The trip to Rome was the first time I’d ever travelled first class on an international flight; Valentino was covering all my expenses. However, from the moment the plane banked out over the Atlantic, I knew this trip was going to be a rough one. In fact, to this day, that flight remains one of the worst of my life, and unlike flying in the Hawk, I had no easy eject system or the comfort of a personable pilot chatting with me on a comms system. Instead, the turbulence became so bad that the attendants stopped serving, after one of them smacked against the roof of the plane as we dipped and rolled through a serious storm. It was so bad I could hear wind hammering on the outside of the aircraft. When one of the crew needed to move down the aisle, he or she hooked on to the seats as they lurched past.
I truly thought my time had come. I even started to draft a note to my family because, of course, paper always survives a plane crash. I was absolutely fucking crapping myself. I later found out that the plane’s flight path was following the edge of Hurricane Andrew, one of the most violent storms in US history. By the time I landed in Rome, I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was go home, cuddle up in bed and sob like a baby for a few hours. Instead, I had to get on another fucking plane! This one carried me to Sardinia, and from there I boarded Valentino’s yacht.
After seeing the lavish luxury of his London home, I should have been better prepared for the TM Blue One, which Valentino had named after his parents, Teresa and Mauro. In my head, I’d imagined a gin cruiser, the kind of yacht you might see at Cowes during a regatta. The reality was a sleek one-hundred-and-fifty-foot luxury liner, which looked like the Love Boat on steroids. When I stepped on board, handsome and polished uniformed staff greeted me, and one of Valentino’s stewards handed me a beautiful Bvlgari watch with the TM Blue insignia engraved on it, explaining that anyone who’s a guest on the TM Blue receives such a watch.
Valentino himself then appeared on deck and politely welcomed me. He escorted me down to my stateroom, one of many on the yacht, where he introduced me to my personal cabin boy – I kid you not – of whose name I have no memory because he was so gorgeous. Let’s call him Pierre. Pierre opened the stateroom’s wardrobe and it was bursting with suits and shirts and sportswear all in my size and in all the colours and styles that I love. I told you Valentino was listening carefully at that first meeting at his house in London.
And so the trip of a lifetime began. I was relieved to find I was not his only guest. The supermodel Claudia Schiffer was also on board with her boyfriend du jour, as was Giancarlo Giammatti, Valentino’s long-time friend, business partner and ex-lover, and a couple of exiled princes and princesses. I think they were from Bulgaria. There were also a few young male companions who appeared to be travelling with one or two of the other older men on board.
The yacht cruised the Mediterranean from Sardinia to Crete, and then turned north along the Amalfi coast. Every morning, I’d get out of bed early and eat breakfast with Giancarlo (for whom, in all honesty, I’d developed a bit of a fancy). I’d then spend the day sunbathing on the top deck with Claudia, diving off the yacht’s swim deck, parasailing, snorkelling and generally having a ball … with not a photographer, camera, make-up artist or shoot director in sight. I also made calls to my family on the satellite phone, not being able to resist taunting Carole, the swimmer in our family, about playing in the Mediterranean, or letting my dad chat with Claudia as we sunbathed on deck.
In the evening, the group would gather to eat dinner together. A wealthy friend of Valentino’s who, among other things, owned a number of art galleries in Paris and Rome also joined us every night for dinner. He was following the TM Blue in his own luxury yacht, where he lived with his sister and his lovely young male companion Tomas.
On some days, dinner would be the only time I’d have any extended contact with Valentino. Private cars would be lined up on the dock waiting with doors ajar if his posse came into port for a meal. If not, the yacht would dock at the best berth available and we’d eat up on deck, sprawling on luxurious white sofas as we dined. At many of our ports of call, we were not unlike zoo animals on display, because locals and tourists alike would recognize the TM Blue and stroll the piers, staring at us while we ate. No one was looking at me, of course, I was unknown, but everyone knew Valentino and he’d wave to all who greeted him. Claudia was also recognized and she was equally as gracious between bites.
During the day, Valentino kept his distance, sometimes sending Giancarlo with a message for me from ‘Val’, or sending a steward with a drink or a treat from ‘Val’. We were well into the second week of the trip and there was still no sign of a photographer, other than Claudia and myself snapping shots the way any holidaymakers might. I felt like I’d time-travelled back to the court of a medieval king and intermediaries were the protocol of the state, making sure I was comfortable and enjoying myself on behalf of the king. Valentino did, though, insist that I sit next to him at dinner, and that’s when he started to drive me a bit mental. While we were eating, he’d adjust my collar or he’d lean over and fluff my hair, but the worst was when he’d touch my neck.
Aaargh! You already know how I feel about that.
Extravagant gifts started to appear in my stateroom. First, it was a pair of beautiful silver cufflinks. Then one day, he came up to the sundeck after we’d all been swimming and presented me with a large cross encrusted with diamonds and sapphires because, he said, ‘I watch you swim and your eyes shine like sapphires against the blue of the sea.’
If you know anything about Valentino, you know that his signature couture colour is red, and his personal colour is blue. The yacht was filled with blue in every hue: the pillows, upholstery, towels and bedding, and it also adorned the man himself.
By the end of the holiday, of course, it was obvious even to me that I was not on the yacht to model for any Valentino line: no mention of a photo shoot had occurred since we’d signed the contract back in England. I’m convinced Valentino brought me on board because he liked to travel surrounded by beautiful things. Perhaps he hoped I’d be one more lovely accoutrement to ornament his life. He treated me well, had a dry sense of humour, a terrific sense of irony, and style by the boatload, and I certainly enjoyed the trip of a lifetime. Nevertheless, I was twenty-four and I had a life to live. Valentino had given me a taste of high living – but all the things he’d shown me, I wanted to get on my own. I was determined to achieve my success on my terms.
And, today, I’m proud to say that I have. I own a Porsche, for which I worked hard to save and to buy; I have a Mercedes with my own driver, Sean Evans, a prince of a man; and I own a house in the States, a home in London and one in Cardiff. I don’t own a yacht yet, but the day is young. Touch wood.
When I returned to my flat in London after the trip, there were already packages filled with designer clothes waiting for me, and a series of messages on my answering machine. The gifts continued over the next few weeks and became even more extravagant – a 1959 limited-edition Rolex, for example, as well as other expensive jewellery. I tried to return all of them, but he wouldn’t accept.
Later that year, Valentino gave me something else for which I will always be grateful, something more precious than the most valuable gems in the world. The final gift he sent me was Penny, my golden cocker spaniel, who, until her death in 2007, was one of the loves of my life. Penny brought me more joy and companionship than Valentino could ever imagine, and for that I sincerely thank him.
I also have to admit that to this day, if I’m wearing a blue suit, I wear brown shoes with it – because it’s classic Valentino.
However, the story doesn’t end there. A couple of years ago, my partner Scott Gill – a successful architect and the other love of my life – and I were at a dinner party at a friend’s house in Holland Park. A gorgeous tanned man in his late thirties was seated across from us. It quickly became clear that he recognized me from somewhere other than showbiz, and I knew I’d seen him somewhere before too.
Finally, as o
ur host was serving coffee, the man remembered.
‘Were you not a guest of Valentino one summer on his yacht?’
‘Oh my God, yes! Were you there?’
‘I’m Tomas,’ he said. ‘I was with my companion who was following the TM Blue in his own yacht.’
‘What are you doing now?’ I asked.
‘My dear friend died a few years ago and we had an arrangement. He left me almost everything. His art galleries, his yachts, his homes on three continents.’
Scott leaned close and with a sly grin whispered, ‘Christ, John, you should have fucked him.’
‘Love Changes Everything’
The Donner Party was a wagon train of pioneer families that travelled west from Illinois to California in the 1840s. Winter trapped them in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Eventually, out of eighty or so emigrants who began the trek, only about half survived. The circumstances in the camps where they holed up for shelter became so desperate during that winter that a few in the group succumbed to cannibalism, eating their dead friends and family to survive.
The Donner Party story fascinates Scott and me. We are both really interested in this period of nineteenth-century American history. We love nothing more than carrying our dinner on trays into the living room at our Kensington-Chelsea home, pouring a vodka tonic, and watching a historical documentary like Ric Burns’s The Donner Party on the flat screen mounted above the fireplace.1
The tale of the Donner Party has become almost mythical in American history. A group of people venturing into the unknown, travelling a road not previously travelled in order to achieve a better life, and because of bad navigation and stupid risks most of them never made it to their destination. In 2000, Scott and I took a road trip through the American West that included tracing the Donner Party’s path. That journey has become just as legendary in our relationship as the trail itself in history. For me, in particular, it cemented in my head and engraved on my heart what I already knew. I wanted to be with this Englishman for the rest of my life.
We took lots of crisps and sandwiches with us just in case.
The trip started with skiing at Lake Tahoe. It was my first time skiing, but after only one or two times down the beginners’ slope, I was a pro. Ask Scott. He’ll tell you I was gliding down the most difficult runs and actually skiing better than him by the end of the day. Well, maybe he won’t tell you that.
While we could still move the most important muscles in our bodies – our legs, our legs – we packed up the rented SUV and headed out of South Lake Tahoe to take the mountain route across the state. When Scott examined the map, this looked like a much shorter way than going down into the valley and then back up again. Our plan was to head south to Yosemite and then work our way northeast to Utah to see the Mormon Trail and visit Salt Lake City.2
Before we left Lake Tahoe, I noticed our petrol gauge was edging close to a quarter tank. No worries. We both assumed there would be a filling station before we left the Tahoe area. We secured Penny and Lewis3 in the back of the SUV and went south. We quickly realized how wrong we were. For some reason, all the petrol stations we drove past were closed. We kept driving into the mountains towards Mono Lake, expecting at any time to come to an open garage. There were none.
We drove on and on in the direction of Yosemite, thinking there had to be somewhere to fill up soon. This was America, home of the Cadillac and land of the Ford, but as we got deeper and deeper into the mountains, and it got later and later, and darker and darker, the road became more and more deserted. The petrol gauge was now down to an eighth of a tank.
Scott and I first met in 1993 at the Chichester Festival Theatre. I was playing Wyndham Brandon in Patrick Hamilton’s tale of death and desire, Rope, at the Minerva Theatre (one of the performance spaces within the CFT). For over forty years, the Chichester Festival Theatre has been one of the most highly acclaimed theatres in the world. Its first artistic director was Sir Laurence Olivier in the 1960s. For an actor as new to the stage as I was in 1993, to perform there was a real coup.
In the play, I co-starred with Anthony Head, of Buffy fame among other accomplishments, and Alexis Denisof, also of Buffy and its spin-off Angel. Keith Baxter was the director. One reviewer wrote of the play,’ [S] uperlatives seem inadequate for Keith Baxter’s splendid, electrifying production. John Barrowman (Brandon) and Alexis Denisof (Granillo) as the murderers have every changing mood tightly controlled. Both give hypnotically intense performances.’
How could Scott not fall in love with me?
The play opened with me alone on the stage after having committed a heinous crime. I was completely naked and not just metaphorically – literally, too. The full monty. The stage was in darkness and I was the only thing in illumination. Scott had come to see the play at the request of a friend of mine, who wanted Scott to meet me.
When they walked into my dressing room after the show, I was once again butt naked, about to pull on my jeans. I straightened up and looked at Scott directly. As clichéd as it may sound, I knew he was the one.
Some of the initial connection was lust, I can’t deny that, but there was something else too, and Scott, thankfully, felt the same something else, the same charge of electricity, the same prophetic jolt. I was still dating Paco at that time, so the four of us went to dinner that night. Then months passed before I saw Scott again. When I did, he was trying to hail a taxi in Soho. I cruised past him in my car and I really checked him out. Scott remembers the drive-by, in part because he thought my Jaguar was an old man’s car and he couldn’t understand why someone so hot would drive a car like that.
When we finally had our first official date, Cher was with us. I was accompanying her to a function and I invited Scott along too. It was an odd threesome. Although I kissed Cher goodnight, an event that made the American tabloids, I went home with Scott.
That first date seemed a long time ago and very far away as we drove into the Sierra Nevada mountains, following in the Donner Party’s wagon ruts. Around midnight, a weather front moved in and it began to snow heavily. Our visibility was becoming severely limited. When Scott and I take road trips, I generally drive and Scott navigates. He was worried we’d missed our turn, which would mean we were climbing higher into the mountains and heading for a pass that at this time of year was likely closed. Finally, after about an hour of white knuckles and chewed nails and a few harsh words, Scott spotted a lit filling station on the brow of the hill. We looked at each other and started to laugh from relief. It was short-lived. We pulled into the gas station, where a large tin sign flapped in the wind: ‘Closed for the winter.’
Time to panic.
I looked at the petrol gauge, which was grazing empty. We had no clue where we were, but we needed to make a decision. Either stop and take a chance we wouldn’t freeze to death, or keep moving and take a chance we might make it to Yosemite on fumes. Either way, we were probably screwed.
We drove on for another hour, turning off the engine on the downhill slopes and letting the SUV cruise in neutral. This seemed like a good idea until I hit a patch of ice on a sharp curve and couldn’t use the engine to break. The SUV careened round the bend, our rear still fishtailing long after I’d straightened the wheel. The road was desolate and dark, and we were terrified because if we crashed, we knew no one would find us until we’d turned into ice lollies.
I was the first man Scott took home to meet his parents, Stirling and Sheelagh Gill. After a lovely Sunday lunch, Stirling set a jar of instant coffee on the table and asked if I’d like a cup. Without really thinking, I blurted out, ‘You’re not going to give company instant coffee, are you?’
Without missing a beat, Stirling replied, ‘Of course not. I can brew you a pot, John.’ This has become a bit of a joke between us, and to this day, when I go for dinner, everyone else at the table gets instant coffee while Stirling makes me my own pot.
A cup of coffee might have helped that night in the mountains if we could have poured it into the tank and used i
t for fuel. As it was, Scott and I were wired, but the SUV was slowing down, and it was then that it hit me like a hard punch to the gut. What if something happened to Scott? I knew I loved him, he knew I loved him, and we both already knew that we were together for the long road, but in that terrible moment of panic, I realized that as soon as I could, I wanted to make that commitment legal and public and truly forever.
In 1997, Scott’s parents came to see me perform as Che in Evita in Norway at the 6,000-seat Oslo Spektrum. They stayed at the Radisson SAS, where Scott and I also had a room. At breakfast one morning, the three Gills decided to eat from the breakfast buffet. In Norway, breakfast usually consists of a variety of meats and fish – no snap, crackle and pop for the Norwegians. That morning, the Gills chose to have the gravlax, fresh salmon cured with a mixture of salt, sugar and herbs. The three of them sat down to a platter full offish. When I finally made it down to breakfast and reached for the plate, the three of them grinned at me like Cheshire cats.
‘Sorry, John, we’ve eaten it all.’
The next morning, I came down to breakfast ahead of the Gills, but once again there was no salmon. I called the waiter over.
‘Is there any salmon this morning?’
‘No, sir,’ he said, but he leaned in conspiratorially. ‘We’re not putting out the salmon until later, because someone ate the whole platter yesterday and there was none left for anyone else.’
Some couples have in-laws who drink or smoke too much. I have to keep mine away from the salmon.
By about 2 a.m. on that snowy winter night in the mountains, Scott and I were about a second away from full-blown panic when we saw lights off to the side of the road a few hundred yards ahead. Hallelujah! The lights belonged to a breakdown truck. One of us wouldn’t need to make a fricassee with the other after all.
The tow-truck driver had an extra gas container and along with the petrol, he gave us a lecture. He informed us tersely that we were about twenty miles from our destination, but we’d never have made it on fumes. What had we been thinking, driving into the mountains without a full tank?
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