At twenty-five, Dodi was feckless and undisciplined. He began taking cocaine, stayed out late at clubs most nights, and slept until the early afternoon. He ran afoul of the producers of both Allied films when he brought cocaine to the set. Puttnam actually ejected Dodi, telling him, “Don’t ever come back again.”
Chariots of Fire was a hit on its release in 1981 and won the Academy Award for best picture. With his prominent listing as executive producer, Dodi was poised to be a major player in Hollywood, but instead he did nothing for three years, leading a decadent life in London, Paris, and the south of France. “He was into cocaine,” said his friend Nona Summers, whose problems with the drug sent her into a rehab program. “He didn’t tell the truth about many things, but he told me he had done it, that he got himself in trouble and stopped.” Among his mishaps was a fall down a cliff from a restaurant in Sardinia at 2:00 A.M. that resulted in several broken ribs.
During this period, Dodi spent more time with his Khashoggi relatives, and he tried to get to know the mother he had seen so rarely. He called her frequently and visited her in Cairo, but they didn’t become especially close. “When he was around his mother, he was serious, reverential, more quiet than usual,” said his friend Jack Martin. “She was a combination of doting and demanding.” Samira was “warm but very strong,” recalled interior designer Corinna Gordon, a friend for many years. “I think Dodi was a little intimidated.” In the mid-1980s, Samira became ill with cancer. When she died in the autumn of 1986, Dodi brooded for a long while. One former girlfriend said he went into an “emotional free fall.”
Dodi was back in the film business by then, this time in Hollywood. In 1983, Mohamed had set him up with Jack Weiner, a former Columbia Pictures executive turned producer. Mohamed agreed to provide funding to Weiner and Dodi for options and scripts, while Weiner would guide Dodi through the basics of film production. Their seven-year partnership produced two successes, F/X and a sequel, both thrillers about a special-effects man, but only Weiner actually worked on the films. Dodi lacked the discipline to see a film through the difficult stages of budgeting and production, sometimes showing up on the sets at lunchtime and attending the odd meeting. “He had a passion to make movies, but he didn’t see his role as being there every day,” said Weiner. Scriptwriters and others who encountered Dodi in meetings realized he was simply playacting, “keeping up a particular image,” in the words of one producer.
By now in his early thirties, Dodi was more dependent than ever on his strong-willed father, a predicament he found emotionally and professionally crippling. To prove himself to such a formidable father, he would need to work doubly hard, but Dodi never did. Mohamed, in recognizing his son’s limitations and trying to protect him, put Dodi in an impossible trap. “It’s like when you are training a dog and you use a choke chain,” said a producer who worked with Dodi. “You give a little freedom, then you need to give a pull.”
Winging his way on private jets and cruising on 200-foot yachts, Dodi had no “real life.” His father owned the apartments on Park Lane in London and just off the Champs-Élysées in Paris where Dodi often stayed. Dodi moved from one rented house to the next in Los Angeles, and used his family’s vacation homes in Saint-Tropez, Gstaad, and Scotland. “I have no idea where Dodi thought was home,” his friend Michael White said. “Around the office we used to always say, ‘Dodi is a character in a movie,’ ” recalled Weiner. A sense of unreality touched everything Dodi did; in many ways, he was the victim of his own misguided, romantic dreams.
Despite his extravagant allowance, Dodi wildly overspent, leasing homes in Beverly Hills and Malibu for $25,000 a month, riding in chauffeur-driven cars and hiring costly security guards—all to impress his friends. A spending binge by Dodi was usually followed by Mohamed’s declining to pick up certain bills. “Dodi would commit himself and then the funds were not there, and he would try to talk his way out of it,” said a producer in Hollywood. When confronted, Dodi would apologetically promise payment, but frequently, the check would bounce. A number of Dodi’s creditors sued him. American Express filed a lawsuit against Dodi for failing to pay a $116,890 debt. Other creditors walked away bitterly, including one prominent Hollywood actress who had to reupholster every piece of furniture in her Malibu beach house because of the damage done by Dodi’s dogs.
Even with all his financial travails, Dodi’s impulsive generosity became one of his hallmarks. “He was after acceptance, people enjoying his company, or prestige,” said his friend Peter Riva. Dodi also indulged himself, collecting expensive cars, including five Ferraris, largely for show. Many of his preoccupations were childish. His Park Lane apartment featured a collection of baseball caps, and he was obsessed with military memorabilia. When he visited Los Angeles, he drove a $90,000 Hummer.
Dodi was fanatically concerned with personal security. Wherever he went, he insisted on having one or more bodyguards and a backup security car in tow. He was also hypochondriacal; like his father, Dodi carried scented disposable hand wipes for fear of germs.
One of Dodi’s most perplexing traits was his tendency to exaggerate the extent of his wealth and privilege. When he rented a house, he would say he owned it. “I don’t think a word of truth came out when he talked about possessions,” said Nona Summers. “He was gentle and kind but a complete liar. He wanted to impress people.”
His friends learned to live on “Dodi Time,” knowing that he would either fail to appear as promised or arrive hopelessly late. “He didn’t have the ability to say, ‘No, I can’t do that’ or ‘I don’t have that,’ ” said Michael White. “His way of getting out of things was not to be around or not to answer the phone.” His friends’ tolerance reinforced Dodi’s belief that he could talk his way out of anything.
With the exception of some jilted lovers, the women in Dodi Fayed’s life took the most forgiving view of his fantasies and fibs. “He had an innocence that was very appealing, attractive, and gentle,” said model Marie Helvin, who was impressed that Dodi—unlike his father—did not use profanities and disliked dirty jokes. Dodi poured out his troubles to Helvin and other women who served as sister/mother figures. But for all the jewelry, furs, and flowers he gave women, he didn’t know how to make emotional commitments. “He sabotaged his relationships because he was always looking for a bigger and better deal,” said a close female friend.
In the mid-1980s, Dodi met Suzanne Gregard, a twenty-six-year-old model, and he courted her avidly, flying her by Concorde to London for weekends, even buying the adjacent seat so she could have privacy. Dodi worshipped Gregard, who told her brother, “You know, he gets down on the ground and kisses my feet.” Shortly before the end of 1986, Dodi proposed, and they were married on New Year’s Eve in Vail, Colorado. After a Malibu honeymoon, they settled in a rented Manhattan town house. Gregard tried to make a home for them, but she managed to decorate only the living room, bedroom, guest room, and office, leaving the rest of the house empty.
Although Gregard earned a good living as a model, Dodi insisted on putting her on an allowance, refusing to discuss money with her. She continued her career, and he traveled on his own. After eight months, they decided to divorce. One reason, Gregard later admitted, was the intrusiveness of Dodi’s heavy security. “We were never alone,” she said.
Following the divorce, Dodi resumed his rootless life in London and Hollywood. In 1989, Mohamed tried to involve Dodi in business at Harrods, but he lasted all of three weeks in the training program in retailing and accounting. Dodi also tried to jump-start his film career after Jack Weiner left Allied Stars in 1990. Although he logged production credits on two movies, Hook, in 1991, and The Scarlet Letter, in 1995, Dodi had virtually no role in either film beyond writing checks with his father’s funds. Dodi’s finances had become impossibly tangled during these years. By 1997, the dockets of Los Angeles Superior and Municipal Courts were filled with cases in which Dodi was named as defendant—including suits over back taxes as well as damages to various propert
ies he had rented.
By the spring of 1997, Dodi was still fantasizing about new film projects and earnestly talking about settling down. He had been dating Kelly Fisher since the previous summer, and by her account, had proposed no fewer than four times. On June 20, Dodi bought Julie Andrews’s five-acre compound in Malibu for $7.3 million. (The owner of record was Highcrest Investments Ltd.) According to Fisher, the couple planned to live there as husband and wife.
Three weeks later, Dodi was introduced to Diana in Saint-Tropez by his father. The two had met once briefly, during a polo match in 1987 in which Dodi was playing for the Harrods team, but Diana’s knowledge of Dodi was based on his father’s glowing reports. “Diana saw Dodi through Mohamed Fayed’s words,” said one of her close friends. “She never cared to find out anything more.” There was little opportunity for Diana to learn much. In July 1997, Dodi was scarcely known outside Hollywood and jet-set circles. His name had sporadically surfaced in gossip columns, and then only in connection with film premieres or liaisons with assorted models or starlets.
Although Diana and Dodi were hardly on their own, they spent some time together in quiet conversation. “Dodi couldn’t bear to leave her alone,” said Debbie Gribble, chief stewardess on the Jonikal. As Dodi listened intently, Diana described her travels to Pakistan and Africa and her work on the land mine campaign. Mohamed’s wife, Heini, later said that Diana and Dodi also talked eagerly about movies. On two evenings, Dodi made the oddly flamboyant gesture of renting a disco for William and Harry to enjoy privately. By day, as the group swam, Jet Skied, and relaxed on the Jonikal, the paparazzi took numerous photographs, but no one noticed Dodi. “We thought he was a sailor,” said Jean-Louis Macault, one of the freelance paparazzi.
On July 16, Dodi greeted his fiancée, Kelly Fisher, in the port of Saint-Tropez. For the next two days, he moved back and forth between the Fayed villa and the yachts Cujo and Sakara, where he and Fisher alternately spent their first two nights together. Explaining his frequent daytime absences, Dodi told Fisher his father insisted on his presence to keep Diana amused. “I knew his father was important to him, and he had to do what he said,” Fisher said. “But I was livid…. They basically kept me hidden.” Fisher took the Cujo to Nice on the eighteenth for a previously scheduled modeling assignment that kept her occupied for three days and freed Dodi to be with Diana.
The paparazzi and hacks were primarily interested in how Diana would behave in the days leading up to July 18, the date of Camilla’s fiftieth-birthday party. “We ran postcards to Camilla from Diana, which Diana had faxed [from her London office] and roared with laughter,” said Piers Morgan of the Mirror. “She found it amusing, and she knew the power of what she was doing.” On the morning of the eighteenth, the tabloids were filled with photographs of Diana at play, “stealing the spotlight with a … 30-minute nonstop performance” of diving, swimming, and riding behind Harry on his Jet Ski. She “leaned forward, revealing a breathtaking cleavage,” wrote James Whitaker in The Mirror, “and preened herself on Mohamed’s beach.”
Mohamed Fayed gave an interview to The Mail on Sunday that appeared on July 20. Speaking to Brian Vine, Fayed said, “Diana’s attitude to all the criticism is that those people can go to hell if they don’t like it. Like me, she can see through all the hypocrisy of some of the critics.” He claimed that Diana “felt at home” in the Fayed “family atmosphere,” and said, “Diana’s sons are having a great time, and any critics can just go and suck lemons.” But Fayed went too far when he added, “As for Camilla, Diana doesn’t think or care about her.… Camilla’s like something from a Dracula film compared with the vividly beautiful Diana, who is so full of life.”
Diana and the boys left at sunset that day. The next morning, Dodi filled her Kensington Palace apartment with pink roses and sent the first of numerous extravagant gifts: an $11,000 gold Cartier Panther watch. Harrods delivered a large box of exotic fruit from Mohamed as well. But Diana said little to her friends about Dodi. “The first I heard of her going off with Dodi was when I read it in the newspapers,” said one of her close friends. “She didn’t tell me.” Diana did tell astrologer Debbie Frank that she had “the best holiday [she’d] ever had,” and “I’ve met someone.”
Unknown to Diana, Dodi was still sailing in the Mediterranean with his fiancée. The couple flew to Paris on July 23, and the next day, Fisher traveled, as planned, to Los Angeles, while Dodi returned to London. Diana, meanwhile, flew to Milan on the twenty-second to attend a memorial service for fashion designer Gianni Versace, who had been murdered a week earlier in Miami Beach by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Diana was seated in the front row next to Elton John. Although she had fallen out with both the singer and his close friend Versace six months earlier, she took the opportunity to repair relations with John. As he sobbed quietly, she comforted him with her hand on his arm.
Three days later, Diana was off with Dodi on a Harrods helicopter to Paris for the weekend. Their visit to Fayed’s Ritz Hotel was held in strict secrecy. Dodi gave Diana the $10,000-a-night Imperial Suite and treated her to dinner at the three-star Lucas Carton restaurant. On Saturday, they toured the villa where the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had lived in exile. Eleven years earlier, Fayed had leased the villa, which he had since restored. Dodi and Diana also stopped by Fayed’s apartment off the Champs-Élysées and took a midnight stroll along the Seine. On Sunday, July 27, they returned to London undetected.
For the next month, Diana was almost continually on the move. With William and Harry at Balmoral for August, she was free to come and go, which she did more impulsively than usual. She made her first move on Thursday, July 31, stealing away with Dodi for a six-day cruise off Sardinia and Corsica on the Jonikal, where their love affair began. Drawing on his penchant for the romantic, Dodi pampered Diana with her preferred diet, which included carrot juice in the morning, fruit at lunch, and fish in the evening, as well as plenty of champagne, caviar, and pâté de foie gras. For background music, he provided two of her favorites, the sound track from the film The English Patient and George Michael’s album Older, plus some Frank Sinatra. The couple talked and whispered nonstop, prompting Dodi’s valet Rene Delorm to wonder, “How can people have so much to say to each other?” After several days, Dodi gave Diana a diamond bracelet, and when they went ashore in Monaco, they spent the day shopping for more jewelry. “It was as close to paradise as you can get,” said Jonikal stewardess Debbie Gribble. But according to Antonia Grant, one of Dodi’s chefs, “There was always [Mohamed] Fayed in the background. It was obvious that strings were being pulled.”
On August 4, Italian paparazzo Mario Brenna located the couple on the Jonikal after receiving a tip, probably from someone close to Diana or Dodi. He clicked off a series of shots showing them sunbathing, swimming, and embracing, some taken from a small yacht positioned a mere ten yards away, others with a long lens. After a spirited auction, Brenna and his partner Jason Fraser pocketed more than $2 million from the London red tops.
The tabloids broke the story of the romance on Thursday, August 7, the day after Diana and Dodi returned to London. DI’S SECRET HOL WITH HARRODS HUNK DODI, headlined The Sun. Dodi was quoted in The Mirror as saying with a smile, “We relaxed. We had a great time.… We are very good friends.” An evidently proud Mohamed Fayed told the Evening Standard, “I give them my blessing. They are both adults.”
The tipoff came, as usual, from Richard Kay, who wrote in the Daily Mail that Dodi was “the first man who can openly be described as a boyfriend.… The Princess herself was yesterday astonishingly relaxed over the revelation of their closeness and the prospect of intimate photographs … being published.” Kay recounted that Diana had said during “despairing moments” in recent months, “I so understand why Jackie married Onassis. She felt alone and in need of protection—I often feel like that.” Quoting the ubiquitous “close friend,” Kay wrote, “She wants to get a life—a real life. She is single and so is he. She’s sick of all the cloak-and-dagge
r stuff. Why shouldn’t she have a man in her life, and for people to know about it?”
It was a message meant for one reader, Hasnat Khan, according to Diana’s friends. After some eighteen months in hiding with Khan, Diana intended to be as flagrantly public with Dodi as she could—at least in part to provoke Khan. “She was on the rebound from Hasnat Khan,” said Elsa Bowker. “She started with Dodi to make Hasnat jealous.” Added another close friend, “Dodi was a bolt out of the blue.”
Many believed Diana was motivated by a more general urge for revenge as well. What better way to annoy the British establishment than by taking up with a man whose father’s garish wealth and business manner made him an outsider among the upper classes? Her choice of the son of an Egyptian father and Saudi mother may have shocked the establishment, but to those who knew the history of Diana’s recent attachments, Dodi was consistent with her taste for Eastern friends—from her Panorama interviewer Martin Bashir to Hasnat Khan and Gulu Lalvani, as well as women friends Elsa Bowker and Hayat Palumbo. Diana seemed to find an element of comfort and trust in non-Westerners.
Diana was infatuated with Dodi, initially described in the tabloids as “Mr. Perfect … caring, rich and irresistible to women.” Kay, in the Mail, went out of his way to draw distinctions between Fayed and his son. Quoting “a friend,” Kay wrote, “Dodi is not his father. He is very different, a gentle and sensitive man and that is part of his attraction for Diana.” Dodi, according to his friends, was predictably intoxicated by Diana. For a man whose identity and purpose were shaped by his women, she represented his lifetime achievement. Winning her affection would finally prove Dodi’s worth to his demanding father.
Diana in Search of Herself Page 49