High life
Snow princess
Taki
Gstaad Thirty years ago I climbed the Wassen- grat daily in the company of Irwin Shaw, who had left his beloved Klosters to be near his son Adam, back then a first year student at the Rosey. Irwin missed Klosters but missed the lack of snow in Gstaad even more. So we walked up mountains the way people do in the summer. Week after week went by and the white stuff never came. In March I said the hell with it and went over to St Moritz. Things improved skiing wise, but my social life took a tumble. Speaking on the telephone with Gianni Agnelli very early one morning, I either misunderstood, or he had been fed wrong information, about the death of King Paul of the Hel- lenes. So I called all the Greeks I knew and told them that the king had died.
Mind you, King Paul had been very ill, so the rich and mighty shipowners of St Moritz began sending telegrams and wreaths to the palace of Tatoi — until later in the day it became clear that King Paul was very much alive. Their joy upon hear- ing the good news, however, soon turned to hate against you know who. For once I was completely innocent, but known already as a prankster, I never had a chance. Tina Onassis, or Tina Blandford as she then was, led the charge. And she was right. It was the most horrible of pranks, except that it was a totally innocent one. (If memory serves, King Paul died a few weeks later.) By that time I was back down at sea level licking my wounds. My friend Gianni had a few laughs at my sudden unpopularity, but never let on whether he was really the orig- inator of the story.
Thirty years later snow history is repeat- ing itself, but I'm happy to announce that the King of Greece is here and is in excel- lent health. King Constantine — I will not refer to him as ex-king Constantine because the referendum that abolished the Greek monarchy was fraudulent — has three sons and two daughters, and Princess Alexia, his eldest child, is a role model for a princess. In fact, had Prince Charles, or even the goofy Prince Andrew, married her the British monarchy would not be in the mess it is today. Needless to say, this is pure hypothesis, as perhaps Alexia would have told both of them to take a hike.
Alexia has a warm and friendly personal- ity, and when I chatted with her while falling down drunk in a nightclub last week, she handled the situation with grace and kindness. The younger British royals should video-tape her and try to copy. Fergie should be forced to look at the tape every day for at least four hours.
But back to the snow. There isn't any, which makes it extremely convenient for the various rich towelheads that now make Gstaad their winter quarters, but very frus- trating for people like your High Life cor- respondent. Thank God the Goulandris clan is here en masse. The Goulandrises are among the richest and oldest of Greek shipping dynasties. In fact, the Goulandris- es were powerful shipowners in the last century, when some of the big names of Greece today were still speaking Turkish and scratching their furry parts. I say thank God for the Goulandris presence because there are other Greeks here who still speak Turkish and continue to scratch you know where. The only difference is they have moolah, lots of it, but even their money and the miracle of electrolysis cannot help their wives. They are fat, ugly, sartorially illiterate, but covered in gold and extremely loud. Until the nouveaux riche Greeks dis- covered Gstaad, the Arabs and the Iranians were the niggers in the woodpile, pun intended. Now some of my fellow country- men and women have joined them. It's bad enough to have to see these people parad- ing themselves at night. Without snow, one has to put up with them during the day, too. Last week I gave a dinner and invited only blond Germans. When we marched into the GreenGo nightclub, so happy were the waiters to see us, they offered us free drinks, an unheard-of happening in Switzerland.
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