When Norton Simon talks people listen "You know, I made my money in tomatos"...
Friday, February 4, 2011
Ann Woodward .. story ..
I met socialite murder suspect Ann Woodward at a party in 1973 a year before she killed herself. It was in the Marbella Club Hotel that the Swiss Baron Hans von Thyssen, who had the second largest private art collection in the world after the Queen of Englands, gave at his beach house. We talked about her days in Kansas City how she had been a showgirl. Her name was Ann Eden in 1915 in Pittsburgh, Kansas. She was clearly distraught drinking tall water classes full of vodka. Had on the same green silk dress the wardrobe had her in - in the (Ann Margaret) movie "Two Mrs. Grenvilles" Dominick Dunne wrote the book. In "La Cote Basque" Capote's book , he said her mother in law covered it up .. Anyway , I was sorry for her .. I met the Baron von Thyssen again in Malibu five years later at Norton Simon's beach house .. he was a house guest- he had his gay son with his boy friend all staying with Norton Simon ... that was a real impressive beach house .. two made into one. The art was really unreal .. and Mrs. Shields the English cook .. Orchids everywhere all the time .. glass fence you could see the ocean... He cut out a huge Picasso to fit over his fireplace the Matisse Jazz collection in his quest bathroom , a Brancusi in his garden....