Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Interior designer and socialite known for throwing celebrated parties and counting Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart among his clients.
On the island
Eight records
Well, this is Maria Callas, who I've always admired above any other opera singer, I think, singing De Puiles Jour from Charpentier's opera Louise. It's rather a dull opera, but it does have this most ravishing aria in it. And I once sent it to um the Princess of Wales, saying I think this is the most beautiful noise I ever heard, and she agreed.
It's Nat Gonella singing The Isle of Capri, and it's the first noise in the sense that I remember. I remember when I was three or four climbing into my mother's bed in the morning and hearing this song. And of course I haven't heard it since, so you're brilliant to have found it.
You're Just in LoveFavourite
I just wanted to be Ethel Merman from that minute on. And this is her singing You're Just In Love with Dick Himes from Call Me Murder.
He once told me that Lee Wiley was his favourite singer, and this is her singing his song, Why Shouldn't I?
I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and Blue Velvet came on the radio, on the on the wires. And I just remember it being a sort of such a wonderful moment, and this extraordinarily sensual.
Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year
Well, I've always adored the the voice of Deanna Durbin, partly because she was the inspiration for Maria Callis... And this is Deanna Durbin singing the most beautiful song I think ever written by Frank Lasser.
Well, the next uh the Strauss is very important to me because when I was fifteen or sixteen I met somebody called Reimer von Hoffmannstahl... And this is René Fleming, who I absolutely love as a person, singing the final act of Daphne.
The last thing is m my great great friend Brown Ferry, whose eldest son is my godson who I've known for thirty years now and I'm really is one of my closest friends in the world. Well everything he does I think he's a great poet, a great lyricist and a great musician too, but more than this is to me one of his masterpieces.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:33Why have you felt comfortable enough to be open about [having a facelift]?
Partly because I I just simply couldn't afford to be away from work and I went to I went to work the next day after I'd had it. wearing a a big hat and sunglasses, and my face was the size of a football.
Presenter asks
6:57What was the look you were going for [when you started altering your appearance]?
I suppose it was several different looks. I mean, I'd see people in in the street and say I want to look like that either Punk or Liam Gallagher or just people I admired. I'm a terrible copycat and Shamelian. I quite like looking like other people. I'm not very keen on my own looks is the truth. I'd quite like to make myself different. I quite like disguise in a funny way.
Presenter asks
9:50How did your parents deal with [you contracting polio]?
They were. They were well, the doctor said if he lives he'll never walk, I know I had it pretty badly. But, um, pretty soon that obviously I would would be alive and it just became a frightful bore, really, me in this little shell, um, lying flat for ages and ages.
The keepsakes
The book
Sybille Bedford
It's a trio of novels that all linked together from eighteen ninety to the present day. And it's just such a brilliantly beautiful book.
The luxury
A painting from 18th-century France, such as 'The Swing' by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
a sort of wonderful eighteenth century picture to remind me of what I love the eighteenth century France.
Presenter asks
11:21What are your memories from childhood of your father?
He was v very, very well read. He was romantic in a certain sense that he loved the Italy and f um of Spain and the and the past. But he wasn't romantic as a person, and he wasn't very tender. He he was rather remote, rather removed, very good looking, nicely dressed... He was slightly enigmatic, as my mother was to find out when she fell in love with him. He wasn't easy. But he was very attractive, certainly.
Presenter asks
19:44In your eyes, what sort of person was [Wallis Simpson]?
Well, I I absolutely loved her. She was fun. The word is sassy. She just was sassy. She wasn't well read. She wasn't bright, but she was she just knew how to make the party go. I thought she was extraordinary.
Presenter asks
23:17What is it that you bring to [your clients'] homes that they can't bring themselves?
I think I bring a kind of knowledge of what a room should look like instinctively, and I think people understand that in me. I think houses speak. Rooms speak. They have they have a message. They say, Do this to me and don't do that to me. And my philosophy, the room speaks first, the client speaks next, and then I have the overall view.
“I think good taste can be a bit dead.”
“I'm a terrible copycat and Shamelian. I quite like looking like other people. I'm not very keen on my own looks is the truth. I'd quite like to make myself different. I quite like disguise in a funny way.”
“I think I have fun almost all the time. It's so awful. Isn't that awful to say that? I'm so unserious. I I I'm not sure I can distinguish between fascination and fun and knowledge and everything. They all it all seems to mould together to form a former life, former philosophy.”