65
“Women are like a fine violin: They just need
to be appreciated and bowed properly.”)
Hamilton is hard to pin down on the
least-fun scandal of his life, the Justice
Department’s accusation that he was a front
for the 1980s looting of the Philippine trea-
sury at the hands of Ferdinand and Imelda
Marcos. Hamilton, an unindicted co-con-
spirator in the case, was granted immunity
at the trial. He made headlines testifying
that he’d received a multimillion-dollar loan
from a Marcos associate that he’d used for a
Beverly Hills mansion (later repossessed by
the Manila government) and financed an ill-
fated film about Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s
wartime experiences in the region. When
asked about it now, he blinks in apparent
bewilderment then goes, “Federal case?”
Hamilton, who befriended Imelda when
he participated in her country’s attempt to
create a Southeast Asian answer to Cannes,
has remained a fan of the notorious spend-
thrift. He believes her to be a misunderstood
humanitarian — she personally phoned
Cedars-Sinai when Hamilton’s brother Bill
lay dying, startling the nurse on duty, a
Filipina, into taking special care — and that
the focus on her enormous shoe collection is
“a big to-do about nothing. They’re thought
to be an extravagance, but, as my mother
said, those are the kind of shoes they make
out of a material to match the dress: not the
greatest shoes on Earth.”
Another longtime party pal, arms dealer
Adnan Khashoggi, was indicted in the same
transaction. “I just knew him as an amaz-
ing character and never did any form of
business of any kind with Adnan,” explains
Hamilton. “He was an impish, elfish,
humorous person — always very nice. He
wanted stars around him. It was his world.”
(Both Khashoggi and Marcos were later
acquitted.) As for why he consorted with
the Marcoses in the first place, given that
Ferdinand had placed the country under
martial law a decade earlier, he claims he
was naive at the time of what he chalks up to
broadly as “unrest in the country.”
Hamilton’s at his most forthright when
describing the emotional bond he shares
with his loved ones, such as ex-wife Stewart.
It was his only marriage; the two separated
in 1976 after four years together. Though
she would go on to marry and divorce Rod
Stewart, she and Hamilton remain close.
They had a short-lived mid-’90s morning
syndicated talk show, George & Alana, which
competed with Live With Regis & Kathie Lee.
“He’d always be very warm and outgoing,”
Stewart remembers, adding: “I don’t think
he understood that it’s the guests who were
supposed to talk on the talk show.”
Then again, Hamilton does have more
stories than most. Like about how he got a
look at Elvis Presley in his coffin before his
funeral (the rocker’s manager, Col. Parker,
was a close friend) and saved mourners alamentable final impression by pointing out
the tiny trickle of hair dye running down his
forehead. Or watching his then-girlfriend
Elizabeth Taylor — aboard Khashoggi’s
yacht (later sold to Trump) — in a face-to-
face showdown with a tabloid photographer
brought on board whose roll of negatives of
her topless she’d gotten ahold of. “She looked
at it,” Hamilton recalls, “looked at it side-
ways, and said, ‘Well, this looks rather good.
Let him publish it.’ And she just handed it to
him and everybody went, ‘phew.’ ”
He’s clearly pleased to have so many
tales to tell. But these days, as his life arcs
through its final act, and so many of the
fellow players who shared in those stories
with him are gone, Hamilton acknowledges
a certain wistfulness.
“It’s not depression,” he says. “It’s mel-
ancholy. It’s like the feeling of bubbles
in champagne.”1 Hamilton with future wife
Alana Collins (later Alana Stewart)
in Rome in 1968.
2 With girlfriend Elizabeth Taylor
in 1988 at the Starlight Foundation
Humanitarian Awards.
3 With longtime friend Joan
Collins in 2015.
4 Stewarts & Hamiltons, a 2015
Keeping Up With the Kardashians-
style reality show featuring
Hamilton and his two sons, lasted
one season.
5 Hamilton’s honorary degree
from the International Smart
Tan Network, a trade association
for indoor tanning facilities.5