What he didn’t know as he pondered was that she was also secretly manipulating him. Ever since she’d been holed up in London with Nicola and me watching TV, she knew Nicola’s greatest ambition was to live in California. If Gucci were to open in Beverly Hills then he could become one of the managers, making his dreams come true by way of thanks for all he’d done for us.
Her game plan worked and within months my father returned to the US to supervise the opening of a stylish two-story double-fronted store at 347 Rodeo Drive, with a delighted Nicola at his side. It was the start of a love affair between Gucci and Hollywood that exists to this day. Frank Sinatra was so excited that the company was opening in LA that he sent his secretary to buy him a new pair of loafers before the store even opened to the public. John Wayne, Sophia Loren, and Elizabeth Taylor became regulars and the celebrity cachet my mother had correctly predicted did wonders for trade. It also turned Rodeo Drive into a destination address, with the likes of Ralph Lauren and Yves Saint Laurent following on in the 1970s and Chanel opening its first American store there in 1985.
To his eternal credit, my father told anyone who was interested that it was my mother, not he, who had seen the potential. At the civic ceremony to hand him the figurative “Key to Beverly Hills” some years later, he told the gathered crowd, “I have to thank my young wife Bruna, because it was she who convinced me to open in this great city—and how right she was!” When my mother heard that she’d been publicly acknowledged, and as his wife, she was secretly pleased. “Your father really made me feel as if I had done something important, and I guess I had!”
The success of Gucci America paved the way for future expansion into the Far East and, in the coming years, pretty much every corner of the globe. While his countrymen were in the grip of economic and political turmoil, Papà’s “Made in Italy” banner was flying high and fast becoming a marker for other brands to follow.
With him away so much again, my mother became restless and decided we needed more space, so she started looking for a bigger house in the countryside. Maureen was dispatched to the real estate department of Harrods to pick up some brochures and every day while I was at school, she and my mother went house hunting. Laden with maps, Maureen acted as co-driver as Mamma sped her little Mini Cooper around the leafy lanes of Surrey, Berkshire, and Hampshire. She was fearless behind the wheel, dodging hazards and navigating traffic like a true Roman.
Their property search was only interrupted by our long-planned trip to New York to spend Christmas with my father. By the age of six, I’d started to feel his absence as keenly as Mamma did and couldn’t wait to see him again. I missed his bright face and the sound of his laughter echoing through the house. Best of all, my mother seemed to be in good spirits whenever he was around and suddenly there was a whole new dynamic.
As someone who loved Christmas almost as much as I, he went to enormous trouble to make us feel welcome and those two weeks in New York City were truly memorable for me. There was so much to do and see.
“What would you like to do today?” my mother would ask over breakfast. My father would have already gone to the office and we wouldn’t see him again until dinnertime, but I did get to see him once or twice a day.
“Could we go to the ice rink?” I’d ask.
“Good idea! Don’t forget your hat!” she’d say before packing me off with Maureen. Hand in hand, we’d wander the streets gazing into shop windows, dazzled by the displays and festive lights. We trudged through snow and watched ice-skaters twirling on the rink at Rockefeller Center. I saw my first real live Santa. One night, we even went to Radio City Music Hall—as a family—to see the Rockettes, which I adored. Christmastime in New York was more exhilarating than I’d ever imagined—the buildings, the buzz, the people, and the wonderful world of American television.
Returning to school after all that excitement felt like the most enormous letdown. Even the discovery of a brand-new dolls’ house waiting for me in Hendon didn’t cheer me up. Peering into its pink rooms, I’d pick up the tiny figures and put them into position one by one. “Happy Mummy” played with the little girl while “Sad Mummy” lay on her bed. Watching my solitary stage directions one day, my mother noticed how I took the man and placed him outside the house, walking away. “Who is that, Patricia?” she asked.
“That’s the daddy going to work, silly!” I explained, wondering why she’d even questioned what seemed to me like the natural order of things.
“What happens when he comes home again?”
Picking up the recumbent woman, I had her rushing down the stairs to greet him with a happy dance.
Sadly, there were no such dances for my mother or me in those first few months of 1970 and there was worse to come when she sat me down one April afternoon to tell me some shattering news. “Maureen and I have to go away,” she said. “There are some things we need to do. You’ll be staying with Miss McCartney for a while.”
I didn’t think I’d heard her correctly. “Miss McCartney? But—”
“It won’t be for long.” She attempted a smile. “Two months.”
Panic-stricken, I looked across at Maureen, who nodded awkwardly and then busied herself with something. Two months seemed like an eternity, and why couldn’t I stay with Maureen? No amount of pleading could convince my mother to change her mind.
“I need Maureen to help me,” she said, not thinking to explain that we were moving to a new house she’d found for us in Berkshire and that she had become so dependent on Maureen that her need for assistance superseded my child care needs. “It’s the middle of the school term and we can hardly leave you home alone, can we?” There would be no further argument.
With a heavy heart, I watched Maureen pack me a small bag. “I’ll put in your favorite toys, Poppet,” she said, trying to keep things light. “And what books would you like?” Biting my bottom lip until I tasted blood, I just shrugged.
Several days later, my mother drove me to Miss McCartney’s apartment in an old Victorian building a few miles from our home. Then she fled with a quick peck on the cheek. “Be good and do as you’re told.” She couldn’t get away from there fast enough.
I still had my coat on as I wandered into the living room in a daze, wondering what I had done to deserve this. I remember the wall was dominated by a life-size oil painting of King Charles II. Later, sitting beneath it in silence eating cauliflower with fish fingers on a tray, I gazed around the drab billet I’d been condemned to and feared my mother might never come for me. Fighting back tears, at such a tender age I couldn’t comprehend what seemed like a deliberate act of cruelty.
The apartment was so small that there was no escaping Miss McCartney. I even had to share her bedroom, sleeping a few feet away from her in a single bed, where I lay awake each night tormented by her snoring. Every hour I spent there seemed interminable and the trauma of being abandoned stands out as my first and most vividly unhappy childhood memory. “When will Mamma come to see me?” I asked.
“I doubt she’ll have time,” came the reply. “She’s very busy.”
She never did. Neither did Papà. Nor did I hear anything from them, although I’m sure she or Maureen would have telephoned to check that I was okay. Helpless, I was trapped in a world in which my “jailer” presided over my every waking moment. My resentment for my mother only grew.
Those miserable weeks came to an end the afternoon I spotted her unexpectedly at the school gates. “Mamma!” I cried, running over. I was so pleased to see her but she seemed furtive. “I’ll pick you up on Friday after swimming lessons,” she told me. “We’re moving and you’ll be going to another school but whatever you do, don’t mention anything to Miss McCartney. Hai capito?”
I was far too young to comprehend the need for secrecy, which revolved around her general fear of facing anyone in authority, her lack of confidence in English, and the certain knowledge that my guardian wouldn’t be happy to lose a pupil or the extra income she’d earned from taking me in. All
I knew was that I was being set free and the thought filled me with such joy that I blurted the news to a friend. Inevitably, the information found its way to Miss McCartney, who was as furious as my mother feared she’d be. Tight-lipped, she helped me pack my things and waited with me on the doorstep for Mamma to arrive.
I watched their confrontation sheepishly from the front seat of my mother’s car as, red-faced and struggling to make herself understood, she apologized for the change of plans. When she eventually hurried back to the car, the first thing she did was smack me hard across the head. I was totally confused and sat in tearful silence as she drove me to what was to be my fifth home in six years.
The property my mother had found for us in Berkshire looked a bit like my dolls’ house, only much much bigger. Instead of being painted pink, it was off-white and pebble-dashed. As we pulled to a halt on the gravel outside the house, Maureen appeared at the door with open arms and my happiness was complete. Looking around the place, I didn’t know what thrilled me most—my bedroom or the acres of garden all around. My new playground had trees to climb, a tennis court, greenhouses, and a cottage for a live-in gardener. It even had a wooden Wendy house—just for me. All the distress of the previous two months melted away as I ran from corner to corner, squealing with delight. It was perfect.
After house hunting for weeks without success and very nearly giving up, Mamma had a vivid dream about a property with a rose-covered pergola and was convinced she would find the right property. Then when Maureen showed her the brochure for just such a place, her jade ring suddenly broke into three pieces. She immediately took that as an omen with the conviction of my soothsayer grandmother.
Within a few minutes of stepping into the oak-paneled hallway, she made a declaration. “This is the one!” Her “indescribable sensation” was galvanized when she wandered into the garden and spotted a pergola exactly like the one in her dream. From that moment on, she knew that living in that house was our destiny.
Telephoning Papà in New York as soon as she got home, she insisted that he be interrupted during a meeting. As she chattered breathlessly, long-distance, he interrupted her to ask one question—“How much?” She’d barely registered the price but when she read it aloud from the particulars she promised to refund him by returning everything he’d ever bought her. “Bruna, you don’t have to do that!” he chided. “Any other woman would have demanded the moon and the stars, and you never asked for a thing.”
He’d written when they were courting, “I am wildly in love with your grace, your beauty, your manner, your temperament, your family values.” He marveled at the fact that she never took advantage of his position by asking for fancy cars, a townhouse, or a yacht. He was even more taken aback when she then told him she’d secretly saved enough to cover the deposit of £5,000. “Where on earth did you get that kind of money?” he asked incredulously.
Insisting that she make the down payment with the money she’d squirreled away, my mother spent all her savings in one go. Just as she’d bought him dinner in Las Vegas, it was a matter of principle. “I was a single mother in my thirties and I knew the house would always represent a safety net for us, no matter what,” she told me. It was a gamble that paid off and my father was impressed.
Better still, he loved the place. Through all his frenetic years of traveling he’d lived out of hand luggage, shifting from one hotel to another. Villa Camilluccia had become little more than a place to sleep and pick up a change of clothes before setting off again. His New York apartment was merely a pied-à-terre. In England, Mamma was determined to create a home he could share with us, and—up to a point—he did.
Growing up, I don’t remember his ever visiting us in Hendon but in Berkshire he came regularly. The whole time he was with us, he laughed and made up stories and he never once told me off. His enthusiasm was infectious. From the moment he stepped over the threshold he left his cares at the door, or so it seemed. Changing out of his suit, he’d head out to the garden to check on new trees he’d planted or to discuss the landscaping with our gardener-cum-handyman, Brian. He loved to wake up with the birds singing and leaves rustling in the trees. The English countryside offered a welcome respite from the craziness of his world, which had become ever more complicated as the rivalries between his sons and brothers sharpened.
Eager to capitalize on his status, my father’s headstrong son Paolo had—with my father’s encouragement—launched a ready-to-wear range. Recently promoted to chief designer in Italy, Paolo certainly had taste and a grasp of marketing, but with hindsight, I think he always thought he was better than the rest. He never possessed the same insight or business acumen as Papà, though, and with so much racing through his mind all at once, he found it difficult to channel his ideas. Relentlessly jockeying for position within the company, he saw himself as a worthy successor while his more reserved brothers, Roberto and Giorgio, seemed content with their administrative roles.
Paolo wasn’t the only one with his eye on the “prize.” My uncle Rodolfo, who’d married an actress who gave him his only child, Maurizio, had been recently widowed. He never remarried and devoted his life to his son, who he hoped might one day be fit for the job. Much to his dismay, however, Maurizio took up with a woman named Patrizia Reggiani, whom Foffo didn’t approve of, claiming she was nothing more than a gold-digger. Maurizio left Gucci in a fit of pique and accepted a position in the haulage company run by Patrizia’s father. The rift between father and son seemed unbridgeable.
Papà did what he could to keep the peace between his warring family members. From the earliest age he had been instilled with the notion that family came first, family was everything, and the clan had to work together to maintain the reputation of the business and build on its success. The petty jealousies that pitched brother against brother, cousin against cousin, and father against son pained him no end.
Back in England, my mother and I had our own sorrows to face. After seven years, Maureen decided that it was time to leave and create a life of her own. She planned to return to Rome and seek new challenges. I didn’t even have the chance to say good-bye. All I know is that when I came home from school one day she was gone.
As a child, I found her decision to leave us difficult to understand. Had I done something to upset her? Was I not a good girl? In what became a pattern throughout my life, my mother never really tried to explain. “She missed Italy and wanted to do something else,” was all she said. By the time I reached adulthood, I understood Maureen’s decision far better, of course. Her duties were virtually over by then, leaving only my mother to nanny. I was happily ensconced at a new local girls’ school named Hurst Lodge where I’d made friends with everyone in the playground within five minutes on my first day. Maureen’s only companion other than my mother was the family dog, a West Highland terrier named Giada whom I always tried to dress up and who therefore didn’t like me much. With less and less to do, and no one to talk to, Maureen was largely idle. It was time for her to start anew.
For seven years she had been my rock. It was she who had read me bedtime stories and who’d taken care of all my needs. We’d gone on such adventures together and she’d introduced me to the world of books. It was Maureen’s smiling face beaming down on me last thing at night and first thing in the morning. She’d brought serenity and consistency to our chaotic lives and she had cared for me all the time my mother wasn’t able to.
When she slipped into the back of a taxi, leaving me alone with my mother, she left a huge Maureen-shaped hole in our world that nobody else could ever fill.
My grandfather Guccio, founder of the Gucci business
My grandparents Aida and Guccio Gucci, in Florence in the early 1900s
Papà in the foreground having lunch al fresco with his family in Florence
Mamma as a little girl in Italy with her beloved mother, Delia
Rodolfo with Maurizio (left) and Paolo (right) at my father’s restaurant Club Colette in the early 1980s
Cou
rtesy of GIRAFFA/REX Shutterstock
Papà (center) flanked by my uncles Vasco and Rodolfo in Milan in the 1950s
Courtesy of GIRAFFA/REX Shutterstock
My twenty-two-year-old father and his teenage bride, Olwen Price, at their wedding in England, 1927
Reporters Associati & Archivi/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
The glamour of Gucci beguiled everyone from Princess Grace of Monaco to Rita Hayworth
Prince Charles and me after presenting an award at a polo tournament in Windsor, 1982
The Gucci shop in Florence, c. 1950
Mamma on the ship to New York receiving her prize for the prettiest young woman on board
Mamma showing me off at home in Rome, 1963
Papà and me at Villa Camilluccia, Rome, 1965
Papà, Mamma, and me with my aunt Gabriella and friends, Capri, 1966
Papà, Mamma, and me at Villa Camilluccia, Rome, 1965
Mamma and me outside the house in Palm Beach, 1973
Outside the suburban Hendon house in my horse-riding gear, age five
Me at the Palm Beach house at age twelve
Throughout my adult life I have found tremendous solace in friendship. Predominantly people I grew up with, my friends are all generous of spirit, from eccentric families, and tend to have similarly dysfunctional backgrounds to my own. Like me, their upbringing has been anything but ordinary.
In the Name of Gucci Page 12
