Not surprisingly, I wasn’t honest with Kasper about what was going on with Arnold. There was such distance between me and Denmark and though it was the only time I ever did anything like that in my life, I still felt terrible. I already knew the marriage was over but the affair meant there was really no going back. It made sense: if I still loved him I would never have been able to go to bed with someone else at all, much less see them for any length of time. I had a big mess of my own making that I needed to clean up when I got back home and I paid for all the fun we had with a deep sense of guilt: I knew that at the very least I owed it to Kasper to set the record straight and try to work out what we were going to do for the future, for Julian.
Denmark, when summer ends, has a particularly dismal grey about it. I was sitting on the sofa in Kasper’s apartment gazing over at him and feeling so sorry for how sad I’d made him. He was trying to take it all in – and he was still very much in love with me. It made me think of all those family and friends who said at the time that we got married too quickly and perhaps we shouldn’t have had a child together, and yet I loved Julian more than anything on this earth. He was still the best thing that ever happened to me.
However bad things were for Kasper, he showed incredible strength of character in the way he behaved. He always respected the decision I’d made and for me that was the mark of a true man – by which I mean he didn’t get angry or violent. We were able to face the reality of our situation together. There were so many difficult emotions and we tried so hard to figure it all out. I knew it was right, but I was utterly miserable. And, of course, in all of this my biggest worry was what was going to happen with Julian. Kasper worked musician hours – in the studio until 3am regularly and sometimes much later. I travelled a lot and had the next four months of my life mapped out in my contract to do publicity for Red Sonja.
As I debated with myself about the best solution I went to my mother to get her advice at length. Every mother knows how difficult it is to be separated from their child for any significant amount of time but looking at it through Julian’s eyes, I knew that he needed stability and he could only really have that if he was properly looked after by my parents. I only had two weeks to sort everything out before I had to go on a worldwide tour for the movie. It was so painful but also just as obvious that I couldn’t take Julian on such an extended trip. I couldn’t subject him to endless flights and nights in hotel rooms. Kasper was based in Denmark but he was always busy and frequently out playing late when he wasn’t in the studio. We just weren’t the parents that I always wanted for my child. Kasper agreed and it was decided that whenever either of us could, even if it was only for weekends, we would have Julian stay with one or other of us, but the rest of the time he would be brought up by his grandparents.
I did feel that this was the right thing to do. In the end Julian spent his first five years with them and I know how much I owe both Kasper and my parents for creating a stable, loving environment for my boy to grow up in. Everything my parents had warned about had happened: I was too young and too busy with my own life to give Julian what he needed. I should have listened, but I followed my heart. I had tried to be responsible and had done everything to have a good pregnancy but when I ultimately needed to step up to the mark, I flunked it.
My parents even suggested I have an abortion when they first heard we were expecting, but I would never have been able to do that. We never regretted it and today Kasper and I are friends, but the falling apart of our relationship was no less painful for our enduring love for Julian. If nothing else, at least we were fortunate in being successful enough to be able to provide financially for our child.
The media attacked me for my decision to leave Kasper and Julian to pursue my own career, but it wasn’t just something I decided on a whim. Later still it would be suggested that I had left my husband and child for Sylvester Stallone and it was too good a story for them not to report even though I didn’t even meet Sylvester until a long time after my break-up, let alone get together with him. Yes, it was my fault that the relationship failed but it wasn’t quite the way it was depicted and it certainly wasn’t as casual as many people would like to think.
I not only promoted Red Sonja without my first child and my husband but also without my own name. Being told that ‘Gitte’ sounded ridiculous was not a big deal in relative terms, but changing the identity my parents gave me didn’t do anything for my self-esteem at that point. I wasn’t Hollywood enough as Gitte, said producer Dino De Laurentiis. ‘What about Brigitte?’ he asked me. I guessed I thought it was fine.
Perhaps it would at last let me leave behind my schooldays as Gitte the giraffe. Brigitte the movie star – why not? Gitte was still me but Brigitte was my escape. For me it was more than signing a legal document: Brigitte could be my energetic alter ego in high heels and mini-skirts, taking risks, being provocative and leaping into the unknown. Gitte would always be the home girl, comfortable and informal, who believed in traditional family values and whose goal was to have an ordinary life.
Since the day Dino encouraged me to become Brigitte I have always seen myself as being a woman with those two distinct sides, but they don’t always get on. Gitte has always been more forgiving of Brigitte’s superficial nature and can laugh off her excesses, whereas Brigitte has less patience with Gitte’s shyness and her insistence on following rules. I don’t think that the conflict between the two will be resolved, but it’s much easier for me to live with both as time goes by.
Brigitte was dominant for much of my career and people always responded to her and she played up to them. It was so much more exciting to be Brigitte – that was when the fun happened. Gitte was hiding inside me all along and I know now that she should have been allowed more space – not listening to her would almost cost me my life. Today I am Gitte first and she is the one who exercises most influence over my work and personal life. You could say that I’ve only found myself at the age of 47 and that I finally found peace.
It was not always like that.
CHAPTER 11
A COINCIDENCE
Sylvester Stallone was very beautiful. He was the sexiest, most delicious man I’d ever seen. As a 13-year-old I’d seen him in his classic boxer role in Rocky while I was a competitive swimmer. I thought the film was romantic and powerful. I’d never been the sort of girl to have posters of movies or boys in my room – I had a picture of my beloved horse instead. Getting autographs didn’t do it for me either, but I liked Rocky for what it was.
What hadn’t made so much of an impression on me when I first saw it was that Sylvester had written the screenplay and had gone to I don’t know how many people to try and secure funding. When he finally found someone who was interested they didn’t want him to act or direct. As I got to know the movie business I came to realise how much he must have endured to achieve his dreams and how badly he would have been treated along the way. It made me wonder – and still does now – at the self-belief and determination he must have needed to maintain his vision of himself as Rocky in the face of endless rejection. Where did that come from in a man? It got to the point where he was considering using his fee from selling the screenplay to buy his way into the lead role. His was the classic story of battling his way up from nowhere to becoming one of the most successful superstars in the world by the early ‘80s: it really did only happen in Hollywood.
And here’s a tale that sounds like it belongs in the movies – only five days after leaving Denmark for the Red Sonja promotional tour I sat down to dinner with Sylvester and his brother. Life was wilder and faster than I’d ever believed.
Arriving in New York I was immediately thrown into the PR machine. I was doing back-to-back interviews from morning until night. Most evenings I called Denmark but I also had friends in the city from my modelling days. We met for drinks but they were accompanied by a very irritating man who wouldn’t stop going on about how well he knew Sylvester Stallone. More to shut him up than anything else I said that
I would really like to meet the star and if this guy was indeed on such good terms with him then surely it would be easy to set that up.
‘I don’t have his private number,’ admitted our hero. Typical, I thought, that was the end of that conversation. He added, ‘But I know what hotel he’s at. I can give you the name, if you like.’ Now that sounded more like it – I could have some fun even if it came to nothing.
‘Girls!’ I said teasingly, ‘I’m calling Mr Stallone!’ I took out a few quarters for the phone in our bar and everyone laughed as I gave the coins a theatrical shake. The very idea of calling up Rocky on a night out was absurd. But I did it – and of course there was no answer. That was an even funnier outcome for us girls in the mood we were in that night, though I did note to myself that the hotel operator didn’t hesitate before putting me through. It was clear that Sylvester really was staying there; for whatever reason that thought lodged itself in my scatty brain and wouldn’t go away. By the time I got back to my own room that night I had become determined to meet the man for real. How could I make it happen?
I took a sheet of the hotel’s headed notepaper. ‘Dear Mr Stallone,’ I wrote. ‘I’m a new actress on my way up and I’m in New York to promote a movie.’ I must have sounded like a crazed fan more than anything else. I was excited but I knew it was all too silly. ‘I would really like to meet you since I really like your movies. You can contact me in my hotel room at the address below. Best wishes…’ I slipped a photograph of me into the envelope and went to sleep. Later some people claimed it was a pornographic image of me – but then some people claimed a lot of things. But it wasn’t – it was from the portfolio I used to get work from agencies.
I didn’t have a huge amount of money with me and $20 was a lot – but I left the bill with the hotel to ensure the letter was hand-delivered to where he was staying. I’m not sure what I was expecting would happen but I was certainly startled when Sylvester Stallone called me himself in my room. What had just been a bit of a game for the benefit of my girlfriends was now very real and that unmistakeable growl introduced itself through the receiver I clamped to my ear. I was totally freaked out to hear the biggest star in the world talk in person – I felt as awestruck as if I were a shy 13-year-old again and had only just seen him for the first time doing Rocky.
At the same time, even though my stomach was churning and I felt very unsure of myself, I knew I really wanted this. It took me back to the time when I was first approached by Marianne Diers in Copenhagen to be a model. I believed that you have to stretch yourself if you want to make your dreams happen and I always pushed myself out of my comfort zone and made myself take risks. If you’re not willing to say your desires out loud and go for them then you are left with no alternative but to admit that you’ve gone as far as you can; it’s hard but there’s no way around it. I’ve got so many friends who would make much better stars than me in modelling and acting, but they never got the big role or the Gucci campaign for that reason. Everyone wants to say who they are – but most of the time we are afraid to say it out loud.
Those I’ve known who have got to the top have talent matched by knowing what they’re capable of and the confidence to live like it. You can call it a technique if you like, you can call it whatever you want. The point is that it looks like it works to everyone else – so it does work. Nothing is better for the struggling actor or writer than to be themselves. If you really don’t think that you can do it, then you won’t be putting in a hundred per cent of the effort that you need to make the leap. That’s why so many 20-year-olds end up doing the same thing until the end of their lives, and they may be happy with that, but it won’t be for everyone. Inside me is both a romantic dreamer confident that she’s good enough and a doubter whispering that it’s not okay, that I would be much better off not even trying and I’m cool where I am. Don’t try it. Imagine if you try and it goes wrong…
That negative side of oneself is hard to ignore. It has all the excuses – it tells us that there will be a better time to go for it under different circumstances and very persuasively says sorry, it just can’t be done at the moment. And so you argue things around until everyone’s happy and it seems natural and nothing ever changes. But it’s very simple – you do it or you don’t; you live it or you don’t. Can you deal with yourself or can’t you? You may recognise these conflicting energies and battles in yourself – I think we all have them. In me there were always the two Gittes fighting it out – now of course there was Brigitte, which made three of me!
The doubtful side always gets the last word in. It often dictates our lifestyle if we let it. If you’re happy with staying where you are, that’s fine. Even though I ended up split within myself a lot of the time, I feel positive about having followed what I wanted to do. I didn’t play it safe and I didn’t allow the paralysis of doubt to overwhelm me. Some people crouch at the starting blocks of a race and see hurdles looming ahead in which they get hopelessly tangled up. Others run a smooth race without focusing on the obstacles and they leap hurdles without even noticing. I would never have got through being a hostage, much less stayed in Paris and gone on to Milan otherwise; I just kept on. The way you approach life doesn’t make you any better or worse in the end – it is just a different way of doing things.
As you go forward in life you have a chance to change direction and you always think whatever you do will be for the best. Sometimes it isn’t, but if you’re the sort of person who looks to move forward at least you won’t be stuck, whatever else happens. If I’d been directed only by the safety represented by my family I would never have left Kasper, but something else pulled me and I had to be completely true to myself. I had no idea what the casting call for Red Sonja would lead to, and when I wrote to Sylvester Stallone I didn’t know that he would call that night.
My hands shook slightly as I picked the phone up. I answered as Gitte – my new name completely escaped me. ‘Thanks for your message,’ Sylvester said. ‘Let’s meet. If it’s okay with you, I’ll come over in a little while.’ I told him it was fine, but I was thinking how crazy the whole situation was: Rocky was coming to my hotel room. Rocky! He wasn’t even Sylvester in my mind, he was still Rocky. I hadn’t thought this far. I looked nothing like the photograph I’d sent him – I was exhausted and I still had Red Sonja’s flaming red hair. What a mess!
A friend was with me and we decided on a very simple outfit with a little bit of make-up in the Danish fashion. ‘As he comes in – you leave,’ I said. That meant I didn’t need to get up from the couch to let him in myself and he wouldn’t have a chance to see how much taller than him I was.
He was on time and I tried to be as casual as possible. I offered him a glass of wine or water or something – I can’t remember. But the topic of conversation we started with was bizarre – divorces. There were 18 years between us but we were both going through the same thing and it made me think that we had so much in common. He seemed to be a real gentleman – sweet, down-to-earth. I was completely floored. I just thought he was amazing. He gave me his home phone number and his secretary’s details too, and as he went to leave he said that if I was ever out in Los Angeles, I should definitely get in touch.
I totally forgot that I wasn’t going to get up and when he left, I stood to let him out myself. He couldn’t hide his shock as I towered over him. I felt rather exposed all of a sudden, looking down on him with my shocking-red hair everywhere – my poise evaporated and I started babbling, ‘Oh, it was so nice to meet you, thank you so much, it was great, it was lovely… good luck, bye, bye!’ And I did this Danish gesture you do with both hands when you’re seeing off friends and extended family as if you’re excitedly waving miniature flags at them.
He turned as he stepped into the hallway and it was like a movie. ‘Red Sonja,’ he said, with a very direct look. ‘Why don’t you come for dinner with me tonight?’ Well, yes, thank you, Sylvester. I mean, what was I supposed to say?
‘Great. I’ll send a car to pick
you up in two hours.’ With Sylvester went the last shreds of my self-control and I called around friends to share the news. It seemed to me that I was about to go on a date with him and although there was still not much I could do with the Viking warrior hair, at least I had all my experience as a model to draw on to make a knockout impression on him that evening. I had a good choice of evening dresses with me from which I picked out a Gucci and I took much greater care with my make-up.
At 9.30pm sharp the car arrived. Sylvester was at an imposing round table with a tablecloth so white it could make you snow-blind. His brother Frank was there and so was Sylvester’s girlfriend and powerful LA entertainment lawyer Jake Bloom, who I had last met in Rome with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was awkward seeing him again under such different circumstances but Sylvester was quiet and at least Jake wasn’t looking at me suspiciously like Sylvester’s brother or his girlfriend. I fell on Jake and greeted him as if he was a long-lost best friend.
Sylvester gave the lawyer a look as if to ask how on earth he knew me, but now at least I had someone to talk to in an evening where the girlfriend made it very obvious that she wasn’t at all happy with the way things were turning out. I did think it was strange that we weren’t there that long before he announced the evening was concluded. There was no natural winding down of the party. ‘Let’s go, everybody.’ Dinner was over. A brief kiss on the cheek and I felt a vague sense of guilt, as if it were me who’d done something wrong.
Well, whatever, I thought, completely nonplussed. Sylvester left in his limo with Frankie and the girlfriend. Jake stayed on for a moment. ‘What happened?’ I asked him quietly, as if Sylvester might somehow still be listening.
Jake didn’t say much before he left. My schedule left little time for me to think things through, though I still wanted to see Sylvester again. I took a chance and phoned to thank him for the dinner. He repeated the invitation he made in the hotel room to call him anytime I was out in LA and I told him that I would.
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