Memoirs of a Fruitcake Read online

  ‘Goddit,’ we both concurred.

  The houses we had seen in the morning were about to be exceeded tenfold.

  The first dwelling of the afternoon’s agenda was the former property of Frank Sinatra, and before him, silent-movie star Buster Keaton. It was both ostentatious and gorgeous at the same time. The second house was hidden from view by its own grove of palm trees. A much more understated plot. It was like a rich man who still chooses to dress in jeans and a ripped T-shirt, whilst driving his old pick-up truck to and from work – which is exactly what Ralph Lauren does, by the way. Don’t you just hate him?

  Inside this disguised palace were dark wood floors and furniture, which looked wonderful against the white walls. It was the home of a record producer. ‘He doesn’t really want to sell but says for the right cheque he would consider moving on.’ Gordon sighed, as if he heard this line all the time, which he probably did.

  I had to ask. ‘How much would the right cheque actually be?’

  ‘Twenty million,’ announced Gordon.

  Twenty million dollars – and this was ten years ago! Bill and I were awestruck.

  ‘Hey, come on you two – this is Hollywood, what do you expect? Besides you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

  An hour later we entered the gated estate where Sylvester Stallone and Denzel Washington lived. These were no longer houses that stood before us, they were vast edifices, monuments to the success of their owners.

  ‘Surely this is the top of the pile, Gordon?’ Bill enquired. ‘Please tell me it doesn’t get any sillier than this.’

  ‘OK, you can breathe again now – this is about as silly as it gets,’ he conceded, ‘unless you take into consideration the fact that Sly and Denzel both bought the houses either side as well – for security purposes.’

  After the Sly-and-Denzel stop-off it was time to hop back on the tour bus.

  ‘OK, one more to go and then we’re done,’ Gordon announced triumphantly.

  The drive to the last viewing of the day was the lengthiest so far, as we had to come all the way down from ‘Stallonesville’, which was set way up high on top of a small mountain range (I’m not kidding) back to what they call the Bird Streets, off Doheny Drive looking over Sunset Boulevard.

  ‘This is it guys,’ said Gordon, as we pulled up to the end of the quiet lane. He turned to us, dropped his sunglasses down his nose and declared, ‘I love this house. If I had the money, this is the one I would live in, no question. Stand by to pay homage to the former home of hit maker and all-round cool dude, Mr Lionel Richie.

  ‘This house is what LA is all about!’ he enthused. ‘Now, we have to be on our extra best behaviour here guys, although I can’t actually tell you why – you’re just going to have to go with me on this one.’

  Why would we not? Gordon had brought us nothing but entertainment and education since we’d met him. He was the boss and we were more than happy to comply with any conditions he felt the need to impose. That’s not to say, however, that we weren’t intrigued by his little speech.

  Just as we were about to alight from the Range Rover, a black Jaguar saloon with blacked-out windows rumbled up the lane before grinding to a halt in a cloud of dust behind us.

  ‘Ah no, this is what I was alluding to,’ muttered Gordon under his breath as he looked in his rear-view mirror. ‘Just hang back a sec, I need to sort this out.’

  Bill and I looked at each other and shrugged – we’d been doing a lot of that today. What was going on now? As Gordon stood beside the car, the darkened glass slid down and a conversation commenced. Gordon nodded a few times before flashing a brief smile, replacing his sunglasses and making his way back.

  ‘Alright guys – we’re good to go, they’re fine with us.’

  Keen as we were to know who was in the car and why they might be ‘fine with us’, it was plainly obvious that Gordon was not about to let on, so we turned our attention back to the house. It was difficult to see much at all from the outside as the entire property was surrounded by a stone wall, ten foot high in places, which extended for at least half of the street. This, we discovered, was to accommodate the basketball and tennis court, and the olive grove. The main entrance to the property consisted of a huge stone archway that led up a dozen or so stone steps to a vast, ornate front door opening onto a hallway. This looked fairly ordinary at first, until one rounded the corner to behold a sight I will never forget; a sight that may cause me to weep as I type these words of fond recollection.

  For laid out before us was a huge, triple-height living room littered with various items of oversized furniture, which included one of the most substantial dining tables I have ever seen. But that was not all, in fact that was not nearly all.

  Dear Reader – one of the walls was missing!

  The whole of the back wall, some forty feet wide and fifteen feet high, was simply nowhere to be seen. It transpired it was made up of two enormous sliding doors that disappeared at the flick of a switch to reveal a perfectly framed picture of LA. Except it wasn’t a picture, it was for real.

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ – would you look at that?’ Bill said.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ smiled Gordon.

  This place really was incredible but it didn’t stop there. Between us and the city of Los Angeles was a black-bottomed swimming pool running the whole length of the garden, with an invisible raised channel churning out gushing white water at what must have been hundreds of gallons a minute. No ordinary pool already, this pool was about to get even better, for this was Lionel’s pool, with yet more surprises in store. Like the fact it stretched from outdoors all the way into the house.

  If he wanted to, as I’m sure he did, Lionel could get out of his bed in the morning and, without setting foot outside the perimeter of the master bedroom suite, dive straight into the cool dark water, swim out into the open air, across the garden and into his kitchen. Wow bloody wee! You don’t get that in St George’s Hill.

  Now I know materialism is not for one second what life is all about, but Lionel’s pool was something else. In addition to the above, there was, of course, the obligatory cinema, remote-control flame fires in every room, electronically activated sky lights, his and hers everything (bathrooms, dressing rooms, etc.), plus a four-bed guesthouse at the rear of the property, just for good measure.

  In short this house was the nuts. So what do you think we did next?

  Bill and I called an emergency secret meeting in the corner. This time it was our turn to whisper and Gordon’s turn to wonder what was going on. After no more than a couple of minutes, I had some breaking news for our new real estate man on the inside.

  ‘Gordon,’ I declared. ‘We would like to buy this house.’

  ‘Yeah, baby,’ he said, smiling. ‘I know, wouldn’t we all?’

  ‘No, really,’ I repeated. ‘We really would like to buy this house and we would like to buy it now.’

  Gordon stared at us. Only the slight twitch in his left temple betrayed the fact that he realised we might actually be serious. At that moment the doorbell rang.

  ‘Guys, I don’t mean to be rude but we need to hold that thought because if that’s who I think it is, there’s something you need to know.’

  The people at the door were also here to look at the house. That’s the first thing Gordon had to tell us. The second thing? The fact that those people were Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt!

  As I am sure you can imagine, Bill went into apoplexy. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ she said immediately, starting to shake as these two names came out of Gordon’s mouth.

  ‘Is that who was in the car?’ I asked, putting two and two together.

  Actually no, that was Courtney Cox, who was waiting for them. She’ll be coming with.’

  It was turning out to be quite a day for Bill. Half of the cast of her favourite show in one day, with a bit of Brad Pitt on the side. But there was more. As the volume of voices grew louder, here is a list of the people who came into view:

&
nbsp; Jennifer Aniston

  Brad Pitt

  Their assistant

  Courtney Cox

  David Arquette – Courtney’s husband and the producer of Friends

  Their interior designer

  And, last but not least, bringing up the rear, Rosanna Arquette

  I promise, promise, promise you this is true.

  Here’s what Bill and I had to do next. We had to pretend that this was not in any way a big deal for us and continue looking around the house as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The famous people had us surrounded and there was no escape.

  I bumped into a bearded Brad in one of the guest bedrooms.

  ‘Excuuuuse me,’ he smiled politely as he squeezed passed. Bill had a similar moment in the kitchen with Jennifer, she told me later. Out of all of them, Courtney was the busiest of the bunch; just like her character in the TV show, she was almost hyper with officiousness as she and her designer eagerly scribbled and sketched away on big yellow pads.

  ‘They’re all like this,’ whispered Gordon. ‘Stars never shop for houses in groups of less than five. I have no idea what they think might happen to them if they did.’

  Though it broke Bill’s heart, we eventually had to leave these famous friends – forgive the pun. We’d run out of things to look at and were beginning to hover a bit like star-struck out-of-towners, which is exactly what we were.

  Back in the car, Billie was the first to speak, slowly and emphatically.

  ‘That … was … the … greatest … half … hour … of … my… life!’ she exclaimed.

  Ten minutes later, we were back at the hotel. ‘I need a drink,’ said Gordon. ‘We all need a drink,’ said Bill.

  And we really did want to buy the house, a conversation we now resumed with Gordon at the bar.

  ‘Guys, are you sure you want to come and live here? Don’t get me wrong, I love it and I’m presuming you have the cash but.’ I stopped him mid-flow.

  ‘Gordon, find out what they want for the house and offer it to them, the full asking price, not a cent less and tell them we are cash buyers.’

  It was true, we were cash buyers. For a good few years after the Virgin deal, I was a cash buyer for most things although it might have been better otherwise. Banks tend to take time to lend you money and like to know what you might want it for, which would probably have helped me to cool down where future, less sound, purchases were concerned.

  Now it was Gordon’s turn to be on the back foot. He hesitated for a moment, took a big slug of his Dry Martini before flashing that big, white, gleaming LA smile we were now becoming accustomed to.

  ‘What the heck – you guys sure are crazy, but let’s do it!’

  It transpired that the Friend who was interested in the property was not Jennifer Aniston, as we’d first thought, but the more industrious Courtney C, which explained why she’d been so busy during her visit. This was, apparently, a house that she had been stalking for several years and she had almost bought the last time it had come to the market.

  If we wanted to get in on the action we would have to lodge our offer the next morning and, in Gordon’s opinion, get it accepted and signed off by the end of the day, as there was no way Courtney was going to let this pad slip through her fingers a second time if she could help it.

  ‘The asking price is $7 million,’ Gordon told me on the telephone that evening.

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll offer,’ I replied.

  I have learned over the years that one of the few really useful things money can do is give you the ability to make a decision quickly and act on it. If we genuinely wanted the house, this was no time for penny-pinching. Gordon made the bid, got it accepted and two days later Chez Richie had become Chez Evans. We moved in within the week and made LA our new home town. But we never saw any of the cast of Friends again.

  How mad is that?

  TOP

  10

  GREAT THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR MONEY

  10 Bid for stuff at auctions (exciting and usually a good investment)

  9 First-class travel (the joy of not queuing is immense)

  8 Top-class restaurants (my absolute favourite night out)

  7 Buy cars for people you love (a brand-new car for someone who would otherwise never be able to afford one can change their life)

  6 Send people on holidays they’ve only ever dreamed about

  5 Employ a full-time driver (anyone who can afford to do this and doesn’t is insane. It is the ultimate luxury – except for a full-time assistant)

  4 Employ a full-time assistant

  3 Pay off people’s mortgages

  2 Buy your mum a house

  1 Pay for life-saving private medical care

  OUR LA RESIDENCY WAS A ONE HUNDRED PER CENT platinum experience. So many weird and wonderful things happened to us whilst we were there, we absolutely loved every second of it. Take the day we ended up watching the first episode of a new television show that MTV were piloting by the name of The Osbournes. Nothing strange in that, you might think, except that we actually watched The Osbournes at the Osbournes’ with the Osbournes.

  I was walking down Sunset earlier that morning, soon after we moved out of the hotel into our new home, when I spied a familiar face over the road. Actually, it was more the gleaming bald bonce that I recognised at first. If it wasn’t me old mate Adrian, the taff from Epic Records, a lifelong mate of Ozzy’s and an all-round music-biz nutjob.

  ‘You gotta come along to Ozzy’s tonight for the first episode of this TV show,’ he said. ‘Ozzy’s fucking mad and they think it might make a good one of those fly-on-the-wall reality shows.’

  I said we’d love to and that evening, there we sat, in Ozzy and Sharon’s living room. Ozzy was out of town but Sharon, Jack and Kelly were on hand to give us a running commentary on what we were seeing.

  As the credits rolled there was a victorious round of applause – the show was like nothing any of us had ever seen before but no one could deny it was most highly entertaining for any number of reasons. Adrian suggested we leave the kids to party and invited Sharon to join us for dinner.

  ‘What did you think?’ she asked, as we sat down in the restaurant.

  ‘I thought it was hilarious, to be honest with you,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, MTV have filmed six and they’re going to see how the ratings are,’ she volunteered. ‘It’ll probably come to nothing, but it was fun to do.’

  Over the course of dinner, Sharon asked how Bill and I had got together and had now ended up as her neighbours. Compelled by our tale – at least I like to think she was – she concluded that she wouldn’t have done a thing differently, had she been in our shoes. She also told us that she was as nosey as anyone when it came to having a snoop at other people’s houses and that she would love to see our new place.

  We extended an invitation and she came over the next day with a very tired-looking Jack and Kelly in tow.

  ‘Mum, methinks you and Dad bought the wrong house,’ said Jack, when he saw the view from our new lounge.

  ‘This is amazing,’ said Sharon. ‘Really amazing.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ said Kelly. ‘Why are we here?’

  ‘Shut up Kelly, don’t be so rude,’ snapped her mum.

  Shortly after this contretemps, Sharon excused herself to answer her phone. It was the producer of their new show from MTV. The overnight ratings had come through.

  ‘Ohhhh – myyyyy – Godddd!’ screamed Sharon. ‘It’s the biggest ratings they’ve ever had for anything since MTV began, even bigger than the Video Music Awards.’

  She was delighted, they were delighted and the rest, as they say, is history. The Osbournes went on to become an instant worldwide phenomenon, a break-through hit in over a hundred countries, making the loveable Los Angeles lunatic family tens of millions of dollars in the process.

  It was also Sharon who gave Bill and me our first lesson in how to shop LA style, specifically how to furnish your house in
the manner of a true Angelino. She told us there was little point in spending all that money on buying a property and then skimping when it came to furnishing it. She said that her ‘stuff’ was worth more than the house it was in. ‘The feathers are always more than the nest,’ as she put it.

  And so we went shopping.

  There is no place to shop on earth that comes close to LA. You don’t have to wait – for anything. You want a mattress? Dial 1-800-Mattress and the mattress of your choice will be delivered to your door within the hour. If not, there will be a ten per cent discount for every hour it’s late. Ten hours late and it’s yours, for free.

  When you’re in some of the bigger stores, you are offered whatever it may take to keep shopping, whether it’s a pizza or a pint of beer, a massage or a mojito. As long as it keeps you in the store, it’s yours, but whatever you do, if you do see something you like don’t go away to think about it.

  Bill and I did just that with several items of furniture to begin with, returning no more than an hour later to find they had disappeared, sold, packed off and on their way to their new owners. The LA way is to choose and pay or risk disappointment. That’s it, there’s no in between. If you snooze, you lose.

  LA also does big very well, even when it comes to vermin, with rats the size of small dogs somehow finding their way into your kitchen cupboards. An exterminator is a must, and again ours was a revelation.

  ‘Hi Chris, hi Billie – it’s Ray here from Western Exterminators,’ he would buzz cheerily through the intercom every Wednesday. Ray was the happiest rat catcher in the world and, like everyone in this town, he wanted to be the best.

  People say to me, ‘Los Angeles is all so false.’

  I say, ‘No it’s not; it’s just that their very nature is “Let’s make this the best it can possibly be.” Positivity rules, what’s wrong with that?’

  Of course it doesn’t do any harm that the weather is always absolutely beautiful over there. Although the sky is a perfect blue and the temperature is hot, very hot at times, it never actually feels too hot thanks to the welcome relief of the onshore Pacific breeze. As the LA day then gets ready to say goodnight, the temperature cools but not so much that you can’t sit outside comfortably until the early hours.