Remembering Robert

On a personal note, I remember the legendary Hollywood icon Robert Evans, who produced The Godfather and Chinatown.

Bob, who died at his magnificent Beverly Hills mansion aged 89, was also thrown into the spotlight when his fifth wife Love Story actress Ali MacGraw left him for actor Steve McQueen.

He was also married to Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose mother Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, is an old friend.

I knew him socially from dining at Harry Cipriani in New York and Spago in Beverly Hills, and even found him his longtime English butler, Alan Selka, who formerly worked for Manhattan socialite K.K. Auchincloss, who lived in a Fifth Avenue penthouse opposite the Metropolitan Museum above Jackie Onassis, as well as having homes in London, Paris and Dark Harbor, Maine.

Alan, who I knew from the Jupiter Island Club in Hobe Sound, Florida, told me he would like to move on and Bob told me he was looking for a suitable butler, so the marriage was made.

He was head of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and won over a new generation of fans in the 2002 release of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter‘s documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture.

Perpetually tanned he produced some of the greatest films of all time, but his greatest production was his own extraordinary life.

Sightings: Actor Bruce McGill and family having burgers on the patio at the Rosewood Miramar… Singer Beyoncé at Paseo Nuevo… Oscar winner Michael Douglas noshing at Olio e Limone