The Duchess Of Windsor, page 72
In the late 1970s, Blum began quietly selling pieces of furniture, porcelain, and works of art from the Windsor villa to help pay for Wallis’s medical expenses. A few were placed on the open auction market, while others were offered to several of the Windsors’ friends. Nathan and Joanne Cummings, for example, purchased the table from the dining room, along with silver pieces and the famous Meissen Flying Tiger dinner service. By this time, Wallis, lying upstairs and completely helpless, was no longer able to visit the first floor and had no idea that the rooms below were slowly being stripped of their grand fittings.
The remaining collections in the villa, upon Wallis’s death, became entangled in the disposition of her estate. Her principal beneficiary, the Pasteur Institute, had no use for them, and plans were made to auction off the furniture, paintings, and porcelain. It was at this point, in the summer of 1986, that Mohammed al Fayed, Egyptian-born owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris as well as fabled Harrod’s department store in London, stepped in and purchased the contents of the villa outright.
Al Fayed also managed, through the generous offer of Paris mayor Jacques Chirac, to obtain a fifty-year lease of the Windsor villa at a nominal cost. The lease, however, came with a condition: He was to restore the house completely, as it had been in the Windsors’ time, at his own considerable expense. “I am in love with the Windsors’ love story,” he said in an interview.7 He declared his intention of creating a museum dedicated to the Duke and Duchess, using the contents which he had purchased from Wallis’s estate. It was to be a permanent memorial to the royal couple that had lived within its walls.
With the villa under restoration and the majority of the contents purchased by Al Fayed, thoughts turned to the only other item left in Wallis’s estate: her fabled collection of jewelry. David had always expressed the wish that Wallis’s jewels—inscribed with so many private tokens of affection—be broken up after her death so that no other woman could wear them.8 But neither David nor Wallis had made any such provision for their dispersal. After the Duke’s death, designer Hardy Amies asked the Duchess if she would be willing to leave a piece of her jewelry to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. “I guess I could spare a leopard,” she offered. Not realizing that she meant one of her famous jeweled panther bracelets by Jeanne Touissant for Cartier, Amies politely declined. Only later did he realize his mistake.9
At one time, Wallis had considered leaving the pieces to Prince Charles, hoping that his future wife might wear them. But Lord Mountbatten’s aggressive campaign for furniture, porcelain, boxes, swords, and paintings had left Wallis bitter. Lady Monckton, visiting Wallis in the early 1970s, suggested another course of action: “Princess Alexandra and the Duchess of Kent are loyal, hard-working girls, both of them,” she told Wallis, “and they haven’t many jewels. Unless you’ve made other plans, you might remember them.”10
Wallis did indeed leave a few pieces of her jewelry to Princess Alexandra; Katharine, the Duchess of Kent; and Marie Christine, Princess Michael of Kent. A few other pieces were left to Aline, Countess of Romanones, and to the Baronne de Cabrol.11 It was left to Blum to determine the fate of the remaining pieces. Rather than break them up and sell the stones, she decided that they would bring more intact at auction; as all of the money would go to the Pasteur Institute, it was hoped that this deviation from the Duke of Windsor’s wishes would, in the end, prove of greater benefit.
Blum cannot have anticipated the worldwide interest in the auction of Wallis’s jewels. Sotheby’s, in charge of the sale, printed an initial fifteen thousand catalogs; when these quickly sold out, they were forced to republish.12 When the public exhibition opened in Sotheby’s Manhattan showrooms in March 1987, the lines to view the fabled jewels grew so long that people were repeatedly turned away. Police were eventually called out to monitor the situation, and viewing was limited to fifteen minutes in order to move the massive crowds through the building.13 The exhibit also traveled to Palm Beach, Monaco, and Geneva, where the actual auction would take place; a London exhibition was deliberately avoided, as Sotheby‘s officials felt it would somehow be disrespectful to the Royal Family.14
The auction, held beneath a large red-and-white-striped marquee erected in the gardens of the Hotel Beau Rivage, along the shore of Lake Geneva, began precisely at nine on the evening of April 2. Fifteen hundred people filled the tent, among them Prince Serge of Yugoslavia; Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia; Princess Firyal of Jordan; the Princess of Naples; Infanta Beatriz of Spain; Baroness Thyssen-Bornemisza; and Wallis’s friends Aline, Countess of Romanones and Grace, Lady Dudley. Another seven hundred people watched the auction on closed-circuit television in the hotel’s ballroom, and satellite links provided coverage to New York and London. Over 250 journalists, fashion experts, and television reporters surrounded the tent and hotel, their arc lights and flashbulbs providing a certain theatrical touch.15
There were to be two sessions. Nicholas Rayner, Sotheby‘s Geneva jewelry expert, began the auction with a ruby-and-sapphire-bead clip. The estimate was 7,000 francs; it sold for 65,000 francs, the first sign that the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels would likely break all previous auction records. One by one, piece by piece, Wallis’s collection was dispersed: pearls to Japan, diamonds to New York, amethysts to Los Angeles. Actress Elizabeth Taylor, who had previously admired the large diamond-and-platinum Prince of Wales’s feathers brooch, purchased it for $567,000. Other pieces went to fashion designer Calvin Klein and Hollywood divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson. With each lot, the level of excitement grew. “People,” wrote author Dominick Dunne, “realized that they were present at an event, engaged in the heady adventure of watching rich people acting rich, participating in a rite available only to them, the spending of big money, without a moment‘s hesitation or consideration.... Powdered bosoms heaved in fiscal excitement at big bucks spent. Each time the bidding got into the million-dollar range, for one of the ten or so world-class stones in the collection, the tension resembled the frenzy at a cockfight.”16 At the end of the two days, the auction had raised $50,281,887, more than seven times its presale estimates. The money was welcome at the Pasteur Institute, which it used to fund AIDS research.
Perhaps it was fortunate that Maître Suzanne Blum, who had so zealously guarded their legacy and relentlessly defended the Duke and Duchess in what seemed to be the eternal campaign waged against them by the British Royal Family, died in January 1994, before what one of the Windsors’ friends has termed “the Royal Family’s final revenge.”17 In 1996, British and American television premiered a new documentary on Wallis and David, a two-hour look at their lives after the abdication. In keeping with the general tone of both books and television specials following Wallis’s death, this program was highly critical in tone; but it had one distinction which set it apart from all other media attention: Edward on Edward had been written and produced by Prince Edward, Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest son.
Aside from a few brief comments scattered over the years in memoirs and the occasional interview, this program was the first attempt by any member of the Royal Family to address the legacy of the Duke and Duchess. Coming from Elizabeth II’s son and the Queen Mother’s grandson, it was presumed to carry some form of royal approval as well as to convey their true feelings about the Windsors. Prince Edward interviewed many of the Windsors’ friends, along with diplomats, those involved in the Nazi plot in Spain and Portugal in 1940, and former members of the household in Paris.
Others, however, were wary of participating in any film on the Windsors produced by a member of the very family which had never forgiven either the Duke or the Duchess for what some choose to perceive as their offenses. Several of the Windsors’ acquaintances refused to cooperate, while others required many reassurances. Janine Metz at first declined Prince Edward’s request. The Prince, however, made several overtures to the former secretary, declaring that it would be “the film of reconciliation” between his family and the Duke and Duchess and assuring her that what she said would be faithfully reproduced in the final version. With some trepidation, Metz finally acquiesced and submitted to the filmed interviews, which would be pieced together, along with new footage and old newsreels, to form the documentary.18
Janine Metz was one of the specially invited audience who attended the American premiere at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City in June 1996. Many of the Americans who had participated in the film were there as well, along with Prince Edward himself, who had come from London for the event. After thanking the audience, Edward settled in to watch the documentary along with his guests.
A few weeks earlier, in an article in Hello! designed to coincide with the British television premiere, the Prince had inadvertently given a taste of what was to come. “People,” he declared of the Duke and Duchess, “would enthuse about him, but could say little about her. She was a much more difficult character to understand or get close to. Perhaps contrary to expectations, she seems to have been a much more reserved and secretive person. Then again, she might have been a bit superficial—fun, quick-witted, gossipy, with no real personality.”19 This rather unsubtle suggestion would set the tone for the documentary which followed.
If there was any lingering doubt that this was to be the Royal Family’s view of the Duke and Duchess’s story, it was quickly put to rest. In the opening sentences of the program, Prince Edward spoke of the “appalling shock” which David had “inflicted upon his family.” He proceeded to add that there were still many “who cannot forgive him or her for that,” shifting the blame for the abdication crisis toward Wallis, in complete contradiction of the historical record.
The Prince’s commentary was emphatic as to the effects of the abdication. He declared that it had brought David “into conflict with everyone from the government to the man in the streets,” again ignoring the historical divide in public opinion at the time. He was particularly hard on the Duchess: “Wallis is often depicted as hard, ambitious and grasping,” he announced. “There were other, much worse descriptions flying around as well.” Edward himself apparently felt no need to correct these assumptions or present alternatives to them, leaving these “much worse descriptions” to the imaginations of his viewers. Tales of the Windsors’ frivolous style of life, their obsession with money, and their sordid friendships were repeated with little or no attempt to present an alternative view. Wallis’s relationship with Jimmy Donahue was declared outright to have been an affair, and John Richardson was allowed to repeat stories from Donahue himself without any warning that the Woolworth heir had been an acknowledged liar. Worst of all was Edward’s treatment of the Nazi plot to kidnap the Windsors: Speaking of the Duke’s requests that Wallis be received and that he be given a proper job, he says, in absolute opposition to the written record, that “it is quite possible that the Duchess was behind much of it.”20 Few of those interviewed spoke favorably of the Duke and Duchess, and those who did were reduced to brief appearances. In contradiction to what Prince Edward had promised, Janine Metz found that virtually none of her serious comments about the life of the Windsors, their charity work and her correction of the rumors surrounding them—the very reasons she had agreed to cooperate with the Prince—had been used.
At the end of the premiere, Metz felt so betrayed that she quickly exited the theater. Prince Edward spotted her and asked, “How did you like the film?”
“I feel sick at what I’ve just seen and heard,” she told him. She began to explain how disappointed she was in the treatment of the Windsors when John Richardson approached. He began to put his arm around her shoulder, but Madame Metz pushed him away. “How dare you come to me after saying the lies that you said!” she declared.
Meanwhile, Prince Edward continued to stand in silence. He appeared utterly confused and stared pointedly at the floor as Metz walked away. “I don’t think anyone had ever spoken to him before with such frankness,” she says. A short time later, he approached the former secretary once again, asking why she was so upset.
“That film was a lie from the beginning to the end!” she told him. She felt particularly betrayed that the gossip about the Windsors seeking discounts and not paying their bills—rumors which she had carefully corrected in the portions of her interview which had been edited out—had been given such prominence in a film which she had been told was to correct the misconceptions. The Prince tried to object, but Madame Metz was clearly angry and, as she says, “filled with great sorrow at how he had betrayed the Duke and Duchess.” “Of course,” she said to Edward, “you couldn’t do anything else because of your family.”21
Prince Edward’s cameras would, ironically, be among the last to capture the restored interior of the Windsor Villa in Paris. Mohammed al Fayed had taken great pains to faithfully copy everything as it had been during the Windsors’ lives. He managed to repurchase many of the pieces which Blum had sold and even successfully bid on the Duke’s ceremonial swords and military souvenirs which had been auctioned off along with Wallis’s jewels in Geneva in April 1987. Al Fayed transformed the former secretaries’ office on the first floor into a small Windsor museum, with glass shelves and display cases holding personal memorabilia, including letters, their scrapbooks, and some of the hundreds of photographs and papers which had been discovered beneath the mahogany cover of the Duke’s bathtub. An additional two museum rooms were created in the basement to display the royal souvenirs.22
Al Fayed decided he wished to live in the Windsor Villa, and so the attic story was converted into a small flat. The restoration was complete, and cataloging of the collection well under way, but al Fayed did little to encourage visits to the house. Although he encouraged and welcomed celebrity visits, he proved less amenable to those with a genuine interest in the Duke and Duchess. Erna Bringe, a member of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor Society in America, recalls: “I did have his approval at one time to visit the house, but I had to find ten others willing to pay the price to stay at the Paris Ritz in order to make it worth his while.”23
For those who did gain admittance, al Fayed had published a small souvenir booklet describing the restoration of the house and the collection within. “It is certain,” he declared confidently, “that future generations will come here to inspect the souvenirs of the most famous love story of the 20th century, in the way that tourists go to Verona to speculate on the exact position of the balcony under which Romeo professed his love for Juliet. If we had not acted swiftly the furniture, the works of art, the effects and personal objects of the Duke and Duchess would have disappeared to the four corners of the globe.”24
Despite his assurances that his Windsor museum would survive for “future generations,” al Fayed, in 1997, made the startling announcement that, in September, Sotheby’s would auction off the entire contents of the restored villa. “I think time for me to enjoy the house,” he explained in an interview, “because it’s difficult with five kids just to live in a museum.... I think its time for me, for the whole world to enjoy, you know, I think everyone can have a souvenir from the love story of the century, its nice to restruct all that and just bring it back to life for people and for future generations.” Christiane Sherwen, in charge of the Windsor archive al Fayed had assembled, added: “What do you do? The place is too small to be a museum and you cannot have people passing through and so, as with all human things, it’s going to be dispersed.... One would maybe like to keep it together, but it’s not a real proposition.”25
These rather peculiar explanations raised more than a few eyebrows. Mohammed al Fayed certainly did not need the money which the sale of the Windsor possessions would bring; nor was his declaration that his children needed additional space any more convincing. Al Fayed was wealthy enough to purchase five separate villas in Paris for his children if they felt cramped. If he truly adored the Windsor villa as a structure, it would have been a simple matter to transfer its carefully accumulated contents to a regular museum or even to found a permanent memorial to the Duke and Duchess where their belongings could be enjoyed by the public and utilized by historians for decades to come. “How much nicer it would have been for the entire collection to have been preserved,” wrote editor Ingrid Seward in Majesty magazine, “not in the house in Paris, but in a museum in London with a fee-paying public being granted access to a piece of living history.”26
But the Windsor auction, scheduled to begin in New York the third week of September 1997, did not take place as planned. On August 31, just after midnight, the Mercedes carrying Diana, Princess of Wales; Dodi, Mohammed al Fayed’s son; bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones; and driver Henri Paul veered out of control and smashed into one of the concrete support piers in the Place de l‘Alma tunnel in Paris. Paul, whose body was later found to contain nearly three times the legal limit of alcohol—along with a mixture of antidepressants and other drugs—was killed instantly, his spinal cord severed by the column of the steering wheel. Dodi Fayed, seated on the left rear, also died on impact. Rees-Jones, the only passenger in the car wearing a seat belt, was severely injured and his face lacerated. Seated immediately behind him, Diana suffered a ruptured pulmonary artery but despite her internal injuries was not killed. Although the French paramedics were on the scene within a few minutes, the Princess did not arrive at La Pitie-Salpêtrière Hospital until some ninety minutes had elapsed, during which time her internal injuries went untreated. At four that morning, she was officially pronounced dead.
