by Mark Forgy
Elmyr may well have inspired Cliff’s hopeful but miscarried scheme to perpetrate a literary fraud. When I asked Elmyr about this possibility, he said that “Cliff would have been wise to not have targeted Hughes, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, and especially as he was still alive.” Clifford Irving prefaced Fake with a prophetic observation by a twelfth-century writer: “If fools did not go to market, cracked pots and false wares would not be sold.” Cliff attributed this quote to the author Jean Le Malchanceux, whose name roughly translates to “Jean the Unlucky.” He, as it turns out, was not only a literary invention of Irving’s but an apparent role model for him as well.
One who knew of Elmyr’s problems with Irving nevertheless became a victim of Cliff’s allure. Nina van Pallandt was one of the first people I met in his circle of longtime friends. Nina was Danish, tall, beautiful, blond, intelligent, and a template for what a good friend should be. Her longstanding friendship with Elmyr preceded his fame, and she remained a pillar of support through all his troubles. Elmyr said, “When I was in prison in Ibiza, Nina came to see me all the time. She is also a marvelous cook and brought me wonderful things to eat. I’m lucky to have her as a friend.” She exuded at once class and an unassuming approachability. Together with her equally attractive Dutch husband, Frederick, they became a successful and popular singing duo in Europe for a number of years.
Later, when their marriage dissolved, Nina had a brief affair with Irving. It was during their romantic interlude that Irving announced to the world that Howard Hughes granted him exclusive rights to author his biography. When he claimed that Hughes was personally relaying his story to him during clandestine meetings, he tried to implicate Nina in his hoax by insisting that she had witnessed these sessions with the billionaire. Nina, however, refused to be drawn into this imbroglio and simply told the truth—that they had been vacationing together in Mexico at the time of the said rendezvous with Hughes.
After appearing on the cover of LIFE magazine, Nina had offers for singing engagements in New York. Starring roles followed in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye with Elliot Gould, and American Gigolo, Richard Gere’s breakout film. Her career blossomed.
When I think of all the characters and memories associated with Ibiza’s café society and especially the Hotel Montesol’s terrace, I only once went there to visit someone staying there. That was Ursula Andress. She and Elmyr were old friends from their time together in Rome. By the early ’70s, she, too, fell in love with Ibiza and decided to build a house there. It was during its construction that she decided to stay a while at the old hotel.
Life with Elmyr immediately catapulted me into a thin-aired world of high society jet-setters and glamour, all which had previously been isolated to movies or the pages of magazines. This culture shock was never as striking as when I met Ursula. After all, few film stars experience that magic celluloid moment and instant stardom she enjoyed in those breathtaking seconds when she emerged, bikini-clad, from tropical waters in the first James Bond film, Doctor No. Back in Minnesota I saw the movie with friends from school. Yeah, Sean Connery was cool as Bond—but she was the one young boys, and probably old men, dreamed about. Three weeks into my new life with Elmyr, Ursula came to the house. She was not only the most perfectly beautiful woman I’d ever seen, she was, I soon discovered, totally without guile, little impressed with her own success or status. Her humility most likely found its origin in her no-nonsense Swiss upbringing.
A French land speculator made her an attractive offer of a piece of seafront property. Contrasting her unassuming nature, he was one of those self-possessed entrepreneurs, bloated with Gallic pride, and probably wore his Legion d’Honeur medal in his pajama lapel. What appeared to be a choice location for her intended new home became a disaster. The waterfront land was at the bottom of a steep, vegetationfree hillside prone to erosion. Horror stories of incompetent builders abounded in Ibiza. After spending more than $100,000 for a beautiful new home, not only did its unstable terrain begin to crumble, the architect and builder together managed to overlook putting in a proper foundation under the house. Cracks in walls and floors grew over time. The septic tank twice migrated downhill after heavy rains. What began as a dream home quickly turned into the house from hell.
Before her Mediterranean sanctuary went the way of most wishes, she and Elmyr formed a glue-like bond. As a by-product of their friendship, it was one of the greatest privileges of my life that she considered me a friend as well. On my twenty-first birthday, she sent a telegram with birthday wishes from Beverly Hills. How thoughtful that she would do that for me. How extraordinary is that?
That first night Ursula came up to La Falaise, she was radiant, her blond hair characteristically swept back from a high forehead. High cheekbones, soft brown eyes with a fine aquiline nose—she possessed all those individual features that made her a timeless beauty. I found out that she and Elmyr had a history going back a number of years, to before she became a movie star. When they knew each other in Rome, she was married to John Derek. She sat in the leather easy chair opposite Elmyr. Stories and laughter flowed. The conversation jumped from French to English and back to French. I sat quietly in a corner listening and working on homework from my French textbook, conjugating the verb, to be. Amid the animated banter, Elmyr seized a thought. “Whatever happened to Dimitri?” he asked, as though hoping to satisfy a longstanding curiosity. Ursula’s face became serious. She raised her arm in a dismissive gesture of disgust. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “he was impossible, always screwing around. I told him I wouldn’t put up with it any longer. When he didn’t stop—I had him castrated.” I dropped my pen, instantly realizing that infidelity warranted an Aztec-style retribution and unthinkable pain. When they noticed the horror on my face, they started laughing. Elmyr announced that Dimitri was her Afghan dog. Throughout the following years, Ursula unfailingly showed the depth of her friendship toward Elmyr. Each was generous beyond convention or expectation.
As popular as the Montesol or Café Alhambra were for a mid-morning rendezvous, it was Ibiza’s teeming bar scene where all of God’s creatures, or so it seemed, congregated when the sun went down.
In Ibiza, beautiful people were fifteen to the dozen. Young gods and goddesses strode through the streets after sun-filled days at the beach, spilling into portside restaurants, bars, and outdoor terraces each evening. The air was pungent with pheromones. One night Elmyr and I were entrenched at La Tierra. Arlene was stage-managing the scene when a young woman walked into the bar through the whitewashed, arched doorway, emerging through long strands of Moroccan glass beads that reminded one of Ibiza’s Moorish past. She wore a wispy white dress with a plunging neckline; her bronzed skin contrasted her pale blue eyes and shoulder-length blond hair. She possessed a physical perfection that commanded everyone’s attention. The Saturday night saloon silenced as the crowd allowed her through, separating like the Red Sea for Charlton Heston.
With the flourish of a circus ringmaster, Elmyr stood up and gestured to her to join us as though he were hailing a longtime friend. We had eaten at a favorite French bistro earlier and were now enjoying a cognac and socializing a bit with Arlene. The after-dinner brandy made him even more talkative than usual. Always attracted to people for their looks, brains, or pedigree, this siren’s allure piqued his curiosity. Amazingly, she made her way to our table as if it had been a prearranged date. Elmyr rose from his seat, as did I, introduced himself and me, bent courteously over her outstretched hand, as a well-bred man would do, and then embarked on polite small talk.
Brittany was her name, from Pompano Beach, Florida, a fashion model on vacation. A photographer told her about Ibiza, and she wanted to visit this much-talked-about island before returning to work in Milan. When Elmyr mentioned he was a painter, her face flashed incandescent. She thrust her hands upward, palms toward her, fingers apart, inches from her face as though she were going to have him guess how many fingers she had. Then, wiggling them in case he hadn’
t noticed, she proudly exclaimed that she applied the new nail color, implying, I guess, that this creative endeavor surely ought to put these fellow artists on a first-name basis.
It became apparent that her brain had declared its independence from her body around puberty, so while her centerfold looks would prompt nocturnal emissions in Baptist ministers, her frontal cortex was still earning babysitting money. At the same time, she exhibited a frothy self-confidence from all the attention directed her way. She thought, mistakenly, this made her interesting—a delusion she was comfortable with. Despite her sensuality and adolescent mind, she was living proof that the gods also have a cruel sense of humor, for she possessed a whiny, glass-shattering voice that would make one long for the dulcet sound of a cat that caught its tail under a chair rocker. Hence, it was not her beauty, or chi-sucking prattle, or brain activity with toe tag attached, or having the depth of a tea saucer that was most memorable about this encounter, but her withering voice that would induce scabies in anyone within earshot. It was the singular most effective defense mechanism conceivable, one that guaranteed her unsullied virtue among the horniest of buccaneers, I thought.
Elmyr conducted himself like a gentleman and displayed unusual composure with our ill-chosen guest that evening. I admired him even more for his feigned interest in her vacuous chatter knowing full well he would have preferred being sprayed by a skunk than endure her a minute longer. When a brief lull occurred in her self-absorbed monologue, Elmyr rose, stating he had to leave as his grandmother died in a tragic motorcycle accident that day and the funeral was early the following morning. On our way home I imagined a row of leather-bound, tattoo-titled bikers on chrome machines rumbling to Granny’s gravesite to pay tribute to their hundred-something-year-old club member. It wasn’t unusual that Elmyr unleashed his agile wit as in his impromptu exit strategy from the bar. Nor was the funereal imagery beyond the realm of possibility on Ibiza. We accepted the surreal with a shrug. Furthermore, he had a knack for making the unbelievable believable. He possessed a natural theatricality that often turned conversation into performance art, ever aware of the audience and delivering his lines with the timing and conviction of a seasoned actor. After all, when Elmyr created his pastiches of the modern masters, he also transformed fine art into a performing art, a grand impersonator at his craft of deception, blurring the distinction between what was real and what wasn’t.
Every day held some adventure in Elmyr’s company. Just a few kilometers from Santa Eulalia, Robin Maugham lived in a home of everincreasing size. Like his more famous uncle, W. Somerset Maugham, Robin was also a writer, attempting, everyone thought, to live up to Uncle Willy’s success—and talent. Elmyr introduced Robin to the island. He even completed writing one of his books while he stayed in the guest room at La Falaise. His time there apparently inspired him to find a house of his own. One day Robin invited some friends to lunch. Comfortably seated on a feather-cushioned sofa before a fire in the fireplace on a damp winter day, Elmyr reached for a book among many stacked on a large square coffee table in front of him. The book on Modigliani was one he had not seen before. Typical of these editions, beautiful colored illustrations filled the book with an accompanying description, history, and scholarly analysis of each painting on the opposite page. Watching him leaf through the book with curiosity, his face seemed to register a look of déjà vu when he stopped abruptly, his ennui displaced by shock and surprise. Our friend Sandy quickly asked, “Is that one of yours?” He said, “Yes!” We all laughed. He then explained its illegitimate birth. It was a portrait of a seated woman with eyes conspicuously absent and characteristically in Modigliani’s style.
Just to illustrate my point that most of Elmyr’s fakes still rest inconspicuously in collections, this book places this Modigliani comfortably in the cannon of his works. The description reads as follows:
PORTRAIT OF YOUNG GIRL recognized as a Modigliani, but done by Elmyr
“In many cases, Modigliani’s sitters are known to us. In other cases, the first name, or the sitter’s occupation (e.g., la belle epicière, la marchande de fleurs) or only her nationality (la petite japonaise, la belle polonaise) has come down to us. Here we know nothing about this young girl, a casual acquaintance whom chance put in the artist’s path.” (Bold italics are mine.)
It goes on to describe the virtues of the piece in terms only authentic works would elicit. These adulatory reviews undergo a speedy reassessment when they are found to be less than authentic. Here, the writer documents the work’s unexplained origin and, despite its unknown pedigree, offers a flattering synopsis of the painting. Elmyr’s explanation was that he had painted it in a YMCA in St. Louis. He then consigned it to an auction house. They sold it, but shortly after the sale, the auction house declared bankruptcy. Elmyr was in no position to begin any kind of legal action or do anything at all that would draw attention to him. The relatively youthful painting has received its proper christening with its inclusion in a book by a respected publisher; it is unlikely that the picture’s current owner would care to revisit the question of authenticity.
This glimpse into Elmyr’s past was unforeseen, though not unusual in the sense that there always seemed to be an endless supply of anecdotes or observations related to something he knew and thought noteworthy enough to share with me. However, my daily lesson was not yet over. Like Elmyr’s villa, Robin’s home was a reflection of him, his ease and comfort, surrounded by the elegant trappings of culture and refinement. Elmyr helped Robin find his seaside villa, and under our friend Sandy Pratt’s guidance, he turned his garden into an oasis of palms, rubber trees, pines, mimosa, and succulents. Lavender, white, and fuchsiacolored bougainvilleas climbed the stucco exterior, ever higher as he added a second and third floor to the home. Inside, his wingback chairs, Chippendale dining table and chairs, camelback sofa, Spode china, and Georgian silver transplanted the gentrified casual elegance the British achieve without breaking a sweat. A painting in a hand-carved gilt frame hung above his fireplace and was a focal point of pride. It was a portrait of a seated fair-haired woman wearing an oversized hat. English oak trees in the background were a counterpoint to her blue and white silk dress. Robin claimed Joshua Reynolds, the eighteenth-century portraitist, did the painting. I later remarked to Elmyr that I liked the painting. He rolled his eyes and gave me his “You’ve still got a lot to learn” look. “Reynolds was a great artist,” he said. “If that woman stood up, her right arm would hang down below her knee. It has nothing to do with Reynolds.” Elmyr of course never expressed this anatomical impossibility to Robin. He simply didn’t want to deflate him in any way. It was, again, the kind of aside and perspective he shared as generously as his friendship, and one that no classroom experience could replicate.
Elmyr—The Artist
As I came to know Elmyr, I understood why Ibiza was a perfect setting for him. The bohemian lifestyle of the island suited his artistic sentiments, resonating with his creative nature. At that time, it was becoming the Mediterranean’s new San Tropez, since the French Riviera was an aneurism bulging with people. Some of its upperclass habitués now elected to turn the small Balearic isle into their new destination. Elmyr was comfortable with people of far-ranging interests and social credentials, and many of them frequented his parties at La Falaise. While the diversity of these people may have resembled a big tossed salad, Elmyr knew exactly the kind of person he allowed through his front door, and his guest list derived from a simple formula. This meant that if you were beautiful, you didn’t have to be titled. If you were titled, you didn’t have to be beautiful. If you were interesting, you didn’t have to be titled or beautiful. I’m sure these events appeared thoroughly democratic, but that perception would be inaccurate.
It always fascinated me how he was with people, a kind of social chef and they were his ingredients. Add a cup of culture, the zest of beauty, a little color, and stir until interesting. These gatherings also provided a forum for everyone to exchange gossip about everyone els
e, and Elmyr was in the center of it all. In the BBC film, he says, “When one tells naughty stories about someone, you do it much more enthusiastically than when you reluctantly talk about yourself.” In such moments his wit was lively, without constraint, but rarely self-deprecating. At one point in the documentary, for instance, Elmyr beatifically looks heavenward and quotes what a friend said about him. With radiant self-pride, he exclaimed in French, “Mallorca a eu Chopin. Ibiza a Elmyr.” (Mallorca had Chopin.* Ibiza has Elmyr.) The film’s producer, Richard Drewitt, later recounted how it lost some of its adulatory punch when a Shepard’s Bush transcriptionist gave it a fish-and-chips twist: Mallorca has champagne. Ibiza has beer. Elmyr found this substantially less amusing than did everyone else. (*Chopin briefly sought a winter retreat on Mallorca with writer and paramour George Sand—a woman. That particular season’s weather was unfriendly enough to just about kill off the fragile composer.)
When it came to his art, however, he took himself seriously, and expected others to view him as nothing less than a serious artist. He always felt his work merited respect, and each retreat into his studio was a sacrosanct communion with his muses. I therefore respected his time there. In the movie Grand Hotel, Greta Garbo uttered her famously parodied line, “I want to be let alone,” and then spent a lifetime fulfilling her desire. Elmyr never needed to make that request. I just knew the routine. Once he disappeared behind that closed door, any reason to interrupt his work had better be life-threatening, so unless something unimaginably important occurred, I knew I’d better just not disturb him.