Part 20 (1/2)

SEVENTEEN.

The d.u.c.h.ess was teetering. She had veered from the path marked ”Duty and Decorum” a few weeks before her wedding. And she was blamed for leading the Princess of Wales astray. The two women had been photographed at Ascot, poking a man's bottom with the tips of their umbrellas. Days later they dressed up as policewomen to raid Prince Andrew's stag party. With badges and billyclubs they barged into Annabel's nightclub and sat at the bar, drinking. The British press reported the incident in terms of cla.s.s that Americans could understand: bush league vs. Junior League. Sarah was pilloried as the biker babe from h.e.l.l. Diana, the sweetheart next door, emerged unscathed. They were like the fairy tale of the two Princesses: One opened her mouth and out came rubies and diamonds. The other one spoke and out came toads.

”The Princess of Wales escapes such censure because she is prettier,” wrote Sunday Times Sunday Times columnist Craig Brown, ”and less, well, columnist Craig Brown, ”and less, well, obvious obvious than the d.u.c.h.ess of York. It is the peculiar capacity of the d.u.c.h.ess to mirror modern Britain, its gaudiness, its bounciness, its rumbustious lack of mystery.” than the d.u.c.h.ess of York. It is the peculiar capacity of the d.u.c.h.ess to mirror modern Britain, its gaudiness, its bounciness, its rumbustious lack of mystery.”

Within the first year of her marriage, the d.u.c.h.ess of York became the d.u.c.h.ess of Yuck. She took 120 days of vacation, yet she complained about overwork. She carried out 55 royal duties during the year, compared with 429 for Princess Anne. That earned Sarah Ferguson the t.i.tle the d.u.c.h.ess of Do Little. When she gained fifty pounds during her first pregnancy, she was dubbed the d.u.c.h.ess of Pork. When she accepted free first-cla.s.s plane tickets, free hotel suites, and free limousines, she became ”Freeloading Fergie.” She also accepted free watches from Cartier and free luggage from Louis Vuitton. As the d.u.c.h.ess of Dough, she expected payment for interviews and asked designers to give her expensive clothing. French couturier Yves St. Laurent agreed to, but British designer Zandra Rhodes turned her down flat, saying, ”I don't need the publicity.”

Sarah careened into controversy like a drunk with vertigo. She was seen in public playfully tossing bread rolls at her husband. On another occasion she emptied a salt shaker in his hair and squirted him with Champagne. As the auctioneer for a charity benefit, she exhorted bidders to pledge more money. ”Come on, George,” she hollered at one startled man, ”your wife wants it b-i-g b-i-g.” At a private party for a Middle Eastern emir, she dropped to the floor in front of forty guests and screamed at a female stripper, ”Take it off! Take it off!”

”Fergie thinks by throwing food around, she can identify with the lower orders, which only revile her vulgarity,” said columnist Taki Theodoracoupolos. ”If you want to clear a room in London and get rid of stragglers who've stayed on too late, just say: 'Oh, Fergie. At last. How are you?' People will start running. Whenever Philip wants to make the Queen laugh, he picks up the phone and says, 'What? You say that Fergie has been hit by a truck and run over?' ”

The press even took potshots at her when she went deer hunting with the royal family in Scotland and bruised her forehead on the telescopic sight of her rifle. One columnist said she was sorry to hear that Fergie had hurt herself while ”pursuing the innocent girlish pleasure of murdering a large mammal for sport.”

”To a certain extent,” admitted her father, ”becoming d.u.c.h.ess of York did go to her head. She didn't always read the rule book properly. In the royal family, certain privileges are there for the taking, but there have to be limits. Sarah thought she could get away with much more than she did. In those early days, Andrew should have been strong enough to guide her and advise her, but he didn't.”

Andrew did not hesitate to rebuke her in public when she acted up, especially if she had been drinking. Once, after he corrected her, she wheeled on him. ”Why do you have to keep embarra.s.sing me and pointing it out in front of other people when I get things wrong?” she asked. ”It's not very charitable. Sometimes you're as bad as your father.”

Fergie, who resented her negative press coverage, tried to ingratiate herself with reporters, while Andrew ignored them. ”Don't talk to them,” he advised her. ”They're knockers. They create heroes and then knock them down.”

”What can I do?” she said to a friend. ”Andrew tells me to take no notice, but he's away on his s.h.i.+p, not in the midst of things.”

The press criticism abated slightly in February 1988 when the Yorks agreed to a tour of Los Angeles to promote British arts and industry. Sarah, three months pregnant, arrived wearing French couture. But she quickly disclosed that her underpants were made in Britain.

”My knickers are from Marks and Sparks,” she chirped, using the nickname for Marks & Spencer, the budget department store where middle-cla.s.s British housewives shop.

In antic.i.p.ation of the royal visit, Chinatown merchants had put up a banner: ”WELCOME FERGIE AND WHAT'S-HIS-NAME.” Andrew grinned at it good-naturedly. Stuffed into his pin-striped suit, he looked as if he had just won the all-you-can-eat contest. On his previous visit to Los Angeles, he had been called a royal brat after turning a spray-paint hose on the press. The British Consulate had had to pay one American photographer $1,200 in damages and issue an apology.

”I was given the check to repair my cameras,” recalled photographer Chris Gulken. ”I was told: 'Her Majesty wishes you to know that this money comes from Andrew's personal funds and not from the public funds of the British people.' ”

A Los Angeles television commentator reported Andrew's 1984 trip to California as ”the most unpleasant British visit since they burned the White House in the War of 1812.”

The Prime Minister was so distressed by Andrew's press coverage that she commissioned a confidential study from public relations specialists in the London office of Saatchi & Saatchi to try to tone down Andrew's image. Mrs. Thatcher's report was sent to the Queen, who refused to read it. She said, ”I hardly think I need advice on family matters from that frightful little woman.”

On this trip Andrew was better behaved. Arriving in Long Beach on the royal yacht, Britannia, Britannia, he and Sarah spent ten days touring Southern California. They visited schools and supermarkets, where she blew kisses and he signed autographs. She appeared with tiny American and British flags in her hair and told photographers, ”Check out the hair, boys.” During their tour of Bullocks Wils.h.i.+re, the Los Angeles department store, the couple visited the boutiques of several British designers. Andrew spotted a black suede jacket that he admired, so the president of the store had the jacket gift-wrapped for him. Andrew accepted the present and then decided he would prefer something more contemporary, like a navy blue suede bomber jacket. The store made the switch. he and Sarah spent ten days touring Southern California. They visited schools and supermarkets, where she blew kisses and he signed autographs. She appeared with tiny American and British flags in her hair and told photographers, ”Check out the hair, boys.” During their tour of Bullocks Wils.h.i.+re, the Los Angeles department store, the couple visited the boutiques of several British designers. Andrew spotted a black suede jacket that he admired, so the president of the store had the jacket gift-wrapped for him. Andrew accepted the present and then decided he would prefer something more contemporary, like a navy blue suede bomber jacket. The store made the switch.

Schoolchildren, who had never met a d.u.c.h.ess before, crowded around Fergie and peppered her with questions about living in a castle. She said the hardest part was going to the bathroom. The youngsters grew wide-eyed as she told them about the Queen's old-fas.h.i.+oned toilets. ”You've got to pull up on the loo, not push down,” she explained. ”I always bungle it.”

The British press branded her as coa.r.s.e as a braying donkey. Once described as a breath of fresh air, she became a skunk at the garden party. ”She's an international embarra.s.sment,” complained London's Sunday Times. Sunday Times. ”Americans will likely retreat to their more refined dinner parties, there to cap each other with anecdotes about the awful vulgarities of the British.” ”Americans will likely retreat to their more refined dinner parties, there to cap each other with anecdotes about the awful vulgarities of the British.”

That evening the d.u.c.h.ess swept into a party decked out in the diamonds she had received from the Queen. Sparkling in her tiara, necklace, earrings, and bracelet, she quipped to onlookers, ”Clock the rocks.” When someone asked her whether she liked Gilbert and Sullivan, she said she preferred Dire Straits. One London journalist cringed. ”We wanted a silk purse,” he said, ”and we got a sow's ear.”

But Americans were charmed by the vivacious redhead, especially the movie stars, who lined up in Hollywood to meet her. Morgan Fairchild curtsied breathlessly, and Pierce Brosnan was speechless. ”I didn't know what to say to her,” he admitted with a blush. Jack Nicholson was not so reticent.

”She told me she was disappointed she wasn't sitting next to me,” he said with a characteristic leer. ”I told her that maybe she was lucky she didn't, because I didn't know what I might have done to her, if I had.”

Fergie hurried up to John Travolta to tell him the Princess of Wales was still bragging about their dance at the White House. ”She told me that Diana never stops talking about it,” said Travolta, beaming.

At one gala dinner the d.u.c.h.ess appeared in a gown that looked like a playing field of pink tulle waffles topped with pink satin roses. London's Sunday Times Sunday Times commented disdainfully, ”She looked like she came in third in a Carmen Miranda look-alike contest.” commented disdainfully, ”She looked like she came in third in a Carmen Miranda look-alike contest.”

The next night, at the Biltmore Hotel, Sarah appeared in a long black gown wrapped with galloping puffs of orange silk. The designer Mr. Blackwell p.r.o.nounced the dress ”G.o.d-awful” and pushed her to the top of his Worst-Dressed List for 1988 as ”the d.u.c.h.ess who walks like a duck with a bad foot.” Her long red hair was twirled and twisted into a hive of fussy curls held in place by diamond combs with corkscrew ringlets cascading to her shoulders. The effect was startling, even by Hollywood's excessive standards.

As she approached the microphone that evening, she looked around at the audience of 750 people, who had paid $1,000 each to be in the presence of royalty. She winked broadly at Roger Moore, the master of ceremonies, and spotting the actor George Hamilton, she smacked her lips. ”All these men around here,” she said l.u.s.tily.

An exuberant male guest shouted, ”We love you, Fergie!”

She yelled back, ”I'll see you later.”

”That was it for Fergie,” said columnist Ross Benson, shaking his head sympathetically. ”That was the beginning of the end. I filed a story that she had been a great hit in the United States, but the rest of the British press turned on her with a vengeance. They said her behavior was disgraceful, and with the inherent sn.o.bbishness of this country, they dismissed her as the ill-bred daughter of a stable boy in a blazer.”

The Yorks traveled from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, where they were weekend guests of Walter and Lee Annenberg at Sunnylands, the Annenbergs' 208-acre desert estate. The former U.S. Amba.s.sador to Great Britain and his wife greeted the royal helicopter on their private runway. The Annenbergs had arranged for a flotilla of golf carts with Rolls-Royce hoods to transport the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, their dressers, their aides, their guards, and their luggage.

Fergie hopped out of the helicopter with a large gold clasp in her hair fas.h.i.+oned like a guitar with the word ”ROCK” on it. Andrew wore ta.s.seled loafers. They jumped into two of the Annenbergs' golf carts and, like little children in b.u.mper cars, drove up and down the runway with clownish abandon.

The next day they attended a polo game and a black-tie dinner party in the evening at the Annenberg estate. ”Oh, it's just for a few friends,” said Mrs. Annenberg of her party for one hundred people. U.S. State Department dogs sniffed for bombs as the movie stars and socialites arrived. Actor Michael York (”No relation,” joked Fergie) took pictures, and the d.u.c.h.ess asked Frank Sinatra to sing her a song; he obliged with ”The Lady Is a Tramp.”

”I'm offended-absolutely-by the criticism the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess have received from the British press,” snapped Los Angeles's Chief of Protocol. ”Mayor Bradley found the d.u.c.h.ess to be great fun, and their royal tour of Southern California was a huge success.”

Other Americans rallied to Fergie's side, finding the madcap d.u.c.h.ess immensely likable with her manic mugging and breezy asides. ”It doesn't matter that Fergie's fas.h.i.+on statements sometimes end up with a question mark,” said USA Today. USA Today. ”When a personality sparkles like hers, she could wear a lampshade and still light up a room.” ”When a personality sparkles like hers, she could wear a lampshade and still light up a room.”

Fergie, in turn, appreciated Americans. ”I love visiting the United States,” she told a National Press Club audience in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., several years later, ”because Americans are so nice to me. I could've been an American in my last life.” The audience cheered, apparently not realizing that the d.u.c.h.ess believed in reincarnation. She said she especially enjoyed her trips to New York City. ”That's where I really load up,” she said about her marathon shopping sprees. On one return trip to London, an airline charged her $1,200 for fifty-one pieces of excess baggage.

”Those U.S. jaunts began to cost her dearly in terms of her image here,” said British journalist Ingrid Seward, who was also a personal friend.

But Sarah didn't care. With her husband away at sea, she was bored. So she began flying the Concorde to New York, where her presence triggered shameless jockeying among the nouveau riche. The social cachet of her t.i.tle drew moguls and tyc.o.o.ns, who scrambled to meet her. ”She's very pretty,” said multimillionaire Donald Trump, ”very bubbly, with lots of personality.”

Sarah never failed to amuse and entertain. She regaled her new friends with anecdotes about the royal family. Citing the Queen's appreciation for bawdy humor, she repeated Her Majesty's favorite jokes and included the story of the state visit of Nigeria's General Gowon.

She said the Queen had met President Gowon at Victoria Station and was riding with him in a carriage when one of the horses lifted its tail and broke wind.

The Queen turned to President Gowon. ”Oh, I do apologize. Not a very good start to your visit.”

”Oh, please don't apologize,” said Gowon. ”Besides, I thought it was one of the horses.”

After a few drinks Sarah continued with her repertoire of gamy jokes, her favorite being one about the Queen as a guest on a radio show called What Is It? What Is It? The answer is given to the audience by a panel of experts before the guest appears. The guest gets twenty questions to figure out the answer. The answer is given to the audience by a panel of experts before the guest appears. The guest gets twenty questions to figure out the answer.

The night the Queen appeared as a guest, the answer was ”horsec.o.c.k.”

The no-nonsense monarch got down to basics with her first question. ”Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” she asked.

”Animal,” replied the panel.

”Can you kiss it?”

”Why, uhmmmm, yes... I suppose one could could kiss it, if one were so inclined.” kiss it, if one were so inclined.”

”Is it a horse's c.o.c.k?” asked the Queen.