Hedda and Louella

In 1976, Adrian George, the painter and illustrator was so fed up with me going round to the flat he shared with Celia Birtwell and gossiping for free, he encouraged me to write a gossip column on spec. He then took it to Ritz Newspaper's office in David Bailey's house in Primrose Hill, and the editorial team (including Bailey and his wife Marie Helvin) thought it was so bitchy, I was hired on the spot.

Nicholas Haslam was hired at the same time as me for the magazine's second issue, and David Litchfield, Ritz's editorial editor took us both out to lunch at Langan's Brasserie to anoint our hiring. Nicky decided to gossip under the pseudo name 'Paul Parsons', presumably to avoid confusion re: his role as a fashionable interior decorator. He agreed to write about his British aristocratic friends, and I had no option but to write about the flotsam and jetsam which came under the 'cafe society' category.

Nicky and I were rivals - we often attended the same parties - but we were the 'best' of friends. He used to regularly take me out for lunch at restaurants like San Lorenzo's. I think our luncheon dates dried up after he couldn't land an invitation for a showbiz party thrown by Allan Carr, the producer at Burke's club. It was held in Marvin Hamlisch's honour (he had recently composed "A Chorus Line"), and after his televised concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Jeffrey Lane, the then publicist at the London office of Rogers and Cowan did the PR for the party. I'd known Jeffrey since he was the publicity director at Columbia (EMI-Warner) in Wardour Street in the early Seventies. I was the Press Officer for Warner Bros. at the time, and we both worked at opposite ends of the publicity corridor.

When Nicky heard about the party, he immediately called up Rogers & Cowan's office to be told he couldn't come as I was covering the party. According to David Litchfield, Nicky rang him up afterwards and burst into tears at being barred from a party, probably the first and last time in his life as a serious party goer. Immediately afterwards, Nicky befriended Jeffrey and was put on Rogers & Cowan's 'A' guest list for the rest of eternity.

Nicky was the consummate party giver and It was an unsaid agreement that I would write up his parties in my column. I wasn't complaining, as Nicky's parties were the best: he knew 'Everybody Who Was Anybody'. When Andy Warhol and his retinue were in town once, I went along to his party for Andy Warhol at Bubbles Harmsworth's aparmtent in Eaton Square after I had finished interviewing Steve Rubell at the Savoy (Andy, Halston, and a naked man covered in hundred dollar bills had also been present in the room). Nicky sent out the invitations at the last minute, so people whose post didn't arrive punctually thought they hadn't been invited and were hysterical with grief.

Nicky also threw a party for Warhol at Regines and for the chosen few, a dinner party at the Casserole (which he had just redecorated). I was too tired to go to the bash at Regines and went home to change for the dinner, praying I didn't have to go. I almost got my wish as due to a bickering between Nicky and Litchfield (a common occurence), Nicky rang me to disinvite me. I told him I was so relieved and was going to bed. A few minute later, an emotional Nicky rang me again, begging me to attend the dinner, saying it wouldn't be the same without me. So, I dutifully threw on my party gear and took a a taxi to the restaurant in World's End, where I witnessed Rupert Everett, recently expelled from drama school flirting with Bianca Jagger. She asked him to go home with her but he declined, saying she wouldn't respect him if he did!

Freebies

One advantage of being an exhausted gossip columnist during the late Seventies was I didn't have to pay for a thing. I was given loads of freebies/surreptitious bribes in return for a bitchy comment about the donators in my column. The only time I paid for something was a priceless black Cerutti suit after the producer Don Boyd commissioned me to write a film treatment. Normally, I interviewed everyone including Cary Grant in my Levis, but the designer label came in useful; especially when I devoured steak tartare with interview victims such as the late producer Allan Carr re: "Grease" in restaurants like the extinct White Elephant. I remember wearing the Cerutti when I interviewed David Cronenberg (in jeans) at the Savoy. He was in the process of telling me there was a dearth of women directors and was advising me in intricate detail on how to become one: I didn't have time to study the frames he was making with his hands, as I was late for my (successful) interview at the Evening Standard's "Londoner's Diary", hence the job interview suit.

Manolo Blahnik gave me free skyscraper shoes (he gave me free ones before I got my column), and the head of Olympus Cameras gave me a tape recorder to tape my interviews with (consequently, I lost my shorthand speeds). And, Leonard, the hairdresser never charged me for cutting my hair at his palatial salon in Grosevnor Street until I stopped writing gossip. He was a genius cutter. He never glanced at me while chopping my hair, but looked round the salon while 'feeding' me suitable fodder for my column, like info about the wigs he created for Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon". Daniel Galvin, the hair colourist who worked at the salon at the time used to colour my hair. Once I looked like a red setter after he poured a henna mix over my locks, but I wasn't complaining as it was free. Bruce Oldfield used to take me out for dinner at Mr Chow, and invited me to borrow an outfit from his shop in Beauchamp Place any time I wanted. I didn't even have to invest in dry cleaning the garments before returning them.

I never had to pay for a meal, but in retrospect, I think one of the best perks I had was free membership at all the London clubs except for Annabel's. Mark Birley did treat me to lunch at Harry's Bar (which he also owned) though, the Cerutti suit came in useful then. I was a founder member of the late Zanzibar, my favourite club in Great Queen Street. The membership cost £12 but I didn't even have to fork out for that. Once, I had a birthday party at a wine bar called Blitz down the road. Marinka, the professional artist's model was moonlighting there as a waitress at the time (her day job consisted of posing for artists like Ron Kitaj), and persuaded the owner to give me the party for free. Hundreds of gatecrashers including David Hockney guzzled and drank, courtesy of Blitz. Zanzibar had a strict door policy of allowing a member to sign in a couple of guests only. I was obviously exempt from this bureaucratic rule as I invited all the party guests to the club, who swarmed in like a swarm of locusts. I felt a bit disturbed when I later discovered some of them had signed themselves in as 'Frances Lynn' though. Although I made the nightly round of the clubs after the parties in the early hours every evening, I didn't really appreciate my free memberships: I was always conscious of Groucho Marx's quote, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

Copyright: Frances Lynn 2008

Nigel Dempster, ex-king of the gossips is dead

Another Seventies icon hits the bucket. Nigel Dempster, my old mentor has died after suffering from a wasting disease called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. When I was the gossip columnist for David Bailey's 'Ritz Newspaper' in the late Seventies, he was one of the first people I went to interview - in his office in the Daily Mail. From then on, we were best friends. He even got me into the NUJ, and I shall always remember going to collect his signed NUJ form in the Private Eye Office. (The 'Greatest Living Englishman' wrote a column called “Grovel,” for the satirical rag). Richard Ingrams (Lord Gnome) who was then the editor offered to second me for the NUJ, but I refused. I wanted a friend to do it, so I asked Maggie Koumi - then editor of '19' magazine to second me. (She went on to become editor of 'Hello' magazine). I was a film critic at the time and Maggie and I sat next to each other every night in screening rooms (We were both permanent fixtures on the magazine film reviewing lists).

I used to see Nigel day in, night out as we were both invited to the same events. Once, (Sir) Sir Dai Llewellyn invited all the Fleet Street gossip columnists and myself to a dinner at Wedgies, a Kings Road club which he ran. (He was dressed in black stockings and suspender belts when we arrived). Nigel didn't show, and my fellow hacks spent the entire evening bitching about him, accusing him of being too grand to show. Yes, I was best friends with Nigel for years until he turned on me. But, he did that with all his best friends. A story was more important to him than friendship, and many a bewildered friend of his couldn't understand why he betrayed them in his columns in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. He was the consummate gossip columnist. For him, a story always came first.

A Playboy reunion

I'm amazed. Old friends from the Seventies are beginning to contact me after finding my website - Frances Lynn on Google. The latest friend to e-mail me is Val Lownes, son of Victor Lownes who used to be the head of Playboy in London. I've known Val since I was a teenger. A gang of us used to visit him in his dad's house in Connaught Square. The butler loved us and always fed us big meals, but never fed the bunnies. Val helped run the Playboy here in London, then was made the Resident Director for the new Playboy Casino in Nassau. After it closed down in 1985, he returned to Chicago, his birth place. It was so nostalgic to hear from him. We used to hang out together a lot in the late Seventies.

Dreas Reyneke - body conditioning teacher supreme.

In the late Seventies, there was only one place to go to if you wanted your physique sculptured into perfection, and that was Dreas Reyneke’s body conditioning studio. He used to have tiny premises in Notting Hill Gate with a few Pilates machines crammed in. The changing facilities used to be barbaric. There were no showers, nothing fancy like that. His rich and famous clients had to change in a little room adjoined to the studio.

I had been going to Dreas since the early Seventies before he started his own studio. Everyone wanted to go to the Pilates maestro, but because his studio was so small there was only enough room for four people (maximum) at a time. Dreas used to look after all the Royal Ballet dancers: the company's principle dancers, like the legendary Anthony Dowell or Lynn Seymour were wheeled in on a regular basis, virtually crippled from their arduous daily lives of a harsh ballet regime. After a session or two with Dreas, they were miraculously patched up. Dreas Reyneke was a magician when it came to working out specific postures for each individual client.

Everyone who went to Dreas was rich and famous and because his studio was so successful, he had a long waiting list. I used to be a gossip columnist in the late Seventies, but Dreas trusted me never to write bitchy things about his clients. My slot was every Thursday at 9 a.m. When Bianca Jagger was in London, she was regularly in my session. She used to wear plastic bags over her thighs in order to lose weight, not that I could see where she wanted to lose excess fat. She was tiny. Joan Collins who had an incredible figure was unrecognisable without her wig, and at one time Rod and Alana Stewart (his then wife) were in my slot.

One morning, they arrived outside the studio without makeup on. Both looked dishevelled, as one usually does before going to work out at the crack of dawn. Unfortunately for their public image, someone had tipped off the BBC about them going to Dreas. A film crew was waiting outside his studio. Rod and Alana didn't seem too thrilled at being filmed (for a topical news programme) not looking their best.

Dreas forbid us to chat, but sometimes when he wasn’t being strict, we got away with it.

‘You want to come and see my Matisse?’ an Amerian woman once asked me when we were both upside down our respective mats.

‘Yes,’ I answered softly so that Dreas wouldn’t hear and tell me off.

Usually, I holed up ithe local fish and chip restaurant after my session with Dreas, but this time I made an exception and after my class, went to this woman’s flat in Knightsbridge to ogle her priceless painting.

My body had never been better when I went to Dreas, but after I became obsessed with tennis, like an idiot I stopped going to him, I just didn’t have the time. By then, rich socialites had become clients. One woman flung her fur coat on one of the Pilates machines and commenced to do her excercises on top of them, until Dreas had to politely advise her to hang her coat up in the changing room.

I miss Dreas and would adore to go back to him. He’s the best, but I very much doubt he would be able to fit me into my old Thursday morning slot any more. Even if he could, I doubt if I could afford him now. He's more popular then ever.

Copyright: Farnces Lynn, 2007

Paparazzi

When I started out as a gossip columnist in the late Seventies, I took pictures of my victims with my little instamatic (this was before the age of digital), but the published pics all came out blurred. Also, I found it a bit of an encumbrance trying to delve and snap at the same time. And, as I was pretending not to be a journalist but a genuine friend of the people, whose brains I was surreptitiously picking, it looked a bit suspicious - me continuously flashing my camera in their gobs. An unobtrusive David Bailey I was not! One evening, I wasn’t minding my own business in the middle of a nightclub opening (Wedgies in the Kings Road) when an exuberant man with long black hair and dressed in black leather banged me on the shoulder. ‘Hi, I’m Richard Young, your new photographer,’ he said cheerily. He went on to explain that “Ritz Newspaper” had just hired him to be my personal photographer, which suited me fine. ‘Photograph that lump of lard over there,’ I ordered at full volume, pointing him in the direction of an obese lord. Richard did as he was told without asking any questions. Richard was no virgin when it came to the world of 'photo journalism' however. He had recently managed to successfully infiltrate Liz and Richard Burton’s birthday bash at the Dorchester, taking a paparazzo shot of them, so he knew exactly what he was doing. He manipulated his camera like it was a machine gun, relentlessly sniping fire. Rat-a-tat-snap!

At the beginning of our partnership, he didn’t know who anyone was, but he quickly learned Who Was Who, i.e. which person was worth photographing. When I was at a dinner in Karl Lagerfeld’s honour at Mr Chow, I was seated at the fashion designer’s table with a group of women journalists, who spent their whole evening, wearily having to tell their photographers whom not to photograph. I didn’t have to exert myself one little bit and concentrated on my fried seaweed, as Richard already knew ‘everyone’ and automatically knew whom to snap without my having to tell him.
‘You are fortunate having a photographer whom you don’t have to tell what to do,’ the fashion editor of Women’s Wear Daily confided in me.
‘Can I borrow him?’ the dame from The Daily Mail asked.

It was all very well that Richard was independent – too independent, for soon Richard was no longer taking exclusives for ‘Ritz’, and like all good paparazzi was making a fortune globally syndicating his photographs of the rich and famous at the functions I took him too. Richard and I worked together harmoniously for years, but I knew we had to finally part company when people at parties started to rush up to speak to him rather than speak to me first. He was no longer my personal photographer, but after having worked with me, was the only civilised paparazzo in London who was allowed to take photographs inside, rather than hang outside for celebrities in the cold.

Copyright: Frances Lynn, 2006

Ladies Who Lunch

In the late Seventies, it was the vogue for ‘ladies who lunch’ to throw lavish hen parties for each other. Jackie Collins told me that Jerry Hall gave a lunch party for fifty girls, and Jackie taped the lot of them. Enough juicy dialogue to fill several of her Hollywood books, I should imagine.

I think one of the most glamorous hen parties I went to, was a birthday bash given by the exotic model Marie Helvin for her best girlfriends. At the time, I wrote a gossip column called ‘bitch’ for her then husband, David Bailey, publisher of the defunct “Ritz Newspaper’, so I think Marie invited me along purely for me to cover her party. Marie hired the whole of Eleven Park Walk, off Fulham Road, which was one of London’s most fashionable restaurants at the time, and discreetly paid for the lunch after the bash was all over. The guest list included Angelica Houston who was then Jack Nicholson’s girlfriend, Nona Summers, an infamous society hostess and Elsa Schiaparelli’s granddaughter Marisa Berenson, the beautiful actress and socialite. At the time, she looked exactly the same as she did in “Cabaret”, which was pretty miraculous considering she had recently undergone extensive plastic surgery on her face after a car accident. In those days, I hadn’t yet been given a freebie tape recorder and was still using my shorthand, so it’s a shame I didn’t surreptitiously tape the lunch, because I can’t remember in minute detail, what we all talked about. Nothing about earth-shattering world events, I suspect. All I do vividly recall is that one woman, a wealthy theatre impresario’s mistress chain-smoked in between courses that, due today’s phobia of anti-smoking is completely out of date. The late Tina Chow, who tragically later died of AIDS, announced she had just returned from holidaying in Sardinia, where she said that Fanta and frozen pizzas were dished out, and all at ‘exorbitant’ prices. Considering the continental currency was then pre-euro, by today’s standards, the beach fast fodder would be now considered cheap. ‘The beaches were filled with people covered in perfume and lipstick who all looked like they had been recruited from a Rogers & Cowan guest list,’ Tina said. (Rogers & Cowan is an ‘A’ list showbiz public relations company). ‘Next time, I shall holiday on a yacht,’ she added. She announced she had also been to the Vatican, but just after Pope John Paul I had died. His thirty-three day reign was the shortest in papal history. Zandra Rhodes popped in for ten minutes, declaring it was the first time she had lunched in three months, and topped Tina by saying she had also just recently visited the Vatican but before the Pope had died. Other girls including Lady Victoria Waymouth, before she married (the late) Patrick Lichfield, the royal photographer. Model agency owner Laraine Ashton, an ex-model laughed about Omar Sharif (a movie star in those days), trying to lick champagne from her toes the previous evening. Everyone must have been feeling happy after the lunch, as all the women offered to give me a lift home. I was so touched, that I didn’t bitch about any of them when I wrote up the lunch.

Copyright: Frances Lynn, 2006