After Andy

by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni

  If we weren’t downing champagne, we were hoovering endless lines of cocaine. Shorto always had a ready supply: explaining his nickname “Professor Snorto,” invented by Taki Theodoracopulos, the Spectator magazine columnist.

  Then again, coke was very much the rage in London. A party at Nona and Martin Summers’s house demonstrated this. It was in honor of Jack Nicholson and his new film, a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, in 1981. Typical for that era, the action in the Mongiardino-decorated bathrooms was a lot more buoyant than in the salon. Martin was rushing around taking photographs of everyone, and a cousin and I—like many others—were feverishly hunting down the white stuff. Phew, I finally found one white pile but didn’t see another one nearby. With my skirt, I managed to flip the cocaine mound into the marble sink. It was a huge amount. So while pretending to clean my hands, I started washing the white powder down the sink. I presumed no one had witnessed my shocking extravagance, until I posed with “Uncle Jack” and felt his hand up my skirt. “I won’t tell anyone about that little incident if you don’t tell anyone about this,” Nicholson whispered.

  A few weeks later, I bumped into Lionel, a French acquaintance of my brothers. “What ’ave you done to your skin?” he said. “It’s covered in pimples.” Fat or thin, my complexion had always been my crowning glory. Joan Collins, then a stranger, had even come up to me and advised, “Whatever you do, never go in the sun. Your skin is amazing.” My encounter with Lionel was the needed wake-up call. I stopped snorting cocaine—never took another line again—cut back on the bubbly, began arguing with Shorto on an almighty level, did manage to meet David Hockney and Liberace through him, and then returned to the standby boyfriend.

  That summer, Stefano Massimo photographed my elder brother and me for Interview magazine. Fred Hughes, who’d recently become a friend, had wanted a dose of elegant Brits, or hoorays (to use Rupert’s less flattering term). I was also interviewed on Barry Norman’s London Season, a BBC TV special capturing the ins and outs of British society. Norman was an important television star because of his weekly film review program. I’d been invited to share my thoughts as a “party girl.” The experience was enjoyable. Norman was a consummate professional and was impressed by my ease on camera. It was also terrific to get paid—my mother’s idea—and receive royalties. Nevertheless, I sensed that my days as a soi-disant “it girl” were coming to a close. After a certain age, it was plain dumb.

  Work beckoned. My first opportunity came via Sam Spiegel. He was producing the film of Harold’s play Betrayal. I called him up and he proposed lunch at his apartment in Grosvenor Square. Although Sam had a weakness for pretty, young women—Andy Warhol wrote, “He’ll do anything”—I never found that. Then again, coltish blonds with flat chests were his preference, the absolute opposite of my particular charms.

  Since Betrayal’s filming was mildly delayed, I went to New York and stayed with Tracy Ward, the sister of the film star Rachel Ward. Ravishingly pretty with a Sophia Loren–like figure, Tracy worked at Christie’s and had a magnetic effect on powerful males who were desperate to take her out. What made her even more attractive was her lack of interest.

  Fred Hughes had been my first call in the Big Apple. I met him at the Factory. Naturally, he’d teased me about my Michael J dalliance. “Well, I didn’t realize how much Jerry loves you . . .” he said, “like a gun.” It was actually a good start. Fred instinctively knew how to break the ice.

  Before befriending Fred, I’d always heard how he was as chic as the Duke of Windsor but as practical as a Boy Scout. The latter came about because of a trip with the younger Kennedys in the late ’70s. They’d gone down the Orinoco River—with the intention of shooting rapids—and Fred had saved their lives by being prepared with maps, a first-aid kit, and a compass. I’d seen photographs from that trip. Fred was immaculate in hat, polo shirt, and shorts, and the entire Kennedy clan looked shattered.

  At our initial meeting at Marguerite Littman’s house, I found him more nervous than Andy. But I was intrigued by his stylish appearance, from his boot-black hair to the watch worn on his shirt cuff to the fall of his suit pants to the sheen of his black lace-ups. There was also the allure of his gestures. During coffee, I noticed the intensity of his regard and the sensuality of his mouth when he spoke. It also appealed how his left arm protectively crossed his narrow torso when he smoked his cigarette with his right hand. Fred was someone to befriend, I decided. At Nicky Haslam’s party for Andy, he had been complimentary in a way that boosted confidence. “You look like a Hollywood starlet from the 1930s,” he had said. Fred was refined and got it.

  There was also his enthusiasm. “You’re nineteen, you should do all and everything,” he advised when I talked about working on a film set. “And if someone wants to cast you in a film, you should do that too.” With hindsight, I see that this was obviously Warhol-like in attitude and actually very like my mother, too, who often said, “Try out everything but try to get paid.” During our lunch, Fred promised that there would always be a place for me in the Factory. Though flattered, I sensed it was too soon.

  My first-ever week in New York became one big social whirl. A social whirl that, my mother teased, consisted of seeing mostly her friends. True, the likes of Kenneth Jay Lane, Jackie Onassis, and Grace Dudley were more her generation. The same applied to Andy. And that’s what I instantly enjoyed about New York then: playing with the grown-ups who felt ageless. The lunch at Kenny Jay Lane’s apartment was where I first spied Nan Kempner and Diane von Furstenberg, who both owned Andy portraits. Nan, dressed in a gray flannel pantsuit, was the queen of the Park Avenue princesses, and Diane von Furstenberg—fixated by the baroque pearl bracelet of Gloria Thurn und Taxis—resembled an exotic gypsy who happened to be sitting on a fashion empire.

  Jackie Onassis was somewhat different. Warhol had, after all, pinched and reproduced her image for his series of Jackie portraits. Portraits that have always haunted and portraits that made me want to meet her. I didn’t know what to expect with Jackie. But I was pretty pushy about it. My father made the call. And an appointment for tea was scheduled at Jackie’s Fifth Avenue apartment. It was St. Patrick’s Day, there was a parade outside, but she only wanted to talk about the Claus von Bülow case. “He’s guilty,” Jackie said. Her certitude and directness were actually a surprise. She revealed that her sister Lee had been at school with his wife, Sunny von Bülow, and that Claus had always been viewed as sinister. Her opinion, however, went against Annabel Goldsmith and many in London, armed with social clout, who were vehemently defending Claus.

  We had tea in a room that was dark and nineteenth-century in feel. Jackie was wearing a long-sleeved black wool top and black pants. The simple look was timeless. I then found it apt albeit dull. (After several decades of living in Paris, I realize that apt and dull equals genuine chic because only the wearer and her personality are apparent, not the clothes.) To my surprise, Jackie proceeded to devour three-quarters of a pound cake. “It’s just so good,” she kept saying in her funny breathy voice as she cut yet another slice. When I was leaving, she helped me put on my navy cashmere coat. Jackie had been amused by the boyish, school uniform–like style. I was glad that we’d met—she couldn’t have been warmer—but I had no interest in a repeat experience. Our one meeting had satisfied my curiosity.

  Lunch with Arthur and Alexandra Schlesinger had resulted in meeting more Kennedys, whereas dinner at the apartment of Grace, Lady Dudley, Tracy’s step-grandmother, had led to an encounter with Oscar de la Renta. “You have eyes like a cat,” he told me. Since he was an important fashion designer, I was pleased. Tracy and I, on the other hand, tickled his famous sense of humor when we were caught red-handed trying on the fur coats of the other guests. Literally, in front of the mirror! He was also amused by the idea of us slumming it in Manhattan. “When you’re young, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

  Everyone in New York appeared to have a purpose, whether spend
ing long hours at their office or fronting a charity. It was the needed boost and shot in the arm before beginning on the film set of Betrayal. I was a runner, or gofer—the lowest position on the totem pole—but since it was a small film set, I was on first-name terms with everyone. Even if the third assistant ticked me off for addressing Sam by his first name. “On a film set, he’s Mr. Spiegel to you,” he’d said. I stood corrected.

  David Jones, the film’s director, was a gentle-mannered talent, and that set the tone. There were the occasional outbursts from the ravishingly attractive Jeremy Irons, who had become a star since the TV series Brideshead Revisited, but otherwise it consisted of filming Harold’s play around Kilburn with a cast that also included Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge. Having arrived in a gray corduroy dress on my first day, I appropriated a more practical style, much to the horror of Jeremy Irons. “Natasha, you were so pretty and feminine when you first appeared,” he said. “And now you’re chewing gum, wearing lumberjack checked shirts, jeans, and clumpy boots.” I didn’t mind, viewing his attitude as old-fashioned. There was also an exchange with a handsome and Cockney-born gaffer about Sabrina Guinness. “Do you know her, then?” he asked. I did. “During a shoot, we [the crew] were all off our trolleys on top of a mountain. And Sabrina gets us in the bus and drives us back to safety. It was pretty dangerous, but she ignored all of us—a rowdy bunch—and kept her calm.” I mention this story because it captures a practical, no-nonsense spirit that was also prevalent in the English Muffins and explains Warhol’s relationship with them. “I did feel very protective of [Andy],” says Anne Lambton. Whereas Catherine Hesketh senses that the artist trusted his group of Englishwomen. “He knew they came from a sounder place and weren’t going to do a dirty on him,” she says.

  Meanwhile, nothing beat the thrill of receiving my first paycheck. It was only sixty pounds and delivered in a tiny brown envelope. Still, it was money, money, money. I was keen to work on a film set again but lucked out and got a “researcher” job on Reilly, Ace of Spies, a TV series about the most romantic spy in history, who had inspired Ian Fleming. It paid eighty pounds per week and consisted of occasionally finding an image of a place like the Lubyanka, the KGB’s notorious prison. I met one of the directors, Martin Campbell. He was the type to look you straight in the eyes, then unusual for England. Years later, he directed a few of the best James Bond films as well as Catherine Zeta-Jones in her Zorro romances.

  Once a week, I would see Mark Byers, who educated me in the history of art. “Marsha,” as he was then known, and I had met in the South of France when we were both guests of John Jermyn, an outrageous and debauched aristocrat who reminded me of Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows. I’d arrived at the villa at Beaulieu-sur-Mer and heard Mark playing the piano. It resembled a film from the 1930s except he was barefoot and dressed in white jeans.

  Marsha with his flop of dark hair and suggestive eyes was an alley cat who strongly believed in “the lure of the gutter.” A talented linguist, he could speak French, German, and Italian without accent and was immensely knowledgeable about paintings. Turning up at the Wallace Collection or another important gallery, he’d shuffle around wearing a large gray sweater over a floppy white shirt, a long scarf, and black jeans over his boots, and we’d visit his favorites, where he would point out a subtle detail that characterized the painter or focus on a color scheme that was unexpected yet worked. And when bored, he looked around the room and noted the most attractive masculine behind. Like everyone who was gay, good-looking, and upper-class in London, Marsha had met Andy and Fred.

  Another film opportunity came when Franc Roddam directed The Lords of Discipline. The nonspeaking role meant appearing at a prom ball and walking through a ring with Mitch Lichtenstein, the son of the famous Pop artist. The film experience was a blast. Apart from Judge Reinhold, David Keith, and Bill Paxton, the cast was full of young, unknown American actors who were obsessed with Marlon Brando and keen to hit the London nightlife—clubs like Camden Palace—and play bad boys.

  For my role as Rosalee, I’d gone for wardrobe sessions but hadn’t bothered to look at the script. Until I noticed that quite a few jokes were being made at my expense. So I got hold of a screenplay, turned to my scene’s page, and read: “Enter Rosalee, stacked like an aircraft carrier.” Suddenly I understood why wardrobe was snipping away at the neckline of my strapless canary-yellow dress.

  During my ballroom scene, I admired the spirit of the pushy extras—particularly one man whose energy would have let him jive across Europe. “You’re striking—like a young Joan Crawford—and could do something with it,” he later told me. Joan Crawford, who mentally ate her children for breakfast? I was privately horrified. But I made him laugh when I said that playing “Miss Stacked Like an Aircraft Carrier” was enough for the time being. It was.

  My plans changed. The film business no longer appealed. So I turned down Donald Cammell, who wanted to cast me as the queen of Naples in his planned film epic on Emma, Lady Hamilton. “You’ll appear out of the sea,” the great man and director said. “With your bare breasts cased in gold lace.” I agreed, as long as he would appear in the trouser equivalent of my costume. Indeed, my new ambition was to become an agent and represent clients. My stepfather wrote to everyone he knew, and since he was Harold Pinter, meetings were arranged. However, there were no vacancies for assistant jobs.

  For a few months, I was a temp secretary at Winston Solicitors, a Dickensian organization run by two brothers. Although they were sour-faced and suspicious, they had a solicitor, Mr. Sisley, who took me under his wing. A devoted Catholic, he was greatly tickled by life’s absurdities. Some of his clients were so loud and irrational that he would bring out a baseball from his cupboard. “The first time they see it, it scares them into silence,” he told me. “The second time, they just laugh.” He had odd cases such as the mother and daughter who were suing each other but still took vacations together. “I often wonder what they talk about on the beach,” he said. Alas, that gig stopped when Mr. Sisley went on his annual vacation and was informed by the grumps—the Winstons—that they would no longer need my services.

  It was at the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels concert that I had my meltdown, or Road to Damascus moment. Suddenly I felt rather washed out and over the hill. I don’t think my Pocahontas chamois leather outfit helped! Nor did my long fake plait attached to my hair! As I looked around at all the fawning Rolling Stones fans, I thought: I have to secure a proper job. I can’t just be known for my affair with their hero.

  Then the divine Rosalind “Ros” Chatto made contact. During all my interviews—and I met about seventeen hotshot agents—she was my favorite. Ros and her partner, Michael Linnit, had a client list of actors that included Alan Bates, Alan Bennett, Claire Bloom, Michael Crawford, Judy Davis, Robert Hardy, Felicity Kendal, and Robert Morley. They worked out of the Globe Theatre. The telephone rang off the hook. They made deals on a daily basis, but always took off for a two-hour lunch at Cecconi’s or another renowned restaurant. I, on the other hand, would swim at the Marshall Street baths and eat at Cranks, one of the West End’s few organic restaurants. On several occasions, I saw Francis Bacon, the brilliant painter. (Sam Spiegel owned one of Bacon’s Screaming Popes—a favorite masterpiece.) However, as Bacon was renowned for his decadence, I was surprised. And I told Bacon so when he asked me to “stop staring.”

  Since I used my index finger to make a point, Michael called me the “Shop Steward”—the name given to individuals who defended their fellow employees’ interests. “Look at that finger,” he’d announce in the office when I was being my bossy-boots self. Ros Chatto preferred calling me Nat. She had short canary-blond hair, and her penchant for turquoise enhanced her bright blue eyes, as did the color of her lipstick. Her voice resembled actress Judi Dench’s as M. In general, I was won over by Ros’s strength, culture, and wit. A mother before anything—she was exceedingly proud of her sons, Jamie and Daniel, who had bot
h attended Oxford—she was also a skilled cook who gave out the simplest recipes. Her list of memorable sayings included “What a lark, eh,” “Life is not a rehearsal,” “I can’t defend a situation that I didn’t create,” and “If you want an answer now, it’s no,” the last taken from film producer Lew Grade. Ros—my mentor for a charged two and a half years—was good on men too. “Oh, darling Nat, there are many fish in the sea,” she’d say. “If he’s not right, you’ll find someone else.”

  11 Leaving England

  Even before my father died in March 1984, I wondered about leaving England. There was nothing to complain about, but I was secretly hounded by a sense of “Is that all there is?” I would look around and notice others settling down and not have any desire to do so.

  Meanwhile, two women would make an impact for quite different reasons. The first was Anne Lambton and the second was Catherine Hesketh. True, they were English Muffins number one and number two, but I didn’t take that into account at the time. It was their drive and disregard for the opinion of others that impressed. Out of the two, I was more at ease with Catherine—a lighter touch, she was wicked and playful with it—whereas Anne was very funny but occasionally fierce. Still, I clocked that she was a force of nature.

  It made sense that both Andy and Fred Hughes had tried to marry her. Instead Anne had turned down both and opted for a life in Los Angeles until returning to England, determined to become an actress. Being twenty-six years old, it was extremely brave. No one in her immediate circle had seemed supportive. Yet true to her word, Anne had gone off and secured a mature student’s grant, attended drama school, and then joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, reputed for its productions. Meanwhile, Catherine, who had worked at Interview magazine during the day and been pretty wild at night—“with Robert Mapplethorpe she used to go to all the S&M clubs like everyone else did in the art world,” recalls Bob Colacello—returned to England and made an impressive match, tying the knot with Jamie Neidpath, Thirteenth Earl of Wemyss and Ninth Earl of March. “Andy was certainly fascinated by Catherine,” says Colacello. And it was easy to understand why. The dire opposite of a virginal goody-two-shoes (typified by Lady Di), she was one of those mercurial adventuresses who tried everything out—she was shown topless in Andy’s book Exposures—and was key to the Warhol kingdom and then won the heart of Neidpath, a very eligible bachelor.