{"id":25425,"date":"2025-09-19T10:25:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/25425\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T10:25:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:25:14","slug":"in-an-alternate-life-i-would-have-been-the-first-mrs-elvis-presley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/25425\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018In an alternate life I would have been the first Mrs Elvis Presley\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

My style signifier is a corduroy suit. I like keeping up with the latest style; when I was younger I loved looking like Elvis Presley, or James Dean, or a cowboy. I only bought a ranch in Arizona because I wanted to wear the gear. Then I was a Hells Angel \u2013 had the whole kit. But corduroy suits have been a constant. I quite like the shabby look \u2013 one of my favourites is Brooks Brothers, off eBay. And I always wear my Russian wedding rings. Two are from H Samuel, one is from Mexico. They\u2019re junk. <\/p>\n

The last thing I bought and loved was a most extraordinary carpet in a local shop in the countryside. It\u2019s a fake 18th-century design, probably made in the \u201920s in Portugal or somewhere, in these wonderful colours. I call it Proust\u2019s skin colour, a sort of mauve-grey-green. In the four corners are four vast swans thrashing about. What I\u2019ll do with it, I don\u2019t know. It doesn\u2019t fit in my house. But it was only 700 quid, and I couldn\u2019t resist. <\/p>\n

The place that means a lot to me is Turkey. I\u2019m not really mad about the east. I love chinoiserie but I don\u2019t really like Chinese architecture, and I\u2019ve never wanted to go to Japan. For me, aesthetic taste sort of ends at the Bosphorus \u2013 a slight mixture of east and west. I find Turkey the most extraordinarily uplifting place to be in. There\u2019s always something new and different. <\/p>\n

\"AA shell ashtray from Urcan restaurant in Istanbul \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

And the best souvenir I\u2019ve brought home is from the Louvre gift shop in Paris. I was in there buying postcards, I suppose, and there was this pile of white plaster books with a light inside. It\u2019s the best thing ever. I also love ashtrays from restaurants. I got a pair of bronze shell ashtrays the first time I was ever in Istanbul from a restaurant called Urcan. I often pinch them. You\u2019re supposed to: it\u2019s an ad. <\/p>\n

When you\u2019re broke, what do you do? Sell your Andy Warhols<\/p>\n

I sometimes listen to podcasts, but often I turn them on and think, \u201cOh God, this is getting boring.\u201d I did Bella Freud\u2019s podcast<\/a> recently. That was fun. Bella, with that very calm voice, asking you rather naughty things. But it sounds like I\u2019d taken too much cocaine. I\u2019m shouting. Did you notice?<\/p>\n

The most stylish person I\u2019ve ever seen in my life was Cole Porter. He was old and in pain by the time I knew him, and he was sort of lonely and unhappy, yet still very bright and glittering. I adored him. Two men would bring him into the room and sit him on the sofa, then they\u2019d perfect the crease in his trousers and make sure his shoes were at the right angle. Then he\u2019d turn and say, \u201cDo you want a Martini?\u201d He was the ultimate \u2013 and his music is style personified. <\/p>\n

The biggest interior decorating clich\u00e9 is bookcases either side of the fireplace. So boring. Oriental rugs, yuck. Shutters. And I hate chandeliers in the middle of rooms \u2013 I always put them in the four corners of a big room because if they\u2019re in the centre you feel ludicrous with this thing hanging over you. <\/p>\n

\"NickyNicky Haslam at home in London \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

The best gift I\u2019ve given recently was a pair of 1810 porcelain shell-shaped ink wells, but the shells are made to look like feathers standing on gilded bases. They are ravishing. I got them from a man called Adam Calvert Bentley<\/a>, who has a cave of beautiful rare antiques<\/a> in Battersea. I think you have to give more expensive presents as you get older. It\u2019s no good saying, \u201cI\u2019ve brought you a joke.\u201d It\u2019s all right when you\u2019re 12. But come on. <\/p>\n

And the best gift I\u2019ve received is a Valentine\u2019s card from Jilly Cooper<\/a>. It\u2019s a card of a dog, of course. It has a sweet message inside but I spent hours deciphering it: Jilly has the worst handwriting. <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t resist an old flea market. Usually they\u2019re filled with ghastly things like hearts made of wickerwork with \u201clove\u201d written on them. Very Meghan. But there\u2019s quite a good one in Chipping Norton where I find things. I never haggle. If I say \u201cNicky Haslam\u201d, they say, \u201cOf course\u201d, and give a discount.<\/p>\n

I laugh at the antics of a black Pekinese puppy. Zephyr was my first and I\u2019ve had about 10 or 15 since then, all beginning with Z, but Zephyr keeps coming back when I run out of ideas. They\u2019re the most unaggressive dogs, they love everybody. I think the only point of dogs is to make you laugh. That\u2019s why I loathe Labradors. Worse: whippets. They don\u2019t exude any kind of fondness. <\/p>\n

\"HisHis fridge staples include Lipton iced tea\u00a0and Bonne Maman yoghurt \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

In my fridge you\u2019ll always find Lipton iced tea. I live on it. Kraft cheese slices \u2013 I worship cheese slices. Bonne Maman violet fig yoghurt; anything violet, I\u2019m up for, and anything fig, so it\u2019s made for me. My Co-op has the strawberry and rhubarb Bonne Maman but it\u2019s not the same. Raspberries. Roquefort. Gherkins. Capers. Frozen peas! I love a dish of peas in the evening. <\/p>\n

The best way to spend \u00a320 is on a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The new Marlboro Touch are wonderful. When I was at Vogue, I smoked Pall Malls, and the jeweller Johnny [Jean] Schlumberger made me a case for them. Do you remember that ad \u201cCome to Marlboro country\u201d? I used to have those cigarettes called Eve, and say, \u201cCome to Eve country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NickyNicky Haslam at home in London \u00a9 Niall Hodson\"JoanJoan Collins\u2019s signature in his visitors\u2019 book \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

Do I believe in life after death? I don\u2019t see much reason to be persuaded either way. I do believe in ghosts \u2013 I\u2019ve seen one. I was in Venice, in the Gritti hotel<\/a>, at about four in the afternoon. I was with a friend and suddenly we both said, \u201cThere\u2019s a man walking through the room.\u201d He was sort of 18th-century-looking, head turned away but a sharp silhouette. We got up, looked out of the window where he had walked, and there were the remains of a bridge to the next palazzo.<\/p>\n

If I were a ghost, I\u2019d haunt Elsie de Wolfe, the decorator. I\u2019ve always worshipped her. She was a genius in creating what we really think of as decor. I own her visitors\u2019 book from her Versailles villa with every single fucking name from 1900 to 1939: statesmen, musicians, Consuelo Vanderbilt, grandees, writers\u2026 And the visitors\u2019 book from her house in Hollywood, which has every single movie star from Marlene Dietrich to Bette Davis! Page after page, drawings by Dal\u00ed and John Huston, comments: \u201cI love you more than anybody, Louis B Mayer.\u201d Sinatra, everybody is in this book. If I lost them I\u2019d go mad.<\/p>\n

I absolutely live in Primark. I buy everything there: underwear, shirts, jeans, sweaters. I once found an apricot chiffon dress that was an absolute copy of Chlo\u00e9\u2019s new collection \u2013 \u00a318. I bought it for a friend who hadn\u2019t got a dress to wear for a party and she looked amazing.<\/p>\n

\"Haslam\u2019s\u00a0corduroyHaslam\u2019s\u00a0corduroy shirt\u00a0from\u00a0Primark \u00a9 Niall Hodson\"CadburyCadbury Bournville chocolate and a ceramic plate by Tristano di Robilant \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

An indulgence I\u2019d never forgo is six squares of Cadbury Bournville dark chocolate, right before going to sleep. People say, \u201cThis is the best chocolate I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d about some ghastly bar with bits of nuts. Forget it. Bournville. Every night. I snap four squares off and I think, \u201cThat\u2019ll be enough.\u201d And then I think, \u201cOh, just two more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most memorable party I\u2019ve ever been to was the one the Queen gave after Charles and Diana\u2019s wedding at Claridge\u2019s<\/a>. Kings, queens, film stars, Douglas Fairbanks; it was an extraordinary sight to see. They\u2019d rigged up a big screen playing the wedding, and all these people like Mrs Reagan were pointing: \u201cOh, there I am!\u201d and \u201cWhat is she wearing?\u201d The Lester Lanin band played \u2013 only the Queen would get proper American dance music \u2013 and she started the dancing with Prince Philip. I danced with the Infanta of Spain. It was wonderful. <\/p>\n

\"AA privately printed anthology of poems given to him by\u00a0Barry Humphries \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

An object I\u2019d never part with used to be a letter from Nancy Lancaster, the famous decorator, congratulating me on a room. But Barry Humphries came for a drink once and brought me one of his privately printed, limited-edition collections of his favourite poems. He wrote in it: \u201cTo Nicky, with love and admiration.\u201d The poems are all ones I don\u2019t know; they\u2019re ravishingly beautiful. <\/p>\n

The best ringtone for a phone is a barking dog, because if it goes off during a memorial service, people don\u2019t turn around. <\/p>\n

The song guaranteed to make everybody dance is \u201cMame\u201d from the musical Mame. \u201cDa da da da, bah da da daaaa\u201d \u2013 everybody gets up and dances. But nobody is a good dancer these days. When I lived in St Tropez in the 1950s there was a hurdy-gurdy organ on the top of a hill that played these wonderful tunes that had different steps. You had to learn them before you were allowed on the floor and you had to dance barefoot. After two nights your feet were like bacon, but it was such fun. I knew a lot of dancers in Europe \u2013 I remember dancing with Margot Fonteyn. Absolutely hopeless. No sense of rhythm whatsoever. <\/p>\n

\"AA few of Haslam\u2019s CDs \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve just recorded a CD of myself singing Cole Porter-type songs\u201d \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

The artist whose work I would collect if I could is the Swiss artist Jean-\u00c9tienne Liotard. He was a wonderful painter but it\u2019s his beautiful drawings that I love most. Andy Warhol was a wonderful draughtsman too, which people don\u2019t understand. He gave me some, and of course I sold them, silly me. When you\u2019re broke, what do you do? Sell your Andy Warhols. <\/p>\n

The choreographer Freddie Ashton once told me, \u2018Stay mouse, dear, all the great beauties are mouse\u2019<\/p>\n

The key to singing well is to keep phlegm in your throat. Lubricates it. Smoking helps too: all opera singers smoke. Callas smoked like a train. I\u2019ve just recorded a CD of myself singing Cole Porter-type songs and I\u2019m only prepared to give it away because a man who lives near me in the country, Michael Haas, who is the world\u2019s expert on recorded music of the 19th and 20th century, sent it back saying, \u201cYour voice is perfection \u2013 and you can reach top C, which very few singers can.\u201d One song I left out was \u201c(I Wonder Why) You\u2019re Just in Love\u201d by Irving Berlin from Call Me Madam. It\u2019s one of the greatest songs ever written.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love anything fake. In my flat I\u2019ve got two plastic bird scarers, spray-painted white, and people always ask, \u201cWhere did you get those porcelain birds?\u201d <\/p>\n

\"TheThe framed photograph on the wall is of Cecil Beaton photographing Keith Richards in Hollywood, and was taken by Michael Cooper \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t bear having white hair. I\u2019m naturally mouse, and the choreographer Freddie Ashton once told me, \u201cStay mouse, dear, all the great beauties are mouse.\u201d And it\u2019s true, all the great beauties were mouse. <\/p>\n

In an alternate life I would have been the first Mrs Elvis Presley. When he first hit, you couldn\u2019t believe it, the beauty of the man. <\/p>\n

A favourite book I\u2019ve read recently is Precipice by Robert Harris<\/a>, about this affair between Prime Minister Asquith and Venetia Stanley. Venetia Stanley\u2019s daughter and her daughter are great friends of mine, so I was fascinated. He writes so vividly without pushing it. He just gets the picture right into your mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My latest grooming discovery is Liha Beauty\u2019s Idan face and body oil. It\u2019s made of tuberose. You can put it anywhere \u2013 I put it on my face if I remember. Best smell ever. Liha Beauty<\/a> Idan Oil, \u00a342 <\/p>\n

\"LihaLiha Beauty Idan Oil \u2013 \u201cbest smell ever\u201d \u00a9 Niall Hodson\"AA 1930s\u00a0swan lamp with\u00a0a pleated parchment shade \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

My barber of choice is called Michael and he\u2019s in the barber shop in Kenway Road, round the corner from where I live in London. Fifteen quid, half an hour, perfection. Peter, the old man who runs the shop, is obsessed with Marilyn Monroe, so I\u2019m always finding odd pictures for him to add to his booth. I met Marilyn once. I was working at Vogue and she had to give picture approval on some photographs, so I went to her hotel. She opened the door looking so awful: dirty tracksuit, hair over her face, no make-up. She was so sweet and polite, yet wrecked. She put her finger through the pictures she didn\u2019t like and ticked the ones she did. She died three weeks later.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve suddenly rediscovered red bell peppers. Flora, my darling assistant, gives her children sliced red peppers for lunch. Never thought about it before, but it\u2019s the most delicious thing in the whole world. What else? Hadda Brooks, a 1940s singer with a wonderful voice who has been totally forgotten. That ghastly Ella Fitzgerald took over \u2013 she\u2019s too perfect, nothing\u2019s ever wrong, I can\u2019t bear her. With Callas, your heart is in your mouth: can she make it? But Ella swoons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The thing I couldn\u2019t do without I\u2019m afraid, is Flora. She\u2019s worked with me for 35 years and she looks after me like I\u2019ve never been looked after by anybody. She\u2019s unrufflable.<\/p>\n

The best recipe for a dinner party as Diana Cooper once said, is too much to drink and a chocolate pudding. It\u2019s absolutely true; it\u2019s all people remember. I do the best chocolate marquise in the world. You know the Sachertorte in Vienna? Well, I had a wonderful chef in Arizona called Star, who made this Sachertorte and said, \u201cBut why don\u2019t we leave out the cake part and just have two layers of chocolate with the jam in the middle?\u201d We did, and it was the best ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PartPart of Haslam\u2019s collection of pomegranates arranged on the mantelpiece \u00a9 Niall Hodson<\/p>\n

I never intended to collect pomegranates but for some reason people seem to give them to me. The first one I bought, because I loved it as an object, is an 18th-century Persian one made of metal with inscribed writing. I buy them in Turkey in junk shops. Some people think I want velvet ones \u2013 eurgh. I won\u2019t have a bit of material, it\u2019s got to be hard. Now I have about 12. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Ivan<\/a><\/p>\n

My drink of choice if I don\u2019t mind getting a bit drunk, is a Gibson Martini with onions and onion juice. You have to have that gin called White Satin, which is very hard to get. And tiny pearl onions, about four. And not in the Martini glass, in a tumbler.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My favourite hotel is Jasper Conran\u2019s Villa Mabrouka<\/a> in Tangier. It is sublime. I went last year, and it rained nonstop for eight days and even that didn\u2019t stop me thinking the hotel was divine. One evening I went back to my room to fetch something during dinner and two women were on the bed ironing the sheets. That doesn\u2019t happen much. Most new hotels are awful \u2013 you can\u2019t tell if you\u2019re at Cheltenham Race Course, Terminal Four at Heathrow or in a hotel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The best piece of advice I ever received was \u201ctake the dare\u201d. It\u2019s Gertrude Stein, I believe. She said, one must dare to be happy. And Diana Cooper who said, \u201cSay yes, you can always leave.\u201d She, like me, wasn\u2019t afraid of balls. Diana loved adventure, she loved driving up people\u2019s driveways. And her trick was to say, \u201cIs this Lord so-and-so\u2019s house?\u201d They\u2019re so flattered you think they\u2019re a lord, they say, \u201cNo, but do come in.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My style signifier is a corduroy suit. I like keeping up with the latest style; when I was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-25425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}