Daily Inspiration Quote by Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison’s line lands like a perfectly timed eyebrow-raise: “a legend in his own lunchtime” is praise dressed up as a dagger. It borrows the old jab “legend in his own mind” and swaps in something more British and more social - lunchtime as the arena of performative self-regard, where the audience is captive, the wine is flowing, and the stories get better every time they’re told.

The intent is not to deny Robert Morley’s talent so much as to shrink it to the scale of his own self-mythology. A “legend” is supposed to be a consensus, something that accrues over years and beyond one’s control. Harrison’s tweak implies Morley’s legend is self-issued, refreshed daily, and curated for whoever happens to be at the table. It’s celebrity as a private screening.

The subtext is actor-to-actor rivalry with a wink: in mid-century theatre culture, reputations were built as much in clubs, dining rooms, and backstage corridors as under the lights. Morley was known for being larger-than-life - physically, socially, rhetorically - and Harrison, a master of clipped precision, punctures that largeness by locating it in the most mundane ritual imaginable. Not on opening night, not in history books, but between soup and pudding.

It works because it’s cruelly economical. One small word, “lunchtime,” turns grandeur into routine, and ego into habit. You can almost hear the laughter that follows: not the kind that elevates the subject, the kind that safely cuts him down to size.