So, it was 1986 when Adnan Khashoggi came into the Marbella , Puerto Banus boutique with his Madame Claude call girls, for some dresses. He was fifty I was thirty-five and he had just had a birthday party for himself with four hundred of his best friends. Brooke Shields was next to him at our table. The diamond necklace his son gave her was blinding me. So, while the girls are looking around with my sales woman. I take him aside and say "what the F__k happened AK". The C.I.A. is all over me!! They were asking questions, undercover people. He said, like if I should reach into my back pocket and pay up. 'Your president Ronald Reagan, stiffed me, for thirty million dollars'. The weapons for the Iran/Contra business deal. I felt bad, he was not thinking about the people those guns would kill, just that the United States of America had ripped him off. He was a world class death merchant alright. I did like him however, he was smart and open minded and my best customer. He had used his influence in Iran to keep the hostages in jail in 1979. So, Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter, and this was the thanks he gets, from my country and the president. George H. W. Bush had set that up back in 79/80, so, I was caught in the middle of that and I remember when, I had just talked to Norton Simon in California and he and Jimmy were going to send over some guys to break them out of prison in Iran.. I said I was sorry but not surprised. His first English wife Soraya, bought dresses and Laura the second wife who was Italian, did too. I made a lot of dresses for her she looked great in the poncho in cashmere, I made her. Puerto Banus off season could really be full of " Palace Intrique" but the Iranian Hostage in 1979 and then the Iran/Contra deal in 1986 was much more serious, rich people are very dangerous. So, another story I remember was in 1973. After I came back from New York, thanks to the ten thousand dollars in cash Adnan gave me for some dresses for Laura he changed her name to Lamia. If, it wasn't for him, I could never have pulled off my deal in New York, because, I was broke after all the expense of the boutique opening and the party for that, and the collection for New York which was the best, I ever did. In the beginning they were not that good. I was learning on the job. I never went to school for dressmaking. I had a women throw a silk chiffon dress in my face, because the lining was like a shower curtain. But, it was all I could get in Spain at that time: So, my second blog story is that, I had a deal with tough guy Jewish Joe Norban Industries, he had hired me to design for his Lynn's inexpensive women's clothing chain that went out of business in the late 1980's but this was 1973/4/5.. I made a million bucks salary was $250,000 a year.. He was my boss in the states. He came over to Spain and like always rented a house in the Marbella Club. Anyway, he had spent a lot of money on the plans to renovate the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami and wanted a partner. So , he knew I was in with Khashoggi and asked me to call him, and set up a meeting. This was when he had his first yacht, not the one he sold to Donald Trump for 30 million bucks, cheap, it was worth twice that, but another one , that was blown up in Monte Carlo. So, I did call Adnan. A Jew and an Arab, oh boy, what fun. So here we go. Joe picks me up in a chauffeur driven car and we go to the ship. We go on board and there is Adnan with a call girl and the Governor of Florida. This yacht had a circular panic room made of steel like a bank vault, very James Bond like. This was a beautiful yacht it was all chocolate brown interior design. Adnan said, lets all go in here , there was a big long chairman of the board type table, in the panic room. I said no, not me. I'm not going in that room. I will have a drink with the blonde call girl out on the deck. They come back out of the panic room vault about half hour later, after there meeting. We say, goodbye. Joe and I are in the car, and I say , "well what happened"! and Joe Norban was white as a sheet, said, "I never should of gone on that yacht like a peasant". That was all, not another word about it. I was in Miami in 1984 and someone did fix up that hotel. I didn't ask any questions, did not really want to know. Joe paid me a fee anyway. One way or another he was good for it. In 1993 Spain had a recession and Khashoggi who said he was the richest man in the world not sure about that, he lost or spent his money. The kicker is, he owed my exactly ten thousand dollars.. almost twenty years to the day he gave me $10,000 to go to New York with. I was desperate for money but was happy to eat that bill, after all the money he and his yacht and house guests had spent in my boutique over twenty years... My dad had worked for drug store
