Were you travelling a lot at that time?
Yeah, and he kept telling people that he was infatuated with me but he was just provoking them, he was a provocateur.

How close were you?
I always saw him as a father figure. It was very platonic, besides which Dali was incapable of communicating any sort of sexual energy.

Why?
He was blocked and when he grabbed you it was as though he was putting his clutches on you but then he would go on about how I had nice shoulder blades and a nice skeleton. He loved very thin and frail people and I modelled a lot for him.

Were you happy to model for him?
I felt in debt to him for the longest time, I felt that he had been so wonderful to me in many ways and had pushed me. He had even offered to pay me in the first months of our relationship and I'd said "no way", I didn't want any money. He was very sweet but what I enjoyed the most was the glam, he got me hooked. It was like a drug, that was a real drug that I had withdrawal symptoms from, going out to expensive restaurants with movie stars and so forth.

What were these people like?
Some were very awful and some were quite nice. Some would try to elbow you out of the picture. I liked Yul Brynner the most, he was wonderful because he had this ability to make you feel like you'd known him all your life. On one occasion I was at a hotel with Dali when he walked in and I was sitting on the floor for some reason, I was eccentric. He came and sat down on the floor, we started chatting and he was telling me about his life. He told me that he was part gypsy or something which I found fascinating, I had a thing for the gypsy way of life and that they were always travelling. Freedom.

What was Kirk Douglas like?
Oh he was awful! He was like any big movie star and very pretentious. At first I was terribly disappointed because he is so small when you meet him and he pushes himself around. He's hard.

Did you ever meet Luis Bunuel?
No but his son is a very good friend of mine. I have an art gallery and the son does shows with me sometimes, he does sculptures. Bunuel had a very difficult relationship with Dali, after being very good friends at school they sort of drifted apart but they made 2 films together: Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or, the painter Max Ernst is in that also.

Did Dali ever talk about Bunuel?
He always tried to get back on his good side every year, he would send him a card but Bunuel would answer him in the same way, it doesn't translate very well but he'd always reply, "Water that has passed through once does not move the windmill." Every year Dali persisted, he wanted to do another part of Un Chien Andalou with him but Bunuel would not have anything to do with him.

How did their relationship break down?
Well politically there were differences, Bunuel stayed in exile while Dali came back and became an official painter and by warming up to the regime he became Franco's showpiece. Bunuel was having a very hard time and needed to borrow $50, because they were exiles in New York. Dali refused to lend him any money and there was talk that he also got him sacked from a job that he'd just landed at a cinemateque. He supposedly got in touch with the cinemateque and said, "be careful, this man is a Communist." It was also a very bad time to say that sort of thing. Dali wrote a long letter to Bunuel explaining why he would not lend him the $50 and Bunuel kept the letter in his wallet for the rest of his life, to teach himself never to be mean and to always be generous to others. When he died he gave the letter to his son, Juan Luis Bunuel who still has it today.

Did you ever have a creative relationship with him or collaborate as equals?
No, there was never any talk of that because he didn't want any equals. I found out later that he didn't want any followers, he wanted to be unique and my only collaboration with him was to send him things of interest when we were apart. He didn't want to teach anybody either, he was too caught up in his ego.

 

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.