remained loyal to her, even ones on whom she cheated.
Around the time the romance with Read ended, Anna dated the only young man known to have been in her age group, a quintessential good-looking British preppy from a good family—well brought up—who took her to the races at Ascot.
five
London Party Girl
M ore in line with the kind of men Anna was drawn to was a hustling, ambitious charmer of a Fleet Street “hack” named Nigel Dempster, almost a decade her senior. When Dempster began seeing sixteen-year-old Anna, he was digging up dirt at parties for London’s
Daily Express
gossip column.
Anna was attracted to Dempster’s good looks and debonair manner, and especially his growing circle of fancy friends and the posh riffraff he attracted. Vivienne Lasky, however, came away feeling he was “smarmy and slimy.” And Charles Wintour’s blood boiled when he discovered that his daughter was seeing “a gossip hack.” For the most part, Anna’s father was rather sanguine about the men she dated; Dempster was a glaring exception.
There were other facets about Dempster that were appealing to Anna, such as his purported lineage: He claimed he was a member of one of the two families who founded the powerful Elder Dempster Lines, a shipping company that controlled West African trade beginning in the late nineteenth century and were on a par with the Cunards. There was even a glossy in circulation of Dempster at the age of twenty in white tie and tails, which he asserted was a family society shot.
Whatever the truth, Anna was intrigued, and Dempster, always on the make, saw both journalistic and romantic possibilities with her. The two became an item. They had much in common, sharing similar interests andvalues: power, wealth, and celebrity. Journalist Paul Callan, who would later have his innings with Dempster, notes, “A lot of guys wanted to go out with Anna because they wanted to curry favor with Charles Wintour—and that included Dempster.”
Through Anna, Dempster had fantasies of becoming Charles Wintour’s big gun: His goal was to be the best-known, highest-paid gossip columnist of his time. The latter would come to be, but without the help of Anna’s father, who thought he was a cretin.
Years later, Lasky still couldn’t see what Anna saw in Dempster. “He was so quintessentially British, backstabbing, and bitchy,” she says. “I didn’t think he had a moral fiber in his body . . . charming to your face, then ‘that slut.’”
Through Dempster, who was beginning to hobnob with the highbrow and lowlife of British society and celebrityhood, Anna became a fixture of sorts on the London party and club circuit, not quite the Anglo version of a Hilton sister but considered hot stuff and recognizable to the cognoscenti (Fleet Street reporters who also made the scene and who knew who her father was).
Friday evening before going out, Anna watched
Ready, Steady, Go!
And first thing Saturday morning she was at either Biba or Mary Quant, two of the hippest boutiques, shopping for the kind of kicky, sexy outfit Cathy McGowan had worn on the tube the night before. Saturday nights, she trucked off to the Laskys’ palatial duplex apartment overlooking Hyde Park for dinner, with eight o’clock set aside to watch
The Forsyte Saga
.
At eleven—never,
ever
earlier because it wasn’t fashionable—she’d trot off to the clubs, usually starting her rounds at midnight at Dempster’s main hangout, Annabel’s, filled with an assortment of aristocrats, real and self-styled, and a slightly louche gambling crowd. Anna loved the attention of the men, consumed the bitchy gossip, and kept a sharp eye on the women—what they were wearing, how they wore it, what was in and what was out.
She always made a showing at the Ad Lib, near Leicester Square, which had a reputation as being a hangout for the hottest dollies in London, a club where virtually everybody in the balcony overlooking the dance floor was toking
Around the time the romance with Read ended, Anna dated the only young man known to have been in her age group, a quintessential good-looking British preppy from a good family—well brought up—who took her to the races at Ascot.
five
London Party Girl
M ore in line with the kind of men Anna was drawn to was a hustling, ambitious charmer of a Fleet Street “hack” named Nigel Dempster, almost a decade her senior. When Dempster began seeing sixteen-year-old Anna, he was digging up dirt at parties for London’s
Daily Express
gossip column.
Anna was attracted to Dempster’s good looks and debonair manner, and especially his growing circle of fancy friends and the posh riffraff he attracted. Vivienne Lasky, however, came away feeling he was “smarmy and slimy.” And Charles Wintour’s blood boiled when he discovered that his daughter was seeing “a gossip hack.” For the most part, Anna’s father was rather sanguine about the men she dated; Dempster was a glaring exception.
There were other facets about Dempster that were appealing to Anna, such as his purported lineage: He claimed he was a member of one of the two families who founded the powerful Elder Dempster Lines, a shipping company that controlled West African trade beginning in the late nineteenth century and were on a par with the Cunards. There was even a glossy in circulation of Dempster at the age of twenty in white tie and tails, which he asserted was a family society shot.
Whatever the truth, Anna was intrigued, and Dempster, always on the make, saw both journalistic and romantic possibilities with her. The two became an item. They had much in common, sharing similar interests andvalues: power, wealth, and celebrity. Journalist Paul Callan, who would later have his innings with Dempster, notes, “A lot of guys wanted to go out with Anna because they wanted to curry favor with Charles Wintour—and that included Dempster.”
Through Anna, Dempster had fantasies of becoming Charles Wintour’s big gun: His goal was to be the best-known, highest-paid gossip columnist of his time. The latter would come to be, but without the help of Anna’s father, who thought he was a cretin.
Years later, Lasky still couldn’t see what Anna saw in Dempster. “He was so quintessentially British, backstabbing, and bitchy,” she says. “I didn’t think he had a moral fiber in his body . . . charming to your face, then ‘that slut.’”
Through Dempster, who was beginning to hobnob with the highbrow and lowlife of British society and celebrityhood, Anna became a fixture of sorts on the London party and club circuit, not quite the Anglo version of a Hilton sister but considered hot stuff and recognizable to the cognoscenti (Fleet Street reporters who also made the scene and who knew who her father was).
Friday evening before going out, Anna watched
Ready, Steady, Go!
And first thing Saturday morning she was at either Biba or Mary Quant, two of the hippest boutiques, shopping for the kind of kicky, sexy outfit Cathy McGowan had worn on the tube the night before. Saturday nights, she trucked off to the Laskys’ palatial duplex apartment overlooking Hyde Park for dinner, with eight o’clock set aside to watch
The Forsyte Saga
.
At eleven—never,
ever
earlier because it wasn’t fashionable—she’d trot off to the clubs, usually starting her rounds at midnight at Dempster’s main hangout, Annabel’s, filled with an assortment of aristocrats, real and self-styled, and a slightly louche gambling crowd. Anna loved the attention of the men, consumed the bitchy gossip, and kept a sharp eye on the women—what they were wearing, how they wore it, what was in and what was out.
She always made a showing at the Ad Lib, near Leicester Square, which had a reputation as being a hangout for the hottest dollies in London, a club where virtually everybody in the balcony overlooking the dance floor was toking
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