A Prince Among Stones (10 page)

The situation was proved in a very depressing way by Mick's friend Jann Wenner, who wanted to start up the magazine to be called
Rolling Stone
, and had invited Mick and, in so far as the other Rolling Stones counted, the other band members to buy 49 per cent of the shares. Mick could not raise the money required, which was £5,000. He asked me if Leopold Joseph would lend the money to him.

My partners were not prepared to give an overdraft to Mick because there was no security (in their minds) to back it with, and the magazine was an unquoted start-up. That highlighted for me how dire the situation was. I did finally get my partners to agree that we would have given Mick an overdraft, but their agreement did not come in time. The opportunity was missed, and the Rolling Stones did not end up with half of
Rolling Stone
, which was a great shame. Obviously Jann Wenner would have changed the percentages later on, but the band would have made a healthy profit.

For a long time there would continue to be stout resistance to my work with the Rolling Stones within the financial institutions. I remember even as late as 1973, a few years after the demise of the Beatles as a touring and performing group, when the Stones became, unchallenged, the most famous band in the world, the Swiss bankers Hensch telling me, ‘We couldn't possibly have people like that in our banking halls.' My response was to say, ‘You're wrong. We're in the middle of a recession. These people are on the up and up. The world is changing.'

Mick and I quickly built up a good relationship. After the first two or three business meetings, I realised that there was something exceptional in his make-up, that his personality was able to convert what, to me, was a rather uninteresting trade, that of an itinerant performer, into something far more intriguing. And although our senses of humour were quite different we were able to notice and enjoy each other's.

Alongside my work examining and studying the mountain of documents involved in the Stones' financial affairs, the friendship between Mick and I evolved, and I got to know Marianne Faithfull, who had a sort of wayward lost-girl persona. Eventually I even became less concerned, although never totally, about the more criticisable aspects of his behaviour: the chucking of invitations, the late arrival at dinners and parties, even though I found it very difficult. I prefer to be both punctual and punctilious, although my mother was the complete opposite: I would arrange to meet her for lunch and she wouldn't turn up until it was too late since I had to be back in the office by 3 p.m. in time for the New York Stock Exchange opening.

A year or so after Mick and I met, Josephine and I had been invited to spend Christmas at Warwick Castle by Lord and Lady Brooke, great friends of ours. We suggested that they might ask Mick and Marianne to stay for two or three nights and they agreed to invite them, too.

Arranging this was something of a risk on my part. I wanted to see how Mick behaved. I knew that he was intrigued and at the same time impressed by the aristocracy and that he would certainly have his views about their strong and weak points. And I think he in turn realised that I would have a different view about morality and what was fit and proper.

Though the stay was entertaining for many reasons, there were difficult moments. The plan of introducing Mick and Marianne into the house party did not work out very well since Marianne stayed in bed 90 per cent of the time; Mick tried to do his best in the tricky situation that this created. The couple had in any case got off on the wrong foot by arriving extremely late in an old white Bentley flying the Green Flag of the Prophet, with Alan Dunn as Mick's assistant and driver (he still looks after Mick to this day). Sarah, Lady Brooke, had left in a huff having poured water into Marianne's bed, which she had also turned into an apple pie. The reason she gave for this was that she thought Mick and Marianne would serve as a bad influence on her children . . .

Mick had already made a number of friends with people who owned large houses where he had been to stay, but there the hosts were interested in the music and were moved by the rock'n'roll. Whereas the likes of Lord Brooke didn't care much for rock'n'roll but enjoyed the glamour. And nor did I, or many of my friends.

Baron Alexis de Redé, my partner in the consortium that had acquired Leopold Joseph, was a great and elegant host. On one later occasion he organised a splendid dinner with his companion, Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, at Versailles. Could he invite Mick and his new wife, Bianca? I asked. Alexis was not keen. This was an era when Bianca thought it was very dashing to wear a full ball gown for lunch and turn up in jeans for a ball. In England nobody thought twice about such things. In France, however, they minded tremendously about
les apparences
.

In the end Alexis decided to invite them. Bianca asked me, ‘Will we be well seated?' ‘You will be
appropriately
seated,' I told her, ‘but by the way, if dinner is at ten it will be at ten, and they won't wait for you.'

Mick had his own particular interpretation of these social party rules. Around the same time – still earning a well-deserved reputation for chucking parties or arriving very late – he and Bianca invited Josephine and me to dinner at their house on a Sunday evening. We were staying with friends in Hampshire, by whom we were encouraged to stay until after dinner because of the afternoon traffic. I telephoned Mick to say we couldn't make dinner that night. He and Bianca were
outraged
. ‘We've bought the fish, it's all arranged.' I don't think he saw the irony.

Mick was never awkward in social situations. He was charming in fact, and was a sought-after guest. Among many of my friends at home and abroad who formed part of café society, a good side of it was a curiosity about people with a level of celebrity (indeed, fashionable designers and hairdressers were beginning to be frequently invited to events). They were fascinated to meet Mick and see him close up; they could put their hand into the cage.

I realised that one of the things Mick liked about me was that I could open gilded doors. And so I did quite a lot of that. Early in 1969 Mick and Marianne decided they wanted to go on holiday in Brazil with Keith and Anita Pallenberg, somewhere that was both hot and exotic. I organised a trip for them through my friendship with Walter Moreira Salles, a powerful Brazilian financier and politician, who arranged for them to stay in a large plantation house which he owned 300 miles or so north of Rio. I later learnt that the countrified feel of the ranch led directly to Mick and Keith writing the basics of ‘Honky Tonk Women' while they were staying out there.

Given our burgeoning friendship, it was perfectly logical that Mick and Marianne would be invited to the White Ball that Josephine and I held in July 1969.

The social pages of the newspapers seemed to think there was a certain amount of anticipation about the ball. A couple of weeks before, the
Daily News
ran a short piece which announced, ‘All of social London talks of nothing but Prince and Princess Rupert Loewenstein's ball on July 3' – sheer hyperbole, of course, but I did like the last sentence: ‘However, if you're not invited it's not the end of the world. Just almost.'

There was a charming review of the ball by
Vogue
. ‘In bright Kensington moonlight, about four hundred and fifty guests laughing and dancing joined the revels. Dancing continued until dawn in the green and white conservatory designed by David Mlinaric; every room was decorated with white vinyl cushions; nearly all the guests wore white.'

That ‘nearly all' was a reference to Marianne turning up in black. A correspondent from
Women's Wear Daily
(still going strong, although rebranded for the digital age as
WWD
) wrote that ‘Marianne Faithfull went almost unrecognised with the blonde hair wrapped in a silver turban and wearing a long black beaded dress. “Some people just have to be different,” a little blonde in silver and blue mini over pants commented.'

‘Guests walked through the house,' the same reporter continued, ‘into a Victorian garden under a grass green marquee. Past the tiny white tables and chairs, and the white painted gingerbread gazebo hung with ferns and huge white Japanese lanterns was the dance floor.'

Various guests caught her eye: Jacqueline de Ribes ‘in her fringed Nina Ricci', the Maharajah of Jaipur, Victoria Ormsby-Gore ‘looking like Alice in Wonderland' and Peter Sellers in his long black wig.

Peter Sellers was the first show-business person I had got to know well, although he was not a client. We had been introduced through Grace, Countess of Dudley,  who had become a close friend – she was an elegant and highly educated Yugoslav who had previously been married to Prince Stas Radziwill. I used to play bridge with her and on one weekend visit to the house which she and the Earl of Dudley had near Amersham, among the guests were Peter Sellers and his first wife, Anne.

We found we shared a sense of humour – though like many comedians he was
moderato
rather than
allegro
off-screen. He had a house in Italy near Sabaudia on the coast between Rome and Naples. One time Josephine and I were staying in the incredible palazzo created nearby by the Countess Volpi, the widow of the founder of the Venice Film Festival. Peter joined us there one evening. Someone remarked that there was a full moon, so the Countess looked through the window but could not see it. She summoned her butler and demanded, ‘Fioravanti, dov'è la luna?' Peter and I both thought this was wonderful and from then on he would often sign off letters to me, ‘Dov'è la luna?'

In one letter he apologised for not being able to meet up on one particular Sunday, because he would be ‘up north seeing an old friend of mine, Teevy Splurnes. He has the rare distinction of being an ex-hangman's mate. Nowadays he runs a Corset Emporium and our housekeeper is an exclusive patron. I understand she is at present down to her last pair of Splurnes. So I know you will understand why we have to collect them for her . . .'  This was Peter back to his Goonish inventiveness – he did suggest that I might help Spike Milligan, and I enjoyed two or three hilarious lunches with Spike, but also it became clear that there was no money to look after . . . On the other hand Peter's own business manager, Bill Willis, was extremely helpful in explaining to me some of the inner workings of the business of show business, and, indeed, was one of the people I turned to for advice when Mick first contacted me.

Josephine and I went to Peter's wedding to Britt Ekland in February 1964 – which was less than a month after they had met while both staying at the Dorchester Hotel; by the time of the White Ball they were already divorced. What we found extraordinary was that we were the only people at the wedding who were friends. The rest of the entourage were the hairdresser, the hairdresser's boyfriend, the dressmaker, the boss of the hire car firm and various film directors and producers. It was a glimpse for me of the hermetically sealed world in which a superstar – which Peter had just become – can become trapped.

In an album of cuttings about the White Ball, I came across a newspaper diary piece from earlier in 1969 which I had completely forgotten about. ‘Almost everyone would grab the chance of appearing in a film these days,' the unknown diarist declared. ‘But I have discovered one reluctant actor. Prince Rupert von Loewenstein [
sic
] was offered a part in
The Magic Christian
by his friend Peter Sellers, who stars in this film. But he has decided against this chance of becoming a cinematic idol. His last reported stage appearance was as a spiv in a revue for charity while at Oxford.' In any case, Equity rules would doubtless have jeopardised my chances of appearing in the film.

Back at the White Ball, the Skatalites and Yes, who were providing the musical entertainment, had brought their own sound systems and there were, inevitably, some complaints to the local police station. Of the press cuttings about the ball, the headlines of virtually every one used the word ‘rave-up', an expression that, if you did not know in which year the party had taken place, could carbon-date it almost precisely – ‘A right royal rave-up' was the
Daily Mail
's contribution.

Looking through the cuttings it seems that the calls to the police – a hundred calls according to the
Sun
– emanated almost exclusively from one particular neighbour. ‘The Prince's garden was like a fairground,' she told reporters the following day. On the other hand, one of the ten nuns of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus immediately next door informed the press, ‘We were told about the party so we knew what to expect. We've no complaint.'

The
Daily Mail
had been unable to quote me directly in their piece (‘Prince Rupert was not available for comment. He was asleep'), but later a
Daily Express
reporter had managed to find me stirring ‘in a royal-blue silk dressing-gown in the peace of his Holland Park home'.

My response was to explain ‘I know it can be a terrible bore if there's a frightful racket next door and you're trying to go to sleep. But one doesn't give a party to annoy the neighbours. It really wasn't as bad as all that . . . The stillness of the night made it sound worse.' I then excused myself, saying, ‘I really must have a bath and shave before going out to dinner. It'll be a quiet affair, I believe.'