The Woman I Wanted to Be (9 page)

I didn’t have to work at being nice to Egon. He was my first true love, the man I married, the one who gave me my children. I never judged him and always loved him; I just could not endorse us as a couple. We remained extremely close for the rest of his life. He was family. When Barry came into my life, we often traveled together with Egon and the children, and we always spent Christmas all together.

I was with Egon in Rome when he died of cirrhosis of the liver in June 2004, two weeks before his fifty-eighth birthday. He had had hepatitis C for a while. He had led a life of excess until his health finally failed him. He had been too ill to come to Cloudwalk and cold Connecticut for Christmas the previous December, so we went to him in Florida and celebrated the holiday with the children and grandchildren in a hotel suite in Miami. As usual, Barry was with us, as was Egon’s second wife, Lynn Marshall. My mother was no longer with us, and between missing her and seeing Egon so weak, our reunion that year felt a bit sad. Nonetheless, we were still together, a loving and extended family.

Egon was back in Rome when he was first hospitalized. He was not the type to ever complain, but he started calling more and more frequently to express his worries. Should he, could he have a liver transplant? The children alternated in going to visit him. With Alex he went to a thermal spa hotel in Abano, where his mother, Clara, was
already staying with her husband. Then Tatiana went to spend weeks with him at his home in Rome. With his brother, Sebastian, Egon attended his uncle Umberto’s funeral. It was his last outing—he had to be rushed back into the hospital again.

Tatiana got to Rome first. Alex and I arrived on the morning of June 10, 2004. It was very hot. We bought fruits in the street and brought them to him. Egon took me aside and asked me to talk to the doctors. He was worried that they were not telling him the truth. I promised I would. We stayed in his room until dusk, talking and laughing a lot. His vision was blurred, but in his unique way of beautifying everything, he referred to the spots he was seeing as intricate embroideries on the wall. He insisted on telling us what restaurant we should go to for dinner, but we didn’t want to go to a noisy restaurant. Instead, we hurried back to our tiny connecting rooms at the Hotel Hassler and ordered room service. The three of us wanted to be as close together as we could. We were very worried.

As Egon had asked, I spoke to the doctor and the news was not good. His lungs were filling with fluid, his heart was weak, and his kidneys were failing. I did not discuss it with the children. There was nothing to say. We all knew.

Egon called the next morning as we were having breakfast. He sounded weak and a little breathless. “You’d better come soon,” he said, then added, “I hope you can stay a few days. You will have a lot to take care of.”

We raced to the hospital, where we found his room filled with emergency staff and machines. Egon seemed agitated and in pain, and we were asked to leave the room. As I walked the corridor feeling helpless, I found myself looking toward the sky, begging, “Stop the suffering.” Soon enough we were allowed in again. He had a small oxygen mask on his mouth and nose and was breathing heavily. Alex
sat on a chair, sobbing. Tatiana was caressing Egon’s head and I was holding his hand when the breathing stopped. He fell silent, empty and at peace. Gently, I closed his eyes. It felt natural, an act of love, of trust, of remembrance for all we had been to each other. I felt honored and privileged to be there.

M
y first instinct was to protect the children. I felt like a lioness and commanded them out of the room as the nurses came in and, after confirming the death, went about gathering his belongings, covering the body, and rushing him out of the room on a gurney. I followed it down the long corridors, and found myself in no time at all in a room with a man handing me something that looked like a menu. It had photos and prices. “I need your help,” I heard myself pleading to the children as they joined me in what I realized was the morgue. “We have to choose the coffin.”

At first it was all about arrangements. Egon’s godmother and aunt Maria Sole appeared, and together we decided on the mass the next day at Egon’s favorite church, the Chiesa degli Artisti on Piazza del Popolo. I asked a friend of the family, Father Pierre Riches, to lead the funeral mass. Maria Sole’s daughter, Tiziana, put the announcements in the papers. Egon wanted to be buried in Strobl, Austria, with his father and ancestors. We needed to get the papers from the embassy. Susanna Agnelli, another of Egon’s aunts, had been Italy’s secretary of state, so her office handled that, and Sebastian, Egon’s brother, made the preparations for the funeral in Austria for Monday. It was Friday. All went so fast. Egon was right. There were many things that had to be organized.

The whole family and hundreds of friends rushed to Rome for the funeral. Tatiana and I had chosen the flowers, white lilies, his favorites,
and the church service was beautiful—except for the absence of music. I had simply forgotten to arrange for any music. I did, however, arrange a drink at Egon’s apartment for his friends after the service, committing apparently a major mistake by bringing the body back home after church. At sunset, a fleet of three cars with handsome, elegant drivers drove Egon to Austria.

Egon’s burial was scheduled for Monday. We flew to Salzburg on Barry’s plane. Ira, Egon’s sister, and her son Hubertus were with us. When we got to Strobl, Egon’s coffin was waiting in the library of Hubertushof, the family house on the Wolfgangsee near Salzburg. It is a huge old hunting lodge, which has been passed down from male to male in the Furstenberg line and now belongs to Alexandre. There were flowers everywhere. There, I finally had time to sit by Egon and properly say good-bye.

We had known each other since we were eighteen. We had grown up together, played together, pretended we were adults together, became parents together. Since we had met, our relationship had evolved and changed but we never stopped loving each other. Now he was gone.

I went for a walk alone in the garden, came back, sat at the desk in the library, and wrote him a letter. I had picked a very light paper so I could fold it many times into a small square and I put it on my heart under my bodysuit. Family and friends arrived, drinks and light food were served. At twelve o’clock Egon’s casket was put on a carriage pulled by horses. A band accompanied us as we walked slowly from the house to the little church in the center of the village. The sun was shining on the lake.

The service was moving, with music this time, organs. Tatiana read a beautiful speech she had written, so beautiful I had it printed later as a remembrance. Then everyone walked behind the casket to the little
churchyard where Egon joined his ancestors in the family graveyard. His burial marked the end of a long tradition. He was the last Furstenberg to be buried there because there is no more room in the vault. I took the letter that was still on my heart and tossed it on the casket when my turn came to throw the dirt. Egon had always loved and kept my letters to him; this one would be with him forever.

F
or all that it had been my idea to separate from Egon those many years before, I had felt unsettled as most women do when a meaningful relationship ends. I was only twenty-six. Jas Gawronski was in his midthirties, an Italian newsman of Polish origins who reported from New York every night on Italian television. He was very handsome, and the best friend of Egon’s uncle Gianni Agnelli. My friendship and love affair with Jas gave me the assurance I craved after the separation from Egon. Our affair was secret at first. One summer, when the children were with their grandmothers, he took me to the little island of Ponza where he had a house. Every day at sunset we used to walk to the top of the mountain and along the whole island to the lighthouse. That is where I discovered the joy of hiking, and to this day, when we sail to Ponza, I always take Barry and the whole family on that same gorgeous hike.

It was Jas who was with me the first night I spent at Cloudwalk, New Year’s Eve 1973, when we cooked lamb chops and drank champagne to celebrate the New Year, my new house, and a new life. It was Jas who started to prune the pine trees around the house and it was with him that I went on my first long walk there. Jas was well educated and very kind. He was married but lived apart from his wife. He did not want to commit; nor did I, really. It was a healing period, pleasant and light. My children at home and my dresses at work occupied most
of my time. Jas was my personal, private garden even though he and the children did get along fine.

At work I could smell the growing success. The wrap dress was born and selling very well. I was traveling all around America and had become a household name. At home in New York, I lived with my children and my mother. I would dine with them and go out after they went to bed. I felt free and empowered; it wasn’t easy managing it all and I was often under huge stress, but it was my choice and well worth it. I felt light traveling with a tiny bag full of jersey dresses and perched on my high heels. It was my turn to feel free and experiment. On a business trip to Los Angeles, I flirted with Warren Beatty and Ryan O’Neal on the same weekend. I was truly living my fantasy of having a man’s life in a woman’s body. Life was fun if you were young, pretty, and successful in the seventies.

A
nd then I met Barry Diller.

I was twenty-eight when Barry exploded into my life and into our family. I had no idea that this mysterious, successful thirty-three-year-old studio head would become so important to me and my children. We were both young tycoons then: he, the very young chairman of Paramount Pictures; I, the young runaway fashion success. I had read about Barry but I had no inkling of the passion that would overtake us both after we met at a party I gave in my apartment in New York for the powerhouse Hollywood agent Sue Mengers. I remember him coming to my crowded apartment, I remember Sue introducing us, I remember his deep, authoritative voice, and I remember thinking he could be an interesting friend to have. He did not stay long but called me the next morning. He asked me out to dinner that night but when he came to pick me up, I surprised him with a dinner I’d
prepared at home. We ate, sat around briefly. We were both nervous. He left quickly.

I went to Paris the next day. He called me every day, his voice was seductive and, after a few days, he abruptly said, “Why don’t you come to Los Angeles for the weekend?” Why not, I thought, intrigued and excited by his commanding tone. Adventure was calling. The flight from Paris to Los Angeles stopped in Montreal. I remember looking for a phone booth to call Jas. I told him I was flying to LA to visit someone I had just met. Looking back, I see how cruel I was, but my total need for honesty just made me do it and I felt freer once I had.

I was so excited to get to Los Angeles I don’t think I needed an airplane to fly. Once over Arizona, I disappeared into the bathroom and stayed there until we were about to land. I did my hair, my makeup, changed my clothes, and arrived fresh and looking sassy in a skinny little pin-striped pantsuit with very high platform boots. Barry was at the gate. He had arranged a car for my luggage and I joined him in the yellow E-type Jaguar that he drove. It was a very glamorous welcome; I was in Hollywood and it felt like a movie. He offered me the choice of stopping for drinks at the home of his friend, the legendary producer Ray Stark, or going home. We went home.

That home turned out to be a beautiful hideaway, a California Mediterranean-style house at the end of a long driveway in Coldwater Canyon. An English butler showed me the guestroom where a colorful bouquet of flowers welcomed me. I did not need to freshen up; I was superfresh. I assume we had dinner. I don’t remember. What I do remember was cuddling close to him on the living room sofa. Just as abruptly as he had commanded me to come to LA, he said, “Let’s go to bed.” We were both very nervous, lying frozen in his bed under the blanket. We were actually shaking. We each took a Valium and went to sleep.

The next day he went to work and I went exploring the house. What a mysterious man he was. I knew nothing of his life and I was so curious. The drawers were empty, and the books on the bookshelves did not reveal much either. What I did not know and soon found out is that he had just moved into the house and all of the furniture belonged to Paramount’s props department. He came home at midday, we had lunch and hung around the pool. Sexual tension was rising. When we finally succumbed, it was major passion and from the first moment our bodies met he surrendered to me in a way that no one had ever done before. He had certainly never opened himself like that before either, he confessed to me later. Something very special and major had happened and we loved each other passionately from that moment on.

His friends were incredulous. No one had known him with a woman before. That made me feel that I was the most special woman in the world.

Barry was in my life forever after. He was to love me unconditionally, guessing my desires and needs and always impressing me with his unquestioning trust. When I went back to New York after this extraordinary weekend, our lives had changed completely. Barry divided his work and his time between LA and New York, where he lived at the Hampshire House on Central Park South. I would visit him there and he would come to me on Park Avenue. I remember the first time he came to Cloudwalk. The children had gone up the night before with the babysitter and I was to join them with Barry on Saturday. He was terribly anxious about meeting the children. He kept delaying the departure, insisting we first visit his tailor, where he ordered some suits. He kept telling me over and over that he didn’t know any children. Finally, in the early afternoon, we arrived.

The minute he got there, he became totally at ease, sinking into
the coziest chair by the phone in the living room, where he still sits today. Alexandre and Tatiana were as cool as they always were meeting my friends and his nervousness disappeared instantly. I remember him telling me that left alone with him in the room, four-year-old Tatiana smiled at him, and trying to figure him out, asked, “Who are your friends?” Neither of us remembers his answer but we will never forget her question.