No 12929, Thursday 07 May 2020, Incognito

Day 44 of 54 Stay safe at home

Solution to 15A has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular/novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.

ACROSS
1    Veto — a deciding factor, perhaps? (7,4) CASTING VOTE {VETO}* [RA]
9    American era tradition (5) USAGE {US}{AGE}
10 Femur badly hit by girl with hot black individual (5,4) THIGH BONE {HIT*}{G}{H}{B}{ONE}
11 Actress designed great dress with love (5,5) GRETA GARBO {GREAT*}{GARB}{0}

By Bhargav

12 Salim Baig’s arm, for example (4) LIMB [T]
13 Angry numbers? (5) LIVID {L}{IV}{I}{D}
15 Permitting actor having gin cocktail (8) ?R?N?I?G (Addendum - GRANTING - See comments)
17 Violently Peron captured returning revolutionary thinker (8) PONDERER {PON{RED<=}ER*}
19 Brewed lager fit for a king (5) REGAL*
22 Bent rail in den (4) LAIR*
23 Wishful pro can be reverential (10) WORSHIPFUL*
26 Neil’s bank? (9) COASTLINE {LINE}* [RA]
27 Excited Serb’s holding a sword (5) SABRE {S{A}BRE*}
28 All remedies are manufactured in Erin, perhaps (7,4) EMERALD ISLE*

DOWN
1    Derrick’s bird (5) CRANE [DD]
2    Run Transport desk near stump (9) SKEDADDLE {DESK*}{ADDLE}
3    Badly train Yankee where mail should be kept (2,4) IN TRAY {TRAIN*}{Y}
4    German liberation activist, is more slick (7) GLIBBER {G}{LIBBER}
5    Lo, a human hides an island (4) OAHU [T]
6    Darkening fracture in big nose (9) EBONISING*
7    Chewed material is kept on gooey substance in club (6) CUDGEL {CUD}{GEL}
8    Gadget a suspicious wife used to monitor philandering husband, a pest? (3,3) BED BUG [C&DD]
14 Air pipe ’A’ passes through broken tile (9) VENTILATE {VENT}{IL{A}TE*}
16 Diverted an USSR/CIS flower (9) NARCISSUS*

17 Friend leads champ to king's house (6) PALACE {PAL}{ACE}
18 Heather carries book depicting smut (7) EROTICA {ER{OT}ICA}
20 Little, little — that is small — flowers (6) LILIES {LIL}{IE}{S}

21 Danes run amok around college and climb (6) ASCEND {AS{C}END*}
24 Lie about Strand (5) FIBRE {FIB}{RE}
25 King, exiled from island by model, gets eye problem (4) STYE S(-k+t)TYE

Reference List
Girl = G, Hot = H, Black = B, Yankee = Y, German = G, Book = OT(Old Testament), Little = LI'L, Small = S, College = C, About = RE. King = K, Model = T

Dr RKE's Tale Piece

Maria Screwallah had inherited her skin colour, white as LILIES, from her mother. Her mother was from the EMERALD ISLE and her father a Parsi. With long LIMBS and a sylph like figure, Maria was very different from the buxom heroines of Bollywood. Her looks and colour (to say nothing of acting ability) had earned her the sobriquet of "Greta Garbo of Bollywood". Her first director had Indianised her name as Gauri, which means "fair of complexion". That first film was a box-office hit and she ASCENDed to stardom with just that movie.

Her make-up team had to spend 2 hours in EBONISING her skin for the role of  "Kaala Raani" to be shot in a REGAL PALACE in Udaipur. The scene required Gauri to stride out of the palace steps with a CUDGEL in one hand and a SABRE in the other.  The director was LIVID when he found that the CRANE shot could not be done as planned due to a last minute glitch. An assistant director suggested that the camera could pan on her from the terrace of the opposite building instead of from the crane. The filming crew SKEDADDLEd to the new site and set up equipment. The director, who leaned over the parapet in the excitement of the shooting, lost his balance and fell to the ground. He was unable to move, as he had a broken THIGHBONE and was gasping for breath. Gauri (who had given up her training as a nurse midway as she was into cinema) rushed over and gave him the kiss of life (mouth-to-mouth VENTILATion). The director survived to make it to the hospital and recovered after surgery. That kiss had cemented the bond between the director and the actress, and they were soon honeymooning in the Pacific COASTLINE of the OAHU island of Hawaii. Adam GRANT, the WORSHIPFUL mayor of Honolulu, presented Gauri with a lei of NARCISSUS flowers. That picture made it to  the cover of Filmfare magazine.