the end of the tour and did another show for free, inviting all the people who'd bought tickets to their first one, just to apologize for the inconvenience. It's easier to imagine Mick Jagger being able to write "Sunny Afternoon" than it is to imagine him doing THAT!
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