CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
VIVE LA DÉCADENCE
I think over the years I have stayed in almost every room at the Hotel du Cap on Eden-Roc, on the Cap d’Antibes, from the most elegant suite to a toilet-sized room in the chauffeur’s wing, and it all depended on how flush I was at the time, but like my favourite Parisian hotel, the Lancaster on rue de Berri, I was determined to stay there no matter how meager my financial state. This time my grand salon of a suite with two or three more rooms attached, one graced with an old Pleyel piano, looked out over the sea beyond. Always at Eden-Roc, the scent of jasmine on the salt air was overpowering and many a romance had blossomed there. Monsieur Irondel, the manager, refused credit cards and checks—only cash—and it was prohibitively expensive but, thankfully, all was taken care of by the film company which was shooting Triple Cross, a true story put together and coauthored by its director Terence Young, a tall, handsome Irishman who had made all the early Bond films (Dr. No, Thunderball and From Russia with Love).
Terry, who lived precipitously beyond his means, had bought a delightful villa on the point of Eden-Roc where we spent many an enjoyable evening. I grew very attached to Terry, his wife, Dosia, his daughter Julie, from another marriage, and their dearest friend, Annie Orr-Lewis. Lady Orr-Lewis was a stylish woman, extremely entertaining, with impeccable taste and a talent for interior and exterior design. Among others she had designed the attractive Lyford Cay Club at Nassau in the Bahamas, the home of Karim Aga-Khan on Sardinia’s Costa Esmeralda, also Stanhope Joel’s massive hotel in Jamaica. Always present either on a leash or in her arms was a shih tzu whom she affectionately called “My Little Shit.” The four of us became inseparable, joined occasionally by Sean Connery, who adored the Youngs and treated them as family.
Triple Cross was a story about the shady but daring adventures of double-agent Eddie Chapman (played by me), who during the Second World War had spied successfully for both the British and the Germans. The real Eddie, who was still astoundingly alive, was to be the technical advisor on the film, but the French authorities forbade him entry into France. It seems at one point in his highly suspicious career he had managed, for what reason it’s impossible to conjecture, to kidnap the sultan of Morocco!
The film began shakily in Paris. They installed me at the old George V, which I always liked, mostly because of its long bar at which sat, as if part of the décor, a number of high-class hookers of all nationalities, perched seductively on their bar stools. The first news I received on arrival was that the film had been cancelled—that the backers had not only reneged on the deal but had been thrown in jail. This sort of thing I learned was to be occasionally expected on a Terry Young film. He would try to make deals with anyone no matter how untrustworthy, living on the edge as he did, but always cunningly managed to get things fixed in the long run. The online producer told me, “Just stay close to the hotel—eat and drink all you want. It’ll be covered, I promise.” They had also flown over from London my old friend, the tailor Max Vine, to make me suits for the part. He stayed rather nervously in a suite next to mine, where he and his assistant began to work on the clothes. “Do you think we’re all going to get stuck for the movie?” Max couldn’t help asking.
By the week’s end, however, a certain Madame Gouin had appeared from nowhere (no doubt charmed by T. Young) and presto!—the money was in the bank and we were shunted off on the now-extinct Train Bleu (my favourite with its famous two seatings). If you were wise, you took the second seating, then went straight to bed where you woke up le matin prochain—et voilà—la Côte d’Azur! Most of the film was to be made at the Victorine Studios in Nice. This small intimate studio had been opened during the twenties and thirties by the legendary Rex Ingram and was the most delightful I’ve ever filmed in. The French hours were especially civilized—one and a half hours for lunch followed by seven hours straight work with no breaks, then home in lots of time for a normal relaxed meal—and we got just as much done if not more than our normal daylong schedules. My favourite eating haunts were Félix au Port in old Antibes with its succulent sope de poisson and La Reserve at Beaulieu. The movie was not memorable but wonderful fun to make. With Terry as maestro, the life surrounding the work was just as important if not more so, and everything and everyone involved had to be attractive. Terry was a beauty snob, may God rest his soul!
Gert Fröbe, Yul Brynner, and me
One of my leading ladies was Romy Schneider, the German actress who had distinguished herself in Vittorio De Sica’s Garden of the Fitzi-Continis and was a favourite of Luchino Visconti’s. The theatre was in her blood—her mother, Magda Schneider, had been one of Germany’s greatest stage divas. I adored Romy. Always a bundle of cheer, she had the most beautiful eyes and her smile lit up the world. She had just married a charming young German writer/actor named Harry Meyen, and they seemed blissfully happy. The dashing Yul Brynner played a Nazi general, complete with monocle and cigarette holder. This was another real-life character by the name of Baron von Grunen who had fought at Stalingrad. Another leading lady of mine in the flick was the gorgeous French actress Claudine Auger. Gert Fröbe (Goldfinger himself from the Bond film) played a Nazi colonel. Trevor Howard was a “big gun” in British Intelligence; and due to Terry’s fascination for the pulchritudinous female, there were any number of them present at all times. “Eye rests,” Yul called them and he generally left the set each day with at least two of them on his arm.
The story needed a château which the Germans were to have occupied. So the Comtess de Villefranche (for a very modest fee) gave us the use of her enormous castle outside Paris. Her unmarried name was de Ségur and this was the home of their famous wine, Château Ségur. On the property stood another château, a smaller one, presumably used as a guesthouse. Yul, Romy and I were each given a lovely apartment there with a communal kitchen and fridge. Also on the estate, nestled in a beautiful little valley not far away, was a miniature pavilion resembling a tiny Petit Trianon, which was normally used as a restaurant for the workers on the estate. All the herbs, ingredients, meat, wine and eau de vies came from the grounds and were prepared daily for us. The lunches there were delicious, everything being so fresh. “What a peaceful oasis this is,” murmured Yul contentedly, sipping his cognac. “No showbiz people—no agents, producers or PR freaks—we are away from everything here.” As he said this, his face from the chin to the top of his celebrated bald head lost all its colour. “What have I said?” he moaned. “Don’t look now—oh my God, what do I see?!” I turned around and in the distance, waddling down the path in their shiny black agent suits, looking lost, bewildered and totally out of place, were Milton (“Let Me Put You on Hold”) Goldman and Arnold Weissberger, the well-known 10-percenters from New York! Yul, between clenched teeth, mumbled under his breath, “Madison Avenue has invaded paradise.”
According to schedule, a few days of rest were coming my way, but Kurt Frings was persistent—he called me: “Listen, you bastard. Sam Spiegel wants you to play Field Marshal Rommel in his film The Night of the Generals starring O’Toole and Sharif. It’s two days’ work but it’s an important picture so do it! It vill be shot close to vhere you are now. Terry has agreed to let you go.” Kurt always jumped the gun like this without ever letting me know. “What am I to get for two days’ work?” “No money,” he snapped. “Money would be a quote—a precedent and you’d be stuck with it. So you take a car instead!” “What kind of car?” “A Rolls-Royce. Sam has agreed. I’ve made the deal!” So with a fresh sense of folie des grandeurs, I set out for the village of La Roche-Guyon, whose local inn and four-star restaurant the great Rommel had adopted for the duration of occupied France. The veteran Hollywood director Anatole Litvak, a handsome Hungarian in his silvering seventies and a friend of Spiegel’s, had a history of romantic films behind him both European and American. He was impeccably mannered, smooth and civilized and it was a privilege to work with him, if ever so briefly. Together we lunched at this delightful pension. Two of th
e waiters were very old and had been kept on by Rommel and both related in reverent tones that even though he was the enemy he had treated the whole French staff with great respect. “Ah oui! Il était un homme vraiment sympatique.” According to them, he had loved it here in this village and loved the inn, vowing that once the war was over he would come back and stay. He was the only good German in the military, they told us, and he was killed so soon after he left us. “Comme c’était triste—un homme très gentil comme ça.” Mr. Litvak turned to me, “You see? He was a most remarkable man.” I suddenly wished that my role was a much larger one. The day I finished shooting this extraordinary character, the unit manager came up to me and asked, “What colour would you like your Rolls to be?” I must confess I had already given it a great deal of thought. My response was immediate. “The body, a deep garnet, the roof jet black, please!” Trying in vain to stifle my excitement by assuming a casually modest pose, I bade my farewells.
Me as Rommel
When I got back on the Triple Cross set, Milton and Arnold were still there. The untimely appearance of this canny duo turned out to be fortuitous. They had smelled a fly in the ointment and they were there to protect their client, Yul. Of course they were right—there was no more money and we were only halfway through the project. Terry confirmed this the very next day. Everybody’s agent suddenly converged on the château—everybody’s except mine! Where the hell was Kurt when I needed him so desperately? Were we all to walk off the picture; what were we supposed to do? Kurt’s problem was he never trusted anyone but himself to do his work. He was never able to delegate responsibility—he had come to be simply a one-man band and couldn’t be everywhere at once. Not good enough when one was in trouble. I called him and was told he was in Rome looking after Audrey Hepburn. I finally got him. “This is a real crunch, Kurt. I need you here!” When he refused to come I fired him on the spot. I’m sure it mattered little to him—he was so successful—but I felt terrible about it. Apart from the fact that he’d done me much good, I had grown extremely fond of that crazy German. It also hit me that I had just dismissed arguably the bravest and very best movie agent in the business.
We met in a body to confront Terry. Bluff your way out of this one, we all thought at once. He did! Smooth as silk, with no show of nerves, he announced, “I’ve got another backer—a Monsieur Bédas, incredibly wealthy and head of a Beirut bank. But he wants visible proof of my credibility. So I plead with you to come with me to Paris and meet him. God love you if you do.” On the advice of the little group of surrounding agents, Yul, Trevor, Romy and I agreed to go. It worked! We got the necessary funds to finish, and a grateful Terry, celebrating the good news as extravagantly as ever, threw us a lavish dinner back in Monte Carlo at the Hotel de Paris. He also took us all to see Nureyev and Fonteyn dance a magical Gisele outdoors under the stars—Annie Orr-Lewis, my date. Other parties followed, one on Stavros Niarcho’s huge galleon with its black hull and deep red sails—surely the most beautiful private sailing vessel on any ocean. He had also rented the Sea Huntress, the Earl of Dudley’s yacht, for a night of dining and dancing. The lights on the water made everything glitter in the night air and always the generous Terence at the center of it all, teetering dangerously on the edge of ruin!
It was time for Yul Brynner’s death scene. As the Nazi general, he was to die shot on the tarmac as he was getting out of his Mercedes to board his plane. Yul had it all worked out painstakingly and described it to me with great glee the night before as we killed a bottle of vodka at the château. The next morning he met with Terence and the distinguished French lighting cameraman Henri Alekan and told them how he would like his death filmed: “You just hear the shots—you don’t see me at all—the camera focuses on the ground—you see my boots, then my monocle falls and smashes, and then the cigarette holder—and though you don’t see me, everyone will know who it is!” It was a nice theatrical touch, I thought, and typical of Yul. I whispered to Terry, “Are you sure the real von Grunen is dead?” Terry looked down at me askance and in his most patronizing tones (he could be very pompous when he chose to be), said, “Of course, you silly fool, it’s all been researched.” Sharply corrected I slunk away embarrassed. Two days after Yul had shot the scene, we were all having lunch at the Victorine Studios under the awning when the film’s publicity agent came over to our table leading by the hand a very feeble, doddering old man with thinning grey hair in a frayed suit shaking with early Parkinson’s, and said, “This gentleman learned we were making a movie here in which he is portrayed and would like very much to watch the filming. May I introduce General von Grunen.”
Terry’s and Yul’s faces were a picture—I need not tell you! But no one bothered to delete his death scene from the movie. No one would be the wiser, they said. There’ll be no lawsuit—he’s too far gone to know anyway. Callous as it seemed, they were probably correct. He was a pathetic figure, fading fast with one foot already in the grave. One of the few survivors from his unit at Stalingrad, that most horrific of World War II battles, he had been captured and tortured by the Russians. His sagging face and frightened eyes told the story. I don’t think he even knew where he was. The poor old soldier was a wandering ghost from a war he was still haunting.
Romy Schneider
Even that shocking day couldn’t put a damper on the enjoyment I had derived from this whirlwind engagement. Both the setting and life on the Cote d’Azur was not to be surpassed, particularly back then. The glamour that was still present everywhere in that beautiful and tempting part of the Mediterranean has now greatly diminished. My time there in the mid- to late sixties now seems a history ago—a different time—a different space. Quelle époque! Comme si c’était un rêve.
However, a little sadness can’t help but creep in. If Romy Schneider had not been married to dear Harry Meyen, I would have boldly taken up the gauntlet for her. Before the film’s end I noticed back at the Petit château her fresh, unsullied beauty had undergone a change—her face was becoming decidedly puffy and she had started to put on weight. The château’s fridge was always stocked full of German sausages, bratwurst, salamis, with her name written on each package. What was happening? I was never to know, for some years after the picture was finished, Harry Meyen, back in Germany took his own life. Romy all of a sudden disappeared from a promising career that could have taken her to the top and only distinguished herself one last time as the Empress Elizabeth in Visconti’s film about Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. Next, her fourteen-year-old son died in a tragic accident. It was not long before she too committed suicide. Beauty, radiance, talent—she should have had everything to live for.
Just before the Eddie Chapman schedule came to an end, Terry threw a party at Victorine Studios for all the brass in order to show them a roughly edited version of the film. Lots of important “above the title” names came. The backers from Beirut, a few of the local “toffs,” I think even the Rainiers were there (Terry had known them through David Niven). David came, as did Sean Connery, Annie Orr-Lewis, Dosia Young, most of the cast, and of course beaucoup de jeunes filles mal gardées. Good Ol’ Trevor Howard sat in the front row pissed as a newt as they say in love and war. Some of the film had Terry’s slickness about it and looked fairly promising, but on the whole it was pretty rough and not too well written. When it was over there was a deadly silence while everyone sat motionless in the dark. Then out of the pitch-black came the only comment. It was Trevor’s whiskey-coated voice sounding slightly irritated calling out to no one in particular—“Where are my fucking shoes?”
WHEN I GOT BACK HOME to 70 Park Street, Mayfair, Trish and I broke up for good. It was sad but inevitable. I had found it almost impossible to fully grasp the extent of the damage this bright and generous lady had suffered, but her heavy drinking continued. She paid heed neither to her doctors nor to me. One thing was certain; the accident had loomed over our marriage like the sword of Damocles. The life-threatening urgency and horror of it had inflated our romance to such an
extreme it had robbed us of all passion, and everything that followed seemed dry and anticlimactic. An inexplicable resentment grew between us and our fights became dangerously more and more frequent. It had been only five years or so but for us—too long. Divorce proceedings were swift and painless. She got the Queen Anne house, the furniture, everything, as she deserved to, with the exception of two paintings, my favourite Corot and a rare Renoir. She sold the house immediately and moved into an attractive flat in Regent’s Park where her many genuine friends gathered around her along with the usual freeloaders from Fleet Street. I moved into the Connaught Hotel to be greeted by the saturnine Mister Gustave, the general manager-cum-host, always impeccably attired in frock coat and stripes, and the two men in charge of that superb dining room, Mister Rose and his Man Friday, Monsieur Chevalier. I quickly set a beachhead at the bar with my familiar old friend Barry (the bartender) who made me laugh so much and whose martinis no one could match. His partner, Jimmy, was his greatest foil and together they could cheer up a walrus.
The Honorable Elizabeth Rees-Williams, an exceptionally attractive Welsh lass, who had just parted from her husband, that mad Irishman, actor Richard Harris, became my new friend. Liz and I, sharing divorce in common, had found comfort in each other’s company. Her brother Morgan, a deliciously funny young man with a dark, self-deprecating humour, tagged along to cheer us up. He became my staunch friend and ally. Elizabeth was incredibly generous, knew a great many people in London and never stopped partying. We went everywhere together, even to Richard’s premiere of Camelot in which he played King Arthur. At the private party afterwards at the Duke of St. Albans’s house on Ennismore Gardens, Liz, giggling in her musical way, whispered, “You won’t believe this. Both you and Richard are seated on either side of Princess Margaret at her request. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? I’ll see you later.” Margaret’s escort that night was Andrew Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, of whom she was fond, so we found her in good form and great humour. When she chose, the princess could be quite witty. We had all consumed an enormous amount of hooch and everything started to sound hysterically amusing, even the most mundane remark. Suddenly, into the room came a tall, aesthetic-looking young man attired in head to foot velvet with a Bunthorne tie—a Restoration dandy with an enormous shock of wavy blond hair, très bouffant, indeed the very picture of effeminacy. I whispered under my breath to the princess, “Who’s the raving puffter?” In an instant she assumed her royal put-down manner and, glaring at me with enough Arctic froideur to freeze me to my chair, hissed, “That’s my cousin Patrick Lichfield.” I banged my head with the palm of my hand. Of course, the famous international photographer who was also a belted earl was notoriously fond of women and a great ladies’ man. I couldn’t have been more wrong and dashed down my blunder with a glass of bubbling Krug.
In Spite of Myself Page 50
