My Life in Focus

by Gianni Bozzacchi,Joey Tayler

  That night we went to dinner with Richard and Elizabeth at a beautiful restaurant in Hampstead. Away from the set and far from their fans, they were very affectionate, friendly, and simple people. So they got along well with my father. But before long he vanished. After a search, I found him in the kitchen helping the cooks. My father didn’t easily adapt to this world either, so “revered and spoiled,” so different from our own in Rome.

  The following evening, we all went out together with Marilù Tolo, a friend who was in London studying English. She was a well-known actress in Italy at the time, and my father’s reaction was very similar to the one he’d had meeting Elizabeth. He was so proud to be out in public with her like that. And infuriated that he couldn’t make the most of it. “Christ, I’m out walking with Marilù Tolo and won’t meet anyone I know!”

  We went to a very popular Polynesian restaurant. My father studied the menu, but didn’t have a clue what to choose. There was no pasta and no other food that he knew. I ordered him a scorpion, a cocktail with three types of rum mixed with fruit juice. He took one sip and said, “This is crazy, you’ve ordered me fruit juice.” He wanted wine, but they didn’t have any, so he slugged the scorpion and ordered another. I warned him to go slow. But by the end of the evening, when we got up from the table, he exclaimed, “Mamma mia, I’ve lost my legs!” He was drunk from the belt down, and I had to physically carry him to the car. He wasn’t raving; he simply couldn’t walk.

  When my father returned to Rome, I finished developing my negatives from Where Eagles Dare and Secret Ceremony and began getting ready to go to Paris to organize our wedding. Before leaving, however, I was contacted about doing an album cover for the Rolling Stones. I believe they were interested in me because I wasn’t English. In those days, Paris was the world’s fashion capital. They’d read the Daily Mirror article about Elizabeth Taylor’s personal photographer, an Italian who lived in Paris, and they thought it was cool. So I met Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman, along with some of their managers. They were two young, arrogant kids, a bit like I was. But they didn’t make a good impression on me. Their version of celebrity was very different from the style I’d become accustomed to with Elizabeth and Richard. They were rock stars, not members of the Hollywood nobility. We didn’t understand each other. They offered me the job, but I was so busy with preparations for our wedding that in the end nothing came of it.

  The Beatles also wanted to hire me to do the cover of what would become their last album together, Abbey Road. I had what I thought was a good idea: the four of them walking in single file across the street. I talked about it with their agent and took a few Polaroid shots. But then they said they wanted to do something else, when in fact they hired another photographer and stole my idea. I complained to the Beatles PR man, Jerry Pam, who later became one of my good friends, and I even thought about suing. But it would have been so difficult to prove the whole thing, so eventually I gave it up. There’s so much copying in photography that it becomes impossible to resolve situations like that. Maybe someone else really had had the same idea. And when the Beatles heard it for the second time, they liked it better. In the end, the credit goes to who took the photo. Maybe the end result was better than what I would have done anyway. Or maybe I really would have done a better job. Who knows?

  Claudye and I married on June 22, 1968. The wedding was supposed to take place in Paris, but when the famous May Revolution broke out, we decided to move to a countryside location in Lower Normandy, Claudye’s close friend Alexandre’s country house in the village of Saint-Lo. Elizabeth and Richard, as our matron of honor and best man, came and went the same day by helicopter. As their wedding gifts to us, Claudye got a Dior dress and I got a Mini Cooper S! Our bridesmaids were Liza Todd and Maria Burton. Our page was John Heyman’s son, David.

  The ceremony was held in a Catholic church. The priest didn’t want to marry us because I wasn’t baptized. Then Elizabeth gave a “donation” of $10,000 to his church, and suddenly he no longer seemed worried about my faith. Nor his own, it would seem, given that soon afterward the good father disappeared, along with Elizabeth’s donation. Who knows what happened to the man, into what world he vanished? I often used to ask Alexandre, because he lived in the parish and knew everyone. But all he could say was that the priest never returned and no one had since heard a word about him. I believe he felt rather embarrassed about the whole affair.

  Claudye and I married in France, June 22, 1968, flanked by our honor guard, Elizabeth and Richard. My former boss Pierluigi took the (exclusive) pictures.

  We wanted a small, private wedding. But of course that was totally impossible, given the presence of Elizabeth and Richard. The entire village turned out to watch the bridal procession in front of the church. The reception was held in Alexandre’s house and fabulous garden, an old restructured mill on an island in the Vire River. I’d never seen so many photographers all in one place. They’d come from all over Europe and, in order to steal their shots, had donned fisherman’s waders and were standing half submerged in the river. That way, by staying in the water, they weren’t trespassing on private property. The only photographer I authorized to come inside was Pierluigi. Marie Elaine de Rothschild invited herself. Top fashion executives, artists, total strangers, people I’d never met, all turned up to swell the crowd.

  The only guests I really cared about were my own close friends and family: my father, my mother, my sister Paola, my brothers-in-laws Robert and Tonio, and my brother Renato. And, of course, Richard and Elizabeth, who were very affectionate with all of them. At one point, Richard invited my father to sit next to him while he continued to drink and chat with everyone around him. Then he noticed something strange about my father’s socks. The elastic had snapped and they’d slid onto his shoes, so my father had rolled and tucked them back up around his calves. Richard burst out laughing. “Bruno, you’re fantastic,” he said, and hugged him. My father was a simple man, just like the son of a Welsh miner. Then I saw my mother go over to Elizabeth and give her a pinch on the cheek. “You’re a right sweetie, you are,” she said, at which Elizabeth laughed and hugged her back.

  Pierluigi took this shot of us newlyweds. I’d love to have a copy of the photo you see Elizabeth taking, but oddly I never got one.

  Every time I’d approach my mother she’d ask, “Who are all these people?” I don’t know if I was more delighted that day, or confused. My wedding was everything a wedding should be, full of joy, dancing, good food, and lots to drink. But Elizabeth and Richard’s presence, even though it was extremely appreciated, made it seem to me like the event had spiraled beyond Claudye and me, had become something that wasn’t entirely ours.

  The following day, newspapers around the world—with photos supplied by Pierluigi—publicized the love story that had blossomed inside the world of Elizabeth and Richard, a love story inside the biggest love story on the planet.

  Claudye was much more at ease in this vortex than I ever was. We were in her close friend Alexandre’s house. Elizabeth and Richard had been her employers and friends for ages. Claudye knew all these important people whom I’d never met. She was used to a lifestyle that was still so new to me. What was I doing there? Did I belong to this group of people simply because I’d taken a few beautiful photos? And were my photos really so extraordinary that they deserved all that prime space in top magazines? Or were they only “good” because they were exclusive, or because I was part of Elizabeth and Richard’s entourage? I was happy and excited about beginning a new life with Claudye. But it still didn’t feel like my life—not yet, at least.

  Chapter 7

  Black and White in Color

  Claudye and I spent the better part of 1968 on our honeymoon. From Paris, we went to relax for a few days on the Côte d’Azur in southern France. Then we went to Corsica, where locals came to serenade us under our hotel window. Then we went to Rome, where we hired a car and drove to Naples, crossing over to Capri. Our next stop was Saint-Tropez, where we st
ayed in another of Alexandre’s homes. Then we met up with Elizabeth and Richard in Villefranche-sur-Mer, a little town between Nice and Monte Carlo. Their yacht was moored just off the port, and as we approached it by sea, I noticed that they’d changed the name. They’d bought it and rebaptized it Kalizma, an acronym of the names of their three daughters: Kate, Liza, and Maria. We proceeded to enjoy a long cruise on that beautiful yacht.

  When Richard originally rented the boat in London it was already old. First launched in 1912, it had done service for the British navy throughout both world wars. When it was associated with the magic couple Taylor-Burton, however, the press dubbed it the “Love Boat,” and it became one of the world’s most exclusive aquatic residences. It had seven bedrooms and could sleep fourteen passengers plus accommodate a crew of eight, which included a cook, a maid, and a waiter. We had a lot of fun over the years on that yacht: Richard, Elizabeth, their children, and everyone’s friends. It’s since been bought again and fully restored by a wealthy Indian industrialist. He spent good money revamping the yacht from stern to prow but took care to maintain the name Kalizma. After all, the name was what made it famous in the first place, and its association with Elizabeth and Richard remains a significant reason why it’s still worth a lot of money.

  Life quickly became more surreal. Total strangers stopped me in the street, called me by name, asked for my autograph. Paparazzi followed us everywhere. Yet all I could do was keep wondering, “Why me?” I didn’t think I deserved so much attention. Worse still, I wasn’t at all sure it would last. I was convinced Elizabeth and Richard would eventually figure out I was a fraud. And if they didn’t, Claudye would. I’d spent half my life trying to avoid photography. Now, without even trying to, I’d become the most in-vogue photographer on the planet.

  Elizabeth takes a dip from the Kalizma, suggesting one reason why paparazzi dubbed it the “Love Boat” . . . because they were in love with its leading lady.

  During that trip, I tried to picture my future life as a married man. I was used to the freedom that came with my work and the climate of those times. Well before our marriage, we knew that our lives were different, that our world of work was different, that I was different. Certain things were part and parcel of my job. “It was the sixties!” people my age still say, especially if they worked in the entertainment industry. It has become a shorthand way of summing up the situation, an excuse for being young and free to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. If you never personally experienced the repressive forties and fifties, you’ll never truly understand the cultural shock of the sexual revolution that followed. Especially how it felt to a young twenty-four-year-old guy who suddenly found himself front-page news around the world. And, of course, it wasn’t just us guys. The pill had given women a way to control their sex life. And they were using it, aggressively.

  At first I thought women were just reacting to my camera. I knew how to recognize someone’s beauty when I saw it through the lens of a camera. It took me some time to realize that, without me knowing it, I was sexually provoking women. I acted on instinct. It came naturally to me to behave like that in order to get the image I wanted. I had no precise intention of taking them to bed. I just wanted to stimulate them in order to get a beautiful photo. Eventually I realized that while I was photographing women, I was manipulating their inner sensuality. It’s something you have to experience in order to understand it properly. For example, if you know how to touch a woman, you can stir certain feelings in her. If you don’t, she can end up turning you down. Exactly the same thing happens with a photo. A good photographer has to bring the best out in his or her subject, make the person feel good in order to create the best possible image. I was a young Italian guy photographing beautiful women. During photo shoots in a studio, I couldn’t hide in the background like I did on sets or at parties. Inevitably the exchange became personal. If I’d ignored my subjects or tried to hide behind my lens, I’d have made them feel intimidated, insecure. I had to interact, chat, encourage, compliment. I flirted with women in my studio, trying to get inside their minds with feelings, expressions, body language. My cameras became an extension of my sensuality, and this created a certain intimacy between me—the artist—and my subjects.

  I have to confess that my system worked so well that it transformed me into a sex symbol. Women stopped waiting for the end of a photo shoot to proposition me. They’d stroll straight into my studio and strip naked before I could even say, “Hi.” Turning them down only seemed to make them more aggressive. Some got offended and left. In the end I quit trying to stop them. After all, we’re talking about a procession of amazing models and fabulous actresses. Like I said, those were the sixties. Behaving like that today would be considered unprofessional. And quite rightly. But things were different back then. Sex was everywhere, including in my job. And the fact is, there’s a big difference in a woman’s face before and after sex. She can look incredibly sexy beforehand. But afterward—she oozes sexuality.

  In order to get the shots I wanted, I knew I had to present myself to my female subjects in a certain way. I provoked them with my body language, with my way of moving, with what I said, with the things I made them imagine could happen, and with what had already taken place. Only some photographers have this ability, and I was one of them. But now that I was married, I’d no idea how I could keep doing that job. Not that way, at least. I loved Claudye and no one else. But how long could I resist before I trampled on that love? And what about physical attraction? Flirting? My own libido? Everything else? Our marriage had come upon us so quickly that I hadn’t had time to think about how I’d adapt.

  However, Claudye knew my life very well—our life, the jet-set life. She knew that I wouldn’t change overnight just because I was married now. Nor did she want me to. She’d lived with Elizabeth and Richard much longer than I had and was at ease in their carefree world. What’s more, she adored being married to Gianni Bozzacchi, “the new king of the camera,” much more than she loved Gianni Il Roscio from Rome. And I played my part the best I could. Claudye wanted me to grow my hair long like a rock star, so I did. She wanted me to dress better, so I did. She was prepared to ignore whatever went on in my studio in order to protect this fantasy. She never asked any questions, never put me in a position where I’d have to lie to avoid wounding her. In Italy we say, “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t weep over.” People probably say that pretty much everywhere. In any case, our marriage worked that way, as did many others in those days.

  I also had to learn how to handle so much sudden celebrity. I came from a very simple family background. I’d never been spoiled. I was just a photographer. But Elizabeth had never had a personal photographer before. I’d been hurled into this world almost from one day to the next, and God knows how many times I wondered: “Are there other guys out there like me?” I still don’t know. David Bailey married Catherine Deneuve. Many other photographers were with top models. Some became famous in their own right, and not just as a name at the end of a caption. Meanwhile, paparazzi tailed me everywhere. Articles came out about me. Had I created that character, “the new king of the camera”? No. It just happened. I was still the same person in my private life. But I learned to look after my own affairs. I dressed better. I bought beautiful things. I contrived ways of displaying class and importance in certain situations. For example, if I was just going into a restaurant for a quick meal, it didn’t matter where I sat. I just went in and ate. But if I was going in order to talk about work, or thought there might be people who knew me and I wanted to make a good impression, then I’d walk differently, I’d talk with the headwaiter differently. That way people would realize I was someone significant, even if they didn’t know me. They’d give me the best table without me even asking.

  There was no gradual transition to this new life. Fame and reputation came out of the blue. When I left Italy I was no one. When I returned I was a member of the world’s most exclusive jet-set circle. The moment
my honeymoon ended, I had to start to live up to a role that I’d been thrust into almost overnight.

  While Claudye and I were still on our honeymoon, Pierluigi phoned to apologize. He wanted me to join him as a business partner, principally because the clients who were calling his offices around the world were now all looking for me. I asked Elizabeth what she thought, and she told me not to accept. She didn’t trust Pierluigi and thought that associating myself with him would not help me professionally. I’d never need someone like Pierluigi again. I was getting offers from all over the place. I could have chosen from among dozens of jobs that would have been the envy of any photographer. So I turned Pierluigi’s offer down.

  In response, Pierluigi not only refused to pay me what I was still owed for my work on The Comedians, but he also called the police and tried to get me arrested for stealing a number of cameras. All Pierluigi’s photographers worked with his cameras. When I got fired, I still had a couple of them at home. But by the time he called the police, I’d already returned them. So then he tried to sue me for breach of contract. But that didn’t work either. All he managed to do was demonstrate just how deeply envy had clouded his mind. His accusations against me were ridiculous. I almost felt sorry for him.

  My agreement with Elizabeth, the attention I was getting, the interesting offers of work could all have allowed me to revel in my revenge over Pierluigi, the man who had effectively stolen my work for years. But I was too happy to get any pleasure out of his downfall. Technically, I was still under contract to him. And I still had a lot of friends working in his dying agency. Clients who for years had gone to Pierluigi were now coming to me. His business was coming apart at the seams. Without even trying, without even meaning to, I’d ruined him.