Roman holiday

Rome

Another bride, another groom, another sunny honeymoon, another season, another reason, for making whoopee… Like the song by Sammy Kahn, we made whoopee in Rome last weekend, the excuse being — yes, you guessed it — a wedding. Il Principe Boncompagni Ludovisi and his former wife Benedetta, born Barberini Colonna, married off their boy Bante to Delphina Lapham, daughter of two very old friends of mine, Lewis and Joan Lapham. Lou — as I call him because, although he’s posh, he has always fought for the underdog — was the star witness for the defence of the recent lawsuit by Roman Polanski against Vanity Fair. Which VF of course lost because it took place in the UK. As Graydon Carter wrote afterwards, it was hard to see how one could injure the reputation of a man who had pleaded guilty to statutory rape, had fled the country in which the outrage had taken place, and was now seeking damages for a story which mistakenly had him propositioning a woman at Elaine’s before the funeral of his murdered wife. Had I known about the case, I could have been of some assistance, but it’s just as well to let bygones be bygones.

The winter after the tragedy of Sharon Tate’s torture and murder, Polanski arrived for the first time in Gstaad. Despite not having many friends there, he was nevertheless made to feel welcome everywhere because of what he had gone through. It didn’t last. Within a month he was banned from the Eagle over a dalliance with a young girl, and then he and I had a falling out. It was nothing important, kid stuff really, but he did get Bruce Lee to fly all the way over from Hollywood to straighten me out.