Tatler UK - 09.2019

tatler.com Tatler September 2019

preferred his previous ‘distingué’ style; ‘Distin-

gué?’ said Nicky. ‘That’s the last thing I want. I

want to look like a complete slut.’ Mick Jagger,

Jerry Hall, Ringo Starr and Michael Heseltine

were in attendance. Nicky cried quite a lot, as

did those who were not invited. One ‘very old

friend’ wrote to the The Spectator’s agony aunt,

Mary Killen, asking why he’d not received an

invitation. To which Nicky himself replied, ‘If

you’re a very old friend, then that explains why

you were not invited. I only had the rich, the

young and the glamorous.’

Witty, that, but not the true Nicky. As Sarah

Standing says, Nicky has ‘a unique ability to go

both up and down, and get the same enjoy-

ment from each. From white-tie dinners to

breakfast in a workman’s caff, not only will

Nicky be on flying form and fully engaged, he’ll

also know nearly everyone there.’ Sometimes

only too well: Nicky was talking to Graydon

Carter at a Vanity Fair Oscar party when the

subject of the great screen siren Lana Turner

came up. ‘And,’ says Carter, ‘I told Nicky we

had three men in the room who had slept with

both Lana Turner and Ava Gardner: [the band

leader] Artie Shaw, [the producer] Robert

Evans and Kirk Douglas. “That’s interesting,”

Nicky said. He had slept with one of the men.’

He may like a working men’s caff – but he

prefers a star.

So what, says Hannah Rothschild: ‘You

might expect the offspring of Queen Victoria’s

goddaughter to be a snob – he is – but his

crusade is not about class or money but about

pretentiousness or misplaced sentimentality.

God help those who love their mothers, eat

sushi with serviettes or burn scented candles in

the South of France. And God bless Nicky.’

Absolutely. The great man himself lacks self-

pity – when suffering from cancer, he declared,

‘I loved the chemo, the pills kept me bouncing’

• and attributes his longevity to ‘luck. And not
  taking any exercise. Life is an exercise.’ Any
  regrets? ‘That I wasn’t a porn star.’ So no secret
  sex tapes? ‘No. Not yet. Longing for one.’ And
  might there be a party to celebrate his 80th?
  ‘There’s nothing yet planned...’
  There ought to be – perhaps even a day of
  national celebration. Nicky is a one-off wonder,
  determined in his pursuit of happiness, dis-
  criminating in his sense of style, a treasure
  house of gossip, gallantry and wit, a man of
  strong opinions and wise words – about the
  important and the trivial. For there is, as he says,
  ‘nothing worse than wrinkled socks. A shabby
  ankle is unforgivably hideous.’ (

‘God help those who love

their mothers, eat sushi

with serviettes or

burn scented candles

in the South of France’

With Eddie

Redmayne, 2013

With the Duchess of

Cornwall, 2014

With Sally, Countess of Albemarle, 2018

With Countess Debonnaire von Bismarck, 2019

With Lady Antonia Fraser, 2019

With Lord & Lady Frederick

Windsor, 2014

With Bianca Jagger, 2015

With Jude Law, 2017

PHOTOGRAPHS: GETTY IMAGES; SHUTTERSTOCK; RICHARD YOUNG

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