Cunard’s Queen Mary was built and fitted with an Art Deco style that was part country house post foxhunt, part nightclub pre-drinks. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique’s Normandie was an opulent, glittering hareem.
War broke out as the Queen Mary was carrying Bob Hope to New York. After that the Queen Mary became The Grey Ghost, stripped of interior and painted battleship drab.
The Queen Mary lives in California now where it is, again, part museum part hotel.
