The Irresistible Mr Wrong

by Jeremy Scott

  His interview, set up by Freddie, at the Ritz went well, Igor clearly passed, Barbara asked for his number. A couple of days later she called to say, ‘Hello, this is Barbara Grant. I was wondering if you’d care to have dinner with me?’

  Startled by her forwardness yet flattered by her interest, Igor put on his only suit and pedalled over to the Ritz. ‘She phoned,’ he explained later, ‘We had dinner and – my God – how fast!’

  His brother Youka thought he was just the right man for her. ‘He does not suffer from any of the anxieties that beset most of us… His mind is clear enough to reject the idea that her money could be an obstacle.’

  Igor regarded the world Barbara inhabited with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. Growing up in Nice had been anything but grand. Nothing before had provided vistas into the plushy ambience he now found himself a part of. Barbara’s suite was the most luxurious at the Ritz. Its pale grey, gilt and mirrored walls were hung with her paintings, including a Botticelli, and a Cezanne; gold bibelots, Chinese porcelain and jade crowded every surface; diamonds and emeralds spilled from jewel cases upon her dressing table. Igor wandered through the glittering scene astounded as a boy who has stumbled into Aladdin’s cave. He was so ingenuous, so artless, Barbara called him her Pixie.

  They got married quietly in the small town of Chur, in Switzerland. Only two friends, the Sorines, attended the ceremony. The wedding breakfast was celebrated in the Maron Tea Room where Barbara was persuaded reluctantly to eat two slices of sponge cake and drink a glass of milk. She tried to give her husband a million dollars as a present, but he refused it, saying he had no need of the money. But Freddie McEvoy received a cheque for $100,000 together with a note: ‘To Freddie, for everything. But especially for Pixie. Love, Barbara.’

  The marriage, which remained secret for all of thirty minutes, was seized on by the US press. Another phoney European Prince … Cary Grant was surprised, Reventlow outraged, but Lance, who was staying with his father and stepmother in Newport, took the news phlegmatically. A few months earlier Barbara had attempted to explain the failure of her three marriages to her son. ‘I was quite frank with him. I told Lance that I had been a very foolish woman, but that I hoped I was going to be wiser from then on. I told him everything. I was frightened to death of what he would think.’

  Dean Jennings records the boy’s reaction. There happened to be a plane passing high overhead as his mother made her confession and when she ended he looked up at it and said, ‘I know what that is. It’s a B-17.’

  Igor moved into the Ritz, where he was apportioned his own room. He did not see Barbara until she sent for him after she woke, usually around lunchtime. Not that lunch or other meals figured in the schedule. He slipped out to get something to eat in a brasserie while Barbara pursued what had become her regimen. On waking she swallowed amphetamines to suppress her appetite, but these made her so wired she took barbiturates with a glass of champagne to smooth her out. In the course of her day, which ran from 1 p.m. until 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. next morning, she got through fifteen to twenty cups of coffee, a dozen Cokes, and pack after pack of Chesterfields. At night she couldn’t sleep but walked the streets or paced her room while the same record played over and over again. Sometimes she retired to bed for days at a stretch and wrote poetry. She was in poor shape physically, but when the drugs balanced out she could function socially. She gave a dinner party for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor; one of the guests said, ‘The cuisine was incredibly well prepared but Barbara didn’t touch a thing. She just drank black coffee and smoked cigarettes.’

  As the spring of 1947 turned into summer Barbara’s face grew gaunt and strained, her mood swings became more erratic. The sexual relief she’d found with Igor had not lasted, he could no longer comfort her. ‘When everything is sustained by stimulants and emotions then it is alright, but otherwise no,’ he explained. ‘But our life together is not a physical life. Barbara, you see, is in love with love.’

  She became convinced that she was seriously ill. A procession of doctors was summoned to the Ritz. Finding no evidence of physical disease, they were well rewarded for prescriptions for the drugs she needed. ‘It killed everything,’ said Igor. ‘Her appetite, her sleep patterns, her sex drive.’

  Abruptly deciding on a change of scene, Barbara moved her husband and staff of six to the Côte d’Azur. There the weather was muggy; she transferred the party to the Swiss Alps and sent for Lance to join them. For a while the change seemed to revive her, then one morning she collapsed in excruciating pain. Wrapping her in a rug, Igor drove her to a hospital in Bern. In the months that followed she went through four major operations. During one of them her remaining ovary was removed; the first had been taken out in her illness after Lance’s birth. Now her convalescence in Switzerland, attended by the patient Igor, was long and slow, but when she was well enough they returned to Paris and the Ritz.

  She was nearing forty. Loss of her ovary brought on symptoms of the menopause. To deal with them she drank and swallowed pills. While Igor paced the silent corridors of the Ritz, waiting to be summoned, she kept to her room playing Russian music and writing poetry. He was miserable with hotel life. On sudden impulse Barbara sailed to New York without him, and checked herself into a private clinic. Worried, Igor flew over to discover how she was. He located her at a suite in the Hotel Pierre, but it was three days before she would see him. Barbara was wasting away. The couture clothes filling her closets, the jewellery locked in the hotel safe or scattered carelessly across her dressing table, the riches and luxury surrounding her, the invitations she received and infinite possibilities on offer failed to give her pleasure. She was sick in body, sick in the head and expiring beneath a crushing weight of futility and boredom. ‘All the unhappiness in my life has been because of men, including my father … But I’m also too timid to live alone, and life doesn’t make any sense without men.’

  Weakened by sickness, by drugs, by drink, emaciated by her punitive regimen, somehow Barbara roused herself to re-enter the lists of life – and to reappear in the society pages, which reported its essential aspects. She started a highly publicised affair with thirty-year-old Prince Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne.

  Her liaison was headlined in all the papers and Igor was mortally humiliated. His patience and extraordinary restraint reached its limit in a final outburst.

  Everything in life is like a fine string. There comes a moment when it is drawn too tightly and suddenly crack! I told her what I thought and felt. I talked for twenty minutes without a stop. She didn’t say a word. I went to my room, closed the door, took all my things and left.

  Unlike earlier husbands he had little to show for his period of tenure. No palazzo, horses, jewellery or wardrobe of clothes. He flung his two suitcases into the back of his car and headed south. He reached the Côte d’Azur unshaved, weary, with no idea what to do. And in Cannes he ran slap into Errol Flynn, who was not hobbled by Igor’s scruples. It so happened that with him was the American lawyer Melvin Belli, later to become notorious in high-profile divorce cases. He was persuaded to let Belli act for him.

  In Paris Belli met with Barbara’s lawyer Graham Mattison, demanding a million dollars as the price of a divorce. Getting rid of Mdivani and Reventlow had proved much more costly, but surprisingly she refused to pay up. David Heymann reports a sighting of her at a party during this period: ‘There she was dancing moodily with one of the forgotten gigolos, the two of them trembling slowly in the middle of the floor. She can’t have weighed sixty pounds and her … eyes oozed like black wounds from beneath an enormous hat.’

  Barbara and Igor were finally divorced in October 1951.

  CHAPTER 12

  BARBARA HUTTON, NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 1953

  Rubi’s noisy wooing of Barbara Hutton with a mariachi band outside her hotel at 2.30 a.m. had made their romance public from its start. The raucous spectacle had occurred in high season when hotels on the front were full. Everyone with seaward-facing rooms had been woken b
y the racket, and next morning it was all people talked about.

  In the days following, gossip columns speculated on their relationship. Tabloids published photographs of them and ran sidebars recycling their colourful backstories. The press dogged them. When Rubi left to fly to Los Angeles, they met his plane on arrival to question him on his plans. He was evasive but, shortly after, an item reported him dining à deux with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Journalists also trailed Barbara when she quit Deauville for Paris, where she retired to her suite in the Ritz and remained incommunicado. It was frustrating for everyone following the story.

  It is November before she emerges from seclusion. The Statue of Liberty is veiled in fog and the waters of New York harbour wreathed in mist as the SS United States, newest and fastest of the transatlantic liners, docks at the West Side pier with Barbara on board.

  The paparazzi are waiting and when a frail thin woman wrapped in furs steps carefully down the gangway on the arm of a walker, followed by her maid, a firestorm of flash dazzles around her as she steps ashore. Microphones are thrust into her face: ‘Why are you here? Where is Rubi? Why isn’t he meeting you? What are your plans?’ She is bombarded by questions.

  She is fragile and wan, unable even under the stimulus of attention to rise to the occasion. ‘I’m so tired, so very tired. I’m sick, they don’t know what it is,’ is all she can manage to reply.

  She checks into the Hotel Pierre with her extensive baggage to occupy suite 39. It’s a familiar surrogate home she’s lived in before, where she’s looked after by 24-hour room service and cared for by the ever-watchful Tiki while the switchboard refuses all calls.

  Doctors visit her several times a day. They write prescriptions for her mystery illness, but still Barbara continues to sicken. No remedies prove effective, she cannot sleep. She is moved to Doctors Hospital. Ten days later Rubi flies in from Zsa Zsa in Hollywood to visit her, bearing an enormous bouquet of red roses. Suave and sophisticated as ever, he soothes and woos her with practised words. A light rekindles, restoring her will to live. A few days later when she checks out of hospital he is there for her – as are a pack of photographers – to escort her home. Later that same afternoon he visits his tailor, informing him that he is going to marry her, and orders twenty-five suits in varied shades of lightweight cloth at $300 apiece – telling him to send the bill to Barbara at the Hotel Pierre.

  CHAPTER 13

  ZSA ZSA GABOR, LOS ANGELES, CHRISTMAS EVE 1953

  In Zsa Zsa’s house in Bel Air every window is ablaze with light. And noise: the sound of women’s voices raised in excited competitive chatter in Hungarian. Zsa Zsa’s two sisters, their mother Jolie, and her daughter Francesca are gathered together for the holiday.

  It is more than just Christmas they are celebrating. The Gabor sisters are about to open in their own cabaret show in Las Vegas, on Boxing Day. It’s a fabulous deal. It was Jolie who took over the negotiations together with their wardrobe; each sister will have her own suite and personal entourage of maids, make-up, hairdresser and publicist. There’s already been a lot of pre-publicity about the show in the press.

  Carols are playing in the Bel Air living room which is decorated in tinsel and gold. Beneath a Christmas tree the six-year-old Francesca plays among the mound of colourfully wrapped presents. One of them for George Sanders; Zsa Zsa had hoped he would drop in before the holiday. Although she knows her husband is currently involved in an affair with Rubi’s ex, Doris Duke, she does not believe he really wants to divorce her. She thinks he is bluffing.

  Rubirosa is also part of this Gabor family gathering. He’s flown from New York to be here, bringing an elaborate train set for Francesca. Despite her delight in the present, he is not his usual party self but appears depressed. The atmosphere is not helped by Jolie, who considers him a bad influence upon Zsa Zsa, though he has recently proposed to her, and regards him with deep suspicion.

  Alone with Zsa Zsa in her bedroom later that evening, Rubi confides that he has been seeing Barbara Hutton. ‘She wants to marry me, but I love only you.’ But, he adds, if Zsa Zsa won’t marry him, he will marry Barbara. ‘I need money and she has offered me $5 million if I do,’ he explains.

  Zsa Zsa is stunned by the ultimatum. ‘We talked endlessly. He unburdened himself as he had never before…’

  Their conversation is interrupted by a crash. A gift-wrapped brick comes sailing through the French window, followed by George Sanders carolling, ‘Merry Christmas, darlings’ as he clambers into the room. After him scramble a photographer with a flash camera and a private detective.

  The surprised couple jump out of bed in panic. Zsa Zsa is wearing only her diamond earrings and Rubi less; deciding discretion the better part, he locks himself in the bathroom.

  Zsa Zsa says, ‘I had not seen my husband in months … he wore a blue turtleneck sweater I had bought him in Naples and faded blue jeans, and he looked beautiful. When I was able to speak I said, “Oh George, why did you have to do this?”’ She knows the scandal will be all over Hollywood in hours.

  ‘I had to,’ George says. He sits down on the bed, winded and breathing heavily.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asks in alarm.

  ‘My dear, I’m an old man. I have no business climbing ladders,’ he explains.

  But George’s mission is complete. The compromising photograph he will produce in court if Zsa Zsa asks for alimony is in the can. He leaves her room and goes to walk downstairs, followed by his team.

  ‘George, don’t go without your present. It’s under the Christmas tree,’ Zsa Zsa calls after him.

  CHAPTER 14

  ZSA ZSA GABOR, LAS VEGAS, CHRISTMAS DAY 1953

  On Christmas Day Zsa Zsa flies from Los Angeles to Las Vegas accompanied by her two sisters, each with her own entourage. Mother Jolie comes too. The party comes with its baggage of multiple costume changes, and Jolie insists they are too fragile to travel in the hold; they take up an entire section of the aircraft. Rubi follows in pursuit on a later flight.

  The Fabulous Gabors are a little late for dress rehearsal at the Last Frontier, closed for the holiday. The rehearsal is constantly interrupted by calls from Rubi, asking Zsa Zsa if she will marry him. The sisters’ routines are complex, the technicians are on double-time; everyone is irritated by the breaks and soon she refuses to take his calls.

  Rehearsals are strenuous and emotional, each of the sisters has her own idea of how the act should play and so does the producer. At 2 a.m., after the final run-through, Zsa Zsa returns to her hotel suite. Rubi, who has bribed his way in, is there waiting for her. He has been drinking and is in foul mood. ‘So, are you going to marry me?’ he demands.

  Both are sleepless and on edge, but hardly has this interrogation begun when it is interrupted by the telephone. It is Igor Cassini, the gossip columnist who now writes ‘Cholly Knickerbocker’ for the Hearst press, calling from New York. He is trying to contact Rubi. ‘Have you any idea where he is?’

  Beside her, Rubi shakes his head.

  ‘None at all,’ Zsa Zsa answers.

  There is a brief silence, then Cassini asks, ‘Is it true he’s going to marry Barbara Hutton?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ she snaps and hangs up.

  She stands up. With the instinctive theatricality that comes so naturally to her she marches to the door and flings it wide. ‘Get out,’ she tells Rubi. ‘I never want to see you again.’

  He moves to the door, glowering at her. ‘Just tell me one thing. Why don’t you marry me?’

  She is livid with fury. ‘Because I love George!’ she yells and tries to push him out the door.

  He slugs her in the face. The blow throws her across the room. She cannons into the wall and falls. She’s up at once running to the mirror. The flesh is already swelling above her right eye. My God, she thinks, I open tomorrow!

  This is Boxing Day and Zsa Zsa sits in her dressing room in the Last Frontier, staring into the make-up mirror in despair. Her eye looks tiny; the
tissue around it inflamed, bruised and purple.

  A huge bunch of roses dominates the many good luck bouquets of flowers arranged around the room. They’ve been sent by Rubi from the airport before taking off for New York. A card accompanied them: À bientôt, Rubi.

  The door opens and Marlene Dietrich sweeps in, dressed in white leather trousers tight as a second skin. She is playing in cabaret at The Sahara further down the strip. She’s heard of the assault from Eva and examines Zsa Zsa’s black eye with the interest of a connoisseur.

  ‘Darling,’ she says, ‘he must love you very much to strike you like that.’

  Zsa Zsa’s publicist is Russell Birdwell, one of the best. The Gabor sisters’ act opens in three hours’ time, and it is clearly futile to try to conceal her swollen and part-closed eye with pancake. He comes up with the idea of an eye-patch.

  The show – with the three sisters dressed in identical sequinned gowns, one white, one red, one black – is a huge success. Photographers and hacks are there as a tribe. The shot of Zsa Zsa in a black eye-patch goes around the world. The photograph and story that runs with it twitches a nerve of farce. The following night at The Sahara all of Marlene Dietrich’s chorus girls are wearing black eye-patches.

  When Zsa Zsa flies to New York a few days later, the score of reporters who greet her at the airport are all in black eye-patches. Within a week a jewelled version of the accessory is on sale in Manhattan stores. She has started a craze.