When someone introduces themselves over the phone with one of the most famous names on the planet, it can be disorienting. The call had come late in the evening from Hollywood, at a time of day when it was a surprise for the phone to ring at all. My brain, comfortably addled by supper, gin and television, had difficulty clicking onto an entirely new track at a moment’s notice. The name sounded eerily familiar but I couldn’t think why. Then I remembered that it was the name of an extremely famous film star, but assumed that this must be someone else with the same name. Then I remembered the connection and tried to work out what she was talking about.
That whole mental process was probably no more than a few seconds and was probably indiscernible to the woman on the other end of the line, who appeared to be angry before the conversation even began.
‘We’ve received this manuscript from the Johnsons,’ she said and the whole thing clicked into place.
Mr and Mrs Johnson had worked for this star and her even-more-famous film star husband. Mrs Johnson had been their housekeeper when they were at their house in England while Mr Johnson had been the chauffeur and general handyman. They had approached me because they wanted to tell an affectionate insiders’ tale of life with one of the most celebrated Hollywood couples. It had been a pleasant if uncontroversial story and I thought the fame of their employers might be enough to get the Johnsons a publishing deal. I interviewed them and produced a synopsis. Throughout history servants have been a rich source of material for writers of both fiction and non-fiction. They often get to places the rest of us can never hope to see, and sometimes have front row seats at historic events.
‘Before we send this to any agents or publishers,’ I told the Johnsons, ‘you need to get it cleared by your former employers.’
‘That’ll be fine,’ they said. ‘We get on really well. They’re more like friends than employers.’
‘Should be fine then,’ I agreed, and promptly forgot about the whole thing as I was in the middle of writing something else. I assumed there would be a short hiatus and then the stars would give their blessing to this friendly little project. I certainly hadn’t expected that Mrs Megastar would feel sufficiently incensed to put in a call herself – usually incensed megastars get their lawyers to write letters.
‘I don’t know what they’re thinking,’ she said. ‘There’s no way we want the details of our home life published in a book. If we wanted to do that we’d write it ourselves. They signed confidentiality contracts when we took them on so they can’t do it anyway …’
Fortunately the would-be authors had told her that it was my idea that they should ask permission before continuing with the project, and she was grateful to me for that, but listening to her perfectly justified indignation I realised that she and her husband had a very different idea of their relationship with the Johnsons. Just because they had been ‘friendly’ towards them while they were in their employ, they had never at any stage thought of themselves as ‘friends’ with the couple. The social chasm between ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ had not really moved that far from where it had been a century before. Once she had vented her fury and realised that I was agreeing with everything she said, she calmed down, promised to contact me if she ever decided to tell her own story and the entire project melted away.
Employees of the rich and famous often go looking for ghostwriters and sometimes they do have stories of genuine interest. Princess Diana’s publicity-hungry butler was perhaps the most vivid example of the breed and there have been many other royal tales from nannies, housekeepers, bodyguards, interior decorators and illegitimate children who want their illustrious lineage to be acknowledged.
It’s astonishing how many of history’s alpha males sired children with the women who worked for them. Arnold Schwarzenegger merely joined onto the end of a long conga line when he admitted to having a son with his family’s housekeeper. The Lord alone knows how far the European royal families have spread their DNA through the families of those who have worked for them.
If people work in service industries like the hotel business or limousine hire or security they can often write generic exposés of their employers and there is also a market for stories about life ‘below stairs’ in private houses (the ‘Downton Abbey Syndrome’ perhaps), and I guess you could say this book falls into this category.
The best of these stories can be delicious concoctions of gossip and social observation and can provide an insight into how life works in households that are very different to those of most of their readers … but most aren’t.