Each time he spotted me across the yard his face would light up and I’d hurry over to fill him in on all the news. Most of the time, he did a good job of pretending to be upbeat and only ever complained about the food and the lack of freedom to communicate. “I miss your mother’s cooking and I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have to stand in line and then only be able to speak for a short while.” Knowing how happy it would make him, I took Alexandra on one visit as a surprise and the effect was miraculous. At just eighteen months, she was already so gorgeous that she quite literally drew a crowd. As Papà hugged and kissed her, his eyes glinting with joy, many of his friends came over to say hello as he proudly presented her to everyone.
“You have a beautiful family, Bubba!” one prisoner exclaimed. Another assured me, “We’re all watching out for him. He’s an inspiration.” A third added, “Unlike him over there…!” indicating with a jerk of his thumb an inmate sitting with his family in a corner. I discovered later that the man he had pointed to was the fifty-eight-year-old American fashion designer Albert Nipon, who was at the end of a three-year sentence for tax evasion. By all accounts, Nipon wasn’t as popular as my father, chiefly because he remained aloof. My father tried to explain that everyone coped differently and it was all down to one’s personal ethos. He strove to be charitable and “share good freely,” as he put it, which included respecting the guards as much as the convicts. It was a philosophy that seemed to work.
Five weeks into his sentence, I was horrified to arrive one Sunday to find him in a neck brace with several stitches in his head. “It’s not as serious as it looks,” he told me sheepishly. “I skidded on the wet floor of the laundry room and knocked myself out. I’ve got a few bruises but I’ll be fine.” I was worried that might not be true at first but his fellow inmates convinced me it was and I was so relieved. On further questioning, I discovered that the prison doctor had sent him to the hospital for an MRI scan and some other tests but there was no lasting damage. Nevertheless, it reminded everyone that Papà was of a certain age and needed to be looked after.
He brushed aside my concerns about his injury and asked me not to trouble Mamma with it. Then he focused on the one thing he was finding it most difficult to live without—his watch. All his life he had been enslaved to it. His days ran like clockwork as he hurried from one meeting to the next. Time had been his master, and without it he felt bereft.
“People smuggle things in here all the time—usually cigarettes or drugs,” he said with a shrug. “It shouldn’t be so hard to get me a watch, right?” We both knew he wouldn’t be allowed to wear it but just knowing he had it and could check the time—especially during the long, hot nights—would be a small but important victory.
Santino immediately volunteered to take the risk. Slipping one of my father’s watches on his wrist for the next visit, he waited until we were all in the chapel for Mass before removing it and passing it to an inmate laid flat inside a Bible, as instructed. That was how my father got his Gucci timepiece back and a little piece of his dignity along with it.
Without my father to fuss over and left to her own devices, my mother busied herself in Rome, Berkshire, and Palm Beach, and she did so with a sense of purpose. However occupied she kept herself, though, most of her life she’d been accustomed to taking care of Papà at least once a month and now that routine had gone. “In truth, I was a better mother to him than I was to you,” she once told me. “No matter where I was or what I was doing, from the moment he walked back into my world he became my sole focus. Everything else became inconsequential. That was my weakness.”
My father, too, felt lost without Mamma, but at least he had business to attend to. Just because he was in prison didn’t mean he wasn’t still connected with the company—at least in his own mind. I became his mole on the inside, checking in with his lawyers, accountants, and other allies and reporting back on the latest developments. His first collect call of the day was around ten a.m. EST and was always to me, typically accompanied by a long to-do list and various people to contact. When I could, I’d connect him on a three-way conference bridge so he could continue to orchestrate what was happening on the outside.
Plagued with insomnia again, he’d stay up all night drafting dozens of letters to be sent to the board in my name and his, questioning what he called the “catastrophic mismanagement” of the Gucci executive committee in turning a “thoroughbred into a carriage horse.” As he dictated each one to be typed up and dispatched, I was sure that most would be ignored but knew that sending them made him feel connected, and that alone was a worthwhile exercise.
In his first letter to Maurizio since his imprisonment (copies of which were sent to the rest of the family), he said he had kept his silence long enough. “Over the last eighteen months your revolutionary policies and antagonistic leadership have proven to be totally destructive. You have dilapidated the economic foundations of a company that was built with much effort over the course of forty years of hard work.” He went on to say that he had “total disapproval and disdain” for Maurizio’s foolish and immature conduct and condemned him for his “superficiality…lack of sensibility and…ingratitude” for those like Papà who had spent a lifetime building a “cultural and economic patrimony” long before he was born. He concluded, “I pray that God will forgive you for what you have done.”
He was itching to get out and take up the battle in person, but that didn’t seem likely any time soon. Ever since he’d crossed the threshold of Eglin in October, we’d been pushing his legal team to ask for a reduced sentence, but that motion was denied. After his fall, we campaigned for Papà to be released on probation but didn’t make any headway with that either. As days turned into weeks and then months, my father began to realize that he’d been all but abandoned by those who’d promised to help him and that there were only a handful of people left he could rely upon.
He had other worries, too. Although he’d paid off all his personal tax liabilities, the IRS was pursuing him for $20 million in corporate tax. Then the authorities in New York jumped in, claiming that he owed state taxes as well. As if that weren’t enough, there was the ongoing Italian police investigation into the forging of Rodolfo’s signature, which he knew could be crucial to deposing Maurizio.
With his favorite time of the year fast approaching, the idea of not being able to spend Christmas with us also saddened him deeply. His tone became flat on the phone and his wit began to desert him. We all sensed it.
“Maybe it’s time for me to go and see him,” Mamma suddenly announced. She’d been steeling herself all along but she knew the time had come. Leaving Alexandra with a nanny, Santino, Mamma, and I flew to Pensacola and drove the hour east to Eglin. The closer we got the more nervous she became. Her oversized sunglasses were fixed firmly to her face so that no one could see her eyes, and by the time we’d entered the prison compound and were walking toward where I knew he’d be waiting in the yard, she could hardly speak.
Holding back a little, I let her go to him first, and their affection for each other was touching to witness. They embraced warmly, and then she peered up through her shades to scrutinize the face she knew and loved so well. They both knew that he could never have hidden his true feelings from her. Once they’d had their moment together, Santino and I joined them at one of the picnic tables and the four of us spent the afternoon together, chatting about anything whatsoever other than how we were really feeling. Although she took part in the conversation, Mamma remained rigid with tension in that alien environment and never once took off her sunglasses. Whether that was because she didn’t want us to see her bleary eyes or because she was ashamed and wanted to hide her embarrassment, I couldn’t be sure.
Impressively though, she didn’t shirk from her responsibilities and after a sleepless night in our motel she returned with me the next day for a special Christmas Day Mass arranged by the prison chaplain. As the four of us sat in a row on the unforgiving wooden seats in that chapel, we co
uldn’t help but think back to all the family Christmases we’d spent in Florida and New York, and how different our lives were now. Papà had always cherished this time of year and loved going out to select a tree for the living room. There were rarely any gifts—they were reserved for the traditional Italian Epiphany celebration on January 6—but it wasn’t about the presents, it was about being together as a family, breaking bread, eating fine food, and enjoying the spirit of the season. As he sat proudly at the head of our table each year he’d raise a glass to his Bruna and to me, his only daughter, and—no matter how little we might have seen of him—everything suddenly felt perfect.
Christmas 1986 certainly didn’t feature among our most anticipated get-togethers. What we didn’t expect, however, was the palpable sense of community spirit between the hundred or so inmates, their families, and their friends. The atmosphere held us spellbound, due in no small part to the reason we were all there in the first place. Total strangers shook hands with one another. Common criminals mingled with children and wives and all were welcomed. The chapel was packed with worshippers, all sorrowful about the enforced separation from their loved ones and eager to share this special moment together. By the time it came to the carols and an emotionally charged homily on the importance of family, Mamma and I weren’t the only ones in tears.
Bizarrely, it was probably the most meaningful Christmas we have ever experienced as a family and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Like my father, I prefer to think that we are in charge of our own destiny and that not everything is set in stone. I am drawn to the author Anaïs Nin, who speaks of finding ways to improve our circumstances and have a better life. She writes, “The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny.”
My father’s destiny—and consequently my mother’s and mine—had veered dramatically off the path we’d all expected it to take. Instead of presiding over Gucci in the final years of his life before proudly electing a member of the family to take over, he was shamed and locked up. Eager to regain control and take charge of his life once more, he refused to be diminished by his experience and began the New Year in fighting spirit. It was all too apparent to everyone that as long as he had breath in his body, he was never going to give up.
Sitting at a desk in the prison library one morning, he drafted a letter to the entire Gucci family in which he set out his case for saving the company. It was a bold and brave move. Addressing us all as his “Dear Ones,” he reminded everyone that he had been the “driving force of the Gucci Empire” for over three decades. He gave credit to his children (even Paolo) and claimed that we all bore the “family hallmark.” Maurizio’s actions were, he said, a “source of considerable pain” but he hoped to come up with “remedies and solutions” from the “ashes of this moral and economic devastation” to restore the “values and traditions that ha[d] given such enviable prestige and glory to the Gucci name.” In effect, he was letting it be known that he no longer sought control of the company and was prepared to leave it to the next generation. We were the future now.
Two months later, after what felt like an agonizing tussle with the authorities to secure a date for his release on parole, we hired a new lawyer to look into the case. It was largely thanks to him that in late March 1987, Papà was freed to serve the remainder of his sentence at a halfway house in West Palm Beach. Run by the Salvation Army, the property catered to more than a hundred inmates, who could do what they liked during the daytime but were required to return each night for a ten p.m. curfew. This transition was offered to everyone released from Eglin, and in my father’s case, it gave him the chance to spend his days with Mamma. Although he still had to spend every night with prisoners, it somehow felt to us all that the worst was over.
The day “Bubba Gucci” left Eglin was, by all accounts, a memorable occasion. Those convicts who’d come to love and respect “the old man” were especially sad to see him go. For many, he had become a mentor and given them a sense of purpose and direction in their lives. Scores of his friends lined up to give him a send-off, cheering and patting him on the back. I only wish I’d been there to see that. Rather wonderfully, we received some letters from fellow prisoners after his release, which were a testament to him. One in particular, from a man I knew only as George, spoke of the day Papà left. It still moves me to tears.
He wrote,
Well, today was the big day for your father! When he first came in, I told him this day would come and that if he could just relax and enjoy himself, everything would be all right. I think he did an excellent job…maintaining his unique sense of humor and making friends in a very uncomfortable environment. You should always be proud of the way he handled himself in here….He impressed a lot of people with his kindness…and he never did let them [the officers] whip him and we all admired him for that. I’ll never forget those times we sneaked out and ran down the back way to get into the dining hall—he’d be right there with you. I told him we could get into trouble. He just smiled and said, “Let’s go!!” Well, I just wanted to say “Goodbye”—tell him I said “Good luck.” I enjoyed knowing all of you and will never forget having had the opportunity to know Aldo Gucci! Take care of him—George.
Although Papà’s time in jail had been both traumatic and life-changing and had turned him into a ghost of his former self, he was elated at the prospect of being able to spend his days with Mamma. She was equally overjoyed to have him back and quickly fell into her mothering role, although she soon had to accept that he would spend most of his time on the phone to New York and Italy. In May 1987, he was going to be eighty-two years old. She was turning fifty. In their almost thirty years together, they’d been through more than most and their journey had been far from smooth. As a lifelong spectator to their rapport, I had often wondered what it was that sustained it, constrained as they were by circumstance and their own complicated backgrounds.
Strangely though, since his release from prison the dynamic of the relationship had shifted and he’d become more vulnerable and dependent on my mother. Even though he was still on a mission with the company, he was openly more affectionate, seeking her out when she wasn’t within sight, eager to find her and lay a hand on her shoulder—like a touchstone. He clearly needed her more than ever and she knew she had to be strong for him. This role reversal saddened me and I was worried that things might never be the same.
Their peaceful sojourn in Florida only came to an end when his probation period was up in the fall of 1987 and his passport was returned. After such a stressful year, Mamma was relieved they could move about freely and resume their normal life. My father looked forward to getting back into the swing of things—he would first go to New York, and then on to Florence to see his sons and meet with his legal team with the objective of putting the company back on track. My mother would use their time in Italy to catch up with things in Rome and take a break.
Then something surprising happened, which my father learned about while still in Palm Beach. Armed officers from the Guardia di Finanza (the Italian IRS) attempted to arrest Maurizio in Milan, but a loyal employee tipped him off in time, allowing him to flee across the border into Switzerland. Unexpectedly, the warrant had nothing to do with Rodolfo’s shares but with Paolo. My brother had sought his revenge for what he saw as Maurizio’s double dealing by informing the tax authorities of his purchase of the sixty-year-old Creole, the largest wooden sailing yacht ever built, which he’d paid for with an illegal transfer of funds. As a fugitive, Maurizio was now in an extremely tenuous position, so Papà and my other brothers quickly applied to the New York Supreme Court to dissolve Gucci America, claiming gross mismanagement.
The legal bickering that ensued back and forth across the Atlantic led to a magistrate in Florence calling a halt. In the shareholders’ interests, he appointed an economics professor as acting chairman of the Italian arm of the company, spark
ing newspaper headlines such as “Can an Outsider Fill Aldo Gucci’s Loafers?” My father was distraught that control had passed to a total stranger—something he’d never expected to witness in his lifetime. His last remaining hope was to convince the US courts to dissolve Gucci America. The outcome looked promising until Paolo stirred things up again.
“Your son has sold his shares to an anonymous third party,” my father was told by his advisers.
“What?” Papà replied incredulously. “Who?”
“We don’t know yet.” As we would soon discover, Maurizio had been in private negotiations with the Bahrain-registered Investcorp, which had acquired Tiffany in 1984. He had then tricked Paolo into handing him the majority stake. The code name for the buyout was “Project Saddle”—a nod to Gucci’s equestrian theme. Fearing the worst, my father’s attorneys challenged the sale, but the judge was unsympathetic and told them, “It’s very simple…you’ve been stabbed in the back.”
It was over. My other two brothers were persuaded into selling their shares as well, meaning that it was only a matter of time before the company fell into foreign hands with Maurizio at the helm, unimpeded by family meddling.
By March 1988, the deed was done. Without any prior consultation or even mentioning anything to Papà, Giorgio and Roberto had signed away the shares they’d been given in perpetuity to preserve continuity in the family business. My father never intended them to be sold for profit, nor did he expect his sons to deny their own children the opportunity to take up their places in the company he’d created for them all. My brothers insisted that the offer from Investcorp was too generous to resist and they’d been advised that they might lose their value otherwise. They had their own families to think of, they added, and they couldn’t fight Maurizio any longer.
Papà was shattered. Winding up in prison may have been the worst thing that had befallen him but he could never have imagined that his sons would turn their backs on him in this way. What else could destiny possibly have in store for him?
In the Name of Gucci Page 25
