You Only Get One Life (14 page)

I do remember my dress, because I designed it myself and it was made by Sylvester’s own tailor, Charles Bronson (not
that
Charles Bronson). I took inspiration from the 1940s to come up with a simple, white dress with puffed sleeves. That’s the only clear picture I have. The guests are indistinct in my mind now, though I do recall thinking that Sylvester’s mother should have been there. It was hard for him to come to the decision not to ask her but they didn’t have an easy relationship and she didn’t like me at all. She never warmed to me even after the wedding.

The press also took against me and decided I was only with Sylvester for his money. Stories suggested that I took tens of millions from him in the end. I don’t know where those tales came from – and they still get printed every now and then – or what the purpose of rubbishing me was. I signed an agreement when I married Sylvester which severely restricted what I could say or do but someone must have felt that I represented a big enough threat to warrant wrecking my image. Despite the pre-nuptial agreement, people in his inner circle were still warning him against me on the very morning of the ceremony.

After we were married things began to change. Sylvester was in love with me, but it was very intense. There were pictures of me all over his house – he even had statues made. It was uncomfortable and quite intimidating to see my face looking back at me everywhere I went. When he had a crystal table flown in and had my profile carved into it I began to feel seriously worried. I also felt there was something missing despite these grand gestures and our opulent lifestyle, or perhaps because of them.

We never seemed to get to use any of the riches around us. I remember he had a fully-loaded tour bus. It had bedrooms and a kitchen and with a thrill of excitement I imagined us doing a luxury camping trip – it could be like the holidays I’d had as a kid, except this would be five-star all the way. ‘Let’s take the bus to Mexico!’ I said, my eyes wide with excitement. ‘Let’s have some fun!’ Sylvester laughed and readily agreed, but it never actually happened. There was always some deal to do or some work coming up.

What’s the point, I wondered, of money, beautiful furniture, staff and total security if you never stop to enjoy it all? I felt my true self was being stifled. The only time we were ever alone was when we were in bed. There was always someone else there with something that needed to be done. Doing anything spontaneously – or even just hanging out, doing nothing at all – was out of the question. Everyone around him made me feel like he was still single.

A normal day for Sylvester and me would start around 7am. Already he would have been up for two hours, writing in his office. He was a great writer and he had a natural talent for buying the rights to adapt really good books and stories. His creativity and intelligence shone through in everything he did and when he’d finished his first burst of the day we would have breakfast together. We both had fresh orange juice and Sylvester would eat raw fish and knock back a glass of vitamin pills.

I was at least partly drawn into his obsession for healthy living – I’d never eaten less salt or sugar before. As a committed smoker it was harder for me to cut that down but I got by on no more than three cigarettes a week. Of
course, that could have been a positive way to live, but the effect was to contribute to an atmosphere between us that I can only describe as sterile.

After breakfast it would be straight to the gym. Some people go to church every day, for Sylvester it was the gym. I would go along as well though such dedication was sometimes very annoying, but it was probably a really good thing for me – I hadn’t done much regular exercise since I’d been a competitive swimmer as a kid and I hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to myself since I stopped modelling. It was so good for my overall tone and muscles – I’m sure that’s why I didn’t develop cellulite until I was in my late 30s. The constant exercise helped me to become much stronger and I learned a lot about how to look after myself.

At 9am Sylvester would disappear back into his office. I was left with my assistant Kelly and we’d go off to do dance classes, then shopping and lunch. We would try to have fun, but it was hard when bodyguards were dispatched to watch over us at all times. I wasn’t sure what harm two girls could come to on a lunch date and Kelly would always try and get a table where they couldn’t overhear us.

In the afternoon we’d come back to the villa, where we’d chat or I’d indulge my life-long passion for jigsaw puzzles. We were just being silly young girls. Kelly headed off around 6pm and I’d get ready for dinner. When it was just Sylvester and me, we would eat as healthily as we did in the morning. More usually there would be a business dinner to attend – lawyers to discuss the rights to some new project or agents to talk about upcoming films. I always found those meetings very boring. When we did go out it would be
public – movie premieres, gallery openings or some major event like the Oscars. And when you’re that visible all the time you feel like you always have to be dressed up, you always have to play to the cameras.

For a while the constant round of parties and the opportunity to play at being the beaming film star on the arm of Rocky was fun, though in reality there were more business people around than there were creative spirits. Strict protocol was followed whenever we went out. It was a secret order of rules and regulations I’d never known existed before and this Danish Viking was not used to such crippling formality. At least being seen out together would make the world understand we were for real; that’s what I hoped. Of course, it didn’t make any difference for a press which had a better story to run.

Four bodyguards were on duty at all times. While they slept – on the premises – another four would take over. Eight full-time security men in our home. To me all that was just insane. You couldn’t even enjoy a relatively straightforward pleasure like going out for a meal – once you’d got dressed up and the bodyguards had been alerted and you’d been transported to wherever it was you were going, you would be exhausted before you’d even looked at a menu. Not only me, either – Sylvester was under pressure all the time.

The other side of marriage was that with the name Mrs Stallone I got to see places and meet people I would never have done otherwise. When I finally went for my driver’s licence it was, like my divorce from Kasper, expedited in a way that just doesn’t happen for ordinary mortals. I wasn’t allowed to do anything for myself. I didn’t have much
money of my own anyway, but Sylvester wouldn’t allow me to pay for anything, apart from covering wages for Kelly. Earnings went into an account that he monitored and after a year together he gave me a credit card, which he also got to watch so he knew exactly where the money went. Not that he was miserly – he gave me a limit of $7,000 a month. But what was I going to spend that much on? Nothing was too exclusive, nowhere was too expensive. A lot of things in my life had become very easy.

I appreciated all that and what he did, but what do you do with all of that when you come home and you cry because it doesn’t feel like you’re somewhere private that you can relax? I told myself that this was my life now. I felt like I was growing up quickly and I learned not to reveal my true self.

Thank God I always had my little brother by my side. Jan never followed rules and refused to know his place; he was just a hippy at heart and had just finished doing a two-year course in construction at university without any clear idea of what he wanted to do next. I encouraged him to follow me out to LA – I missed the fun we had together when we were younger and I badly needed someone I could relax with. Sylvester had been very suspicious of anyone in my orbit. It was different for him with Jan and the three of us got on well together. The atmosphere would lighten for a few hours when we would chat, have drinks and Jan and I were allowed to smoke cigarettes – because Sylvester would be having one of his cigars.

My brother Jan was accepted to the point that Sylvester gave him a job as a chauffeur. For a laidback young guy
with time on his hands it was like being paid to have fun. He’d drive the sportscars and mess around with the unbelievably long limousine and I would be cheering him on and laughing like I hadn’t done in a long time. And it wasn’t as if anyone else was using the vehicles much.

At last I could speak my own language and because so few outside our country knew Danish, Jan and I felt as if we had our own special code. It was a welcome addition to that unique understanding we’d always had anyway. I had a taste of the privacy and freedom that had been missing ever since I moved into the villa: it was like going outside when you’ve been in a stuffy room for too long. And we behaved badly together – I can tell you that right now. We were a pain in the ass.

Sylvester had a famous game of table football with Jan, who had always been good at it, but Sylvester was convinced he could thrash him. ‘I’m the best,’ he said, ‘but if you beat me, I’ll give you the Corvette that’s parked in the drive.’ Now who does that? Only in Hollywood! And there was Rocky, grunting and breathing heavily with each spin of his plastic team while my brother and I just thought the whole scenario was hilarious. Inevitably, Sylvester lost but he was as good as his word and led my brother out to the drive before handing over the keys to the gleaming, white Chevrolet Corvette to a beaming Jan who, with a contented click of his tongue, graciously accepted his winnings.

I had a 1986 Mercedes-AMG. They only made three of this kind and they were monsters – really, absolute monsters. Now Jan and I could race one another down from the Beverly Hills Hotel to Pacific Palisades. That’s quite a
ride – the roads all twist and turn. One evening we were interrupted by the sound of a police siren behind us. Oh shit… I pulled level with Jan. ‘You’ve got to go,’ I told him. They were right on our tail.

Just before you get to the Pacific Palisades there’s a really sharp left turn in a curve going to the right and you just cannot pull through that if you’re doing a hundred miles an hour, like Jan was. I managed to get home with my heart racing, not knowing if he was alive. Eventually he appeared – unhurt and even able to fix the car. Sylvester was laughing and it was fine, but I know that Jan and I had been very stupid that night. Young and dumb, yes, yet we were going too far: we no longer had a sense of perspective – everything was provided for us and we had lost our sense of respect.

My brother did look beautiful. We worked out together and he got extensions in his hair so he had a sort of Conan the Barbarian look going on. Jan got himself introduced to Hugh Hefner and would always manage to be invited to parties at the
Playboy
mansion. It was there that he started dating one of the girls. He began to work as a model, starting off on in commercials. One was directed by filmmaker Tony Scott in South Africa for Bacardi rum.

Unlike me, Jan was very astute and he saved all his money from this run of success. One day, he announced he’d had enough. ‘You know what, sis? I’m a real Dane; at heart I’m just a fisherman,’ he said. Like our dad, he loved the peace and solitude of angling. ‘This has been fun, but it’s not for me. I’m not Hollywood, I can’t deal with this. I’m going home.’ And so he did. Back home he studied and bought a house. For a while he was so poor he was working three
jobs and researching in the evenings. It was tough but he was incredibly determined and focused. Jan didn’t become a fisherman, but he did get into eco-friendly energy production. He got into wind farms and is now one of the most successful businessmen in Denmark, doing his bit to combat climate change at the same time. We haven’t seen so much of one another in the last few years, but when we get together none of that matters: we’re still very close and sing the same old song together. I’ll always be proud of my little brother for sticking up for himself – he never let anyone tell him what to do.

S
ylvester and I signed a pre-nuptial agreement which means that neither of us can say much about our marriage. All I can say is that one early morning in 1987 I took my clothes and jewellery and left his villa for good. I can only underline that it’s very difficult to maintain a loving relationship under the scrutiny we faced. A marriage is no place for a crowd and won’t flourish if you just live to work: it became a prison for me.

It wasn’t just my personal life that was in crisis. My career had stalled too: I had wanted to pursue my passion for acting and I was hot after
Red Sonja
. I had been sent scripts and offered roles, but Sylvester made sure throughout the time we were together that I was busy on his projects. I felt that he didn’t want me on a movie with somebody else. Instead I made
Rocky IV
and
Cobra
with him. Even when I got the role as an ice-cold killer in
Beverly Hills Cop II
I knew that Sylvester had a hand in it somewhere. He knew I
liked to work but he always had to know what I was doing.

The role was originally male, but it was changed for me. Director Tony Scott thought the part could be made more interesting than the standard villain. I always thought it was something of a set-up – I think the part was rewritten as a favour to Sylvester and the fact that it worked out well was just a bonus. I couldn’t think why Sylvester had been okay about that one when he had routinely dismissed other scripts for me out of hand. But however I got there, I felt again that movie-making was for me. Work was again something I looked forward to and I never felt tired when I got up in the morning. It was inspiring to be surrounded by talented actors such as Judge Reinhold, John Aston and of course, Eddie Murphy himself – at his finest. Those were the days of their prime, him and Sylvester! And it was mind-blowing to be directed by Tony Scott.

I got on very well with Eddie. We didn’t have an affair, though someone later started that rumour. It was totally wide of the mark. We did laugh a lot and we had a great time. Eddie’s a strange guy – when the cameras are off he’s shy and surrounded by his people. And because he’s not that tall he practically disappears, but when he’s on set, he’s on fire. You just had to forget about your script because he’d take off in any number of directions. Tony would shout out to me, ‘Work with it! Just go with it! Don’t stop, just get in there with him.’ It was exhilarating trying to keep up with someone so fast and intelligent.