Dr Robert - The Beatles Illuminati Guru
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| Groovy Bob - Robert Fraser |
Catalyst, Gallery
owner, art director of the Sgt. Pepper sleeve, the man whom inspired the Apple
Records logo and the song Gimme Shelter, supplier of exotica to the stars, one
of the first men die of AIDS in the UK. He went from being perhaps the pivotal
60s figure to a squalid existence preying on young boys in Leicester Square
amusement arcades. It was Robert who was handcuffed to Jagger in the back of
the car in the famous Redlands drug bust.
Robert hated the
soubriquet Groovy Bob and would have detested the idea that anyone thought he
was a drug dealer because he would never sell you any drugs; he’d just have a
whole range of them in a box that you could dip in to. “Try one of these dear
boy; they’re simply splendid”. He wouldn’t take any money, although God knows
he seemed short of it but then he would occasionally try and sell you a
Magritte. Ask McCartney who bought several from him. Even when he was flogging
you a painting, he did it with incredible old Etonian panache. After talking
with McCartney about a logo for the Beatles’ new Apple Records label, he’d
visited McCartney’s big house in Cavendish Avenue and discreetly left a small,
framed picture of an apple by Magritte on McCartney’s table. Paul commented, “I
thought that was the coolest thing anyone’s ever done with me. When I saw it, I
just thought ‘Robert’. Nobody else could have done that”.
Robert was so cool, he was quoted in the 1965
Swinging London article in Time Magazine:
“Right now, London has something that New York used to have: everybody wants to
be there. There’s no place else. Paris is calcified. There’s an indefinable
thing about London that makes people want to go there”.
His gallery was a
rainbow flash in a then drab Duke Street, one of the only sources of
contemporary art – Andy Warhol, Jim Dine and the like – in a West End packed
with galleries knocking out fox hunting scenes. The Robert Fraser gallery was
the White Cube of its day. In fact, Lord Snowdon took a photograph of Robert
Fraser in which it is hard to tell that he is not White Cube’s Jay Jopling –
another Old Etonian with a glamourous celebrity client list and a very small
discreet nameplate on the door of his gallery.
The appearance of the
gallery was sensational; one day there would be a conventional window display,
the next, the window had been taken out and an AC Cobra sports car, belonging
to Tara Browne and painted in psychedelic colours would be nosing out onto the
street.
Fraser was the son of
a Scottish merchant banker, who was turn the son of the butler to Gordon
Selfridge the department store magnate and he was thus identified at Eton as
being nouveau riche and developed that unique kind of snobbery the newly
moneyed oft acquire. He coupled this with outrageous social climbing and an
utter disregard for the rules. He liked the company of toffs and yobs in equal
measure. He loathed sport but loved sportsmen.
Robert was of course
gay, it was almost compulsory as Eton fellow old Etonian, the writer Derek
Raymond commented “It was an absolute hotbed of buggery and an excellent
preparation for vice of any kind”. It was also where you went to get that
tremendous self-assurance with which its old boys are shot through. Eton
“formed him to a great extent”, added Paul Getty. “Formed his style, his
personality. It’s still one of the best places to learn arrogance”.
Flung out of Eton for
smoking cigarettes, he was conscripted into the army and joined the Kings
African Rifles stationed in Uganda, in charge of a regiment of black soldiers.
Here a young boxing champion caught his eye, a 6 feet 4 inch sergeant major in
the army and a fine physical specimen. Robert and the junior officer Idi Amin,
later to be President of Uganda (and the last king of Scotland), became friends
and rather strange bedfellows – there is speculation that is exactly what they
became. It was the last days Empire and the east coast of Africa was alive with
goings on – white mischief. Later, when Amin had seized power and was
threatening Britain, Robert would get hot with pride whenever he saw the
strutting figure on the television.
After the army, Fraser
went to New York and immediately fell into fell into an artsy set in Manhattan,
working in galleries and setting up exhibitions. Here he started to foster the
healthy contempt for money that only those who can write home for a few quid
whenever necessary can have. His parents seem to have coughed up every time
this happened right until the end although his relationship with his father
must have been a strain on him since he would become almost overwhelmed by
stuttering whenever they spoke together. School friend Christopher Gibbs
reasons that perhaps Fraser felt over indulged and to some extent it annoyed
him. “I think it was a little bit of a disappointment to him that his father
was so understanding, he said. “I think it deprived him a little of the agonies
of being misunderstood”.
Having networked the
art scene of NYC, Robert became convinced that taking modern American art to
London was a potential money-spinner. He acquired the investment to open his
Duke Street gallery from his parents and returned to England in the early 60’s
with big plans and a bulging address book. The artist Jim Dine commented,
“Robert knew everyone in the world at that point”. He’d made the acquaintance
of all the movers and shakers in the New York art scene and he already knew all
the West End’s well heeled. Soon he would be able to add the rising new wealthy
of pop to his client list.
Fraser’s promiscuity
was a current undercurrent. He would apparently discuss the manhood of a Puerto
Rican boy with the same gusto with which he might describe a fine wine. In
London, he haunted sleazy clubs with Christopher Gibbs. He had a regular
boyfriend but it was the bits of rough that interested him, rent boys and
louts. On one occasion they swayed into Muriel Belcher’s Colony Room in Soho
and Francis Bacon remarked, “Here come the Belgravia pansies”, although he and
Robert were great friends; Bacon even wanted to paint him. Fraser had high
artistic standards but low morals and he could be incredibly snobbish;
sometimes he wouldn’t sell someone a painting merely because he didn’t his or
her look or thought the person was vulgar.
Of course the
libertines of the pop world didn’t mind all the bright coloured suits, buggery
and hep cat talk. McCartney said of him: “For me and many others, Robert Fraser
was one of the most influential people of the London 60s scene”.
When young film
director Dennis Hopper visited London, he fell into that Fraser scene. “That
60s time in London was the greatest. I knew I was in a place where all the
creation of the world was happening. The Beatles and the Stones had just
happened... It was just sensational. The art world, the fashion world, they
were exploding. It was the most creative place I’ve ever seen. I said all this
to Billy Wilder and he said, ‘It sounds like your describing Berlin just before
the Second World War’”.
Later, Fraser band
Hopper would tour Mexico together looking at art and hovering up all the
cocaine the country could offer.
Fraser’s flat at 23
Mount Street (only a few yards from the gallery but Robert would only ever go
to work in the Rolls Royce – and was frequently late) was for many years the
hub of the 60s, the place to be if you weren’t in Courtfield Road before its
demise. In fact if Brian Jones wasn’t on the road with the Stones or at home
then he was invariably in Mount Street. Michael Cooper who photographed the
Sgt. Pepper sleeve was always at hand with his camera to record the comings and
goings. Terry Southern (who wrote Candy in which Ringo Starr had a small part,
and the screen play for Barbarella) would be arguing with Brian Jones drinking
Turkish coffee and smoking a pipe of Morrocan. The Bonham Carters would be
talking to Robert who was trying to sell Mick Jagger a Magritte but Jagger was
still not yet in ther art buying league although McCartney was, and so was J.
P. Getty Jr., son of the richest man in the world. Getty liked art and hash and
coke and heroin and whiskey and beautiful women and anything else he could get
his hands on.
Peter Blake, the
artist who actually put the Sgt. Pepper sleeve together with his then wife Jann
Haworth watched the way that the riff raff of rock radiated around the Fraser
apartment. As much as the pop stars were adored and feted and mobbed in the
street, conversely bohemians like Fraser had pop stars sitting at his feet.
“You could just as
well say that Mick Jagger and the others were interested in hanging around
Robert”, said Blake. “Mick at the time was still a ruffian, although famous. In
a way he got more from Robert than Robert got from him. He learned a certain
sophistication from those people. The rock people were glamorous too, but
Robert was very glamorous. He was handsome, incredibly well dressed. He kind of
tutored them”. And he did it in an incredibly plumy Richard Burton kind of way.
One of things Fraser
undoubtedly taught them was how to acquire premier grade drugs. ‘Spanish’ Tony
Sanchez appeared on the scene, nobody knows quite from where save that
Christopher Gibbs thinks Fraser might have found him in an amusement arcade and
taken him home for some hanky panky. Sanchez makes no mention of being gay in
his own book Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, indded he himself had an up
and down relationship with Marianne Faithfull at some point but a little bit of
bi-sexuality was de rigueur in those days.
A visitor with a stash
from Italy introduced Fraser to cocaine and clearly Fraser introduced it
everyone else, starting with McCartney. When that ran out, Spanish Tony found a
local supplier and was from then on in high demand; so impressed was Keith
Richards with Tony’s resourcefulness that he was taken on a personal
assistant/driver just so Keith would have him on tap.
Prone to flying off to
Los Angeles at the drop of a hat, Fraser was also instrumental in introducing
the drug there. It’s a dubious claim to fame but now every dollar bill in the
town is impregnated with the stuff.
Robert had his first
acid trip one night in Rome and was found hours later, collapsed under a tree
in a square with no idea where he was or indeed who he was. Undeterred by the
traumatic trip, Fraser the sensualist somehow sniffed out the drug in London
and shared it around his friends. Anita Pallenberg says he was the first man in
London to have it; Christopher Gibbs says that Robert had it before anyone else
and then took more of it than anyone else, although the truth probably is that
the source of the drug was Michael Hollingshead an extraordinary Englishmen who
had been experimenting with LSD for years in the USA and who wrote The Man Who
Turned on the World about his mind frazzling experiences.
With the ever present
top quality stimulants and hallucinogens as lure, Robert’s glittering modern
art exhibitions were becoming more star-studded than ever. At one, Jagger and
Faithfull, the latest, hottest couple in town were giggling and having a mock
fight that involved Mick pouring his champagne down her cleavage. Marlon Brando
accompanied by a couple of young Thai girls was acting as a doorman, standing
by the gallery entrance and bowing to incredulous latecomers as they entered.
Robert had Brando’s belt in his hand, which seemed to hold an enormous sexual
charge for him. When the VIP guests went back to the Mount Street apartment for
drinks, drugs and dalliances they saw Tony Curtis chatting with Tom Wolfe and
Donald Cammell still going on and on about this film idea he had with his tame
crazy criminal David Litvinoff, who was a friend of the Krays, in tow. It was
the networking centre of the universe.
When the Warhol circus
came to London with a print of Andy’s film Chelsea Girl, it was of course to
Robert’s apartment that they headed. The address of the flat was on the
international grapevine. Fraser asked Keith Richards’ sidekick Stash (Prince
Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, son of the painter Balthus) to go and get hold of
McCartney’s film projectors so they could all view it. The Beatles all had
projectors; it was their custom to hire in movies for private shows for
themselves, friends and girlfriends; they thus avoided the hullabaloo that
would have been caused by them turning up at the cinemas. Ringo was a
particular home movie fan with left field tastes; he liked Kenneth Anger, Bruce
Conner and other stuff from the strange end of the American spectrum.
Semi-Royals, of
course, constantly dazzled Mick, and Fraser acted as his entree into their
world. He once took Jagger and Pallenberg to Wilton, the Palladian mansion
outside Salisbury owned by the Herbert family. The assembled guests stood
slack-jawed as Henry Herbert showed off the family’s Rembrandts, Reynolds and
Reubens.
The Herbert family
owned a villa in Tangier in Morocco. Robert frequently went to Morocco, as did
many others in the clique; some went for the sun and others went for the
sodomy; Noel Coward referred to Tangier as, “a sunny place for shady people”.
Paul Getty owned a palace in Marrakesh where Brian Jones was a houseguest as
was the playboy drug dealer Comte Jean de Bretuil; one New Year’s Eve, Lennon
and McCartney just popped in to sing Auld Langs Syne in the desert. Availing
themselves of the local dope, a writer who was also in attendance commented
that the two Beatles were laid on the floor unable to stand or speak and that
he had never seen so many out of control of people in his life.
Talitha Getty and
husband Paul had their photo taken on the roof with the Atlas Mountains and the
massive mosque tower as a backdrop. Anita Pallenberg says that once when she
was in Tangier with Robert and Keith Richards, they spotted two perspiring men
in dark suits wandering along the beach in the brilliant sunshine. Robert
recognised them and chatted to them warmly, introducing Anita and Keith to his
old mates Reggie and Ronnie Kray.
Robert Fraser’s
hopelessness with money meant that despite, or perhaps because of the opulence
of his lifestyle, he was always broke. He had plenty of super-rich pop star
friends and the temptation to hit on them for loans or to persuade them to buy
a picture from him proved irresistible, and he often used or attempted to use
them as a way out of his troubles. Christopher Gibbs used to buy things from
him and then Robert would buy something from him in return but invariably
Fraser’s cheques bounced and Gibbs would sue his friend and not talk to him for
months. Then, Gibbs says, he would forget that he wasn’t supposed to be talking
to Robert and they would resume relations, such was his character.
Mick Jagger says that
although he knew that Robert was a hustler, he didn’t really steal or
perpetuate frauds but that Fraser’s pictures always seemed a little too
expensive. But, Jagger says, Fraser used to hit on the Beatles more than the
Stones anyway, mainly because the Beatles had more money and possibly McCartney
in particular had more taste and was in the market. But Jagger lived to rue the
fact he hadn’t bought some of Fraser’s ‘expensive’ pictures as he watched the
price of them soar in the years to come. Robert did, after all, have immaculate
taste.
Fraser’s connections would
always prove invaluable. Another member of the Guinness clan regularly provided
the Stones and their posh but broke friends with a stopover was Desmond, who
ruled over the estate in Leixlep in Ireland. Desmond’s mother Diana Mitford,
regarded as the most beautiful of the Mitford sisters, divorced his father in
the 30’s and married the fascist leader Oswald Moseley. Robert Fraser, Jagger,
Christopher Gibbs and Paul Getty and his wife Talitha had also been regular
visitors and savoured the opulence of the great house.
Fraser’s relationship
with his manservant Mohammed kept the tongues wagging. The handsome young man
would act the role of driver, gallery helper and butler but a visitor to the
flat talks of a time when they had once walked past the toilet door in the
apartment and seen Mohammed sitting ostentatiously on the pan with his trousers
around his ankles reading the paper; and how Mohammed would frequently go off
on clothes shopping expeditions with Fraser’s credit cards.
Then came the
well-chronicled Redlands bust. It was all the usual suspects, Jagger, Richards,
Marianne Faithfull, a phantom Mars bar, Christopher Gibbs, Fraser plus an
unwitting hippie from the Kings Road and a mysterious figure known as the Acid
King or David Schneiderman who split the scene of the crime at almost the same
moment as the police who mysteriously hadn’t been searched, never to be seen
again. This led to endless speculation that the band had been set up by the
News of the World who had been working hand in glove with a jittery
establishment’s police force keen on taking a big pop star’s scalp as a warning
to us all.
Mick and Keith took
the rap for some pills and some hash and were given prison sentences, reduced
on appeal to conditional discharges. Unfortunately for Robert, he was caught
with a bottle of pharmaceutical heroin that the others present couldn’t believe
he had with him; they hadn’t suspected a thing. Heroin was so far still off the
menu for the Stones.
Spanish Tony had
boasted to Fraser and the Stones that for £6,000 popped in the right pocket, it
might be possible for the charges to be made to go away. In the event the
charges stayed right they were, just the money went away. Fraser got six months
in Wormwood Scrubs.
Prison was for Robert,
having already ensured the travails of Eton and the army, a breeze. The pain
came with his eventual release, the gallery was bust. But he rallied around; he
still had the building; he could still depend on his highly influential friends
and he knew how to sensationally tweak the tails of the art establishment and
the press.
One of those friends
was John Lennon who had left his wife and moved with Yoko into 34 Montagu
Square, Ringo’s flat. The couple made plans for an exhibition by John at the
reincarnated Fraser gallery. The exhibition would be a collection of charity
collection boxes, disabled mannequins wearing polio callipers and models of
dogs with bandaged legs. There were a few drawings by Lennon and some of
Yoko’s; there were also 365 white helium filled balloons that were released,
each with a tag asking the finder to get in touch with the couple at the Savile
Row Apple HQ. It was a proper hippie ‘Happening’ and prompted Yoko to comment
that, “The Robert Fraser Gallery was the driving force of the European
avant-garde scene in the art world”.
