Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

Albergo Regina Isabella, Ischia, Italy, The Liz Taylor Suite

“Our love is so furious that we will burn each other out.” — Richard Burton

I really don’t remember much about Cleopatra. There were a lot of other things going on.— Elizabeth Taylor

The seaside charms and bubbling thermal baths of the island of Ischia have long been a draw for literary types (Henrik Ibsen, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams), movie stars (Marlon Brando, Brigitte Bardot, Charlie Chaplin, Jennifer Lopez, Leonardo DiCaprio), and other glitterati (Soren Kierkegaard and Prince Charles). None of these visitors, though, has made as big of a splash as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton did when they sailed over to Ischia to film the barge scenes for the 1963 blockbuster Cleopatra. Both were married to other people (she for the fourth time, to Eddie Fisher, who had left Debbie Reynolds for her) and their much-photographed affair was a salacious scandal of which a rapt public could not get enough. The Vatican cited Taylor for “erotic vagrancy” and there was talk that the United States was going to ban entry to the pair. Photos of the lovers sunning on a yacht and swimming in Ischia’s clear blue waters pushed the Space Race and other headlines off the front pages.

Taylor and Burton escaped the prying eyes and lenses of the paparazzi in a seaside suite at the Regina Isabella, in the seaside village of Lacco Ameno. The glamorous resort was already on the jet-set map as a retreat for the likes of Clark Gable and Maria Callas, and the power couple enjoyed royal treatment in what is now known as the Liz Taylor Suite, a sprawling, sun-filled spread with a regal salon and bedroom, huge terrace, and two marble-clad bathrooms fit for Cleopatra herself. No doubt the lapping waters of the Bay of San Montano and scent of pines was a soothing antidote to the stars’ rigorous filming schedule and tumultuous personal lives.

Cleopatra, meanwhile, became the most expensive film ever made (more than $300 million in today’s dollars). For all the expense, fanfare, reasonable box office success, and four Academy Awards, many critics found the epic to be mundane and lumbering. Even Liz, who made $7 million off the film, said she found the three-hour-long version released in theaters to be “vulgar.”

The couple’s allure began to ebb as they became notorious for their boozing and fighting and married and divorced each other twice. Most of the star vehicles the pair made after Cleopatra were disappointing, with the exception of the brilliant Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). For many viewers, the story of a volatile, alcohol-soaked marriage mirrors the lives of the stars, and Taylor won her second Academy Award for best actress.

Just around the coast from the Regina Isabella is a tribute to another well-known, much more subdued couple, the British composer Sir William Walton and his Argentine wife, Lady Susana Walton. The pair created a stir when the 46-year-old year old Walton wooed and won Susana, 24 years his junior, annoying her father so much that he spent her entire dowry on Champagne for their wedding reception in Buenos Aires. They settled on Ischia in 1949 and created one of the world’s great gardens, Villa La Mortella, filled with exotic plantings and splashing fountains, a perfect getaway from worldly affairs.

For more information, visit Regina Isabella.

Ava Gardner

Hotel Splendido, Portofino, Italy, The Ava Gardner Suite

I was born with good health and a strong body and spent years abusing them. —  Ava Gardner

By the early 1950s, residents of picturesque Portofino on the Ligurian Coast had figured out that there was a lot more money to be made from landing movie stars and other beautiful people than from hauling in fish. The man about town in those days was Rex Harrison. He had fashioned a luxurious villa on the remnants of a World War II era bunker high above the Bay of Portofino, where he entertained the likes of Clarke Gable and the duke and duchess of Windsor. So, it wasn’t too surprising to see Ava Gardner sail into the harbor and settle into the Splendido, a former monastery turned lavish hotel.  Gardner was at the height of her stardom, having won acclaim for her roles in such hits as Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), and Mogambo (1953). The high-living, hard-drinking, chain-smoking star came to Portofino to shoot scenes for The Barefoot Contessa (1954), with the pretty little town serving as a backdrop for her escapades with a Latin American playboy. With Gardner came costar Humphrey Bogart and his wife, Lauren Bacall. Not accompanying her was her husband, Frank Sinatra, from whom the star was increasingly estranged, nor her lover, the Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin.

Gardner’s role in The Barefoot Contessa, as a beautiful girl who rises from obscurity to become a famous star, was not far from her own life story. In fact, like her character, Gardner preferred to go barefoot, and she could comfortably do so on the huge terrace of the top-floor suite named after her. The views across the water to the pastel-hued houses hugging a snug harbor are unchanged from Gardner’s day. You can just about make out the spot in front of La Gritta bar where Harrison staggered onto the wharf after a night of celebrating his best-actor win for My Fair Lady in 1964 and threw his Oscar into the harbor.

Gardner went on to make several other well-received films, including The Sun Also Rises (1957) and On the Beach (1959). In 1963, she traveled to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to film Night of the Iguana. Her costar, Richard Burton, arrived with Elizabeth Taylor, and the trio’s off-screen antics inspired a parody by comedian Allan Sherman, sung to the tune of The Streets of Laredo: “They did things at night midst the flora and fauna that no self-respecting iguana would do.”  Gardner, Burton, and Taylor had more than their film careers and fondness for alcohol in common—of all the places the stars touched down on their international travels, the Splendido in little Portofino remained a preferred hideaway for the three of them, as it still is for the rich and famous.

For more information, visit the  Hotel Splendido.

Audrey Hepburn

Hotel Hassler, Rome, The San Pietro Suite

The most important thing is to enjoy your life, to be happy. It’s all that matters. —  Audrey Hepburn

Filmgoers will forever associate Rome with Audrey Hepburn, who buzzed around the Eternal City on the back of a Vespa in the 1953 classic Roman Holiday. Almost 70 years later, it’s still difficult to put your hand into the Bocca della Verità without thinking of Gregory Peck (Joe Bradley) screaming in mock pain as a terrified Hepburn (Princess Ann) looks on.

For Hepburn, Rome was synonymous not with ruins and fountains but with the Hotel Hassler, as it has been with generations of discerning travelers.  The star stayed at this hostelry at the top of the Spanish Steps while filming the story of a princess who enjoys a footloose romp with a dashing journalist, and she returned many times until her death in 1993. Managing Director Roberto Wirth, as much of a legend as many of his distinguished guests, says, “Her grace and elegance fascinated me … I remember her as a fairytale princess when she came down the Hassler’s stairs.”

Judging by her films, Hepburn might have seemed most at home in France (Charade, Funny Face, How to Steal A Million, Sabrina, Two for the Road), and she once famously said, “Paris is always a good idea.” But for much of the Belgian-born star’s life, Rome was where her heart was. Soon after the end of Hepburn’s14-year-long marriage to fellow actor Mel Ferrer, she married psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969 and retreated from films and the limelight for a new role as a Roman housewife and mother. That marriage dissolved in 1982 and Hepburn took up residence in Switzerland, where she happily grew roses when she was not traveling the world on behalf of UNICEF.

Hepburn frequently returned to Rome to visit her son, Lucca Andrea Dotti, often settling into the Hassler’s San Pietro Suite. The rich paneling, Old World paintings, priceless antiques, and acres of marble might have been handpicked for the classy and elegant icon. Anyone, star or not, who stands on the airy terrace and looks across the rooftops toward the dome of St. Peter’s might be tempted to quote one of Audrey’s lines from Roman Holiday, “I will cherish my visit here in memory as long as I live.”

For more information, visit  Hotel Hassler.

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Celebrity Hotel Rooms and Suites, Part 3

Katharine Hepburn:

Rosellen Suites at Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia – The Katharine Hepburn Penthouse Suite

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun. – Katharine Hepburn

The Katharine Hepburn Penthouse Suite at Rosellen Suites, Stanley Park, Vancouver.
Photo courtesy of Rosellen Suites.

Katharine Hepburn was an outdoorsy type. We saw her navigating the rapids in The African Queen and sharpshooting in Rooster Cogburn, and throughout the star’s 60-plus-years-long career magazines and newspapers were filled with photos of her sailing, playing tennis, and plunging into the icy waters of the Long Island Sound.

Yet by 1986, when Hepburn was nearing 80, she was content to enjoy the great outdoors from the comfort of a sprawling penthouse at the Rosellen Suites in Vancouver, British Columbia. She came to Vancouver that year to film Mrs. Delafield  Wants to Marry, a made-for-television romance in which she appears opposite the grandfatherly Harold Gould. The comfortably innocuous film was nominated for an Emmy but is fairly forgettable among Hepburn’s big hits and Oscar-winning performances. The city, though, and these lodgings in the city’s West End, were a smash with Hepburn. She fell in love with the sweeping views across Stanley Park and the harbor to the dramatic backdrop of the North Shore Mountains, and she returned to the suite many times over the years to soak them in.

The dining area at the Katharine Hepburn Penthouse Suite at Rosellen Suites.
Photograph courtesy of Rosellen Suites.

Hepburn’s two-bedroom, two-bath digs can make any guest feel like a star on a stage set. They spread across almost 2,000 square feet and open to a similarly sized terrace. Decor is pleasantly evocative of the Golden Age of Hollywood and might remind fans of Tess Harding’s sleek apartment in Woman of the Year. A wood-burning fireplace fends off the chill when clouds and drizzle roll in across the Strait of Georgia, and a crowd of up to a hundred can comfortably gather around the wet bar in the expansive living room-dining room-study.

By all accounts, Hepburn was a gracious and well-mannered guest, and the hotel has honored her legacy by naming her favorite lodgings the Katherine Hepburn Penthouse Suite. For more information, contact www.rosellensuites.com.

Salvador Dali:

Le Meurice, Paris, France, Presidential Apartment Dali

There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction. – Salvador Dali

Portraits of Salvador Dali taken in his suite at the Hôtel Maurice in Paris. (1972). Photographs courtesy Hôtel Maurice.

Salvador Dali was a sensation from the time he arrived in Paris, in 1926 at the age of 22. The promising Spanish painter, accompanied by a pet ocelot, was soon consorting with Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, René Magritte, and other avant-garde artists and thinkers. He showed off his many talents and unique vision in Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) a film he directed with Luis Buñel in which a scene of a razor slicing through an eyeball has kept art-house audiences squirming in their seats since it’s debut in 1929. The Persistence of Memory, his 1931 painting of melting pocket watches, is one of the most iconic works of surrealism.

Dali, a famously eccentric figure on the international art scene until his death in 1989, returned from self-imposed exile in New York during World War II and occupied a suite at Le Meurice in Paris for a month or two a year for the next 30 years. His wife and muse, the Russian immigrant Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova, aka Gala, remained in her castle in Spain, where she enjoyed the companionship of much younger men and allowed Dali to visit only upon invitation. The Meurice staff was used to catering to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the duke and duchess of Windsor, a long list of kings and queens and other famous guests but none were as quirky as the artist with the flamboyant mustache.

Dali shared his palatial quarters with a pet cheetah and, on one occasion, a flock of sheep, and he sometimes navigated the hallways on a bicycle. The ever-patient management reportedly drew the line and said no when the artist called the concierge and requested a horse be delivered to his quarters, but the staff gladly accepted the challenge when he offered 5 francs (about $1) for every live fly they caught in the adjoining Tuileries Gardens and brought up to the suite. The artist regularly presented autographed works as tips, and the wily bon vivant would write checks to pay for meals then draw doodles on them, knowing that no one would cash what was bound to become a valuable collector’s item.

Dali’s preferred quarters are now known as the Presidential Apartment Dali, with two reception rooms that, bedecked in 18th-century grandeur and filled with antiques and silk rugs on shining parquet floors, overlook the Tuileries through tall French windows. Rates begin at about $8,500 a night, and it’s unlikely the management will accept one of your signed doodles as payment.

Gwyneth Paltrow:

Capri Palace, Jumeirah, Capri -The Presidential Paltrow Suite

What I’ve learned is I want to enjoy my life. – Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow smiled at me once, and we’ve stayed at the same hotel on Capri. The smile and hotel stays were not concurrent.

Gwyneth flashed me a big, friendly grin when we sat at adjoining tables at my favorite restaurant in New York City. This was a while ago, long before Gwyneth started promoting vagina-scented candles on her wellness website Goop and was a fresh young star getting acclaim for her performances in Emma and Shakespeare in Love. The friend with whom I was dining was also enjoying considerable fame as the author of a wildly popular book and he was convinced the smile was a sign of recognition from the actress, a knowing nod from one celeb to another. I took no small pleasure in bursting his balloon to explain that it was clear the actress was apologizing for the boisterous behavior of her companion, Ben Affleck, who in those pre-rehab days was sloppily inebriated.

So, I felt a certain bond with Gwyneth when I learned that she has a suite named after her at the Capri Palace Hotel, where I have also stayed. My brief sojourn at the hotel in a garden-view double was delightful, but as far as I know my name does not adorn the door of a celebrity suite. My partner and I made our non-celeb status pretty clear from the moment we staggered into the soothing art-filled lobby, sweating and wrinkled after squeezing onto the compact bus that runs from the port up to Anacapri. It never occurred to me that the hotel would be sending a car to meet us at the boat. Meanwhile, the guest in front of me at the check-in desk was demanding to know the registration number and credentials of the helicopter pilot who was scheduled to whisk him up the coast to Rome. The polished and friendly staff extended the same solicitude to me when I said I would pass on hiring a private motor launch for a cruise around the island but would like to know where to board a rowboat for a ride through the Blue Grotto.

But back to Gwyneth. On Goop she has rather infamously claimed that water has feelings, too, just like us, and that sort-of- kinda makes sense when standing on the vast terrace of the Gwyneth Paltrow Suite looking across the shimmering Mediterranean. The watery love fest continues in the two private pools, and a portrait of Gwyneth stares up from the bottom of the larger of them. Guests, meanwhile, can look up to the heavens through a skylight above the bed in the marble-bedecked master bedroom that, like the rest of the sprawling spread, is designed to reflect “a new classy elegance,” according to owner/manager Tonino Cacace. A night of stargazing in such style will set you back about $7,000 in high season. Hey, that’s a bargain compared to the $18,000 a night Paltrow and her husband, Brad Falchuk, reportedly forked over for their honeymoon hideaway at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. For more information, contact www.capripalace.com.

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