Me, Ringo and Ted Heath by Vicki Hodge

 

Vicki Hodge with ex-boyfriend Gordon Waller

Vicki Hodge 

One of the popular topics from this site is whenever I post an article by someone who briefly dated one of the Beatles.  I know other out there don't like to read these articles because they are not interested in the flings of the Beatles.   If you are in the later group, then just skip this article and come back tomorrow.  No need to leave a comment. 

Me, Ringo and Ted Heath

By Vicki Hodge

The Sunday Mirror

June 11, 1972

It had become a hectic week's work in Geneva, and for once, I took a first-class flight home, hoping to sleep. 

So up comes the inevitable bore sitting next to me and asking if I'm nervous, "Not in the slightest." I say nastily, I may look a bit of a slut, but I don't sound one, and a haughty tone can usually freeze out the creeps. 

But this one in his crazy hat and sunglasses was a sticker. Once we were airborne, he removed his hat, and I saw a gleaming bald head like a pink peach. 

I couldn't believe it, but when the glasses came off, it was instant recognition. I went straight into my act. "Oh, Mr. Brynner, how nice to meet you." And I went on about how good an actress was and how I wanted very much to get into movies.

Next morning, at 745, he called me from Pinewood Studios and invited me to dinner that night at his hotel in the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair.

 Here we go. I thought the inevitable pounce. Still, it didn't seem so bad. He was Yul Brynner. After all, I wasn't going out with anyone. He was a nice guy, so if it was going to be an affair, it wouldn't be the end of the world. 

At 730 prompt, his chauffeur-driven Rolls arrived to waft me off to his table. I was well prepared with four large brandies inside me so that if the worst came to worst, I wouldn't run out screaming and clutching my knickers. 

There were just the three of us at dinner: me, Yule, and his Dalmatian. For an hour, I chatted drunkenly about dogs waiting for the pounce and guzzled wine like prohibition was around the corner.

At 925 we were on the coffee with never a suggestion of any action, and I was beginning to think this was odd. Did my breath smell or something? I was quite upset. 

At 930, a bell rang, and my carriage awaited to take me home. I had been a miserable failure, and that seemed to be the end of my romance with the King of Siam, I hiccuped myself unhappily to sleep, but the next morning, same time, same invitation.

It dawned on me that the guy was so professional that he insisted on a full night's sleep while working. The arrangements lasted three weeks without a pounce. He would do amazing things like sending 2,000 cigarettes in the Rolls hen I left a packet of 20 in his suite.

Each night, I was packed off at 930 until the last day, when he phoned to say he was leaving Britain but he had booked us a table for lunch at the Thatched Barn near Pinewood. Suddenly, I wondered whether now that his work was over, he might pounce, and I felt I couldn't face it, so I didn't turn up. To this day, I don't know if I missed anything. 

By this time, in the mid-60s, I had come a long way from the little green girl of 16 who first walked into Lucy Clayton's model agency. 

I had pouted into many a lens and was earning 8,000 pounds a year as one of the country's top 10 models. I was well enough known for a young hairdresser to pose as my brother to help his career. And I'd done it, and I'd done it all myself without the benefit of publicity men, with just my own exhibitionism and compulsion for notoriety.

The more crazy pictures taken of the mad Vicki Hodge, the higher my prestige and the better my fee. Even now, I phone the photographers when I'm flying out of the country and make sure they have the right flight number and know what time I'll be leaving. 

And those days, the whole week revolved around Saturday afternoon in the Kings Road Chelsea, when 10 of us would guzzle red wine and shepherd's pie at the 235 restaurant and work out the next stunt.  I would change in the ladies' loo and parade down the road with a fashion eye out for photographers. If it was raining, I would wear a see-through plastic Mac, or maybe I would just take off my skirt and prance around in my knickers.

 The most successful afternoon was when I borrowed a six-foot-long wig, got myself wined up, and strolled naked down the road. There were two crashes that afternoon. That stunt didn't bother me at all, but it's a bit different when you are asked at nine in the morning to take your clothes off to sell someone's product. In those days, it was a great scene with a lot of randy photographers' clients around, and each model was a potential lay, but now there has been so much nudity around that people hardly notice you. I suppose they have seen many pairs of tits that they've become immune like gynecologists, but nonetheless, I'm still embarrassed when I have to strip.

I suppose it's because I'm so skinny, I don't go in for total nudity in modeling, just the hint of nipple here and the odd curve there. If I looked like Sophia Loren, though, I would love to strip.

 It was in those Kings Roads days that I met Ringo Starr. The Beatles were making their film A Hard Day's Night, and each evening, they would sit at their own table at the Ad-Lib club drinking masses of Bacardi rum and coke. One night, I was invited to join them by my friend Pattie Boyd, who was going out with George Harrison.

 From then on, I went around every evening to their house and Lowndes Close to cook for them when they came back from the studio. It was an amazing place, full of organs, TVs, and radios, like an electrical shop. Amid all the wires and plugs, I would knock up sausages and fry-ups.

John Lennon was a serious one then, forever concentrating on a book or a play. He would always thank me very cordially for the meal.

 Paul McCartney would disappear off to see Jane Asher at her home in Wimple Street, and we would all meet later at the club for drinks and spare ribs at four in the morning. 

For two months, I had a lovely, trendy flirt with Ringo, but everyone foresaw a problem. There was a girl called Maureen who was coming down from Liverpool to marry him. I used to ask him every day how she was hoping that they had cooled off, but they never had. I even dyed my hair dark because I knew Maureen had black hair, and I had to wear flat shoes because he was so little. 

One night, I went round to the house, and there she had arrived: little Maureen, his future wife, me, big Vicky, and my dyed hair. Oh, dear. I said, Goodbye, Ringo, and that was that .

After the Beatles, there was Gordon Waller, one half of the pop pair, Peter and Gordon. I was so lonely at Christmas in 1965 without him when he was on tour in America that I withdrew 3000 pounds from my account and flew over to New York. You have to be earning $9 an hour to do that without thinking. But even in those days, I still showed a few shades of green at the edges.

 One evening, I was asked out to dinner to meet an American film star famous for his cowboy roles. After a meal and a visit to a club, I accepted his invitation for a drink back at his hotel. He's a nice old guy. I thought. As soon as we were inside the door, he lunged as if it were a scene from The Wild Bunch.

 I ducked under his arm, grabbed my coat and escaped. That night, I sent him a telegram, saying, "C'est la vie," and he replied with  an enormous bouquet, always polite those cowboys. 

Meanwhile, I was learning the tricks of my trade. Basically, modeling is a straightforward business. Photographers take pictures, agents get you work, and clients organize the sales of the products. My job is to do the selling with my looks, which is sexy and obtainable via masses of makeup, splashes of lip gloss, and great fistfuls of hair. But there can be a weird, odd situation.

The agency called me, saying that I was on my way to Leicester Square to audition for a chocolate commercial. Ten girls were there, all looking nervous, with enough makeup between them to bankrupt Max Factor. 

When my turn came, the girl who was leaving gave me such a look of desperation that I chuckled to myself, thinking that she hadn't got the job. The room was smoky, sleazy, and sticky. I could just make out the shape of a dozen men. One of them handed me a huge bar of flaky chocolate, and told me to eat it as sexily as I could. I had to stop spitting with laughter at the absurdity of making love to rather a rude bar of chocolate.

 I thought only of getting the job. Just toss your hair, Vicky, I told myself, and pout the lips gloss at them. What I didn't realize was that the chocolate does flake.  There, I was trying to nibble and lick it while wiping my mouth prettily with my little finger. Then, splat, the whole thing crumbled. There are bits up my nose and places all over my chin, and I could hear winces from the audience. I didn't get the job. 

There were a number of auditions like this in the mid-60s. Later, I discovered that the jobs were already cast, and the little displays were simply for the benefit of agency people and Account Executives watching. It was the same with the bikini auction auditions. Always a few hangers on fidgeting at the back as you took your clothes off. I simply felt a bit sorry for them, because I was so skinny. Must have been a disappointment to them.

 My mother, Joan Lady Hodge, scowled a bit when she saw me nearly naked in the papers and magazines. But there was one occasion a few years ago which she was really proud of me. It was the wedding of a friend of ours at the daughter of a Persian diplomat. 

I was there with my mother and sisters and wearing a low-cut pink dress and my hair in a chignon with masses of twiddly bits on the side .

During the speeches, my sister kept nudging me, betting I wouldn't get a dance with the prize piece of the wedding guest of honor, Mr. Edward Heath. Just to show them, I turned and stared at at him. Now, you don't do that at these kinds of functions, but it sure, but it sure worked.

 As the music started, the country's most eligible bachelor came across and asked me to dance. My mother glowed so much you could have toasted buns on her.

 I told Mr. Heath I knew a lot about cows, and once he had established that I was talking about sailing, He happily told me all about his jibs and spinnakers, but he would hold me at arm's length. We must have been there three feet apart, and all the time, he went away from me like they do in Come dancing.All I really remember about him are his lovely manners and his enormous nose. 

By 1968, I had appeared time and again in all the glossy magazines. I had lost count of the number of fashion shows I had appeared in and had spent six years Chasing the Sun with photographers helping to sell everything from clothes to cigarettes, makeup to rubber tires. 

But no matter how hard I worked, I always put more effort into enjoying myself. In Saint Tropez, for example, you were "in" if you were good-looking, but you really had to work at it. You had to spend 30 pounds a day. It exists, and if you manage to look good all the time, which means changing clothes five times a day, you get the right invitations to get asked to parties. You simply had to lie coyly on the beach waiting for the party givers to turn up.

I was invited to a fancy dress party at the private beach called the Epilog. And was supposed to be an Arab. I wore a top which hung off the end of my nipples, and a skirt was just about  made my hips. It was the same skirt with which I had caused a sensation at the premiere of the film Casino Royale. But with everyone else having their costumes flown in from Paris or New York, I felt a bit shabby.

 The place was full of enormous brown, handsome men and the most fantastic women. This was the jet set, all right. And when the boat drew up on the jetty and out stepped Gunther Sachs and Bridget Bardo. I knew this was the party. I got this far, so I had to make a play for Sachs. I shoved my way through all the shoulders and bosoms and stood next to him, nudge nudge. Here I am. Vicky Hodge, London model, posing and pouting.

 Then I saw Bardo and thought, That's it, Vicki, you may as well go home. She's so incredible it's not worth trying to compete. I was being totally ignored, so I had to do something to amuse myself. There was a pillow fight being played on a pole laid high across the swimming pool. So I grabbed my chance and went for a French Amazon. The English contingent was being as cool as ever. I could hear one of them say, "Oh, I say, Isn't it good, Rodney, but I don't fancy getting my Silhouette .."

Gunther and Bridget cheered me on, and that was something. There I was with my bosom heaving, swinging my pillow, when this Amazon caught me on the back of the legs and toppled me into the pool after splitting to the side and pulling me out, nearly naked, with my hair in pieces. I looked around. No one was taking any notice of me, not Gunther, not anyone. I was finished with the jet set after that.