London's gliteratzi large it Dali stylee

How was your relationship with his wife, Gala?
In the beginning it was pretty hard, she was a very tough lady. She told me later that she had to play the bad part to Dali's good part. Dali would never lose his temper and she would. She would shout and actually tell people to get out of the house and she'd demand money from people that owed him, she was tough. She was his manager. She once stubbed her cigarette out on the hand of a hotel receptionist for not seeing to her straight away. It was a warped contract between them anyway. Dali never had sex with any woman except Gala and I think it was a very brief sexual relationship between them. He had a private life and so did she.

What was life like in the Dali household?
Well there were people visiting all the time but every thing was very controlled by Gala, she ran the show, Dali was mad but he wasn't allowed to be mad al day long. He was also a very hard worker, he'd often work 14 hours a day and would compare himself to the Catalan peasants with their red hats and shoes and he identified with that ideal of going back to his roots. He later felt that he'd betrayed his class by joining the aristocracy and by being made a Marquis. There was time for work and time to play. Everything ran by the watch and with great precision, breakfast then lunch and a siesta everyday straight after lunch, always. He loved to tell people one by one, "You don't drink coffee, you don't drink coffee, you don't drink coffee, none of us drink coffee! That's what I hate the most, waiting for coffee to be made and dragging out lunch for an extra half an hour!" So he'd get up and leave. He'd say it in French, "Pas de café, pas de café, pas de café!" There was a special relationship between us, everybody wanted something from him but I just wanted the glam! I just wanted a good time, to be going out and seeing a whole bunch of people, he was just a riot when he went out. Doors would open, he was naughty and would never pay the bill in most restaurants in Barcelona! He'd get them to send the bill to his hotel and pay it 3 months later, that was Dali, he never carried any money on him and didn't understand money.

How long did that passion for the glamour last?
Oh, it lasted a long time. He kept on firing it. At one point he said that he wanted me to just live and die like a flower! He was mad, he'd call me in Paris and say, "Come over immediately, I'm having lunch with Bertolucci!" and I couldn't possibly get on an aeroplane in the middle of a play. He didn't think of those things, never talk to him about money either, he didn't care about those things. He liked people as showpieces and at one point I thought I may as well put a collar around my neck and walk on all fours down the street with him, liked a trained circus animal.

Is that how you felt with him?
To be a bit cynical yes, in the end because he'd start repeating himself. Once you get to know someone you start to hear the same jokes but I was never bored with him and where we connected was that we met where children meet, I thought. I became a child and he became a child, constantly playing games.

Was he an avid cinema goer?
He went to some but not really. He once told me that he tried to seduce Greta Garbo but that it didn't work. He had it all planned, that he had asked her over and that he waited for her in his bathrobes, she wasn't having any of it! He wouldn't have done anything with her - he didn't know how to do anything! He was terrified of the vagina, he thought that it was a cavernous thing that swallowed you, he was really afraid of a woman's sex.

Did you ever meet Walt Disney with Dali?
Walt Disney? Yes there was talk of them making a film but that never really materialised and I never met him. There was a brief stint when he was in America, he worked on the movie Spellbound with Hitchcock, Dali made a couple of sets for him. Disney went to Dali's house in Cadaquez and Dali discovered that he had one of the largest collections of pornography in the world. Dali's career was a scandal from the start. When he was in New York he was asked to do a window display for Christmas and he agreed but there were too many allusions to sex. There were nude mannequins and lots of fur and when the owners saw it they were mortified and so they changed everything. So when Dali strolled down to see it the next day and saw that they had changed everything he flew into a rage, went inside and with violent force, pushed this bathtub full of water through this huge glass display window. It could have killed someone underneath or killed him as he climbed out through this smashed window. He actually went to prison for a couple of days but of course the show was a sell-out and everyone in New York was talking about this mad Spanish artist.

Did you ever meet any dignitaries with him?
He met the King of Spain and the heir to the Italian throne. I met this Italian prince once and Dali kept on raving that he had the biggest member in all of Europe! He used to love to flout it and I was actually a little bit embarrassed when I was introduced to him. He walked in with this enormous erection and simply said, "how are you?" I wasn't sure whether to shake his hand or his penis and with Dali running around the room with his small penis it was very bizarre!

How was he when he died?
Well he was surrounded by nurses, he had Parkinsons and really wanted to live in total darkness. I think he wanted to go back to the embryonic state. You know when you wake up and for that traumatic fraction of a second its like being born, he wanted to go back again to that, he refused light and food and was so vain that he didn't want anyone to see him. It was very sad.