Life Worth Living (9 page)

Although I did not consider meetings that did not result from ‘proper’ introductions worthy of a follow-up, I must admit that it all appealed to my vanity. Those really were the Big Apple’s glory days. The city was rich and clean, and full of prosperous people and high-powered socialites who threw the most
amazing parties. Everyone dressed smartly, and glamour was as much a part of life as air. To compensate for my misery, I immersed myself in as much pleasure as I could. On my return from Jamaica, as soon as I had found an apartment and bought some clothes to replace those that had been given to charity, I telephoned some of the people I had met before I left. I had some propitious contacts, including New York’s leading PR, Colonel Serge Obolensky, a Russian prince and former husband of Czar Alexander II’s morganatic daughter. He was instrumental in organising many of New York’s main social events, and he was always on the look-out for pretty and well-bred girls as window-dressing for his parties. Within days I was back in the social whirl in an even bigger way than I had been during my modelling days. Then, I had had to get my sleep, to look rested in front of the camera; now I could stay up as late as I liked. If I had to go to school the next day, I could drag myself there and remain half asleep throughout my classes. I perfected the art of sleeping sitting up, with my hands cupping my chin and my eyes hidden behind large tinted prescription glasses.

I soon met the other public-relations czar who ruled New York’s social scene. Bob Taplinger’s speciality was showbiz parties – and what parties they were. Held mostly at his brownstone on the Upper East Side, they were jammed with just about every star of the screen, stage or social world. Among the many luminaries I met there were Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Rosalind Russell and Gloria Vanderbilt. There were few large parties among the old-guard set, the new-money set or the showbiz set to which I was not asked. Then there were the fixtures of the social calendar, such as the opening of the opera season at the Met or the innumerable charity balls held at the St Regis, Pierre and Plaza hotels. Sometimes I had to pinch myself to believe that all this magic was really happening to me. But it was, and I relished it. It was heady stuff for a nineteen-year-old.

I especially remember the Diamond Ball at the Plaza in 1969. Teddy Kennedy, who was the guest of honour, zeroed in on me to such an extent that I felt compelled to escape his attentions before a photographer captured us for my father’s delectation. I found him attractive, but I was not about to jeopardise my liberty, so I fled downstairs to the nightclub on the ground floor. I often came here with various beaux, so the maître d’ knew me well. He could not have been kinder when I explained my plight (even in those days Mr Kennedy was known for his roving eye), and he gave me a glass of champagne and a ringside table all to myself from which I could watch John Davidson’s show. Only when I was confident that Mr Kennedy would have forgotten all about me did I return upstairs, where, sure, enough, he was otherwise engaged.

The events that were the most fun were the parties held in nightclubs. At the opening of Numero Uno – a members-only discotheque owned by the Cassini brothers, Igor and Oleg, which rivalled Le Club, New York’s most chic nightspot, for a year or two – I met Aristotle Onassis for the first time. He was vastly entertaining and, although he was ugly as sin, he was still ruggedly attractive, even to a nice young girl whom he treated with all the decorum and respect an older man ought to show. His laughter started deep in his belly, and he exuded such
warmth and energy that he would have been irresistible to any woman he focused upon.

Numero Uno was where I met Norton Simon, the multimillionaire philanthropist and art-collector. At the time, he was a distinguished older gentleman impeccably turned out by what must have been an artist of a tailor. I can no longer remember who introduced us, but I do remember liking him and his girlfriend, who was a ravishingly beautiful top model in her early twenties with dark hair and blue eyes. When he offered to drop me home I thought nothing of it; nor were my suspicions aroused when he suggested that we stopped by his apartment so that he could show his girlfriend and me something connected with whatever topic had been under discussion. Although ‘swinging’ was at its height, I had never met anyone who wanted to ‘swing’, so I walked right into the trap. No sooner were we in the apartment than dear old oversexed Norton manoeuvred us into the bedroom. While I was in the loo, he got his girlfriend to strip. They were ready and waiting for me when I came out.

I had never been so offended in my life. ‘How dare you expose me to such decadence without a by-your-leave from me?’ I snapped. ‘It’s one thing to swing if everyone wants to do it, but quite another to presume that every girl you meet will go along with your perverted tastes just because you’re rich. All the money in the world couldn’t convince me to even touch you, you dirty old man!’ I sailed out in high dudgeon with my nose in the air.

The Norton Simon incident aside, Numero Uno was one of my favourite haunts, along with Le Directoire on East Forty-Eighth Street. I first went there when the club was taken over for a huge party in honour of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. Ron Galella, the photographer who professionally stalked Jackie Kennedy Onassis until she took him to court and got him banned from approaching her, seemed transfixed by me. He spent the whole evening trying to photograph me, while I did my level best to avoid him. When I realised that I had failed, I walked straight up to him and said, ‘You’re wasting your time on me. I’m nobody of consequence.’

‘There’s always room for a beautiful girl in the papers,’ he replied, sending a chill down my spine.

I begged him not to use any shots of me, explaining that my father would not approve, and he agreed that he would not, provided that I went out with him. He was not my cup of tea, but I kept my word and attended the premiere of
The Shoes of the Fisherman
with him. David Janssen was one of the stars, and when I was introduced to him, I thought he was one of the most attractive men I had ever met. Mr Galella I found rather less appealing, and when he tried to kiss me at the end of the evening, he nearly induced an attack of vomiting. Fortunately that discouraged him from pressing his attentions further.

It was at the premiere party for
Midnight Cowboy
that my life changed for both the better and the worse. It was held at Wednesday’s, a trendy discotheque on East Eighty-Sixth Street. I was chatting to a group of friends when a stunningly
handsome tall, blond hunk joined the group. He was introduced to me as Tucker Fredrickson, a name which meant nothing to me but was known to just about everyone else in the United States. He was the quarterback for the New York Giants, and one of America’s leading athletes. Never having read a sports page in my life, I was clueless about his celebrity: even when he mentioned what he did, I did not appreciate the significance of it. What I did appreciate, however, was the Nordic splendour of this ultimate specimen of masculinity, so when he asked me out the following evening, I said yes.

Tucker turned out to be a great guy. As well as devastatingly handsome, he was warm and friendly, elegant and intelligent, and very hospitable. At his apartment on Sixty-Fifth and First, he played host to a large circle of friends, many of whom were from the athletic and modelling worlds. Sadly, we were fated never to be anything but friends (one night of passion excluded, but more of that later). On that first date, Tucker took me to Swain’s, a nightclub above Kenny’s Steak House on East Fifty-First between Third and Lexington avenues. There, he introduced me to his best friend. Bill Swain was even bigger than Tucker and a dead ringer for Clark Kent. I was powerfully drawn to Bill, a line-backer for the New York Giants who operated the club in the off season. Twenty-eight years old, married and divorced twice, with raven-black hair and blue eyes which he hid behind thick black-rimmed glasses, he was not as handsome as Tucker, but he exuded sexual attractiveness. He had a taciturn manner and a droll sense of humour, and was almost as quiet and reserved as my father – of course, it did not take a psychiatrist to see the connection there. Undoubtedly, what I viewed as my father’s ‘rejection’ not only influenced my taste in men, but also cast a huge shadow over my life until he and I excised the black spot. But I would have found Bill attractive in any circumstances. Tucker immediately saw how well Bill and I were getting along, and, being the gentleman he was, he graciously stepped aside and let us get on with it.

In those days, every girl had a major dilemma: when should you go to bed with a man? The customs governing such behaviour were changing, so we were all in the dark. Some believed that you could be forthcoming on the first date without suffering the consequences; others disagreed. Although my own personal situation curtailed full intimacy, it did not prevent anything but, although I avoided the practices of Indian virgins, who went to the altar with only one orifice unexplored. I had concluded that the most sensible course of action was to let the guy wait a bit, but not so long that you lost him or frustrated yourself needlessly. So I declined Bill’s initial invitation to go to his place for ‘coffee’, though I did agree to have dinner with him the following evening.

Some time between walking into Swain’s and leaving with Bill later that following evening, I fell in love with him. This was not an unmitigated joy, but, if it caused me emotional turmoil – he was never in love with me, though he did like me and we got along well – it also introduced me to the splendours of passion. Bill had a body hewn out of rock. Not even Michelangelo could have carved a more perfect representation of the male form. From the tips of his large but well-shaped fingers, past the immensity of his wrists and calves, through the magnificence of
his thighs and chest, to his infinitely succulent neck, he was an artist’s dream come true. Where he transcended artistry and bordered on divinity was in the generosity and perfection of his most masculine of attributes. Looking as he did like Clark Kent when clothed, it was difficult not to extend the analogy to that fictional figure’s other persona when he was divested of clothing.

Bill’s physical perfection was only one of his qualities. Fastidious to an exaggerated degree, he introduced me to the seductive delights of natural scent. Just smelling him was a pleasure in itself, exceeded only by the pleasure of tasting him. I could have happily feasted upon him for hours on end. I had not expected to fall in love, and of course it exacerbated my impatience to have my gender problem solved, especially since Bill did not love me as I loved him and continued seeing other girls. I blamed my inability to deliver the ultimate goods, though I can see now, looking back, that that was at best a marginal factor. I did not know whether I should confide in Bill, or just let him continue thinking that I was an old-fashioned girl. I decided that I had better examine the issue carefully, as it was one I might have to address again. As I saw it, I did not owe anyone any explanation unless the relationship was heading towards the altar. At that point, my history would become material – not every man would necessarily want a wife who had spent her childhood in boys’ clothes. Besides, I could not envisage a marriage without genuine solidarity, which obviously meant that my husband-to-be would have to understand the circumstances that had shaped me. Regrettably, Bill and I seemed in no danger of getting married, much as I would have liked it, so I decided to keep my own counsel. Nevertheless, I continued to see as much of Bill as I could. Despite being caught up in the maelstrom of passion and emotion that only unrequited love brings, I still led a full and energetic social life with my smart friends.

Often, I would go on to Bill’s club, or we’d go together to Billy Gallaher’s all-night drinking club on First Avenue and Sixty-First Street after one of Serge Obolensky’s balls or Bob Taplinger’s parties. At first, eyebrows in those clubs would raise when I arrived in some exotic creation or ball gown, but only too soon I was a regular fixture whose presence required neither comment nor explanation except to newcomers. Indeed, when Bill was in a jocular mood, he would rib me gently. ‘Come on, tell the girls what the Duchess of Windsor is like,’ he urged after I had been to Raffles with the Duke and Duchess. I told them that she was small, sparrow-like, stylishly dressed, chic, and quintessentially American in an early twentieth century way (accent, powerful but charming manner, gracious to the point of largesse), while he was tiny, mild, almost Transatlantic at times (in speech and manner), but had a quiet dignity. In America, where wealth and celebrity are more openly acknowledged than in Britain, I was intrigued to see that there were residues of the old European imperial class structures. Society was then regarded as being ‘above’ celebrity, so, while Bill and his friends were established professionals with the status and salaries to match, and I was merely a well-bred young girl who got asked to nice parties, I was perceived by his friends and employees as ‘ranking’ above them. This perturbed me, for Bill maintained that our
relationship could never work as anything more than an affair because we were ‘from two different worlds’.

You might imagine that, loving Bill as I did, I would remain faithful to him. But I was about to discover some interesting facts about myself, not the least of which was that love frequently has little or nothing to do with passion. All my life I had heard how passionate the Ziadie and Burke families were. Certainly, those who did not prostrate themselves before the altar of religion had fine track records in the horizontal stakes, but it had never occurred to me that my blood would be as hot as theirs, or that that hot blood would lead me to commit passionate acts that I now look back upon as mere silliness.

At the start of the 1969–70 football season, Bill was traded to the Detroit Lions. This was good news and bad news, for, though I missed him, it forced me to face the fact that my love was hopeless, and that I would be better off replacing him. When I returned to New York from the summer training camp at Bloomfield Hills, Detroit, where I went to administer my own brand of encouragement, I promptly got in touch with Tucker, who asked me to a party he was having. In the interests of banishing Bill from my mind, I was far more flirtatious with Tucker that night than I had ever been.