Good old days
Taki
Gstaad This place made its reputation during the Fifties. It was known as the Mecca of old money and good manners, as opposed to other stations d’hiver, where old people with new money were the rage. We had Bill Buckley, Ken Galbraith, David Niven, Sir Roger Moore, Lord Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, Balthus, even Vladimir Nabokov at times. Death, divorce and old age eventually emptied this beautiful Alpine village of its intellectual uniqueness. Then the peasants got smart and began to build. The Barbarians also got smart, and began to buy. End of story. But not quite. Last week Paris Hilton hit town, and I can’t think of a worse person who could hit a chic resort.
I know, I know, it is not very gallant to pick on a young woman, even if her unquenchable thirst for cheap publicity makes, say, the Beckhams look like Buddhist monks. She’s the prototype of our proletarian values, a rather plain, overmade-up girl who lets a tit or two drop out for the paparazzi when she’s not being videotaped by various men doing what the rest of us do in private. The strange thing is, I know her parents, knew her grandfather, and even had a fist-fight with her great-uncle, Nicky Hilton of Elizabeth Taylor fame. (After it was over — a tie he graciously sent me a bottle of champagne when I was staying at the Beverly Hilton, as it was then called. It was obviously over a woman.) Rick and Cathy Hilton are folksy, pushy and haven’t got a clue. They’re actually quite proud of their two daughters, and all four members of the family employ PR people and are breaking into reality TV shows, whatever that means. The fact that Paris is pulling in ten million big ones on no looks and even less talent makes many people envious, but, as old H.L. Mencken said, ‘No one ever went broke underestimating the public’s taste.’ What I particularly enjoy is Rick’s and Cathy’s lack of shame. The day that the Paris videos appeared last year, I was attending CeeZee Guest’s funeral, oversubscribed with swells and the old guard. Surprisingly, so were the Hiltons, père et mère, and during the lunch that followed they seemed as relaxed as their daughter was in the infamous tape. (Her mobile rang while at it, and she answered it without missing a beat.) Mind you, I sound like a slumped-overmy-deckchair Aschenbach, the twilight feel of old age making me rage against the young. I certainly hope I don’t. I’m simply appalled at the crudeness and vulgarity of our culture. Especially when I see it up front in my beloved Gstaad. Hilton hit us at the same time as the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean. She was with a fellow Greek and six bodyguards, who shoved people around. I’ve never set eyes on the short, swarthy Greek, thank God, but, having been told what he looks like, the only thing that comes to mind is Noël Coward’s famous line — ‘If he had a neck, I’d ring it.’ (It was meant for Claudette Colbert.) And while I’m name-dropping, I met the master once, during Josephine Chaplin’s wedding to my friend Nicky Sistovaris, who died last summer. It was 21 June 1969, and I remember the date because it was my first newspaper assignment ever, for Paris Match. I was the only photographer allowed inside the Chaplin house in Vevey, and like a fool I kept none of the pictures. During the ball in the evening, I was introduced to Sir Noël. ‘I am not a paparazzo,’ I stammered. ‘Of course you’re not, dear boy, although I see the Via Veneto rising behind you ... ’ quipped the great one.
But there I go again, being nostalgic about the good old days. When I told the master how much I had enjoyed a film of his whose name I couldn’t remember — ‘You know the one, when you throw yourself off the roof because of your love for Valerie Hobson ... ’ ‘Actually,’ he replied, ‘it was Anna Neagle, because had it been Valerie Hobson, I would have killed myself for real ... ’ And this just off the top of his head talking to some paparazzo in a crowded ballroom. Yep, those were the days, when even the Archbishop of Canterbury did not question the existence of God, when British diplomats did not view British subjects abroad as vermin, and when young people were taught the difference between right and wrong. Oh yes, I almost forgot, and when coppers on the beat did not single out white, middle-class, law-abiding citizens, but went after real criminals, and zero tolerance of petty crime was the order of the day and night.
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