The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (27 page)

Amy Wallace, whose memoir of her involvement with Castaneda,
Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, My Life With Carlos Castaneda
, recorded Castaneda’s seduction of her in detail, including his sex-magical claims that his sperm would alter her brain cells and make her a “witch,” a.k.a. a sorcerer. Despite her admiration for

Castaneda’s teachings and their passionate love/hate relationship, Wallace believes Carlos was spearheading a cult. Castaneda’s lovers were allowed two roles—those of wife and daughter—and they were interchangeable, a situation made all the more disturbing by Carlos’ frequent boasts that his “daughter,” a teenage waitress he had picked up and given a high position in the groups’ hierarchy, had “seduced” him at the age of seven. Women were subjected to rigorous sexual deconditioning techniques—chief among them the practice of
recapitulation
, a nigh-endless task in which disciples would make a list of every person they had ever slept with, followed by every person they had ever met— in their entire life—and then meditate on breathing away the psychic toxins left by these interactions. Castaneda terrorized his female followers with tales of energetic parasites—which he called “worms”—left in their wombs by ex-lovers. Short of receiving Carlos’ sperm, women were recommended to accompany their meditations with seven years of celibacy. Presumably this would kill the worms, and they would never have sex again. Children, he believed, left a devastating “hole” in a woman’s energy body, making it practically impossible for her to become a sorcerer. He strongly encouraged the outright severing of relations with children and parents, siblings and friends to reclaim lost energy. The inner circle was under orders to do so—to reclaim lost energy. In one book Castaneda recounts a tale of don Juan convincing him to eat his own child (the waitress) which he does, after which it is revealed that it was only beef jerky, a test of his obedience.

Carlos lived in a Spanish-style compound in Westwood, Los Angeles, with two close companions, his “witches.” He had a separate entrance, and snuck his lovers in to bathe their genitals in a magical potion of rosemary which grew in his garden, supposedly given to him by don Juan. Washing the genitals with this liquid was believed to further detox and purify the womb from poisonous human sperm. He believed almost all humans are incapable of experiencing sexual pleasure.

Castaneda’s predatory universe, in which he said “fear was his guide,” justified his by-any-means-necessary approach to breaking into freedom. In that, he was not far from the taboo-busting behavior of Hindu tantrics, or the “crazy wisdom” of Tibetan Buddhist teachers like Chögyam Trungpa. Like many spiritual figures, however, Castaneda had convinced himself that he was a “nagual,” a kind of god—and he and his circle were the only people in the world who had access to true sorceric knowledge. In his mythos, they would burn together, spontaneously combusting, their bodies reforming on another plane, where they would begin their eternal travels in Infinity. Mere human death was seen as a shameful failing.

Carlos died of complications from adult-onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer, and remaining cult members attempted to keep his death a secret. His body was cremated, and five of the top-ranking witches disappeared to commit group suicide, being unable to live without him. So far, only one body has been recovered, and a Missing Persons search is in progress. Remaining cult members have denied that the missing women planned a suicide pact.

HIS THOUGHTS:
“Man is being exterminated. There’s nothing of our own in our minds—we have flyers’ (the parasitic creatures) minds. pendulum-like, back-and-forth They make us morose, depressive; they fill us with kinky sexual thoughts—all masturbation comes from the flyers. And we don’t even like our own genitals! That’s the flyers, too. They make us frigid... And luhh-hvvvveee... that’s the worst thing of all,
human love
. It’s a flyer trick, looking for ‘love,’ but we just replace one head with another, changing all the time!

That’s not
love
.”

—J.L.

The Satyr

GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO (Mar. 12, 1863–Mar. 1, 1938)

HIS FAME:
A controversial poet and

politician during the Fascist era, D’Annunzio laced his works so heavily with

vivid descriptions of sex and death that

author Henry James labeled them “vulgar.” The eccentric writer, who was

also Italy’s greatest WWI flying ace,

will perhaps be best remembered as

one of the founders of realism in Italian

fiction. His works include
The Innocent
,
The Flame of Life
, and
The Child
of Pleasure
.

HIS PERSON:
By the time he graduated from the Cicognini College in

Prato, D’Annunzio, son of the wealthy

mayor of Pescara, had published his first volume of poetry and earned a scandalous reputation as a Don Juan. Women found the handsome, muscular, 5-ft. 6-in. poet irresistible, and he engaged in hundreds of affairs during his lifetime, often using them as story lines for his novels.

In 1883 he settled down long enough to marry Maria Gallese, daughter of the Duke di Gallese. Despite the fact that D’Annunzio continued his illicit affairs, Maria bore him three sons in the next four years. D’Annunzio spent their income frivolously—on clothes, servants, and other women—until his lavish lifestyle forced him into bankruptcy. In 1910 he fled to France to escape creditors.

When WWI erupted, D’Annunzio returned to Italy. In 1915 he enlisted as an aviator and was commander of the air squad at Venice; he gained recog-142 /
Intimate Sex Lives

nition after flying a number of dangerous missions. His heroics cost him his left eye when it was struck by an enemy bullet. Undaunted, he led a troop of 12,000 “Arditi” into the city of Fiume in 1919, conquered it, and ruled the Italian town as a dictator for over a year. In reward for his vociferous support of Mussolini’s Fascist government, D’Annunzio was named Prince of Monte Nevoso in 1924.

Surrounded by 100 servants and separated from his family, D’Annunzio lived out his final years at his elegant estate on Lake Garda. Obsessed with making his death as memorable as his life, he claimed he’d like to be shot from a cannon or die by having his body dissolved in acid. Undramatically, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage, while sitting at his desk, 11 days before his 75th birthday.

LOVE LIFE:
D’Annunzio, who considered himself a “high priest of erotica,”

was a sexual maniac whose life and writings were guided by women. By age seven he had fallen in love for the first time. At 12 he was turned in to school officials for trying to guide the hands of a nun who was fitting his uniform toward his “private parts.” When he turned 16, D’Annunzio had his first woman, a Florentine prostitute, after pawning a watch to pay her fee.

His reputation as a womanizer did not prevent his marriage to Maria Hardouin di Gallese. Her father, the Duke di Gallese, despised D’Annunzio, but Maria ignored her father’s threats of boycotting the wedding and severing all family ties. The 20-year-old author married his 19-year-old bride in a sad, somber ceremony on July 28, 1883. No one knew the willowy blond-haired Maria was already three months pregnant.

Repulsed by his wife’s pregnant body, D’Annunzio took to sleeping with other women, but he still treated Maria to an “intoxicating night” from time to time. He left her in 1887, and before Maria died she had earned the title

“
madone des tantes
” (“madonna of the aunties”) for having charmed a number of male homosexuals.

Though he viewed women as enemies, was rarely compassionate, had eyes which Sarah Bernhardt described as “little blobs of shit,” and was bald by age 23, women dreamed of making love to him. Ladies were willing to risk their wealth, marriages, and reputations to sleep with him, although D’Annunzio was well known as “a fickle lover whose passions were swift and changing.”

D’Annunzio’s tastes knew no boundaries. He was susceptible to the beauty of young boys and engaged in an affair with a lesbian mistress, whom he taught “the parting of the legs.” Even in his old age, the author’s sexual prowess did not wane. He paid people to visit neighboring villages and bring him women “whose novelty would stimulate his fancy.” He boasted of having enjoyed 1,000 female conquests in his lifetime.

SEX PARTNERS:
Many of his affairs ended tragically. His romance with the religious, moralistic Countess Mancini created such a severe guilt complex in
The Pen Is Prominent
/ the countess that she went mad and was institutionalized in an asylum. Likewise, his relationship with Marchesa Alessandra di Rudini Carlotti, daughter of an Italian prime minister, ended in ruin. A “sinner of love” who desired to repent for her frenzied lovemaking, the marchesa abandoned her children, became a nun, and died as the mother superior of a convent in Savoy.

D’Annunzio was instantly awestruck by Barbara Leoni’s goddesslike beauty when they met at a concert in 1887. They shared a passionately intense love and met at secret hideaways as often as they could. She confessed to him, “You have had a virgin in me.” He kept one of Barbara’s hairs in a locket, and throughout their five-year affair, while making love, D’Annunzio would cover her body with rose petals. As she lay nude in bed sound asleep, he would sit alongside her jotting down details of their lovemaking bouts and noting the contours of her body for future use in
The Innocent
.

In 1891 D’Annunzio kindled an affair with 30-year-old Countess Maria Anguissola Gravina Cruyllas di Ramacca, wife of a Neapolitan nobleman.

The statuesque woman was driven mad by jealousy and squandered a fortune in a futile attempt to retain D’Annunzio’s love. They were charged with, and found guilty of, committing adultery and sentenced to five months in prison.

Their sentences, however, were later suspended, and D’Annunzio went on to father two out-of-wedlock children by the countess during the course of their affair. When their son, Dante Gabriele, was born, the countess threatened to kill the baby unless D’Annunzio remained faithful. He refused to do so, however, showering his affections instead on the actress Eleonora Duse.

D’Annunzio’s affair with Duse, a woman four and a half years his senior, was the zenith of his romantic career. For “La Duse,” who also had had many lovers, D’Annunzio proved the consuming passion of her life. Starting in 1895 they lived together, on and off, for nine years. She not only demanded little of him, but gave him her money, inspiration, companionship, and advice. In return, he wrote plays in which Duse performed.

During the good days, they drank strange brews together from a virgin’s skull, and on one birthday she sent him a dozen telegrams, one every hour.

But in 1900 Duse was stunned by the publication of a novel written by D’Annunzio which detailed their affair intimately. According to
The Flame
of Life
, D’Annunzio had tired of his 42-year-old lover because her body had grown old and her breasts (to D’Annunzio a woman’s most important asset) had begun to droop. They parted company in 1904, and after Duse died D’Annunzio claimed he could communicate with her spirit by biting into a pomegranate while standing in front of a statue of the Buddha.

HIS THOUGHTS:
“We always believe that our first love is the last, and that our last love is the first.”

—A.K.

The Unhappy Husband

CHARLES DICKENS (Feb. 7, 1812–June 9, 1870)

HIS FAME:
Generally considered to be

the greatest English novelist of all time,

Dickens authored such classics as
Pickwick Papers
,
Oliver Twist
,
A Christmas
Carol
,
David Copperfield
,
A Tale of Two
Cities
, and
Great Expectations
.

HIS PERSON:
One of his grandfathers

was a domestic servant and the other