Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: After Andy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1963
WEBSITE:
CITY: Paris
STATE:
COUNTRY: France
NATIONALITY: British
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/08/natasha-fraser-cavassonis-memoir-after-andy-offers-a-fresh-look-at-andy-warhol
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2002041205
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2002041205
HEADING: Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha, 1963-
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400 1_ |a Cavassoni, Natasha Fraser-, |d 1963-
670 __ |a Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha. Sam Spiegel, c2002: |b CIP t.p. (Natasha Fraser Cavassoni) data sheet (b. Mar. 10, 1963)
670 __ |a amazon.com, October 23, 2017 |b (Bonpoint, by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni (2017); Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is a British fashion journalist who has collaborated with many designers; she worked at Chanel for many years; her books include Loulou de la Falaise and Dior Glamour)
670 __ |a The Daily Front Row, via WWW, October 23, 2017 |b (October 24, 2014 edition; Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni Celebrates The Launch Of Monsieur Dior Once Upon A Time; British-born, Paris-based Fraser-Cavassoni has had quite a storied career in fashion and art, having worked at Andy Warhol’s studio just before he died and thereafter, plus a stint at Interview; she spent eight years working as the European arts editor for WWD and W, she was Harper’s Bazzar’s European editor for five years, and now writes for various fashion publications including Vogue as well as The Telegraph and The Financial Times)
953 __ |a lg31
PERSONAL
Born March 10, 1963.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Fashion journalist and writer. Harper’s Bazaar, European editor, 1999-2004. Has also worked at Andy Warhol’s studio; worked as the European arts editor for WWD and W.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Women’s Wear Daily and W.
SIDELIGHTS
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is British a fashion journalist and writer. She worked as the European editor for Harper’s Bazaar from 1999 until 2004. Fraser-Cavassoni has also written for Women’s Wear Daily and W.
Sam Spiegel
In 2003 Fraser-Cavassoni published the biography Sam Spiegel: The Incredible Life and Times of Hollywood’s Most Iconoclastic Producer. The account covers celebrated film producer Sam Spiegel’s professional career and shady personal life. Fraser-Cavassoni, who had some experience working with Spiegel, also highlights a number of his professional and personal relationships.
Writing in Library Journal, Stephen Rees opined that “in the absence of an autobiography, this book is a valuable look at a colorful, iconoclastic.” A contributor to the Economist commented that “Fraser-Cavassoni gives free rein to the gossip. Her book is thoroughly researched and entertaining, though lightly edited for grammar. For all the good stories, this reader was left wondering what made Spiegel run. His biographer is probably not to blame: no one, it seems, knew.” Writing in Variety, Wendy Smith mentioned that “Fraser-Cavassoni’s formidable research and analytical skills are more impressive than her agreeable but rather sloppy prose.” Smith stated: “As the author moves into the creative prime that began with Spiegel’s 1951 production of The African Queen and ended in 1962 with Lawrence of Arabia (his third best picture Oscar), movie buffs will recognize many oft-told tales.” In a review in Hollywood Reporter, Michael R. Farkash pointed out the many “compelling anecdotes” in the text. Farkash concluded that “if there’s a lesson to be gleaned from Sam Spiegel, it’s this: A strong producer with charisma, chutzpah, tenacity and passion can put together ‘impossible’ film projects—even as his creative bookkeeping becomes a place where studio accountants fear to tread.” A Publishers Weekly contributor found that “the result is a fantastic biography on the rise of one of Hollywood’s most flamboyant personalities.”
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described the book as being a “superb bio of the high living, larger-than-life film producer, spellbindingly detailed by Harper’s Bazaar European editor Fraser-Cavassoni.” In an article in Spectator, Helen Osborne recorded that “Fraser-Cavassoni worked for Spiegel in 1983 on his last movie, Betrayal, by Harold Pinter, her stepfather. The glory days were long past, but she was captivated and intrigued by the ageing scamp, who had not entirely lost his sparkle or his line-up on increasingly younger girls, the Spiegelettes.” In a review in the London Guardian, Simon Callow observed that all throughout the account, Spiegel “is called ‘educated’, ‘sophisticated’, ‘of unusual intellectual breadth’, but we never know how he acquired this education or what he felt about anything other than how to make movies. It is no reproach to Fraser-Cavassoni to say that to convey Spiegel’s outrageous charm requires the skill of a novelist, an Isherwood or a Scott Fitzgerald.” Callow also observed that “there is a melancholy thread through the book, a certain joylessness, as if Spiegel were driven from one thing to another without fully engaging with anything.”Callow mentioned that “in one of many stimulating interventions, Nichols (whom he preferred not actually to work with) describes Spiegel as ‘the very soul of true ideas in a movie—the mystery and the contrast’. Fraser-Cavassoni’s book, thorough and admirable in many ways, fails to take us into the mystery, or to let us know the man.”
After Andy
Fraser-Cavassoni published After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land in 2017. Fraser-Cavassoni chronicles the glitz and glamour of Warhol’s life. Fraser-Cavassoni, who began working for Warhol shortly before his death, also includes her own personal connection to Warhol’s world.
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews said that Fraser-Cavassoni “treatment of Hughes’ allegiance to the artist and painful physical decline following his death … aptly tempers the high-fashion celebrity circus the author knows so well.” In a review in the London Daily Mail, Craig Brown said that “perhaps to justify purloining Andy’s name for the title of her book, she then feels duty-bound to write a lot of earnest fifth-form stuff about the legacy of Warhol, ‘a prophet-like artist whose impact continues to surprise and remains omnipresent’. And for those who may not have heard of Picasso, she helpfully describes him as ‘the fecund and ever-popular Spanish artist’. These dutiful passages make one yearn for the shameless downmarket joie-de-vivre of her nights on the tiles with Minnie and Mickey.”A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that “it is a breezy account in which chapter topics dissolve into lengthy detours.”
Writing in Rolling Stone, Nick Ripatrazone noted that “although Fraser-Cavassoni’s name drops could fill an encyclopedia, After Andy remains grounded in that ‘keep the lights on’ work ethic, one she says Jagger shared with her mother, Pinter and Karl Lagerfeld–who she assisted at the Chanel studio.” Ripatrazone pointed out that a “sense of ebullience that speeds the reader through After Andy, but Fraser-Cavassoni slows the narrative down at exactly the right moments. She’s a careful caretaker of Warhol’s legend. One of her later chapters in the book is titled ‘Warhol Land Continues to Haunt,’ and After Andy captures the artist’s almost otherworldly staying power.” Ripatrazone concluded by calling the book “an entertaining ride about work, play and the weirdness in-between that creates great art.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Daily Mail (London, England), October 21, 2017, Craig Brown, review of After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land.
Economist, February 22, 2003, review of Sam Spiegel: The Incredible Life and Times of Hollywood’s Most Iconoclastic Producer.
Guardian (London, England), May 9, 2003, Simon Callow, review of Sam Spiegel.
Hollywood Reporter, June 11, 2003, Michael R. Farkash, review of Sam Spiegel, p. 12.
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2003, review of Sam Spiegel, p. 37; June 15, 2017, review of After Andy.
Library Journal, February 15, 2003, Stephen Rees, review of Sam Spiegel, p. 141.
New York Times Book Review, April 13, 2003, Linda Lee, “A Night Out with–Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni;” August 5, 2017, Alexandra Jacobs, “Of Mice and Men like Mick Jagger: A Literary Scion Tells All.”
Publishers Weekly, January 20, 2003, review of Sam Spiegel, p. 64; June 26, 2017, review of After Andy, p. 169.
Rolling Stone, August 2, 2017, Nick Ripatrazone, review of After Andy.
Spectator, April 26, 2003, Helen Osborne, review of Sam Spiegel, p. 41.
Telegraph (London, England), March 19, 2003, Philip Delves, “I Thought I Was Too Unoriginal to Write.”
Vanity Fair, August 2, 2017, Julia Vitale, “Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni’s Memoir, After Andy, Offers a Fresh Look at Andy Warhol.”
Variety, April 14, 2003, Wendy Smith, review of Sam Spiegel, p. 32.
Vogue, June 4, 2006, Laird Borrelli, “Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni Revisits Andy Warhol and ’80s New York in a New Book.”
ONLINE
Alain Elkann, http://alainelkanninterviews.com/ (August 27, 2017), author interview.
Glass, http://www.theglassmagazine.com/ (November 18, 2014), Livia Feltham, review of Monsieur Dior: Once upon a Time.
Hasty Book List, https://www.hastybooklist.com/ (January 11, 2018), Joyce Carol Oates, author interview.
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni’s Memoir, After Andy, Offers a Fresh Look at Andy Warhol
The last person to be hired at Warhol’s Factory before the artist’s death, Fraser-Cavassoni captures the late Pop artist in all his contradictions, and reveals her own secrets, including an affair with Mick Jagger.
by JULIA VITALE
AUGUST 2, 2017 9:49 AM
By Alan Davidson/SilverHub (Natasha and Andy); From Blue Rider Press (Cover).
By Alan Davidson/SilverHub (Natasha and Andy); From Blue Rider Press (Cover).
Alan Davidson/SilverHub
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni isn’t one to hold back. In an interview from her home in Paris, the journalist, author of biographies on Sam Spiegel and Loulou de la Falaise, and social butterfly touched on everything—or, everyone—from her family (Natasha’s mother is the best-selling author Lady Antonia Fraser, her father was a Conservative MP, and her stepfather was the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter) and a young Donald Trump (socially avoidable even back then), to Mick Jagger and her long-rumored affair with the musician (“I wanted the tone of the book to be ‘I admit’—I did take cocaine, I did do this and that . . . ”).
“When I moved to Manhattan, Andy Warhol’s memorial was my first New York society event”—so begins Fraser-Cavassoni’s After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land, the author’s Warhol-themed memoir about her time in 1970s London, 1980s New York, and 1990s Paris. Her vision for the book: for it to “feel like Andy’s work—as light as you want it to be, or as layered.” Commentary on Warhol is all but scarce, but given the resurgence in popularity of his art and times since his death in 1987, people might forget the tough period Warhol faced at the end of his life, when his art lacked the critical acclaim of his earlier, immensely successful Marilyns and Campbell’s Soup cans; this was just a small portion of the untrodden territory Fraser-Cavassoni noticed, and which she set about bringing to life in her memoir. “I think we’ve had all the misery memoirs. I wanted people to have a good time, and also to discover new things about Warhol.” Here, the author discusses her inspiration for the book, her take on the iconic Pop artist, and her own experiences in Warhol’s inner circle and beyond.
Vanity Fair: What inspired you to write a Warhol-centric memoir?
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni: I was in Chicago visiting the Art Institute, and I suddenly was hit by a giant Mao [Warhol’s 1973 painting of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong]. I was completely dumbstruck by its size, and I was reminded of my relationship with Andy.
Watch Now: Adam Devine, Blake Anderson & Anders Holm Improvise a PowerPoint Presentation
Because of my privileged background, because of who my parents were, I met prime ministers, I met film stars, I met . . . you name it. And I always had a really good feeling about Andy.
There’s so much written on Warhol already. How did you decide what you wanted to write about?
I spoke to one person about the 60s, and I realized it was well-trodden territory.
What I loved about [V.F. Special Correspondent] Bob Colacello’s book [Holy Terror, re-published in 2014] is how it talks about the 70s. Similarly, I really wanted to focus on subjects I hadn’t read about elsewhere, like the well-born British women on the Factory scene, dubbed the “English Muffins.” It’s something that people in the know knew about, these women who were employed because they were useful to Andy’s image and all that. These women captured the time; people can’t imagine that now. You can’t imagine employing people just because they’d be good socially, or be able to hang out with the Rolling Stones whilst checking that they weren’t wrecking Andy’s Montauk house . . .
Also, I thought it was very interesting that Fred Hughes (Warhol’s manager) had this apartment in Paris; the Parisians really like Warhol, they always thought he was the great American artist. And I’d never read about that. When Warhol died, it just wasn’t happening for him with the American establishment. But for the French, he was always a great artist.
What aspects of Warhol’s personality and work do you think have slipped through the cracks?
I think what people might not realize about Andy was that he was so self-effacing. I was so interested to discover that he kept his own work in the closet, and other people’s art hanging on the walls. And that he referred to his 60s work as his “rainy-day” paintings.
Having looked at other people’s lives—Spiegel’s, Loulou’s . . . there tends to be a beginning, middle, and end. But what was so fascinating about Andy was that he kept on going; he never rested on his laurels. So much was against him when he died, and he just kept on going.
Another thing no one really talks about is Andy’s father and his influence on Andy. He didn’t come from a world of artists [Warhol’s father worked as a coal miner], and yet he knew to leave money for his youngest son to become an artist. He realized that his son had a gift, and I find that so impressive.
How did Warhol’s reaction to the public’s perception of him differ from the celebrities we see now?
Andy was of the school of “Oh, better be written about than not,” like our great English wit Oscar Wilde said. Nowadays, we’re surrounded by people who are always cleaning up, and Andy didn’t. He contradicted his own need to seem deeply superficial, like when he was asked about Pablo Picasso and replied, “I only think about Paloma,” and then Vincent Fremont revealed that the one artist [Warhol felt] he was in competition with was in fact Picasso. He would flip—it was part of his image to never read, and yet Bob Colacello says he did read. . . . Perhaps his reputation suffered from this, but Andy didn’t clean up.
What do you think unites your experiences with Warhol’s and with the other personalities in your book?
If I had to choose one thing, it would be the importance we all saw in working—in getting up in the morning. The characters in the book are many, but the ones who fare best are the ones like Karl Lagerfeld [with whom the author worked closely at Chanel in Paris after her time at Warhol’s Factory], like Mick Jagger, and like Andy . . . all these people, they’re still standing, to quote Elton John. And I think that’s telling, because pretty parties aren’t enough. I think what’s interesting is who keeps working and remains relevant, and I very much kept that in mind when writing the book.
The book was the first time you publicly revealed your affair with Mick Jagger. Why now?
It just seemed right. I saw him recently at my brother’s 50th, and I said to him, “Listen, I’m writing about you, but I’m only writing about you in glowing terms.” And he said, “Oh, I like to be written about glowingly,” which is so Mick.
I think [Warhol’s] portraits of Mick are amazing, because they capture his androgynousness, they capture that charisma . . . I think they’re very multi-dimensional. So when I was writing this book, I felt like I needed to talk about Mick. And also, I think Mick Jagger is a perfect example of someone who is still standing, who has an incredible work ethic, and who remains motivated. And he’s kept relevant; when my nieces went to Glastonbury, who did they keep going on about? The Rolling Stones.
Do you have any advice for young creatives?
When you’re young, you can’t be grand; you’ve got to get rid of your ego. You need to take entitlement out of the picture full stop. I always knew one thing, and it was something I got from my mother: that I was never going to be financially reliant on a man. And it wasn’t as if I was earning . . . I mean, hello, my first job paid 60 pounds per month, but I always had this thing that I had to work.
Also: never take anything personally. You just can’t. People can be in a bad mood. You cannot take it personally. And I think that’s the best advice ever; it was first said to me by Christian Louboutin.
Lastly, make sure your C.V. is a single page, because no one looks further. And make it up! Be a bit crafty . . .
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Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Aug 27, 2017
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is the author of Sam Spiegel, Tino Zervudachi, Loulou de la Falaise, Monsieur Dior, BiYan and Vogue on Yves Saint Laurent. Fraser-Cavassoni was the European Editor for Harper’s Bazaar from 1999-2004 after serving as a staff member and journalist at Women’s Wear Daily and W magazine. She lives in Paris with her two daughters.
How would you describe your new book, After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land, published in New York by Blue Rider Press?
After Andy is a memoir of my early life using Andy Warhol as a thread. He was there at key moments starting from the age of sixteen. The book ends in 1994 and, in writing style, is very inspired by Andy’s work. By that, I mean, After Andy is as light or as layered as the reader decides.
After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni. Jacket cover – publisher: Blue Rider Press, 2017
Why do you start with the memorial that took place on April 1 1987 in St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York?
I started with a memorial because a strong, relevant scene is a great way to introduce the main characters. In this case, it was Fred Hughes (Warhol’s business manager,) Vincent Fremont (who ran Warhol’s studio) as well as famous artists and fashion designers. Andy was Mr New York, and his memorial was my personal introduction to New York. I’d been to Manhattan before, but I’d never seen all these people together, “people” who I would eventually get to know and present in After Andy.
In fact, you had been hired by Warhol’s studio only four days before he died?
I was hired for Andy’s MTV programme Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes. It was very exciting. That was on Thursday. Sadly, I am one of the few people to see him just before he checked into hospital on Friday; and then he died on Sunday. He checked into the hospital under the pseudonym of Bob Roberts.
The book turns to your own family and childhood. Do you have an extraordinary family?
Yes, it is a memoir as I said. I don’t know if my family is extraordinary but everyone feels very authentic. My siblings and I were lucky to have parents who were doing something with their lives. Our mother is Antonia Fraser, the best selling writer, and our father Hugh Fraser was a conservative politician. Although my mother was very famous, my father made much more of an impact on me. Writing is a solitary profession whereas a politician’s life is much more inclusive. I can still remember canvassing for him during the British elections. It was fun and sharpened my social skills.
You were very influenced by your parent’s strong work ethic?
True, I did not go to university, but I have always had to earn my keep and I love that. A decadent life has never appealed. And that’s what I really liked about Warhol. He had a strong work ethic and often said, “I’ve got to keep the lights on.” Warhol was financially responsible. It’s good to be an artist but you have to pay the bills too. Throughout After Andy, I have purposely focused on people who have kept relevant via their strong work ethic whether they’re Harold Pinter or Mick Jagger or Karl Lagerfeld or Christian Louboutin.
Yet like Proust and Warhol you are fascinated by famous people?
I am more interested in talented people. When they’re very lucky they can become famous and make a financial career from it. But the business of fame is quite destructive. Extreme intelligence is required.
Champagne party held in honour of Andy Warhol at Regine’s Nightclub, Kensington. February 7th 1980. Andy Warhol and Natasha Fraser, taken by Alan Davidson.
In the book you give a lot of space to Fred Hughes, Andy Warhol’s business manager, who was not so publicly well known. Why did you make him one of the protagonists of the book?
Fred Hughes was Andy’s eminence grise in many ways. We mustn’t forget that after Andy’s assassination attempt in 1968, the American art establishment turned its back on the Pop artist and said his talent had dried up. Fred understood the situation and thanks to his taste, intelligence and contacts, he made Warhol into an international figure. It was also Fred’s idea to create a partnership with the powerful Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger who setup the society portraits – nicknamed Les Must de Warhol. Besides that, Fred also organized many amazing shows with prominent European gallery owners. In general, Europe appreciated Warhol more. For instance, Warhol’s first retrospective was in Sweden, it wasn’t in America.
When Warhol died wasn’t he in decline, people dismissed him?
People were confused and probably felt that the Warhol performance had overshadowed his talent. To quote Thaddaeus Ropac, the gallery owner, “it was only later, when the performance was finished, that we could look at his work.”
But he was a great artist and a society person at the same time.
Warhol managed to do art and society and make money with both. It was all work even if he was at Studio 54 rubbing shoulders with Bianca Jagger. The problem was that Andy was firing on too many cylinders for that period. Yet he was ahead of his time, a genius and a sort of prophet. Sir Norman Rosenthal said he was incapable of being dishonest. The work of an honest artist is always going to last. Personally, I think the Fright Wig self-portraits, commissioned by Anthony d’Offay in 1986, remain extraordinary.
He was very religious wasn’t he?
Andy had great faith that increased after his assassination attempt. He’d go to church on a daily basis. He was also quite Arthurian. All the people around him resembled knights from a fairly camp round table. I found it interesting that they were mostly Catholics, albeit lapsed.
From left, Pierre Passebon, Christian Louboutin and Natasha Fraser. Wig moment in Galerie du Passage, Paris, France 1992
After an experience as a columnist for Interview magazine you started doing jewellery, and with the encouragement of Anna Wintour of Vogue you moved to Paris?
When Anna heard that I was moving to Paris, she offered to contact all the French fashion houses. It was tremendously helpful. Funny but I fell in love with Paris when I was 13. Everything struck me as civilized from the smell of the baking baguettes to the sprinkling of sugar in my citron pressé.
And there you worked for Karl Lagerfeld, another great man?
Yes, fantastic. He also made a film with Andy Warhol, ‘L’Amour’ in 1973, and that is why my book is called ‘Adventures in Warhol Land’ because there’s a link between Warhol and every character.
So you went into the fashion world?
Karl and the Chanel studio are running their own orbit in fashion. Everything is so personally and seamlessly run. But yes that’s how I got into fashion.
You were friendly with the Saint Laurent people weren’t you?
No, I wasn’t. When I was at Chanel, there was the Karl gang and there was the Saint Laurent gang. They were real gangs even if I was too naïve to then realise it. I didn’t meet the Saint Laurent gang properly until I was employed by Fairchild Publications in 1991 and worked at W and Women’s Wear Daily.
How was Mr Fairchild?
Like Karl, Mr Fairchild and always Mr Fairchild, never John!, was another mentor. He ran a media boot camp and allowed me to become a proper journalist. Strange but I first saw him at the Warhol Studio when he was interested in buying Warhol’s Interview magazine.
From left, Dominique Rizzo (red bikini), Christabel McEwen, Natasha Fraser and Mick Jagger – St Tropez, France. Taken by Willy Rizzo.
You also reveal in your book some of your Warhol linked love affairs, and in particular the one with Mick Jagger?
Well, Andy’s portraits of Mick Jagger are fantastic. Our casual and always delightful relationship began in September 1980 and continued for about 5 years. I was at a lunch for Warhol given by Marguerite Littman, a socialite, when Harry Bailey, who was an art dealer, said “you should meet Mick.” He was also the first to mention the portfolio of Jagger portraits, done by Andy in 1975
You also wrote a biography of a very different character, the producer Sam Spiegel. How come?
Sam was another mentor. He gave me my first job and also introduced me to Mick Jagger. Sam invited me on his boat, and, through Ahmet Ertegun, Mick was there, with Jerry Hall and his daughter Jade. Six weeks later, I began to see Mick.
How was such a thing possible when he was with Jerry Hall?
Jerry Hall was a hugely successful fashion model who was travelling all over the world. And he was Mick Jagger, left alone in London. He was irresistible as well as being incredibly intelligent and funny. That said, I always knew the limits of the relationship. He was a burning light who belonged to Jerry. Put it this way, he was Jerry’s hero but not mine.
Who was your hero?
It began with my father and then continued with my husband Jean-Pierre Cavassoni.
With Diane von Furstenberg in 1997, photo taken by Pamela Hanson
The world of legends, famous beautiful people in London, Los Angeles, New York and Paris that you describe so well in your book is gone forever.
The world of legends and Beautiful People still exists but it’s become very private and exclusive. What’s different today is the incredible importance of money and that has changed everything. For instance, now to have connections or be a player in London you have to spend masses of money. During my childhood, charm, humour and intelligence were enough. And the elegant rich tended to hide their wealth. There was an innocence.
Did the internet somehow kill talent?
No, there is still so much talent. But there was once a great romanticism around famous people. Or rather you only knew the good stuff. Now with the internet we are bombarded with the bad stuff, based on the idea that stars are like you and me. They are not! And these tarnishing facts do not make us alike. They are horrible. I don’t want to know. Their talent or wealth or beauty is enough. Why should we all be the same?
Warhol loved fame and money?
Yes, Andy used fame, he milked fame, he realised it was a business. He was wonderfully lucid. But he also kept his own work in the closet – he was a smart guy who was self-effacing. He realised he was creatively brilliant but that other artists existed like Jasper Johns and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He did not have an inflated ego and that explains his posthumous longevity.
What about Lagerfeld?
Like Andy, Karl is a brilliant talent who shares the same-grounded attitude and remains in the present. Try talking to Karl about a former fashion collection and he’ll be appalled. His sights are firmly fixed on the future. It explains how he has lasted so long. It remains impressive.
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, photo taken by Stefano Massimo, 1980
Is your book nostalgic?
No, but it evokes another time. I don’t say then was better. I just reveal what I personally witnessed.
Does it read like a novel?
I wanted After Andy to be informative but fun and easy to read. People say that when they start reading it they can’t put it down. Music to my ears!
Going back to Fred Hughes, why is he so important in your book?
I guess because Fred was so touching and so tragic. He got all that he wanted and then it all went wrong and he died in reduced circumstances. Fred was like a character out of Scott Fitzgerald but not the hero.
Sofia Coppola with After Andy. Photo taken at Valentino show, July 2017.
Are you pleased with your book?
I’m pleased when people enjoy After Andy. That means a lot. My book catches another side to Andy, the human side that cared about people as well as his years in Europe and the English Muffins – those well-born English women who worked for him. I was the fifth English Muffin. Warhol had a rolling camera and, in a way, I had a rolling camera too. I now realise how full my life was, and how I was always motivated by curiosity. Curiosity is a great ‘moteur’. If I hadn’t been curious, I would have stayed in England. Imagine, no adventures!
But Paris is your place?
Yes since September 1989. What I love about the Parisians is their deep respect for intelligence. Their big insult is to be described as ‘un con.’ Adore this. I also admire their heightened sense of quality, their need to express and the real appreciation of the creative and their distrust of money. En masse, they continue to intrigue. Finally, they have always made me feel welcomed. And to quote the American artist Jim Hodges, “go where the heat is.”
With Mick Jagger, May 2017, photo by Edward Lloyd
Like an English muffin?
Yes, an English muffin in Paris! I learnt a lot from Parisians, but have remained very English, and I get the best of both worlds.
What about America?
This time in New York, I suddenly realised how both my mother and stepfather Harold Pinter became famous via the United States and what a strong link they shared. For an European to make it in America, it’s equivalent to being alone in a field and suddenly a shining knight on a horse in platinum armour arriving and sweeping you up. It’s extraordinary to make it in America because they love success and they embrace you with that famous American enthusiasm. There is no downside; whereas in Europe we mistrust success.
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August 2017
Portrait of Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni by Laura Friezer.
RUNWAY
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni Revisits Andy Warhol and ’80s New York in a New Book
Laird Borrelli==
SWAROVSKI Private Dinner to Honor the 2006 CFDA Nominees==
Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Center, NYC==
June 4, 2006==
©Patrick McMullan==
Photo-Billy Farrell/PMc==
==
JULY 28, 2017 5:30 AM
by LAIRD BORRELLI-PERSSON
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Natasha Fraser with Andy Warhol at Regine’s.
Natasha Fraser photographed by Clive Arrowsmith
Natasha Fraser with Roberto Shorto and David Hockney.
Natasha Fraser
Natasha Fraser at the Prix de Diane race at Chantilly with Laure de Gramont.
Natasha Fraser with Pierre Passebon and Christian Louboutin.
*After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land* by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is published by Blue Rider Press.
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1980: With Andy Warhol at Regine’s.
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The ’80s—fashion’s latest crush—come humorously to life in Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni’s latest book, After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land. “My goal was for it to be a really good read and very informative,” says the author, who was the last Factory employee hired before the Pop icon’s death, and thus the final “English muffin” (i.e., wellborn British girl) to toil there.
The idea for the book materialized in the summer of 2014 as Fraser-Cavassoni was finishing the manuscripts for books on Loulou de la Falaise and Monsieur Dior. Her madeleine moment was provided by a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. “Suddenly I was hit by this giant Mao,” Fraser-Cavassoni explains, “and I just stopped and I suddenly remembered everything.” To differentiate After Andy from other Warholiania, her editor suggested she add herself into the equation. “And you know, I was shocked,” recalls the author, “because I’m always documenting other people’s lives. Yet it made sense; so many people have their Warhol stories because Warhol was so omnipresent.”
Absent from Fraser-Cavassoni’s book is any reporting on ’60s-era Warhol. Readers instead get a view of the artist’s late period, after he recovered from being shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968. “You obviously change if you almost lose your life,” notes the author, “and I’m struck by the fact that Warhol really discovered Europe after the assassination attempt—thanks to [Warhol’s business manager] Fred Hughes’s contacts. And he really almost turned his back on the Nicos and the Warhol superstars. He discovered this different type of woman, if you want.”
The times were different, too. By the ’80s, Warhol was famous and New York was flush with money. “It was a very lighthearted time and carefree in many ways; I wanted to capture that,” says Fraser-Cavassoni, who recalls the dandified Hughes giving Scotch tape facelifts in the office under the guise of “Frederick of Union Square” and, some years earlier, Warhol—whom she describes as an “agent provocateur”—suggesting that she pen a Mommie Dearest–style book. (Fraser-Cavassoni is the daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser, and her stepfather is Harold Pinter.)
Fashion-wise, Fraser-Cavassoni notes, “Something about the ’80s seemed quite garish in a way, because it was all quite new and a lot of it felt very full force, and I think if something feels full force, perhaps one dismisses it for being a bit superficial. Having written the book, I’m now interested in looking at David and Elizabeth Emanuel [the designers of Princess Diana’s wedding dress] again.” Though the author would go on to work for Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, in 1987, at 24, she wasn’t yet mainly wearing major labels. There’s a photo of Warhol with a 16-year-old Fraser in a poufy halter-neck dress that she remembers buying in Rome in 1979 at a boutique called Ginger for about 20 pounds. She remembers him asking her who it was by. “He was amazed it wasn’t a designer, and I was amazed he was asking me who designed it. I was 16; we didn’t buy designer clothes then. My mother wore Jean Muir and Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, but that was for older people. You wore designer clothes if you did a photo shoot.”
In 1980, Fraser-Cavassoni—who admits to romances with Mick Jagger and Malcom McLaren in the book—acquired what she dubbed her “seduction outfit” at Kensington Market. For a date with Jagger to see Stevie Wonder, she bought a white cotton sweater with abstract black squiggles and a gray camouflage skirt. “It was kind of a great look,” she says. “It sort of worked because I was so young.” Warhol, she opines, had other means of wooing. “I think he had crushes on certain women, and his mating call was showing his scar to them. He did that to my friend Geraldine Harmsworth, who was the fourth English muffin.”
Reports of such eccentricities never rattled Fraser-Cavassoni (though Jean Stein and George Plimpton’s book, Edie, gave her pause). “When I was interviewing people for the book, certain people said, ‘Well, he looked so strange.’ I really didn’t find that Andy looked strange because I was brought up among intellectuals and eccentrics. He seemed very authentic, to me, he really seemed very complete. Sometimes when you work, you talk a lot to people and you come away feeling, ‘Oh.’ [When I talked to people about Andy] I came away thinking, ‘Wow!’ ”
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Jan 11
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Author Interview
Author Interview - Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Today I'm interview the author of After Andy: Adventures in Warholand. Click the link for my full review and more information about the book. Find out more about the personal lives of authors including their signature drink, favorite decade in fashion history, and the artists that inspire them in my author interview series.
Author I draw inspiration from: It changes so much. Recently, I have had a passion for Joyce Carol Oates. I must say that I do enjoy American novelists like Joan Didion, Alison Lurie and Elizabeth Strout. I admire their pithy, short sentences.
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser- Cavassoni: the author she draws inspiration from
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser- Cavassoni: the author she draws inspiration from
A Book of American Martyrs: A Novel
By Joyce Carol Oates
Favorite place to read a book: Sitting on my bed with my back leaning against a pile of pillows and my legs pushed up against the wall. It does wonders for the circulation.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Becky Sharpe because she’s got tremendous joie-de-vivre and savvy enough to get us out of that situation.
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: It happened when I decided to write about Sam Spiegel, the film producer. That biography, my first book, was inspired by Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest. Sam, a family friend, was described by Gore as being ’spontaneously dishonest on every level’ and I became extremely intrigued.
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni: the author with Andy Warhol
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni: the author with Andy Warhol
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback because I’m always travelling and hardbacks weigh a ton
The last book I read: You Must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oates. I found the paperback in the remainder pile at Shakespeare & Company in Paris. Both the title and cover grabbed me. I do think that it’s a fantastic novel and am surprised that it never became a film.
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser- Cavassoni: the last book she read
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser- Cavassoni: the last book she read
You Must Remember This
By Joyce Carol Oates
Pen & paper or computer: Computer but I’m always writing notes, using an italic ink pen. I do like the look of ink on paper. My version of Cy Twombly, a favorite artist.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Lizzie Greystock from Trollope’s novel The Eustache Diamonds. Since she's a mercenary beauty and an adventuress, I realize that our friendship would be short lived but have it’s definite high points.
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be a: theatrical character actress playing spiky aunts and enigmatic grandmothers.
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1930s, it defined modern, fluid and elegant.
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Place I’d most like to travel: I am dying to go to India but realize that I need a month to make it worthwhile.
My signature drink: A non-alcoholic Mojito fits the bill. I like the mix of lime and syrup.
Favorite artist: Andy Warhol who has been described as the Matisse of acrylic paint.
Number one on my bucket list: Warhol’s Mao (1973). I saw this giant work-of-art at the Art Institute in the summer of 2014 and it inspired my my memoir After Andy.
Anything else you'd like to add? My memoir - After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land makes a handsome looking present!
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Author Interview with Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land
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By Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
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A NIGHT OUT WITH -- Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni; Bookworms in Chic Places
By LINDA LEEAPRIL 13, 2003
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HERE is the axis of chic: Hollywood, Harper's Bazaar, art, publishing and Paris. Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, 40, is a daughter of Antonia Fraser, the British writer, and a stepdaughter of the playwright Harold Pinter. Through him, she got her first job, at 19, as a dogsbody, or gofer, for the fading Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel.
Through one of her brothers, she got a job at Interview magazine from Andy Warhol. Thus she has a raft of New York pals.
Through a family friend, Anna Wintour, she got a job working for Karl Lagerfeld, designing conceptual images like a teapot pouring jewels. (The jewelry on a ribbon at her throat? ''Oh, Karl gave that to me.'') She is married to Jean-Pierre Cavassoni, a French-Italian property agent, and has twin daughters, 18 months old, in Paris, where she is European editor of Harper's Bazaar. On Wednesday, Diane von Furstenberg, gave a dinner party to celebrate the publication of Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni's new book, ''Sam Spiegel: The Incredible Life and Times of Hollywood's Most Iconoclastic Producer,'' at a loft on West 12th Street with long picnic tables strewn with rhinestones.
Taki Theodoracopulos, an old friend, was there with another member of the international men's best-dressed list, Count Roffredo Gaetani, the tall hand-kissing Ferrari dealer who used to date Ivana Trump. ''A hundred thousand dollars under the table,'' Mr. Theodoracopulos said, ''if you write that Taki and Count Roffredo are gay. So men will stop being annoyed with us.''
Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni was dressed in a pants suit designed by Ms. von Furstenberg. ''It would be like not wearing white to a wedding,'' Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni said.
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People followed John Malkovich to the door saying, ''I saw you last night in 'Napoleon,' '' an A&E movie. One more blond woman said, ''I saw you last night in 'Napoleon,' '' and he merely glanced back. She stopped him by saying, ''I'm Tina Brown.''
''Oh,'' he said, and turned back.
Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni was busy signing copies of her book for Godfrey Deeny, editor in chief of Fashion Wire Daily, and reminiscing about his expense account when they worked at Fairchild in Paris. ''Very creative writing,'' he said.
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''You look fabulous,'' he said. ''After you had those babies, you lost 15 kilos in 15 months. You just disappeared.''
She began talking about living on the Upper East Side with a roommate and a parrot that went ''awrk, awrk, awrk,'' she said, whenever a man came in. ''He was so jealous -- the only one who could train him was John Malkovich.''
Mr. Deeny said: ''He was a very unconvincing Talleyrand.'' (Apparently everyone had watched ''Napoleon.'') ''But he had a nice limp.'' Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni switched tables and had a group squeal with Madeleine Weeks, a writer from GQ wearing a blinding white Helmut Lang pants suit, and the photographer Pamela Hanson, wearing a sheer pink Marc Jacobs top.
As the waiters closed up, Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni put on an Andrew Gn fringed jacket and got in a cab with Morgan Entrekin, the book publisher, for Bungalow 8. They rehashed the party and Ms. von Furstenberg's loft. ''What I love about that place is that it's so big you can hide from people you don't want to see,'' he said, ''but there are lots of people you do want to see.''
The ropes at Bungalow 8 parted. ''I've been here 10 times,'' Mr. Entrekin said. ''Well, eight.'' Who's counting? ''You know, after 45, it's pretty pathetic to be hanging out in clubs,'' he said. ''The only vice I don't have is young women.''
Adam Sandler and Stephen Cojocaru, the People magazine fashion commentator, were already parked inside. The ''Sam Spiegel'' party gathered around another low table. Mr. Entrekin handed over his credit card and asked for Veuve Clicquot. ''To Sam Spiegel,'' he said. ''A man I probably would have liked.''
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'I thought it was too unoriginal to write'
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni comes from a glittering literary dynasty - so why did her first book take so long? Philip Delves Broughton finds out
Philip Delves Broughton12:01AM GMT 19 Mar 2003
As another Paris fashion week winds to a close, the editors and models are tottering out of town and the lunch crowd at L'Avenue, the industry canteen on Avenue Montaigne, is thinning. Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, the European editor of Harper's Bazaar, musters a final blast of "Baby!" and "Darling!" before turning serious, slipping from fashion scribbler into Fraser-Pakenham-Longford mode as the latest of the clan to turn out a door-stopping book.
Hers is a biography of Sam Spiegel, one of Hollywood's great producer-finaglers - devious, mendacious, depraved, yet elegant and mysterious to the end of his days - and the winner of three Best Film Oscars in the space of eight years for On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. When she started her research, director Billy Wilder told her: "Sam Spiegel! That's quite a subject!"
Fraser-Cavassoni comes from English literature's Corleone family. Her mother is Lady Antonia Fraser, her father was the Tory MP Sir Hugh Fraser, her grandfather Lord Longford, her grandmother Elizabeth Longford, her uncle Thomas Pakenham, her step-father Harold Pinter and her aunt the author Rachel Billington. Her two sisters, Flora and Rebecca, have both written books.
As you might expect, she has a voice like bone china. Nothing so plebeian as colour affects her strong, pale face. But as with any E M Forster Englishwoman, there is a strong, anarchic undertow that not even years in America and Europe can suppress.
"I never thought I would write," she says. "I always thought it was incredibly unoriginal. People were always asking: 'When are you going to write?' "
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14 May 2001: Stiff upper-class lip [interview with Lady Antonia Fraser] 19 Mar 2003
Although she waited until she was 39 to do so, she has produced a deeply researched book - typically Fraser - packed with sexy Hollywood lore.
You need only read the seven pages of acknowledgements, strewn with names from Hollywood, publishing, academia and fashion, to see the family's reach, from Israel to California with countless stops in between.
She follows Spiegel from his birth in what is now Poland, through his spell as a young Zionist in Palestine, to his arrival in Los Angeles, his expulsion as an illegal immigrant, his years of bluster and showmanship, his no-expense-spared Hollywood parties that he could never afford and, finally, his great success.
She writes of his place among the sharp-suited East European immigrants, the studio heads and agents who ran Hollywood and whose stories and black-and- white photographs still fill the pages of Vanity Fair. She writes of his three marriages, his taste for group sex with prostitutes, his fights with directors John Huston and David Lean and actresses including Katherine Hepburn, his battle to keep Peter O'Toole sober while promoting Lawrence of Arabia, and his icon status among a younger group of Hollywood titans - David Geffen, Harvey Weinstein and Barry Diller.
"There was an old Hollywood romance to Sam, and these men loved the fact that he would never tell them anything about his past," Fraser-Cavassoni says. "When someone is truly glamorous, as Sam was, it's because there's a lot of mystery; a lot of questions haven't been answered. I remember I always asked him why he called himself S P Eagle in his early movies, but he never answered. He went deaf."
Fraser-Cavassoni's academic career climaxed at a London A-level college and, after a few years of social drift, studded by appearances in nightclubs and gossip columns and reports of an affair with Mick Jagger, she abandoned London for the anonymity of Los Angeles.
"I wish!" she says, of the alleged dalliance with Jagger. "It's so old; there were so many Natashas and they were much more glamorous than me. I think people got a little confused."
In fact, she met Jagger when she was 17 and on holiday aboard Sam Spiegel's boat, Malahne, one of the great gin palaces of its day. "Sam thought his girlfriends were paying too much attention to Jagger and he said: 'Look Mick, you're manipulating my English girls.' And he said: 'No, Sam, they're manipulating me.'
"Sam was absolutely furious, because he was very possessive. It was harem-like. It was Ahmet Ertegun [the American music mogul], Sam and Mick, and all the others were women."
Fraser-Cavassoni was there, not as a member of the harem, but because Spiegel, who owned a flat in London, was friends with both her mother and Harold Pinter. "Sam was like this social figure in London and New York, and he was friends with a lot of a certain set," she says. "My mum saw the premiere of Lawrence of Arabia when she was heavily pregnant with me. And Sam loved Harold - he was like a son to him."
She remembers meeting Spiegel initially with her parents at his table in the Connaught. "It was very Sam. The waiters were jumping through hoops." By then, his great years were behind him. Hollywood had changed and left him behind. But he had made a fortune and still exemplified the movie producer life, with a chauffeured Rolls-Royce, homes around the world, beautiful suits and ever younger escorts.
"His life never stopped being a production," says Fraser-Cavassoni. "He was so glamorous, he captured it all. He had power and quality. It's all very well to make millions. I've met various people who've made millions from something that perhaps quality-wise is a little questionable. It's rare that they don't feel I don't want to say ashamed, but you know"
"I think it relates to Dickens," she says, explaining the English fascination with men like Spiegel. "Sam was a character out of Dickens. All that charm and naughtiness and winking. I think the English are thoroughly amused by scallywags. I remember this obsession during my childhood with Ronnie Biggs. It was very nursery humour, but I remember the headline 'Biggs on the run' and us all roaring with laughter. I guess I've always been interested in people hiding things, the darker side."
As a 19-year-old, she worked on the set of Betrayal, written by Pinter and produced by Spiegel. "I was the company assistant, which meant I was totally a gofer. They really took the piss because I had this upper-class accent. Major wee wee.
"The first assistant used to think my accent was very funny and used to call me Anastasia, which is actually my real name. And then, on Sundays, he told me they couldn't ring the bell for everyone to come to the set because of the neighbours, so he made me go: 'Ding-a-ling. Ding-a-ling-a-ling'."
Inspired by Spiegel's old Hollywood glamour, Fraser-Cavassoni headed for Los Angeles and a job in a talent agency. "When I arrived, I thought all the producers were going to be like Sam and I was quite shocked. I was a junior book agent and I went to see this senior agent and she said: 'I want books like my clothes. Hip books.' That's when I just thought, hmm, I think I've had my moment here. I remember she was talking about how a house was beautiful. She said: 'I mean, it was so beautiful that Frank Sinatra came by.' Now I love Frank Sinatra, but I thought, huh."
From Los Angeles, she went to New York and a job on Interview magazine, where she wrote Anglo-File, a social column. Then, she decided she wanted to design jewellery and move to Paris, so she mobilised another family friend, Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue, who sent faxes to all the major French fashion houses on her behalf. This landed her a job with Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, who turned some of her jewellery designs into fabric patterns. Those first few months in Paris cemented her love of France.
"There's a great warmth to the French," she says. "When I worked at Chanel, my first bloody month, I got hepatitis. It was awful and I was so scared they were going to fire me. I was getting more and more yellow and I was walking like an old woman, I was so ill. But I just kept hoping it was going to get better. Finally, I got to the doctor and she said: 'You are yellow, like a banana!' They were so nice at Chanel. If someone dies, the French are so sweet. There's a great kindness to them."
After her frivolous teens and early twenties, Fraser-Cavassoni grew more serious. She began work on her Spiegel book in 1995 and worked at it, on and off, for seven years. After Chanel, she returned to journalism at W magazine. The editor, John Fairchild, "thought I was funny and that I had the right cheeky attitude". She has been with Harper's Bazaar for three years.
"My grandmother [historian Elizabeth Longford] was a very important influence on me," she says. "Because I did my book part-time, I never took a whole year off to write it. So I'd get up very early in the morning to do it. I told this to my grandmother and she said Trollope used to pay someone to get him up early in the morning.
"I said, I guess six is too early. 'Six too early?' she said. 'You should get up at five.' She's right, actually. It's those three clear hours when the phone doesn't ring."
When she began writing, she turned to her mother for help. "Now I think about it, we were always pushed to write. My mother was always bribing us to write our diaries. On holidays, she would pay us a pound and one of my brothers used to write the same thing three times to make more money." Her mother was one of her first readers. "Being a social animal, she was very delicate. She'll never tear a book apart, because she knows exactly what went into it."
Despite her admiration for Spiegel's character, she says her own husband, Jean-Pierre Cavassoni, a Franco-Italian property agent, could not be more different. They have twins, born in 2001, and no plans to return to England. "Sam was not someone to get involved with emotionally. I think it's rare that someone has such a rich lifestyle and, emotionally, they're not a little 'off'. But I continue to have a huge respect for him and be very amused by him. It was done with a lot of style.
"As Geffen said when Sam died, he never cut back on his cream. And that meant more to him than having these meaningful, touchy-feely relationships. When someone is happily married, for a biographer writing about them, it's almost a fait accompli - their life becomes a finished chapter."
Sam Spiegel: The Biography of a Hollywood Legend by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni (Little Brown) is available from Telegraph Books Direct for £20.50 plus £1.99 p&p. To order, call 0870 155 7222
Of Mice and Men Like Mick Jagger: A Literary Scion Tells All
Encounters
By ALEXANDRA JACOBS AUG. 5, 2017
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Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, the author of the autobiography, “After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land.” Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times
One might reasonably assume that Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, the youngest daughter of the English historian and novelist Lady Antonia Fraser and the late politician Sir Hugh Fraser, had a posh upbringing. Private schools. Pretty clothes. A retreat in Scotland.
But “there were always mice,” Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni protested on Wednesday from a corner booth at Sant Ambroeus, an Upper East Side trattoria. “We couldn’t get rid of them. My mother was interviewing someone quite glam, and there was a mouse there, and the visitor was frozen, and she was like ‘La, la, la.’”
She recalled one of her five siblings shoving a slice of white — “never brown” — bread into the family’s toaster at breakfast time. “There was this awful smell. Burning mouse.”
A waiter came over brandishing a Tower of Pisa-size pepper mill, and Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni cheerfully accepted a few grinds over her pesce.
“Another time — great excitement — we found a mouse, and we cornered it, and it keeled over,” she said. “Had a heart attack.”
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Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni taking a photo of her new autobiography, “After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land,” in the dessert case at Sant Ambroeus on Madison Avenue. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times
Mem’ries!
Though she now lives in Paris, Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni, 54 (“Studio 54,” she said), had returned to New York, where she worked and caroused decades ago, to promote her new autobiography, “After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land.” This she is doing with the fervor she learned canvasing for her father, and a refreshing frankness. For example: “I did cocaine, and I don’t regret that.”
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She was hired by Andy Warhol days before his death in 1987, back when the words “coffee shop” indicated not Starbucks nor Stumptown, but a Greek diner like one of his favorites, Three Guys, down the street.
“There was something about Andy and his lot that was Knights of the Roundtable-ish,” Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni said. “I love all those knights, and the dark knights, like Larry Gagosian,” the art dealer.
She has written several previous books, including one about the producer Sam Spiegel, another former employer. But this one fills in most colorfully the lines of her own life, offering a dollybird’s-eye view of, among other matters, her mother’s affair with the playwright Harold Pinter.
“She’s very stoic,” Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni said. “She’s got this thing, ‘what can’t be cured has to be endured,’ and my generation, we’re the moaners.”
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Though Mr. Pinter eventually became her stepfather, her literary tastes ran more toward another Harold — Robbins.
“He really had a grasp of how people could have it all, and it was never enough,” she said.
Before marrying Jean-Pierre Cavassoni, she had high-profile dalliances of her own, with Mick Jagger and the punk polymath Malcolm McLaren, who said “‘I love you, Natasha, because you take the cobwebs out of my brain,’” she recalled. “How many times did I hear about Sid Vicious’s mother carrying around his ashes and dropping them in the fish and chip shop?” She made a brisk “get on with it” motion.
On her right wrist glittered a bracelet of facing serpent’s heads, a gift to her mother from the English decorator Nicky Haslam, which Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni purloined in part because it reminded her of her twin teenage daughters, born in the Year of the Snake. “Sometimes they hiss,” she said. On the table idled a Chanel purse circa 1990, covered in Warhol-inspired splotches, the spoils of an apprenticeship to Karl Lagerfeld. “From the first collection I worked on,” Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni said. “Isn’t that funny?”
A plate of cookies had been brought over. Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni ignored them but insisted the maître d’ let her take a photo of “After Andy” in the pastry case, artfully nestled between the profiteroles and the opera cakes.
She strode out onto Madison Avenue, toward the Brutalist but blissfully chilled building of the Met Breuer, the contemporary outpost of the Metropolitan Museum that once housed the Whitney Museum of American Art. There were major Warhol shows there in 1971 and 1979, the latter including a series about Mr. Jagger.
Photo
Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni visiting the Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical exhibit at the Met Breuer. She worked with Mr. Sottsass and other artists while living in New York. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times
Today Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni was pleased to see an exhibition devoted to the Austrian-Italian architect Ettore Sottsass, the founder of the Memphis Group of design championed by Mr. Lagerfeld and another mutual friend, Jean Pigozzi, the businessman and collector who once held a majority interest in Spy magazine.
“I spent a weekend with him — several, actually,” she said of Mr. Sottsass, stepping into the large elevator.
Upstairs, her peep-toe espadrilles padding quietly on the stone floors, Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni examined a large abstract necklace (“kind of Egyptian,” she said) and some garish prints. “I feel for very rich people, art is their couture,” she said. “I can’t afford it.”
There was a dresser in the shape of an ornate cathedral laid on its side, and a rather penitent-looking single bed. “I’m tempted to lie on that,” she said, “but I won’t.”
On a nearby screen, images of Mr. Sottsass with Einstein-like mustache were flashing. “He was grumpy,” Ms. Fraser-Cavassoni whispered. “I remember him saying in Italian that I spoke too much.”
But when a 1999 drawing of his titled “Electronic Instruments For the Production of the Ego” popped up, she turned magnanimous.
As with Warhol, she said, “I didn’t realize to what point he was prophetlike.”
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A version of this article appears in print on August 6, 2017, on Page ST8 of the New York edition with the headline: Of Mice and Mick Jagger. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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399-18353-9
The life and fame of "the American godfather of Pop art" as seen through the doting eyes of a former
Factory staffer.Fashion journalist and biographer Fraser-Cavassoni (Monsieur Dior: Once Upon a Time,
2014) was the last "English Muffin" to work for Warhol before he died in 1987. Her history prior to landing
that coveted position and the ensuing years are lavishly detailed in a memoir exposing the true glamour of
the Warhol-ian world. Her glitzy chronicle begins at her boss's funeral, described as "the Big Apple's
equivalent of a royal event." Yet it was also "strangely moving," as the author became increasingly aware of
Warhol's notoriety not only as an idolized pop artist, but as a man with a uniquely self-effacing personality.
Fraser-Cavassoni's own history is also captivating. As the daughter of British writer Lady Antonia Fraser
and the stepdaughter of playwright Harold Pinter, the author retraces her familiarity with Warhol from a
"socially aware" youth courting extravagance and mischief to her first social encounters with the artist as
someone "posh with cleavage." The author then delves into juicier tidbits of her ill-fated dalliance with
Mick Jagger, Warhol's discovery and mentoring of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and her arrival in America
rubbing elbows with celebrities and eventually landing a two-year tenure at Andy Warhol Enterprises. Once
firmly ensconced in the business, the 1980s underground art scene swirled around her, and Fraser-Cavassoni
unleashes an intriguing stockpile of anecdotes that will delight Warhol's legion of admirers. Appearing in
many of these escapades is Fred Hughes, Warhol's business manager and confidant, a dedicated guide who
steered Warhol's artistic productions toward maximum profitability and notoriety. The author's treatment of
Hughes' allegiance to the artist and painful physical decline following his death, along with the disposition
of Warhol's estate and diary publications, aptly tempers the high-fashion celebrity circus the author knows
so well. A pop icon's star-studded legacy decorated with red-carpet prestige.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha: AFTER ANDY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495427798/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9682f76a.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha. Sam Spiegel
Stephen Rees
Library Journal.
128.3 (Feb. 15, 2003): p141.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
S. & S. Feb. 2003. c.448p. filmog. bibliog. index. LC 2002030583. ISBN 0-684-83619-X. $28. FILM
Although film producer Sam Spiegel's name is not as well remembered as those of David O. Selznick or
Sam Goldwyn, he won 35 Oscars (e.g., The African Queen, On the Waterfront) and created two of the great
movie spectacles of all time (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia). The author, a production
assistant on Spiegel's last film, attempts to unravel the mysteries around this "extraordinary survivor."
Always a wheeler-dealer, Spiegel gave contradictory accounts of his origins, and early days in Europe and
Palestine. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time and, by schmoozing and using,
quickly mastered Hollywood's power game. The author vividly recounts the tumultuous location shoot of
The African Queen and details Spiegel's working and personal relationships. Spiegel's extravagant lifestyle
and kinky sex life also receives attention: a prostitute once stole several Oscars from Spiegel's home. In the
end, Spiegel's career was doomed by a Hollywood that no longer wanted his epic style of moviemaking. In
the absence of an autobiography, this book is a valuable look at a colorful, iconoclastic, not always
admirable man and a vanished Hollywood. Recommended for large public and academic film collections.--
Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Rees, Stephen
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Rees, Stephen. "Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha. Sam Spiegel." Library Journal, 15 Feb. 2003, p. 141. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A98468928/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=79ef609e. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land
Publishers Weekly.
264.26 (June 26, 2017): p169.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni. Blue Rider, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-399-18353-9
Born into an aristocratic British family in 1963, fashion journalist Fraser-Cavassoni (Sam Spiegel)
chronicles her education in rebellion as a member of a star-studded social set during the last decades of the
20th century. A maven of the rich and famous, the younger Fraser-Cavassoni dips into wild parties
brimming with cleavage and cocaine as easily as she socializes with willowy rock musicians (at age 17 she
had an affair with Mick Jagger). Recording her many flirtations, Fraser-Cavassoni skips between London,
Hollywood, New York, and Paris, describing a string of gal Friday experiences with powerful movie and
fashion agents that paved her way to working in Warhol Studios. It is a breezy account in which chapter
topics dissolve into lengthy detours. Less than a third of the book concentrates' on Warhol and entourage,
not enough to warrant his name in the subtitle. However, her cocktail, catwalk, and nightclub sketches
provide an amusing stories of the consummate "English Muffin" (a term for well-born British women
working for Warhol) with physical attributes "spilling out in all the right places." This is a perfect beach
read. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land." Publishers Weekly, 26 June 2017, p. 169. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497444436/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1721e1f3.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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What made Sam run? Hollywood moguls
The Economist.
366.8312 (Feb. 22, 2003):
COPYRIGHT 2003 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
http://store.eiu.com/
Full Text:
AS USUAL, Billy Wilder has the slyest line. "Sam Spiegel! That's quite a subject." Spiegel, who died in
1985, was the outstanding independent producer of the 1950s and the early 1960s--the muscle behind "The
African Queen" and "On the Waterfront", "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia". Yet to
many he was a riddle; and most likely he preferred it that way. During a long and improbable life Spiegel
sloughed off more skins than a bed of snakes, and a biographer's first task is to keep their footing.
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is not the first to enter this territory, but she stays alert. Her account is probably
the fullest yet, though early facts remain sparse. Spiegel was born in or about 1901 in Western Galicia, now
south-east Poland; he was raised there but claimed to have grown up in Vienna. A quick-witted boy, he had
a good schooling and at 18 was a leading light in a Zionist youth movement, settling early in Palestine. Ever
restless, seven years later he vanished to the United States, leaving a wife, a daughter and a string of kited
cheques. In America he posed as a diplomat, receiving a nine-month jail term for his deceit. Back in
Europe, he escaped first from Germany, then from Austria, only to find himself locked up again in London
and deported from France. Undaunted, he crossed the Atlantic once more and sneaked back into the United
States, perhaps by wading the Rio Grande, en route to Tinseltown.
In Europe, along the way, he had produced three films. Few in Hollywood knew of them. So he threw
parties instead. Lack of scruple was overlain by charm, manners and a seemingly irresistible gift for
persuasion. Soon his New Year's Eve bash was the place to be seen. If you wanted somewhere to gamble or
a "high-class mush pit", Spiegel's was the right address; Marilyn Monroe was said to be one of the house
girls. People wondered how he paid for it all; mostly he didn't.
Honesty came no more easily to Spiegel than financial regularity. To get his way, he would fake heart
attacks. "Telling the truth unnerved him", according to an acquaintance. What better playground than the
town Brecht called a marketplace of lies? After two bold but moderately successful pictures--one with
Orson Welles and another by Julien Duvivier with what seemed like every star and scriptwriter then
working--Spiegel teamed up with John Huston, first on "We Were Strangers" (1949), then on an
indisputable hit, "The African Queen" (1951). Huston, the directorial wunderkind, owed Spiegel money, we
are told, and Spiegel garnered his salary in order to pay his own income-tax bill.
Gore Vidal thought Spiegel "spontaneously dishonest on every level". Yet for all the double-dealing, his
creative ambitions were real. He had an instinct for the storyline and for a new kind of spectacle, a knack
for casting and a willingness to tackle subjects others would not touch. Oscars rained on "On the
Waterfront" (1954), "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) and "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). After these
successes, his career dived. Megalomania? Boredom? Falling behind the times? Perhaps all three. More and
more energy went into parties on his yacht and into feeding his astonishing sexual appetite with girls who
never got older.
Ms Fraser-Cavassoni gives free rein to the gossip. Her book is thoroughly researched and entertaining,
though lightly edited for grammar. For all the good stories, this reader was left wondering what made
Spiegel run. His biographer is probably not to blame: no one, it seems, knew.
Sam Spiegel.
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By Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"What made Sam run? Hollywood moguls." The Economist, 22 Feb. 2003. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A98006539/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ae7d92df.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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Spiegel didn't always rhyme with `legal'
Wendy Smith
Variety.
390.9 (Apr. 14, 2003): p32.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Penske Business Media, LLC
http://variety.com
Full Text:
Sam Spiegel Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni $28,448 pgs. Simon & Schuster
The only individual producer thus far to win the best picture Oscar three times in eight years, Sam Spiegel
had a remarkable career and an amazing life that took him from Galicia in the dying days of the Hapsburg
Empire to Hollywood, Africa, the Middle East and a yacht on which he threw legendary parties. Harper's
Bazaar contributor Fraser-Cavassoni, who worked for Spiegel on his last film ("Betrayal"), chronicles the
whole wild ride in an engrossing biography that documents his professional achievements and vividly
captures a personality as epic as any of his films. It's all here: the sleazy financial maneuvers and creepy
taste for underage girls that make Spiegel a decidedly flawed protagonist, as well as the wit, sophistication
and Old World charm that make him a titanic figure the likes of which the movie industry will not see
again.
The author seems to have interviewed everyone still living who knew Spiegel, and she journeyed as far
afield as his hometown (now in Poland) and Jerusalem to pursue primary sources. She makes good use of
this material to correct her subject's often unreliable recollections and declines to be judgmental about
Spiegel's creative embroidering. "As the last of the great showmen, he recognized the power of myth," she
writes in an introduction that uses the Academy Awards ceremony of 1958 (when he won for "The Bridge
on the River Kwai") to deftly lay out the themes of Spiegel's life. Fraser-Cavassoni's formidable research
and analytical skills are more impressive than her agreeable but rather sloppy prose, surprising from the
granddaughter of biographer Elizabeth Longford and daughter of historian Antonia Fraser.
However, in matters of structure and balance, she gets it right. She devotes less than 50 pages to her
subject's youth in Poland, half-decade (and first marriage) in Palestine and wanderings through Europe,
America and Mexico that included two jail sentences (one for entering the U.S. illegally, one for financial
misdeeds), two forced deportations and several hasty departures one step ahead of the immigration
authorities. Spiegel was "a late, late bloomer," his biographer tells us; his real life began, as does her main
narrative, when he arrived for the second time in Hollywood at age 38 in 1939.
As the author moves into the creative prime that began with Spiegel's 1951 production of "The African
Queen" and ended in 1962 with "Lawrence of Arabia" (his third best picture Oscar), movie buffs will
recognize many oft-told tales: John Huston and Humphrey Bogart avoiding dysentery from Uganda's
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tainted water by exclusively drinking and even shaving with whiskey; Spiegel scheming during "On the
Waterfront" (his first best pic win) to divide director Elia Kazan from screenwriter Budd Schulberg (who,
when asked why he was shaving at 5 a.m., replied, "to kill Sam Spiegel"); the producer hectoring David
Lean over the slow shooting pace on both "Kwai" and "Lawrence."
Meanwhile, the parties continued apace, unconstrained by Spiegel's two subsequent marriages: at his mythic
New Year's Eve bashes, call girls would discreetly appear after the wives left.
"In many ways, Spiegel viewed his entertaining as another production," notes the author, and her account of
such late-career misfires as "Nicholas and Alexandra" and "The Last Tycoon" would be more depressing if
you didn't get the feeling that old Sam was still having a lot of fun with his fancy boat and his teenage
girlfriends.
He died, appropriately enough, on New Year's Eve 1985, and readers can only agree with the comment from
David Geffen that Fraser-Cavassoni shrewdly takes as Spiegel's epitaph: "Sam had a great life; it wasn't as
if he ever cut down on his cream."
Smith, Wendy
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Smith, Wendy. "Spiegel didn't always rhyme with `legal'." Variety, 14 Apr. 2003, p. 32. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A100879450/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=8a709acc.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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'Sam Spiegel'
. (Book)
Michael R. Farkash
Hollywood Reporter.
379.2 (June 11, 2003): p12.
COPYRIGHT 2003 e5 Global Media, LLC
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/
Full Text:
In his time, the late Sam Spiegel--to paraphrase Gilbert & Sullivan--may have been the very model of a
modern major producer. His life certainly was as operatic as anything from G&S.
This biography of the man who produced "Lawrence of Arabia" and other great films contains dozens of
fascinating anecdotes that invoke the colorful past of the industry. The style is readable and forthright, but
the massive tome could have benefited from considerable cutting. Readers may find themselves bogged
down in a swamp of derails and repetitive information, and thus lose sight of the big picture.
Spiegel, according to Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, was inventive driven and possessed by a passion for
filmmaking. He did everything in a big way and insisted on working with the best talents in the industry.
Some of Hollywood's elite called him a monster; others were charmed by his Old World style. He was often
generous--usually with other people's money, ducking hotel bills, restaurant checks and promises of
payment.
Fraser-Cavassoni, the European editor of Harper's Bazaar, tells all--or nearly all--about Spiegel's romances,
deals and messy finances. The producer broke promises, chased women even while married and deliberately
aggravated his creative teams, believing that chaos and contention kept them sharp.
Born in 1901 in Jaroslav in what is now part of Poland, Spiegel escaped the Nazi regime on "the last train"
from Berlin and became a mover and shaker in a Jewish settlement in Palestine, remaining a strong
supporter of Israel throughout his life.
He would often excuse his mendacious style, claiming that if he hadn't taken up lying, he would never have
survived the Third Reich. Spiegel often remarked, the author writes: "'But for the grace of God, I would
have been a lamp shade.'"
Spiegel, whose films garnered 25 Oscars, holds the record as the only solo producer to win three best
picture awards, for "On the Waterfront" (1954), "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) and "Lawrence of
Arabia" (1962), and also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1964).
Assessments of Spiegel's personal and professional methods of operation are mixed. He could be grand and
intimate or distant and unforgiving. Often, his hired hands and partners were driven to shouting matches.
Directors John Huston and David Lean were among those who were both bitter and complimentary about
the mogul.
Despite living on the financial edge until his later, successful years, Spiegel moved in A-list circles, and his
parties were to die for. Among his many industry friends were Mike Nichols, Jack Nicholson, Warren
Beatty, Anjelica Huston and David Geffen.
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Compelling anecdotes show a less-than-queenly side to Katharine Hepburn and a squeamish aspect to
Humphrey Bogart. Also dished out are slices of skinny on Spiegel's one-time partner John Huston and notvery-pretty
tales of Marion Brando, Lean and others.
If there's a lesson to be gleaned from "Sam Spiegel," it's this: A strong producer with charisma, chutzpah,
tenacity and passion can put together "impossible" film projects--even as his creative bookkeeping becomes
a place where studio accountants fear to tread.
RELATED ARTICLE: details
By Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni Simon & Schuster 465 pages $30
the bottom line
the biography of larger-than-life producer Sam Spiegel delivers some lively anecdotes about Hollywood's
past and its storied celebrities, though the book is overly detailed and could have benefited from
considerable cutting.
Farkash, Michael R.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Farkash, Michael R. "'Sam Spiegel'. (Book)." Hollywood Reporter, 11 June 2003, p. 12. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A104119227/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=bba46b0d.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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Sam Spiegel. (Nonfiction)
Publishers Weekly.
250.3 (Jan. 20, 2003): p64.
COPYRIGHT 2003 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Incredible Life and Times of Hollywood's Most Iconoclastic Producer, the Miracle Worker Who Went
from Penniless Refugee to Show Biz Legend, and Made Possible The African Queen, On the Waterfront,
The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia
NATASHA FRASER-CAVASSONI. Simon & Schuster, $25 (448p) ISBN 0-684-83619-X
Spiegel (1903-1985) won three Oscars for producing, as the subtitle coyly mentions, a series of memorable
films; he is also the sole producer to win the best picture Oscar three times within eight years. The
resourceful Spiegel arrived in the U.S. from Austria in 1927 as a bogus diplomat, bouncing checks and
serving jail time. In Berlin, he worked with Universal Studios' German film office. Fleeing Nazis he moved
on to London, Paris and Mexico, always encountering problems with the law. Back in the U.S. in 1939, he
established himself in Hollywood with Tales of Manhattan (1942) and The Stranger (1946). Accused of
"sharklike behavior," Spiegel was a hardened wheeler-dealer who "walked in without a penny and made
himself into something." By the end of his life, he'd banked millions, acquired a priceless art collection and
entertained the century's most glamorous figures. Fraser-Cavassoni writes for Harper's Bazaar's French
edition and worked on Spiegel's final film, Betrayal (1983). To separate facts from apocr yphal accounts,
she conducted some 200 interviews over seven years. Although she often questions Spiegel's exaggerated
anecdotes, Fraser-Cavassoni views Spiegel as "the last of the great showmen," possessed by a "demonlike
pursuit for quality." Working from Spiegel's private and professional papers, she also explored dozens of
archives, reflected in more than 90 pages of notes, a filmography and bibliography. The result is a fantastic
biography on the rise of one of Hollywood's most flamboyant personalities. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr. 8)
Forecast: The author's connections with upscale fashion glossies, the book's snazzy jacket and blurbs from
Billy Wilder, David Geffen, Andre Leon Talley and others will create plenty of buzz for this hefty tome.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sam Spiegel. (Nonfiction)." Publishers Weekly, 20 Jan. 2003, p. 64. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A97171478/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b1e8dfed.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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Sam Spiegel: The Incredible Life and
Times of Hollywood's Most Iconoclastic
Producer. (Nonfiction)
Kirkus Reviews.
71.1 (Jan. 1, 2003): p37.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
* Fraser-Cavasson,, Natasha
Simon & Schuster (448 pp.)
$28.00
Apr. 2003
ISBN: 0-684-83619-X
Superb bio of the high living, larger-than-life film producer, spellbindingly detailed by Harper's Bazaar
European editor Fraser-Cavassoni.
The author, who in 1982 worked as an assistant on Sam Spiegel's production of Betrayal (written by her
stepfather, Harold Pinter), was so intrigued by his flamboyant personality and reticence about his past that
she made it her business to track down his origins. Born in western Galicia (now southeastern Poland) in
1901, Spiegel preferred to gloss over his humble Jewish roots; when asked his birthplace, he'd usually name
Vienna. (In fact, he had attended the University of Vienna.) He emigrated to Palestine, married, and seven
years later abandoned wife and daughter to sail for San Francisco. He returned to Berlin and Vienna to cut
his producing teeth on several films and in 1939 came back to the US, hitting his stride a few years later as
producer of Tales of Manhattan in 1942 and Orson Welles's The Stranger in 1946. At one point, Spiegel had
so many creditors that he changed his name to S.P. Eagle. Still, though, often penniless, he gave fantastic
parties--his New Year's Eve bashes were legendary--attended by all the big stars and directors. He produced
many of the classic films of the 1950s and '60s: The African Queen, On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the
River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, etc. He also infuriated three wives with his penchant for young girls, top
fashion models, young actresses, and high-class prostitutes; he was known to interrupt business meetings to
arrange his sex life. Meanwhile, his relentless methods and empty promises as a producer prompted
Hollywood to invent the words "Spiegelese" and "to Spiegel." A sublime cast of characters--John Huston,
David Lean, Marlon Brando, Peter O'Toole, Faye Dunaway, Bogey and Bacall, Warren Beatty, Mike
Nichols, Elia Kazan--adds to the fun. It even seems right that Spiegel died on New Year's Eve in 1985.
Sheer heaven for movie buffs.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sam Spiegel: The Incredible Life and Times of Hollywood's Most Iconoclastic Producer. (Nonfiction)."
Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2003, p. 37. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A96254673/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=33e01b59.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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Pig in a silk suit
Helen Osborne
Spectator.
291.9116 (Apr. 26, 2003): p41.
COPYRIGHT 2003 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Full Text:
SAM SPIEGEL by Natasha Fraser Cavassoni Little, Brown, 22.50 [pounds sterling], pp. 465 ISBN
0316848522
Whenever I read of shenanigans on `luxury yachts' I remember a trip around the oily waters off St Tropez as
a day-guest on Sam Spiegel's Malahne, which was `rather like a floating Marriott hotel with the odd
Cezanne thrown in. We were served sticky bullshots under the unforgiving Mediterranean sky. `The drinks,'
drawled Lauren Bacall to John Gielgud, `are flowing like concrete.'
After our hamburger lunch, Spiegel--who could not swim--ordered a post-prandial dip. I was grounded by
Nat Cohen, a round little mini-mogul who had fallen asleep on my left leg. John Mortimer, ever the
amenable guest, took the plunge only to be surrounded by a circle of sewage as a bolshie member of crew
let loose the bilges. Sam, on the companionway, energetically hosed him down.
Oh, la dolce vita! Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, who has written an engaging biography of her old boss, is
unaccountably impressed by life on the Malahne. An invitation on board, she writes, `became de rigueur in
society'. Well, blow me down.
Fraser-Cavassoni worked for Spiegel in 1983 on his last movie, Betrayal, by Harold Pinter, her stepfather.
The glory days were long past, but she was captivated and intrigued by the ageing scamp, who had not
entirely lost his sparkle or his line-up on increasingly younger girls, the Spiegelettes. Helen Mirren was
rejected for a role in the film: `her butt is too big for the part,' he decreed.
Spiegel may have been dismissed as an erudite guttersnipe or, by Katharine Hepburn, as `a pig in a silk suit',
but glory days there had been. His four great achievements--On the Waterfront, The African Queen, The
Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia--are lasting testaments to a unique and relentless tenacity.
As the director John Huston put it, `Sam made them with spit.'
Spiegelese became a euphemism for Sam's lifelong crusade to cover his tracks and Fraser-Cavassoni hacks
away like a gillie in the jungle of camouflage to find her man. He was born in 1901 in western Galicia,
which branded him a lowly Ashkenazi Jew, and so he claimed to come from Vienna and, later, to have
dodged all manner of Nazi atrocities. In fact, after dumping his young wife and child and a wodge of debts
in Palestine in 1927, he flipped across Europe and the Atlantic like a tiddly-wink, and not always one jump
ahead of the police.
Spiegel was not so much economical with the facts as addicted to deception. `If Sam Spiegel says it's going
to be a sunny day tomorrow, reach for your umbrella.' Telling the truth unnerved him. Elia Kazan said he
could `lie without betraying a tremor of his facial muscles'. His third wife explained, `He would prefer to
climb a tree than tell the truth.'
In 1938 when he finally came to roost in Hollywood he gathered around him a macho gang of gambling
chums: William Wyler, Billy Wilder, Preminger, Huston, Edward G. Robinson. `There's shit everywhere,'
3/24/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521948458106 14/
his maid complained one morning after an all-night gin-rummy game. Sam replied wearily, `There's shit all
over the world.' He was also an aggressive bachelor-about-town. `An inspired pimp,' remarked an observer.
`He could create those very high-class mush-pits.' Bacall recalls, `Sam, Kazan, Huston, they were all hell on
women.'
It was Huston who decided that `Mr Spieeegel' as Garbo called him, or S. P. Eagle as he had rechristened
himself, was more than a mere Mr Fixit and needed to be `bullied' up a notch or two. Together they formed
Horizon Pictures, otherwise known as Shit Creek Productions, because that was where they usually were.
Thereafter, although the sheriffs were often at the front door while the penniless producer drove round in a
chauffeur-driven Rolls, Spiegel became the showman who could never afford to be seen to be down. `Do
you expect a leopard to change its stripes?' he protested at suggestions of caution. He also had a nose for a
good story (everyone had turned down On the Waterfront), believed artists work better under pressure (and
so created plenty) and, clashing lustily with all his directors except Kazan, maintained that films which ran
smoothly were dull and boring.
Asked to define success, Spiegel replied, `Baby, know your audience.' There may have been more to it.
Legend insists that one day as he strolled down the Champs Elysees someone gave him a kick in the pants;
without turning he declared, `The cheque is in the mail.' Perhaps the trick was that he really did have eyes in
the back of his head.
Osborne, Helen
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Osborne, Helen. "Pig in a silk suit." Spectator, 26 Apr. 2003, p. 41. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A101613773/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1d28b5bc.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A101613773
'After Andy': Getting Warhol's Religion
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni's memoir captures the artist's final days and how religion influenced the weirdness of the era
"Almost everyone who remained relevant in Andy's life was Catholic," Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni explains, "whether it was Paul Morrissey, Fred Hughes, Bob Colacello, the photographer Christopher Makos and Vincent Fremont." Herve Gloaguen/Getty
By Nick Ripatrazone
August 2, 2017
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We don't know if Andy Warhol got his wish "to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Elizabeth Taylor's finger," but his 1987 memorial service was a spectacle. Yoko Ono, Richard Gere, Roy Lichtenstein, Calvin Klein, Raquel Welch, Grace Jones, Debbie Harry, Halston and more packed St. Patrick's Cathedral. Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni "hovered and watched" the pageantry; she worked at the Warhol Studio. She was the last employee that Andy had ever hired.
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After Andy, Fraser-Cavassoni's memoir, is an endlessly quotable romp that captures the melancholy and magnificence of Warhol's final days and legacy. "I started the book with Andy's memorial because it captured his world – a far-reaching one that included fashion and society, as well as art," she tells Rolling Stone. "Memorials celebrate a life."
Fraser-Cavassoni's entire book is an elegiac celebration of a world that died with Warhol, but is slowly being resurrected. "Toward the end of his life, Warhol felt profoundly undervalued and ignored," she explains. But now, 30 years later, he's been born anew: collectors pine for his work; major museums exhibit his creations; his art has skyrocketed in value. Alice Cooper recently discovered his "Little Electric Chair" print, that was part of Warhol's Death and Disaster series, which he bought for $2,500. In 2015, a similar print sold at auction for $11.6 million.
The ultimate Warhol insider, Fraser-Cavassoni was drawn to and inspired by Warhol, but was no stranger to fame. Her mother is the historian and novelist Lady Antonia Fraser, and her stepfather was the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter. Fraser-Cavassoni followed in their literary footsteps, becoming a fashion journalist and biographer; her first book was an eye-opening examination of legendary producer Sam Spiegel. After Andy demonstrates her storytelling chops as the book masterfully winds through anecdotes, scenes and interviews with scores of Warhol's associates, acquaintances and admirers. It is breezy without ever feeling light, channeling Warhol's enigmatic presence.
And it is the puzzle at the center of that enigma which Fraser-Cavassoni captures: Warhol's Catholicism. At the memorial service, art historian John Richardson eulogized that Warhol "fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, and glamor and that he was cool to the point of callousness." As a fellow Catholic (like her mother, she attended St. Mary's Ascot convent school in Berkshire), Fraser-Cavassoni gets Warhol's religion.
"Almost everyone who remained relevant in Andy's life was Catholic," she explains, "whether it was Paul Morrissey, Fred Hughes, Bob Colacello, the photographer Christopher Makos and Vincent Fremont." She continues: "Being brought up Catholic gives a sense of hierarchical order, discipline and faith. Faith, when embraced, anchors the creative ... I think it would also be fair to say that the romantically rich and multi-layered religion that forgives all – lest we forget! – allows unconventional traditionalists."
Warhol's religious paradox sharpened after 1968, when writer Valerie Solanas shot and wounded him in the Factory. Fraser-Cavassoni says it was a pivotal moment: "Andy changed. He almost died. Then rose again – somewhat symbolic – and allowed Fred Hughes to turn his talent into an international business." There's a refrain in After Andy of Warhol saying, "I've got to keep the lights on," a blue-collar sentiment that, in classic Warhol fashion, carries a more spiritual double-meaning. Warhol attended daily Mass, and served food to the homeless during holidays – actions that Fraser-Cavassoni says were signs "of his eternal gratitude." She even notes "when he met Pope John Paul II in 1980, Andy was wearing a tie and a low-key version of his signature wig; both suggesting a sign of his respect."
Fraser-Cavassoni had been saved by the no-nonsense nuns of St. Mary's. After some teenage mischief, she found a sense of respect and peace with the nuns, and, in a budding fashion sense, admires the design of the habit: "Since it was flawless and since it was individually fitted on each woman, it was my first taste of haute couture." It's the type of line that captures another link between her and Warhol: their insatiable curiosity about the world.
And, as the daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser, the social column writers had a curiosity about young Natasha. At 15 she was already making the pages of Nicky Haslam's Ritz column; at 16 she had a full-page portrait in British Vogue. She caught what Warhol called the "social disease," and that included getting noticed by Mick Jagger when she was 17. She met him on Sam Spiegel's boat. A few weeks later, their first date was a Stevie Wonder concert, and then off to the nightclubs, and finally, his flat. They had fun, but were never in love: "He was a burning light who belonged to Jerry."
Fraser-Cavassoni tells Rolling Stone a Jagger story that didn't make the final copy of the book: "During the making of The Last Tycoon, my stepfather became friendly with Robert de Niro. So when the actor and Martin Scorsese came to London to promote Raging Bull, a dinner was arranged 'with the boys.' Imagine Harold's surprise when de Niro's first question was about Mick Jagger: 'Say, is it true that your step-daughter…'"
Although Fraser-Cavassoni's name drops could fill an encyclopedia, After Andy remains grounded in that "keep the lights on" work ethic, one she says Jagger shared with her mother, Pinter and Karl Lagerfeld – who she assisted at the Chanel studio. "They have all proved that to remain relevant, you have to carry on, adapt and be innovative even if it's not always appreciated," she says. "In my case, always having to earn my keep made me grounded and lucid about my circumstances. When leaving England in 1985, I was chasing a lightness of being existence. Working, or rather being paid to do what I enjoyed, allowed this."
It's that sense of ebullience that speeds the reader through After Andy, but Fraser-Cavassoni slows the narrative down at exactly the right moments. She's a careful caretaker of Warhol's legend. One of her later chapters in the book is titled "Warhol Land Continues to Haunt," and After Andy captures the artist's almost otherworldly staying power. "Warhol's primordial influence was a religious one," she asserts. "His genius was changing the face of art by mixing it with contemporary flare and timeless technique. Look at the Marilyns, Jackies and other Sixties portraits – the ones termed by Andy as his 'rainy day paintings' – the suggestion of sainthood and or martyrdom gives an eternal quality to each subject. Meanwhile, the best of his self-portraits are Christ-like and imply that Catholicism plagued him." After Andy is an entertaining ride about work, play and the weirdness in-between that creates great art.
Books
The mogul with octopus arms
Simon Callow on Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni's biography of Sam Spiegel, a supreme example of the producer-buccaneer
Simon Callow
Fri 9 May 2003 20.41 EDT First published on Fri 9 May 2003 20.41 EDT
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Sam Spiegel: The Biography of a Hollywood Legend by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Buy Sam Spiegel: The Biography of a Hollywood Legend at Amazon.co.uk
Sam Spiegel: The Biography of a Hollywood Legend
by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
480pp, Little, Brown, £22.50
Harvey Weinstein, the pugnacious, fast-talking head of Miramax, is the latest in a long line of larger-than-life film producers to capture the public's attention, one of a species associated from the very start with the business of making movies.
The film producer is a highly visible combination of visionary, midwife and salesman; he or she generally initiates the venture, raises the money for it, sees it through its journey to the screen, and then sells it. There is often an element of the con man (or woman) about a producer, and we love them for it. Magician-like, they produce rabbits out of a hat. There is something inherently unstable, it would appear, in the huge gamble of making a film, requiring immense amounts of energy and force of personality. Interestingly, a large number of the most successful operators in this sphere have been of conspicuously foreign extraction, and their very exoticness has aided their efforts. The more outrageous they appeared, it seemed, the better the con trick worked.
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In my time in the cinema, the supreme example of this kind of producer-buccaneer was Sam Spiegel, and Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni's new biography is the first really thorough study of the man. For various reasons, however, what promised to be an exhilarating read turns out to be somewhat dispiriting. The difficulty is twofold: to avoid rendering the sense of decline after the great years as merely depressing, and to convey the widely attested charm of a man whose actions were on the whole disgraceful. The picaresque is a tricky mode: we need to be able to rejoice in the hero's witty tricks.
Here we have a mere catalogue of appalling behaviour, not simply in order to get the masterpieces made, but at every level - personal, social, artistic. Wives are cheated on, children ignored or used, actors shamefully cheated, directors randomly dropped from projects. Books are cooked to his exclusive advantage; artists are robbed of their legitimate credits. All the while he lives it up, buying priceless works of art and diamond bracelets for the favoured few. He was compulsively mendacious: his third wife remarked that he would rather climb a tree than tell the truth.
Fraser-Cavassoni suggests that all of this was done with a charm which made it all right, but it simply reads as bad and generally rather petty behaviour. There is occasionally, it must be admitted, a certain ghastly magnificence to his transactions; the way, for example, that he handled his fiancée when she discovered him in bed with two other women. "I hope it was worth it," she said, as she slammed the door behind her. "It was," he screamed after her. The next day he sent her a telegram: YOU MIGHT AT LEAST HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR.
On the credit side, of course, there are the great films - The African Queen , On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia - plus a number of interesting ones: the charming Tales from Manhattan, Joseph L Mankie-wicz's baroque Suddenly Last Summer, Joseph Losey's The Prowler. There are the inevitable unremarkable films, odd disappointments like Orson Welles's The Stranger and Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon, plus the half-baked epic Nicholas and Alexandra, stranded somewhere between history and Hollywood, but belonging to neither.
All in all, though, it is a fine CV, and Fraser-Cavassoni takes us through each film, drawing on interviews, letters and archives. She shows the young Spiegel becoming almost accidentally involved in the film business, initially as a publicist in Berlin, then establishing himself in the early 1940s in Hollywood by throwing the famous parties at which it became imperative to be seen, until, in 1942, under the nom de guerre of SP Eagle, he broke into production with the elegant and highly European Tales from Manhattan, directed by Julien Duvivier and starring, among others, Charles Laughton and Edward G Robinson.
Working with directors such as Losey, Huston and Kazan, he created a series of films which were all distinguished by an uncommon level of intelligence and a conspicuous commitment to production standards; moreover, by working with blacklisted talent, he was able to make them more cheaply than he might otherwise have done. Operating in conjunction with studios, he pioneered independent film-making. The climax of his output was the two great blockbusters he made with David Lean, after which he seemed to lose his touch; the remaining seven films yielded only one of undisputed quality, David Jones's Betrayal, from Pinter's play.
Fraser-Cavassoni charts the graph very clearly, noting that after Lawrence of Arabia , with its seven Oscars, Spiegel seems to have become both more arrogant and less committed: he had achieved what he wanted, and was an acknowledged titan in the industry. His concentration was now primarily focused on indulging his creature comforts. These consisted of cavorting with the rich and famous, playing gin rummy, eating and having sex. The food was evidently excellent; about the sex it is harder to judge. He told Harold Pinter that "the secret of happiness is whores"; as he got older, the whores got younger and more numerous. He seems to have had no interesting intimate relationship. In his later years, he cultivated the acquaintance of various young bloods, among them Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Mike Nichols and David Geffen, all of whom enjoyed rubbing shoulders with history, but these sometimes rebellious disciples were not exactly friends. A profound and impenetrable loneliness characterises the man.
Indeed, there is a melancholy thread through the book, a certain joylessness, as if Spiegel were driven from one thing to another without fully engaging with anything. His early years in Jarolslav, his period in Palestine, his first marriage, his imprisonment for fraud in both Britain and America, his establishment of a reputation for being an extravagant and somewhat louche host ("an inspired pimp," Bud Schulberg called him) as a preliminary to launching himself as a producer are all well described, but we never enter into Spiegel's mind.
Throughout the text he is called "educated", "sophisticated", "of unusual intellectual breadth", but we never know how he acquired this education or what he felt about anything other than how to make movies. It is no reproach to Fraser-Cavassoni to say that to convey Spiegel's outrageous charm requires the skill of a novelist, an Isherwood or a Scott Fitzgerald (though Billy Wilder's wonderful description of his "velvet octopus arms" is a vivid snapshot).
It would have been very illuminating, however, simply to see how his charm worked, to understand its mechanics. Alec Guinness gives a good glimpse of the method in Blessing in Disguise, which Fraser-Cavassoni quotes: they started out with Guinness firmly turning down the part in Bridge on the River Kwai, and ended with them discussing what sort of wig he'd be wearing; but one wants more. It may be argued that what really matters is how he made his films, but here too it is hard to discern the reality of the man. We never know, for example, what films he admired (other than his own), or what he thought of the medium.
We find out little of the actual work of a producer, though there is extensive coverage of his exchanges with his directors and some account of his relationship to the studios with whom he worked. In his dealings with his directors, he is largely out-monstered. Huston, Losey, Welles, Kazan, Lean, all seem to despise him, to mock him and to belittle him. His writers mostly want to kill him. Perhaps this expectation of finding a full rich human being behind the flamboyance is a doomed one. It may be that con men of Spiegel's ilk are in the end nothing but a front, that all the bluster and the charm are a sort of game, that he and his kind are in fact rather dull, in a very colourful way.
And yet, in one of many stimulating interventions, Nichols (whom he preferred not actually to work with) describes Spiegel as "the very soul of true ideas in a movie - the mystery and the contrast". Fraser-Cavassoni's book, thorough and admirable in many ways, fails to take us into the mystery, or to let us know the man.
Simon Callow's Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu is published by Vintage.
Antonia Fraser's daughter should have cut the fifth-form stuff about Andy Warhol from this memoir. Her 'delicious, disastrous' affairs are far more entertaining ...
By Craig Brown Event for The Mail on Sunday
PUBLISHED: 17:01 EDT, 21 October 2017 | UPDATED: 17:01 EDT, 21 October 2017
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After Andy: Adventures In Warhol Land
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Blue Rider Press £23.99
Rating:
Andy Warhol names a grand total of 2,809 different people in his voluminous diaries. Oddly enough, Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is not one of them.
No shrinking violet – she describes herself as ‘posh with cleavage’ – she was never going to let a little detail like that prevent her calling her autobiography After Andy: Adventures In Warhol Land and plastering its cover with pictures of him.
She might more accurately have called it After Antonia: Adventures In Fraser Land: early on, she mentions that, in 1975, ‘my mother, the best-selling historian Antonia Fraser, went off with the playwright Harold Pinter’ – a detail she repeats at regular intervals throughout her book.
Natasha Fraser meets Andy Warhol at a party in London in 1980. Natasha didn¿t see much more of Andy until 1987, when she was hired as one of a string of posh British dolly-bird assistants at his famous Factory in New York +3
Natasha Fraser meets Andy Warhol at a party in London in 1980. Natasha didn’t see much more of Andy until 1987, when she was hired as one of a string of posh British dolly-bird assistants at his famous Factory in New York
Whenever she is after fresh employment, either her mother or Harold drops a line to one bigwig or another and – hey presto! – the job is hers. These connections lead to further connections, and those connections lead to more connections, et voila!
When she thinks of moving to Paris, ‘Anna Wintour had faxed Gilles Dufour, Karl Lagerfeld’s right-hand man at the Chanel studio; Loulou de la Falaise at Yves St Laurent and Jean-Jacques Picart at Christian Lacroix... It was unbelievably helpful.’
Natasha Fraser was born in 1963 into a family she describes as ‘Catholic bluebloods’. Her grandfather was Lord Longford, her grandmother the historian Lady Longford, her father the Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser and – or did she already mention this? – her mother was the best-selling historian Lady Antonia Fraser.
Natasha claims that, despite such pomp, true wealth was never theirs. ‘Money intrigued because, as a family, we didn’t really have it.’ Yet somehow the Frasers managed to scrape by, what with their large house in London’s Campden Hill Square and a hunting lodge on their own Scottish island, wallpapered in William Morris and carpeted in the Fraser tartan.
At Christmas, ‘Mum... injected her impish sense of humour when filling our red-and-white Santa stocking that came from Bloomingdale’s and had our names written in gold glitter’.
One summer, the Shah of Iran’s daughters came to stay. Even her childhood japes give off an air of grandeur. During a fencing class at her boarding school, ‘I persuaded Princess Elena of Bourbon to step on a stink bomb’.
It’s all a far cry from Skid Row.
As a child, Natasha felt dwarfed by her elder sisters. ‘My sisters made me feel inadequate.’ She was, she says, ‘the non-smart aleck (sic) of the family’. This is clearly not false modesty: in the space of a few pages she calls the Nazi creed not national socialism but ‘social nationalism’, Screaming Lord Sutch’s party not The Official Monster Raving Loony Party but the ‘Go To Hell’ party and the headmistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School ‘Helen’ Brigstocke, not Heather Brigstocke.
Natasha in St Tropez in 1980 with, from left, Dominique Rizzo, Christabel McEwen and Mick Jagger. Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is the Katie Price of the Upper Crust, the Barbara Windsor of Debrett¿s +3
Natasha in St Tropez in 1980 with, from left, Dominique Rizzo, Christabel McEwen and Mick Jagger. Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is the Katie Price of the Upper Crust, the Barbara Windsor of Debrett’s
Her sense of social history can also be a little off-target. She even seems to think that, in the early Seventies, jeans were ‘a rare commodity, they had to be purchased in the United States’. Eh?
Perhaps to compensate for her intellectual shortcomings, ‘among my parents’ acquaintances, I suddenly made it my business to know exactly who had titles, who was wealthy, and who was foreign’.
Her diligence paid off. Her autobiography is liberally peppered with attention from wealthy titled foreigners, most of whom introduce her to yet more wealthy titled foreigners.
For instance, within a year of arriving in Paris ‘I had got my social bearings’. Thus, she made friends with Cristiana Brandolini, Maxime de la Falaise, Florence Grinda, Hélène Rochas, Clara Saint and Sao Schlumberger, before embarking on ‘a series of delicious but ultimately disastrous love affairs’.
Ah, yes: her love affairs. Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is the Katie Price of the Upper Crust, the Barbara Windsor of Debrett’s. Aged 16, ‘I was starting to catch the attention of older men... Having strong features, I was recognisable and quickly viewed as posh with cleavage’.
Later, she accepts with enthusiasm a wealthy foreigner’s suggestion that she nickname her bosoms Minnie and Mickey. ‘I was out every single night and could be counted on to expose Minnie and Mickey in a snug Rive Gauche top.’
The Herman Munsterish Karl Lagerfeld offers her the benefit of his fashion experience. ‘Wear tops to show off your bosom, Natasha. A bosom is the female equivalent of a grand zizi.’
Just in case her readers aren’t bilingual, Natasha offers a brassy translation of grand zizi: ‘big penis’.
Aged 17, she is on a yacht with Sam Spiegel – the Harvey Weinstein of his day – when Mick Jagger arrives with Jerry Hall. Jerry says, ‘Natasha is so pretty that she should be photographed by Terence (Donovan) or Bailey’.
Mick replies, ‘Well, her tits are big enough.’
‘Talk about uncouth,’ writes Natasha, but her distaste does not stop her going on a date with him the minute she’s back in London, or going back to his place at the end of that first evening.
‘Within minutes he was helping me brush my teeth, and when the lights went out, my cotton sweater, cheap skirt and everything else were swiftly whipped off.’
Their relationship, which carried on for ‘many years’, was, she says, ‘delightful on every level’, though, understandably, Jerry was less than delighted. ‘I thought you were ma friend,’ she says to Natasha, who finds it so funny that she ‘couldn’t resist’ repeating it all over London.
After A-levels (‘a crashing disaster’) she had an affair with ‘a Brazilian-born playboy whose party trick was eating glass’. It was, she says ‘the whiff of money around Shorto that partially attracted me to him’.
When they were introduced, she noticed his Cartier watch, ‘and I knew, within seconds of spotting it, that I was going to own it. I quickly did, and my mother quickly christened it “the watch of shame”.’
Meanwhile, she lets Jack Nicholson put his hand up her skirt while they are both snorting cocaine, and also embarks on a long affair with the Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren.
Lady Antonia Fraser with baby Natasha. Natasha Fraser was born in 1963 into a family she describes as ¿Catholic bluebloods¿ +3
Lady Antonia Fraser with baby Natasha. Natasha Fraser was born in 1963 into a family she describes as ‘Catholic bluebloods’
But she draws the line at Lucian Freud. ‘If I had one rule, it was never sleeping with men I didn’t find attractive.’
She first met Warhol at a party in London in 1980, when she was 16. Coincidentally, I was at that same party, which was also attended by Gary Glitter and Micky Dolenz of The Monkees, to name but two.
I was spending a few days with Warhol for a magazine article. He spent most of his time saying ‘Gee’ or ‘Great’ or ‘Gee, great’. He was the American equivalent of HM the Queen: genial but guarded.
Natasha didn’t see much more of Andy until 1987, when she was hired as one of a string of posh British dolly-bird assistants at his famous Factory in New York, which she calls, Alan Partridge-style, ‘the Big Apple’.
She barely had time to introduce herself to her new boss before, later that same day, Warhol checked into hospital for an operation. He died four days later. ‘This made me the last employee to be hired under Andy,’ she boasts, obscurely.
Perhaps to justify purloining Andy’s name for the title of her book, she then feels duty-bound to write a lot of earnest fifth-form stuff about the legacy of Warhol, ‘a prophet-like artist whose impact continues to surprise and remains omnipresent’.
And for those who may not have heard of Picasso, she helpfully describes him as ‘the fecund and ever-popular Spanish artist’. These dutiful passages make one yearn for the shameless downmarket joie-de-vivre of her nights on the tiles with Minnie and Mickey.
Whatever next? Katie Price on Sir Howard Hodgkin? Tamara Ecclestone on Francis Bacon?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-4997254/Craig-Brown-reviews-Andy-Adventures-Warhol-Land.html#ixzz5AjIEE5yX
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The gift of a fashion fairytale
Livia Feltham November 18, 2014 News
A new coffee table publication that charts the evolution of a designer like Christian Dior is never unnecessary which makes it all the more delightful to report that Dior have now announced the launch of Monsieur Dior Once Upon A Time by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni. A perfect stocking filler, the new book unveils a never-before-seen side of Christian Dior’s world and comes brimming with archive documents and testimonial after testimonial from those close the man himself, a designer who proclaimed, “All women should have a good fairy. That is the couturier’s role”.
Christian DiorChristian Dior
La maison Dior - The house of DiorLa Maison Dior
Le gris Dior - The Dior greyThe Dior Grey
Pieced together by Paris-based writer and journalist Fraser-Cavassoni, a prolific writer and active collaborator with the House of Dior, following her previous contributions to the Dior Glamour by Mark Shaw, her avid documentations don’t leave too many stones unturned (via gritzner). A vivid portrait of the iconic brand’s founder is painted swiftly following the story behind his first couture show in 1947, a show that transformed fashion into what we know it as today and lead to the subsequent determination and dedication to refinement that characterised Dior.
Bogart And BacallLauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart
The fashion shows
Dior_EN_cover
Time-honoured Dior personalities like the legendary Marlene Dietrich and the late Lauren Bacall, who granted Fraser-Cavassoni one of her last interviews especially for Once Upon A Time, frame the master couturier’s story with a glamorous aplomb and instantly start the ball rolling for content of an equal high ebb. This title is a fine testament the a house that endeavours to keep its founder’s memory and comparatively his legacy alive and well, over 65 years after his death. If you are looking for a book that gives you the closest thing to a real fashion fairy-tale, this is what you’ll want to look into.
Monsieur Dior Once Upon A Time is available now
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Dior