Sachs Riding his Münch Mammut Bearing the Iconic Dracula Symbol.
Gunter Sachs once said “The golden age when an elite breed of professional pleasure seekers fascinated the world, is over. There were only twelve playboys in the world, not more. They were charming and spoke languages and behaved well with women. I think today most of the fun has gone. To go with a girl to Tahiti was incredible. Now everybody goes to Tahiti. This generation can do anything, but it is less fun.”
Sachs detested the term "playboy." When Sachs was once so accused, he cheekily responded: "Playboy? Moi?"
Sachs and Bardot
Sachs embodied an oft-forgotten virtue of the gentleman playboy — a generous nature. GQ reports that in 1960, Sachs and his friend Taki Theodoracopulos visited the Casino de Monte Carlo together.
"Have some of my action, I plan to break them tonight," Sachs told Taki.
“There were only twelve playboys in the world, not more.”
Taki took 25 percent of Sachs’ pot and lost 160m francs, which was $320,000 at the time.
"[Sachs] came into my cabin that night, kissed me on the forehead and told me to take my time paying him." Taki never repaid the debt and Sachs never chased him for the money. But most importantly, Sachs never spread the word on the Côte d'Azur that Taki was broke, which was "as horrible a crime as was possible" said Taki.
Former supermodel Carole Mallory recounts the story of a rendezvous with Sachs in the Mediterranean on a yacht owned by a Johnny Van Newman, an American automobile franchisee. “After we all had had beaucoup du vin Johnny Van Newman began shooting real live torpedoes at Gunter Sachs’s yacht.” Mallory told the Huffington Post. “Oh, it was all in jest, but I wasn’t laughing.”
Carole Mallory
Mallory also recounts how before the opening salvo, Sachs had just come from the island of Porquerolles (an island in the Îles d'Hyères near the Côte d'Azur known for its ‘tutti nudi‘ beaches) where he overtook the island with ease.
“When one drinks, one has a twisted sense of humor” said Mallory. “I swam from the island to the safety of Sachs’ yacht only to hear gun shots coming towards the boat. They were playing war at sea. Sachs quickly began to sail away from Van Newman.”
Mallory's then-husband and artist Ronald Mallory was still in the water swimming as Sachs sailed away. “I was swimming out from the boat after lunch and Gunter started to leave while I was still in the water." Ron recalled. Carole, who had successfully made it on board, dove off the yacht so they would stop and pick them both up.
Taki Theodoracopolous recalls:
[I]in the 1960s, just after the film Goldfinger appeared starring Sean Connery, Gunter had the idea to make a spoof of the James Bond movie starring Porfirio Rubirosa as Bond, a Greek billionaire as Goldfinger, and myself as Oddjob. We filmed for three days in St. Tropez, but then a storm blew away all our props. During the famous fight scene between Bond and Oddjob, Rubirosa swung a rifle which hit my elbow full force, breaking my funny bone. The Creole, on which we were filming, went aground, and Gunter got bored and took off with one of my girlfriends, a Chanel model. My elbow hurt too much for me to care about the girl. For years afterward Gunter and I would laugh about that disastrous week, and as it so often happens, we reminisced too much.
- Taki Theodoracopolous, Taki's Magazine: Gunter Sachs’s Mysterious Exit (Link).
Brigitte Bardot
In May of 1966 Sachs first met Brigitte Bardot. Bardot sat with her girlfriends in a lounge when Sachs first made his mark. Later Bardot would say that Sexy Sachs as he was known was “magnificent” and that she was “hypnotized.” “He had the same Rolls as me! The same model, the same color, in fact, the same everything!” Bardot exclaimed.
So enchanted was Sachs with meeting BB that the day after meeting, Sachs dropped hundreds of roses onto her villa in St. Tropez before diving into the sea and emerging before her eyes. “It was love at first sight” said Sachs “I met her in a restaurant and when we spoke, it was as though lightning had struck.” Bardot and Sachs were married in a 6-minute wedding in Las Vegas two months later on Bastille Day in 1966 and spent their honeymoon in Tahiti.
Days after the wedding, Bardot cheated on him with Serge Gainsbourg. Gunter was also regularly unfaithful but somehow maintained his nobility. Ten years after they divorced, he gave Bardot a diamond ring worth 1.2m francs. As he said: "A year with Bardot was worth ten with anyone else."
Just a year later, in 1967, a young Sachs sat with Bardot enjoying a snack at Gorilla Bar in St. Tropez when a pale, older white-haired man with glasses bemoaned that the Cannes film festival had refused to screen his film because the nudity was too profane. Sachs came to the rescue — he hustled everyone into speedboats and cut across the Côte d’Azur for the Carlton Hotel on La Croisette to see the film. This chance encounter between Sachs and Andy Warhol launched Warhol’s career in Europe an set him on the international stage.
Sachs seen with Bardot and Salvador Dali who he once persuaded to fire off a gun in his apartment. The elite hedonist once vaunted “I’ve never worked a day in my life!”
Sachs and St. Moritz are virtually synonymous. Gunter was the creator of the revered Dracula Club (http://dracs.ch) which to this day maintains one of the most curated social scenes and a strict no photography policy. As his son Rolf says of the Dracula Club … “Every member loves being a part of bloodlessness.”
Sachs kept residency in the penthouse tower of the Badrutt’s Palace hotel. Sachs' suite remains adorned in art, the bathtub was created by Lichtenstein, the doors by Pistoletto. An entire wall is covered by New Realist Arman. The entranceway is guarded by sculptures from César and Wesselmann. The kitchen décor features 10 Warhol depictions of Marilyn Monroe.
Sachs would later have bullet proof glass installed in the penthouse, but not for security ... for amustment! He would invite over friends to take their best shot. Sachs would instruct the participants where to shoot and then each maker would sign their name next to their mark. “Next to the shot glass door was a plaque with signatures of participants — César, Armand, Warren Beatty, Guy de Rothschild, the Parisien-ers. In the middle of the living room stood a beautiful herd of Lalanne sheep. Its positioning was very unique.” Rolf Sachs would later tell Snow Magazine.
“I skied my whole youth until I was 20 when I went off to study in London and California,” Rolf said. “I played a lot of ice hockey.”
Dracula Himself - Gunter Sachs at the Cresta Run
As Rolf explains, the mountains were as much a part of his life as high society. He was educated at Le Rosey in Gstaad and Lyceum Alpinum in the Engadine near St. Moritz. “Today I prefer the Cresta and bobsleighing,” the young Sachs told Snow. “Wintersports are part of my DNA.” Sachs remains president of the Cresta Run a title held by his father for virtually all of his adult life.
In the late 1960s art collectors in France did their summer business under the Mediterranean sun on the beaches near St. Tropez creating the beautiful moments captured in glossy print cocktail table books. Sachs, who was considered an astute art collector, amassed a lifetime collection of works by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Roy Lichtenstein among others.
As time rolled on into the 1970s, Sachs took up photography and partied at Studio 54 where Warhol recounted seeing Sachs often.
If you find yourself in St. Moritz, the true insider’s drink is the Bullshot, favored tipple of the Cresta Run. It’s a health-giving dose of consommé laced with vodka and lemon.
- Leslie Wait for Snow Magazine, December 19, 2014 (Link)
Much has changed in today's St. Moritz. Gunter is gone and Rolf remains one of the last centurions of Gunter's era. Nowadays just as anyone can go to Tahiti, virtually anyone can go to St. Moritz on holiday.
This has brought along bad taste in droves.
So is the spirit of the gentleman playboy par excellence gone forever?
Gunter Sachs was a dreamer. He dreamt of what could be. Rather than accept the world for what it is, Sachs imagined scenarios no one ever thought possible and then made them possible.
There is a drought that can be seen walking down Via Serlas in St. Moritz just the same as, Avenue Montaigne in Paris and Fifth Avenue in New York. Something has been lost amidst all this increased access. It almost seems as if most people simply don't know what to value anymore, there is an empitness in their existence that did not exist for Gunter Sachs and his compatriots.
Perhaps its a result of connectivity or the general ability for anyone morph like a chameleon into any shape they choose and error-check their choices using social media. No matter the reasons, the 1960s playboys wouldn't be caught dead amongst a crew of deshabilled tarts, binge-drenching each other in champagne to disposable music while broadcasting it to the world in an incredible effort to create a false sense of jealousy from people they have never met or care about.
Compare this with Sachs' generosity both in finance and in spirit to his friend Taki, from whom he never sought repayment and never outed as broke.
Playboys like Gunter Sachs, Johnny Casablancas and Porfirio Rubirosa earned infinite legacies by investing an effort in themselves as human beings. Sure they had a certain joie de vivre but they also had a corresponding raison d'etre. As Gunter put it - the playboys of his day were "charming: they spoke languages and they behaved well with women." They were up to creative hi-jinks, provocative conversation, even better humor all with a certain panache and with their reputations mostly in-tact.
They invested in their experience so that they could carry their memories with them to the end of time instead of forgetting them by the very next night.
There is no reason that this must be less true today than it was then.
Gunter Sachs. Lara. 1991. Series “Heroines”, Claudia Schiffer
“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
According to Rolf, “The real St. Moritz, is about spirit and sports, style and joy.”
So here's to the spirit, sports, style and joy of the real St. Moritz.
And here's to the spirit of Gunter Sachs and the ones who do it better and carry the mantle... The one's who see life as it should be and refuse to settle for what they are told that it is.
Sources:
- Simon Mills, GQ: The Last of the International Playboys, March 19, 2012 (Link)
- Leslie Wait, Snow: St. Moritz’ Jet Set Playboy Gunter Sachs, December 19, 2014 (Link)
- Mark Brown, The Guardian: The Gunter Sachs appeal – life and legacy of the playboy art collector, May 7, 2012 (Link).
- Carole Mallory, Huffington Post: Remembering Gunter Sachs, Brigitte Bardot and St. Tropez, May 10, 2011 (Link).
- Taki Theodoracopolous, Taki's Magazine: Gunter Sachs’s Mysterious Exit (Link).