by Tom Rubython
With Regazzoni out of the picture, Fittipaldi knew the title was his so long as Scheckter didn’t win. Scheckter continued to hold fourth ahead of Fittipaldi, but on the 44th lap his engine suddenly lost fuel pressure when a pipe cracked. When he learned over the radio that Scheckter had retired, and before the race had even ended, Fittipaldi knew he was to be world champion.
At the front, Reutemann was struggling with his brakes and Pace saw his chance. He overtook Hunt, who was also struggling with his Hesketh. But none of it really mattered as Hunt rolled in for his third podium of the season. Fittipaldi’s fourth place clinched his second world championship in three years and the first constructors’ title for McLaren, barely seven years after Bruce McLaren first entered Formula One.
Koinigg’s death created a difficult situation. Since most people didn’t know him, it was easy to forget that he had perished only an hour before. He was written out of the history books as the McLaren mechanics mobbed their new world champion. The Brabham team also celebrated its 1-2 finish. A few Brazilians, who had made the trip to support Fittipaldi, occupied the pit lane, waving Brazilian flags. Lost in the melee was news that the race also marked the 100th Grand Prix victory for the Cosworth Ford engine in Formula One. It was probably the biggest achievement of all, and Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin clinked glasses back in Northampton, England. What also went unnoticed was that it was the end to Firestone’s time in Formula One and, in particular, to its contribution to James Hunt’s first two seasons in Formula One. For next year, Hunt would be on Goodyears like everyone else.
Even with the tyre advantage, though, the season had been a disappointment. Hesketh and Horsley had expected much more. Hunt had scored 15 points, only one more than in 1973, and he was eighth in the world championship. The highlights had been third in Sweden, third in Austria, third in the USA and fourth in Canada. But that was it. There was no second place as in 1973, and, in 11 races, Hunt hadn’t placed at all.
As he wound down his year, with the cool winds of recession fanning his fortunes, Lord Hesketh knew it was no longer good enough and that the money was running out. The Hesketh dream had only one more year to run.
CHAPTER 17
Spain and tax exile 1974
Wilson and Healey force him abroad
On Monday 4th March 1974, Harold Wilson’s Labour Party returned to power and took over the government of Britain from incumbent Edward Heath’s Conservatives. Although the Conservatives had won more votes, Labour had more seats; although not enough to form a majority.
This was extremely bad news for James Hunt, whose earnings were exploding as he became a successful Formula One driver. Although his Hesketh retainer was still relatively small, he was raking it in from his 45 per cent share of prize money and the US$5,000-10,000 a day he was making from personal appearances. At a minimum, he was set to earn US$200,000 in 1974 alone.
On 18th February 1974, shadow chancellor Denis Healey had made a speech promising that Labour would “tax the rich until the pips squeaked” if it won the general election on 28th February 1974.
Hunt and his advisers at his management company, International Management Group (IMG), were under no illusions about what was coming. Hunt had signed with Mark McCormack and his American IMG organisation in September 1973. Before that, his accountant brother Peter had handled his financial affairs exclusively. Hunt had signed on the direct advice of Jackie Stewart, who had prospered mightily under McCormack’s stewardship. Almost as soon as Hunt started performing at the wheel of the Hesketh and earning good money, he joined Stewart and became one of McCormack’s clients.
IMG’s London office was headed by Ian Todd, IMG’s senior vice president. Todd directly managed Hunt’s affairs and rang him to warn him that he may have to leave England quickly and start making preparations. Initially, Hunt didn’t take it seriously but after Labour was elected and Todd spelled out the repercussions, he quickly changed his mind. Together, they decided Hunt should leave before the start of the new tax year; Todd told him it couldn’t be soon enough.
Todd was right. Shortly afterwards, Denis Healey presented his first budget to the House of Commons, and the wealthy people of Britain were the main target. The top rate of tax was increased to 83 per cent on salaries over UK£20,000, together with a 15 per cent surcharge on unearned income, which made the top tax rate on unearned income 98 per cent. It was an extraordinary attack on Britain’s wealth creators by one of the worst chancellors ever to hold office.
Under Labour’s new tax proposals, Hunt’s predicted earnings of US$200,000 would mean a tax bill of US$135,000. Over US$160,000 of his salary would be subject to 85 per cent tax. It was too much to bear.
Eddie Broughton, then a 30-year-old chartered accountant who advised clients, recalls it being an era of very high taxation. He says: “James would probably have been faced with paying a notional rate of 90 per cent on his overall income. From what we know, he was probably earning around US$200,000 a year, so would have been looking at paying half that at least. It was a lot of money in those days, and he really didn’t have any choice. I reckon 750,000 people were affected, and probably a third of those left the UK in that period. ”
The sudden abruptness with which Hunt left Britain shocked his friends. There one minute, he was gone the next. John Hogan was astonished when Hunt rang him and told him he was now living in Marbella. Apparently, even his brother Peter didn’t know until after he had left.
IMG’s Todd was worried that Peter, a traditional accountant, would be concerned about the Inland Revenue’s reaction to Hunt leaving and might advise him against it. The move, Todd was convinced, should be a fait accompli.
Todd, providing Hunt with some very sound advice, ultimately saved him around US$3 million in tax. Hogan says: “I don’t think anybody knew a lot about it – especially his brother. I think that was an IMG thing.” He adds: “IMG had a cookie-cutter approach to everything and I think they were just pushing everybody abroad.”
Peter Hunt soberly described the situation for Hunt biographer Gerald Donaldson: “When James signed with McCormack’s organisation in September 1973, the London firm in which I’m a partner was already advising James on tax matters. It was arranged that we would continue to advise on special tax matters and that McCormack’s organisation would handle the business side.”
But when he found out his brother had left, Peter Hunt was sanguine. As a British accountant, it was difficult for him to maintain a good relationship with the Inland Revenue by advising his clients to move abroad effectively to avoid paying tax. But IMG could do so with impunity. Peter Hunt said: “The British public has come to accept the fact that successful personalities who earn a lot of money often have a relatively short span of peak earning capacity before they either have to go abroad or exert their considerable talents on behalf of the British tax man. It would be different if James was the only sportsman or personality to have left the country for that reason, but it has become pretty much the accepted thing these days.”
Accepted thing or not, James Hunt found it an enormous wrench to leave the familiar streets of London for the unfamiliar paths of Marbella. He arrived in Spain with a suitcase and nothing else. It was very inconvenient, as he had just taken a new lease on a swish apartment near London’s Park Lane and it had cost him plenty to cancel it. With hardly any notice, he packed all his bags into Lord Hesketh’s Porsche Carrera RS and drove down to Portsmouth on his own and caught the ferry. On Todd’s instructions, he was careful to retain all his ticket stubs and customs documentation for the car so he could prove to the Inland Revenue that he had left the country for good and was not coming back.
A day later, he was driving up the coast road to Marbella wondering what to do with himself.
When he arrived, he described himself as “absolutely homeless” and checked into the first hotel he came to. One night was enough, and he checked into a different hotel every night until he found one that he liked and that would do a deal with him for a
long stay.
He made a half-hearted attempt to find a permanent home but wasn’t suited to the task, resigning himself to a long stay in a hotel. Initially, he wasn’t sure he could stomach such a long stay in Spain and didn’t want to put down any permanent roots. But, once he got details of Denis Healey’s first budget, he couldn’t stomach paying the tax either. He was grateful to Ian Todd for having packed him off so quickly and was thankful for the ‘cookie-cutter’ approach, although he would later change his mind about IMG as a management agency.
In Spain, no one knew who he was, and there were plenty of young, handsome, blonde Brits with whom he had to compete for women. In fact, he found suitable women few and far between in early spring in Spain, so he took to playing tennis at the Lew Hoad Club to wile away his time.
He soon found he was lonely. None of his friends would come over as they couldn’t afford the hotel prices. They were all freeloaders and told him blatantly they would wait until he got a house so that they could stay for free.
He told biographer Gerald Donaldson: “One day, sitting in a strange hotel bedroom in Torremolinos, I suddenly realised that I was totally alone. I knew nobody. I could barely speak the language. Thus, stricken by loneliness in a strange country, and with no home, no chance of even trying to make new friends because of my constant coming and going to races throughout the world, instead of following my heart and instincts, I began to think.”
Hunt found himself a real fish out of water and experienced an attack of shyness, something he had not felt for years. Donaldson, who spent many hours with Hunt before he died working on his stillborn autobiography, said: “Despite his gregariousness in his own milieu, James was essentially a shy person in unfamiliar social circumstances and found it difficult to make new friends. His feelings of isolation made him begin to realise that the strong sense of independence and self-confidence which had so far served him so well had always been reinforced by the knowledge that his family and close friends, and especially his girlfriends, were close by. Perhaps he was not naturally a loner after all.”
That thinking process brought about the end of his singleton status. It proved to be some of the worst thinking he had done in his life and led to his marriage to Suzy Miller, whom he met at the Lew Hoad Club a few weeks after he arrived in Spain, later that year.
When he first met Suzy Miller, she was living in a small rented apartment with a sea view of the Costa del Sol. After they became engaged, she found a villa to rent in the mountain village of Mijas, five miles inland from the coast. Hunt found the conditions ideal for his fitness regime and started running up and down the hill roads in the morning and playing tennis in the afternoon.
With Suzy Miller on his arm, his social circle widened and soon the two of them were socialising every night amongst the large British expatriate community, which had exploded in size after Denis Healey’s new tax regime took effect. Marbella proved to be the favourite destination for Brits leaving Britain in a hurry. Hunt named it the ‘gringo community.’
Hunt and Miller had a wonderful first summer in Marbella once they had found a house to live in. Hunt was away for at least half the time racing. When he came home that autumn, they went to England to get married and then honeymooned in Antigua.
But the marriage did not survive the winter and the cooler weather. Spain emptied and the Hunts were left alone. They decided to go to Gstaad for Christmas and the rest was history.
Suzy Miller never returned to live in Spain after that Christmas, and Hunt was left alone in the house. She returned twice to agree the divorce conditions with her husband and then to pack up her belongings. The next time she came to Spain, she was Mrs Richard Burton.
The following spring of 1975, Hunt was a single man again and started to paint Marbella red. For a few months he was out of control, falling into swimming pools at parties and being banned from nightclubs.
Now he had his own villa, which meant free accommodation and food for his freeloading friends. They started arriving from England and many of them appeared never to want to leave.
Hunt realised he needed a bigger house. He also needed some help to keep himself in order; in the absence of a regular girlfriend, things were getting out of control.
He found that in Anita Todd, a very attractive multi-lingual Dutch woman, who had married IMG executive Ian Todd. Given that her husband managed Hunt’s affairs at IMG, he knew her well.
She had recently separated from Todd and left the marital home. As the 24-year-old had nowhere to stay, Hunt invited her to be his Girl Friday in Marbella.
As soon as she arrived, he asked her to find him a larger house. After a month-long search, she found a luxury villa outside Marbella, overlooking the sea. It belonged to Jackie Lane, the 37-year-old half-Austrian, half-British Hollywood film actress who was married to Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Prior to her marriage, Lane had dated Glenn Ford and Elvis Presley, and in 1966 caused a sensation by posing nude for Hugh Hefner’s new British edition of Playboy magazine. Now, she was pregnant with her first child and wanted to move back to England for the birth.
The villa had five bedrooms and three bathrooms together with a large swimming pool, and it fitted Hunt’s requirements precisely. It also had a garage, where the Porsche could be locked away in case Lord Hesketh’s representatives arrived to reclaim it.
Hunt agreed to take the villa and Lane accepted straightaway. Hunt moved in within a month.
Anita Todd moved in as housekeeper and his PA. Immediately, there were rumours of an affair but Hunt denied it and was even moved to issue a statement to that effect. He said: “We know what people will think, but there is no romance in it. She is strictly a housekeeper. It doesn’t pay to fraternise with the staff. It would only lead to aggravation which would become a big pain in the arse. If you’re going to sleep with your housekeeper, you may as well make her your wife. And I’ve already been through that. I have no steady girlfriend now, though there are several girls among my close friends.” Unfortunately, no one believed him.
Whatever his arrangement with Anita Todd, it certainly was not exclusive. Whilst in Gstaad the previous winter with Suzy, he had met the 32-year-old British actress Joanna Pettet, and they enjoyed a friendship. Pettet, however, was also married to someone else at the time, which meant the friendship did not develop. She was famous for having appeared in the 1967 James Bond spoof called Casino Royale with David Niven, Ursula Andress and Peter Sellers. She, too, had posed nude for the British edition of Playboy.
Hunt said of the period: “It’s nice to look at pretty girls, but you can’t just look at them forever. You’ve got to talk to them sometime and, for me, it’s important for a girl to be able to communicate. I like women with open minds and nice personalities, and I like fun people. But it takes me a long time to get to know someone, to establish trust. Only then can I relax.”
Around this time, Hunt also acquired his first dog – an English Alsatian he called Oscar. Almost from the start, he and Oscar became inseparable. Oscar was a free spirit and never on a lead. Hunt trained him to stay by his side, come what may. At night, Oscar planted himself on his master’s bed and did not move. By day, he went running with his master and then watched as he played tennis. When Hunt dived in the swimming pool, Oscar sometimes did too; but generally, he refrained from getting wet.
John Watson feels that Hunt’s relationship with Oscar portrayed a totally different man from the one on the tracks. He says: “[Hunt] was a very loving, caring man and I first saw it in the manner in which he and his beloved Oscar related. It was one man and his dog. Very often, people are better able to express their emotions through animate objects. I understand that very well.”
Hunt was pleased when Oscar was granted probationary associate membership at his golf club and allowed to follow him on his daily round. Some days, Hunt played with Sean Connery and some nights, they played backgammon until the early hours, with Oscar always looking on. Hunt soon acquired two other dogs to keep
Oscar company on his long absences abroad.
The only downside Hunt found to living in Marbella was the travelling. There were few direct flights from the airport to the places he wanted to go. Nearby Gibraltar airport was just as bad.
It meant he had to fly to London, Paris or Frankfurt to connect, adding to the hassles. But Hunt had his own way of handling the thousands of miles he flew annually. He said: “I always make a point of relaxing when I travel. That’s the golden rule. No matter what the difficulties and the problems are – and there are always a lot of very annoying things about tickets and standing in queues – it’s always a positive disadvantage to get uptight. It gets you backwards rather than forwards, so you just take all the annoyance as they come and relax, otherwise you waste yourself while you’re travelling. You have to look at the plane seat as a comfortable armchair with a good book and no telephone.”
At many times in his life, Hunt was usually getting on and off aeroplanes at least four times a week. He rarely travelled anywhere but in the economy section to save money, as he said: “The tiring part about flying is going through the airports. I find that I can take catnaps easily on a plane journey and I can wake refreshed.”
When he was in Marbella, he craved the company of his English friends. A frequent visitor to the new house in Marbella was Mike Hailwood. Hunt had formed a very close relationship with Hailwood in 1973 and 1974 until Hailwood left Formula One. The two were hedonists and enjoyed each other’s company immensely. Ian Phillips understood the relationship precisely, as Hunt and Hailwood were the two people he admired most in life. As he says: “James and Mike were kindred spirits. Mike was just the finest gentleman that I have ever met in my entire life. He was the seven times world motorcycle champion and lived the most extraordinary lifestyle, and James wanted a part of it. Mike was also the hardest drinking man I’ve ever met, and I think James picked up quite a bit of that from him as well.”