Innocent Spouse by Carol Ross Joynt

Author:Carol Ross Joynt [Joynt, Carol Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-59212-5
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

YOLANDE AND CHERIF were glued to the TV while I was glued to the wall phone in the kitchen. Eventually they excused themselves to go to bed. For me, the calls and TV watching went on through the night. My primary assignment was to try to get Tom Cruise for Monday’s show. He’d already called CNN’s live coverage to complain about the paparazzi. After talking to Michael Cole several more times, I finally got to bed at about four in the morning. I was up again three hours later, fielding calls and making breakfast for everyone. One of my colleagues, Pam Stevens, another booker, called for my contacts and numbers. Generally such things are privileged but she said, “These are for everyone, Carol.”

We had a staff conference call around eleven a.m. Wendy began with an admonition: “If I hear of any one of you talking to our competition at the other networks you better start looking for another job.” Hmmm. It was decided I would keep after Tom Cruise, plus pursue Madonna, Demi Moore, the PR man Michael Cole, Harper’s Bazaar editor and Diana pal Liz Tilberis, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, designer Zandra Rhodes, and Elizabeth Emanuel, who had designed Diana’s spectacular wedding dress.

When I finally reached Pat Kingsley of PMK, who represented Tom Cruise, she was tired and weary of calls from bookers like me. “No,” she said. “No to Tom.” I left messages for Liz Rosenberg for Madonna and Susan Magrino for Tilberis. I talked to Paul Wilmot about Anna Wintour. But I actually booked Michael Cole. Score!

“Okay, Carol, I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll rest up for you.” It would be two a.m. in London when we went live.

“Thank you, Michael.” Cole agreed to be exclusive to our show. He was al-Fayed’s spokesman but also his stealth leaker. We’d had a few dinners together in New York where I worked through him to work through Mohamed al-Fayed to get to Raine Spencer, and through Raine to Princess Diana. Raine was Diana’s stepmother and was close to al-Fayed. The al-Fayed family, particularly Mohamed al-Fayed, was obsessed with the royals. Mohamed went so far as to put Raine on the board of Harrods, more a British institution than a simple department store he now owned. There were times when Wendy, Michael Cole, and I would go through elaborate choreography to get Larry on the phone with Mohamed in advance of Mohamed’s possibly being in the same room with Diana, to pass on a message. Unwittingly, perhaps, Mohamed served as a surrogate “booker.” When Diana was al-Fayed’s guest in the south of France that fateful June weekend in 1997 when she so publicly hooked up with Dodi, Michael called me regularly with practically by-the-minute updates about the goings-on out on the al-Fayed yacht. “Dodi and Diana are getting along beautifully,” he cooed. “They’re like lovebirds. They can’t keep their hands off each other!” Nothing for Larry King Live, but as far as gossip goes it was the inside skinny and pretty darn good.

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