Born free
Roderick Gilchrist on Prince Albert’s environmental aspirations Imet a wealthy widow in Monaco the other day who was so pressed for space to keep her designer frocks she paid $1.5 million to buy the apartment below her penthouse as a walk-in wardrobe.
Sandi Tollman is an attractive blonde whose late husband made his fortune in smart boutique hotels like The Milestone overlooking Kensington Palace. Sandi today has a new partner, Emile, a handsome, youngish, Lebanese gentleman. Emile used to be Sandi’s chauffeur. ‘We knew something was up when Sandi moved from the back of the Rolls to sit beside Emile in the front seat,’ one observer told me.
Sandi is a friend of Prince Albert, Monaco’s ruler. She is also very generous. When she heard two leopards from his private zoo were being flown to a game reserve in South Africa she offered to pay the £50,000 transportation costs.
Sandi was at the zoo at 8 a.m. to greet Albert when he arrived for a photocall with the leopards before they took off for the freedom of the savannah. For 16 years the brother and sister leopards, Pitou and Sirius, have only known a life behind bars, the last eight gazing from their cliffside cage at Russian babe-magnet yachts anchored in Monte Carlo’s harbour.
Albert looked as if he needed support. You might think how tough can life be living in a 220-room pink palace on the rocks right over the Med with all that zero-rated nondom cash pouring in. But every time he faces the press it’s the same old questions about Monaco being a haven for money launderers and his refusal to hand over financial information about British tax exiles to the Treasury. You could forgive Albert, as he caught sight of the photographers and then the leopards, for wondering which of these carnivores was more deadly.
He wore a blue business suit, no tie and a fawn raincoat. You wouldn’t say he had his mother Grace Kelly’s looks, but he has a nice voice and speaks with an American accent. Albert wanted this photocall to go well. He has been trying to rebrand the Principality and attract a younger, more eco-friendly non-dom crowd than Philip Green and Shirley Bassey. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he has a beautiful partner, Charlene Wittstock, a South African swimming champion, indeed a bit of a Grace Kelly lookalike. Their marriage is being planned for September.
Charlene has supported Albert in setting up a foundation to act as a catalyst for environmental projects. This came after he saw the ice melting in the Arctic and hired Belgravia consultants to promote it at his new Mayfair consulate. Sadly, saving the planet didn’t seem to be what people wanted to hear about Monaco. Continuation of zero-tax rating, yes. Sustainable development, whatever.
Then a PR gift dropped out of the sky. The Born Free Foundation, the British animal charity, named after the famous film, offered to rehome Pitou and Sirius in Shamwari reserve near Port Elizabeth. Albert promoted this as an environmental breakthrough. He said the foundation was right that wild animals should be seen in their natural surroundings.
It’s amazing how two animals could do more for Albert than the priciest PR. Agency photographs of him helping to carry the tranquillised leopards from their cage were wired around the world. They said Monaco is changing.
Sandi and Emile made the long trip to Shamwari. Their Louis Vuitton luggage was lost at Johannesburg airport, but it eventually turned up, allowing Sandi and Emile to be the best-dressed safari tourists ever seen on the savannah.
Sandi said the insurance bill for her case would have been $100,000. ‘Well, I did have to buy some new dresses,’ she explained. Emile was wearing blue velvet slip-on shoes with a faux royal crest stitched in gold thread on the toe. Virginia McKenna, founder of the Born Free Foundation, was wearing the same desert boots she made the movie in 40 years ago.
Emile insisted on shouting encouragement as Sandi attempted to release one of the leopards from its travelling cage. It didn’t want to budge. ‘He doesn’t want to leave you, my darling,’ Emile shouted.’ You are more beautiful than the leopard.’ This wasn’t helping and the game wardens suggested Emile cool it.
You have to be careful releasing big cats. Once game wardens tried to push one off the back of a moving truck. The leopard turned around when it hit the dirt, chased the truck and jumped in the back, scaring the hell out of everyone.
There are six excellent game lodges at Shamwari. A photograph of one visitor, Margaret Thatcher, hangs in the hall at Long Lee Manor, which in the 19th century was the home of a Scot who made his fortune mending wagon wheels. Thatcher formally dressed in her signature blue looks more scary than the wild beasts outside the door.
We must wish Albert well. He may be the first leopard to have changed its spots.
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