In Paris' famous Drouot district, art experts, collectors, crooks, and coutured ladies make for a delightful mix of characters. At a pre-auction lunch, I met the Parisian version of Hugh Hefner, an 80-year-old paintings expert who is famous for his African art collection and infamous for his affairs with women.
Over the years he has been married three times and had affairs with everyone from singer Edith Piaf, to French novelists, to the wives of Mexican presidents. Now he is settling down with a 24-year-old half-Senegali-half Cheyenne-Indian. He is obsessed by the stories of Colonel Custer and the American Civil War and claims that his new fiancee "has a beautiful scalp," which struck me as an odd choice of words.
In classic pimp form, he refused to finish eating his plate of codfish, declaring, "It has no taste!" and promptly ordered a clafouti instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment