Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry (13 page)

Suzy was well aware that Burton and Taylor were in town, as was everyone. They were the most famous people in the world and had just been married for the second time the previous October. But Suzy had heard that the new Burton-Taylor reunion was not going well. She had always found Richard Burton very attractive and had vague connections to him though Brook Williams, who was a friend. Williams was Burton’s closest aide, and she wondered whether she might get to meet Burton one day.

But what happened next she did not expect.

Suzy first set eyes on Burton as they were going opposite ways on a ski cable lift. Their eyes met, and Suzy smiled. Burton flashed back his trademark smile, and there was an instant attraction. He recognized the signs, and she made a huge impact on him straightaway. When she had gone past, Burton turned to Williams and asked, “Who is that vision that just passed by?”

Burton was transfixed, as he would say later: “I turned around and there was this gorgeous creature, about 9 feet tall. She could stop a stampede.” Burton immediately sought an introduction and asked Brook Williams to fix it for him. He said he would.

Burton was staying with Taylor at her house in Gstaad, called Chalet Arial, and Williams soon engineered another meeting. He invited Suzy to a party at the château. Suzy quickly discovered that Burton and Taylor were already leading separate lives and that the remarriage had not worked out. Burton was sleeping in a room at one end of the château and Taylor in a room at the other end.

The affair between Burton and Suzy began almost immediately. From the day they were introduced, Burton and Suzy became virtually inseparable. He was 50 and she was 26. Burton remembered: “She started coming to the house two, three, and then four times a week.”

Eventually Elizabeth Taylor noticed the Englishwoman coming to the house every day. She immediately realized what was going on and said to Suzy, “You’ll only last six months with Richard.” To which Suzy replied, “Perhaps, but those six months will be very worthwhile.” With that, Taylor went out and found herself another boyfriend at a local disco, clearing the way for Suzy and Burton to take their relationship forward unhindered.

Burton invited Suzy to join him in New York, where he was due to star in Peter Shaffer’s play
Equus
on Broadway. She accepted but said she would have to ask her husband’s permission.

As the affair developed, Suzy was keeping James Hunt, in Brazil, fully informed over the telephone of her developing situation. To say that he was delighted would have been an understatement. In fact, when she first told him that Burton had invited her to go to New York, he had simply replied, “Fine, off you go.” Burton opened to rave reviews in
Equus
and was the talk of the city. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, journalists in New York soon began to ask who the blond was that accompanied him everywhere. They had absolutely no idea who she was, and uncaptioned photographs started appearing in New York newspapers.

When Hunt headed home from South America, he found his house empty. By then Suzy was spending most of her time with Richard Burton in New York. After a few weeks, he left for South Africa early and was soon parading around Johannesburg with different women. All this was going on despite the fact that, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, Hunt and Suzy were still happily married.

Eventually the New York journalists worked out that the striking blond was the wife of racing driver James Hunt and that she had clearly broken up Burton’s marriage to Elizabeth Taylor. There was no bigger media story than that in the last week of February 1976.

With the news suddenly out, and Suzy and Burton no longer a secret, Hunt was in for a shock in South Africa. He was suddenly being followed by journalists, who had flown in specifically to work on the story. His hotel was staked out by a throng of jostling journalists and photographers—none of them interested in the race. Alastair Caldwell remembers: “Suddenly we had huge media interest. We had the
Sydney Morning Herald
and the
Punjabi
Times;
we had every daily newspaper in the world, even Mexico. All were trying to interview us and talk to James. They were being flown in by the planeload.” It became so bad that Hunt had to move out of his hotel.

Once again it was David Benson who was ahead of the story and gave the
Daily Express
its biggest ever show business scoop. Benson wrote a story that appeared on the front page of the
Daily Express
on February 26, 1976. It was headlined: “Suzy To Marry Burton.” The story read: “Suzy Hunt, wife of British racing driver James Hunt, is seeking a quickie divorce in America so that she can marry Richard Burton. This follows the actor’s latest breakup with his second-time wife Liz Taylor. He and 27-year-old Suzy are staying at the same New York hotel. Burton, too, was said to be in a hurry to get a divorce.”

The article finally legitimized the story and made it official. James Hunt was finally free of his marriage and officially a single man again. To celebrate, he went to the gym. It was one of the most satisfying workouts of his life. He was finally free, exactly 16 months after his wedding day in London.

Richard Burton telephoned Hunt in Kyalami, ostensibly to apologize for what had happened. Hunt remembered Burton being rather embarrassed and tongue-tied on the telephone, which he found strange. Hunt assured Burton that, far from being upset, he was delighted about the situation.

Burton couldn’t quite believe that Hunt was being so casual about letting go of his wife. He expected Hunt to be bitter toward him and devastated. But Hunt simply said to Burton: “Relax, Richard. You’ve done me a wonderful turn by taking on the most alarming expense account in the country.” A bemused and somewhat relieved Burton replaced the receiver in his hotel room and turned to Suzy and smiled. She said to him, “I told you James is fine about all this.”

When the news was out, a relieved Hunt spoke to journalists: “Her running off with Burton is a great relief to me. It actually reduces the number of problems I have to face outside my racing. I am mainly concerned that everyone comes out of it happy and settled.” In fact, there was no disguising Hunt’s utter relief at what had transpired, as he confessed: “I prefer to be on my own at races because, really, there’s enough to do looking after me. It’s more than I can handle to keep myself under control at a race meeting without trying to look after someone else as well and have more responsibilities and worries. I find that if I want an early night before a race, or if I want a couple of hours to cool off and relax before dinner, I can do no better than to read a book or listen to music and, therefore, it’s better to be on my own.” Resolving not to get tempted into marriage again, he told journalists: “Meanwhile, it is probably a good thing that I am still technically married. I have that as a safety valve. It will stop me from doing anything silly again.”

Hunt flew straight back into London from Johannesburg to stay with his parents, where he was due to drive at the non-championship Race of Champions at nearby Brands Hatch. While there, he realized that he must meet Burton to firm up the arrangements for the divorce. He was very anxious for nothing to go wrong and for Suzy not to become his responsibility again. He was also anxious to sort out the financial arrangements and to find out how much the divorce would cost him.

After the race he was helicoptered away from Brands Hatch straight to London’s Heathrow Airport, where he flew to New York to discuss the details with Burton face to face. In New York, a nervous Hunt was shocked to find himself again surrounded by photographers and journalists asking him questions about his wife and Burton.

At their meeting, Burton thanked Hunt for having given him Suzy. Amazingly, Richard Burton told James Hunt that he would pay for the divorce and provide Suzy’s settlement for him. Burton estimated that she would have received $500,000, and he settled that amount for her on Hunt’s behalf. The divorce did not cost Hunt a penny. Hunt was impressed by Burton’s sensitivity. Thoroughly approving of Burton, Hunt said he hoped to meet him again soon.

Soon afterwards, returning to London, Suzy was interviewed by David Benson, to whom she said: “All I want now is to complete the separation with as much dignity and friendship as possible. James and I are still good friends, and I hope we will remain so. He tried awfully hard not to hurt me. Fortunately, everything has turned out for the best for all of us. James is happy, and I am happy. It sounds corny, but, put this down David, he [Richard] is a very special person and we are very, very happy together.”

It was all finalized in June 1976 in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, in the Caribbean. Burton arranged that the divorces of both Taylor and Burton and Hunt and Miller were completed on the same day. (In Haiti, foreigners could be divorced in a day.)

On Saturday August 21, Suzy and Burton were married in Arlington, Virginia. Virginia was one of only three states in the United States that recognized a Haitian divorce. At the precise moment of their wedding, Hunt was relaxing in Scotland. He was playing golf at Gleneagles. For the record, he told a local journalist, “Richard Burton came along and solved all the problems. I learned an awful lot about myself and life, and I think Suzy did too. We all ended up happy, anyway, which is more than can be said for a lot of marriages.” For Hunt it was the final release. As he said afterwards: “For the first time, I am mentally content with my private life. Suzy is largely responsible for that.”

The last word was left to James Hunt’s mother, Susan Hunt. She made it clear that she was entirely on Suzy’s side. She knew precisely where in the marriage the fault lay, conceding, “Suzy is absolutely gorgeous; most of his girls are. But I can see that, for James, to be married is impossible. His lifestyle doesn’t suit it. I’m bound to say I love him dearly, but I’d hate to have him for a husband.”

The wedding of Burton and Suzy cleared the path for Hunt to reveal Jane Birbeck as his new girlfriend.

In reality, Hunt and Birbeck had been going out for more than six months, but Hunt had kept the relationship quiet out of respect to Suzy.

The two had met a year earlier, at which time Birbeck was having an affair with the 45-year-old Mark McCormack, the chairman of International Management Group (IMG), the world’s biggest sports sponsorship and management agency. IMG managed some of Hunt’s affairs, and he first saw Birbeck at a distance at IMG’s offices in London when she was with McCormack.

The American was a legend in the sports industry and generally regarded as the most powerful man in sports. He was manager to all of the world’s top golf and tennis stars and an author of the best-selling book
What They Don’t Teach
You At Harvard Business School
. The book sold millions based on the precept of how to negotiate a deal. But he was also married to Nancy Breckenridge and had three small children, who lived in Cleveland. Breckenridge was a stay-at-home housewife, bringing up the children and never accompanying her husband on his travels. Her husband was very discreet, and she never asked and she was never told about what he got up to.

McCormack and Birbeck had originally met at IMG’s office in London. But like Curt Jurgens’s affair with Marlene, the relationship was not serious, as McCormack also seemed to have a girl in every port and Birbeck was his London girl. When she became close to Hunt, McCormack didn’t stand in her way, just as Jurgens didn’t stand in the way of Marlene’s union with Lauda. McCormack, always the perfect gentleman and a very considerate individual, despite his ruthless reputation in business, could also sense that she was uncomfortable about seeing a married man with three children and stood aside.

Hunt first got together with Birbeck at a backgammon tournament in Spain at the Marbella Club. But by all accounts, she had captivated him that day. When it was time to leave the Marbella Club, Jane told Hunt she was returning to London with McCormack the following day but invited him to look her up.

When he was in London again, he did look her up; and so began a relationship that would last for more than half a decade. But it all started off very slowly and very properly, which was unusual for Hunt. It was a full six months after they met that he and Birbeck went to bed together. Hunt had wanted to make sure that McCormack was off the scene completely. Only when that was certain did he proceed.

Recalling how long it took Hunt to make his move, Birbeck said, “I was sure he was gay because he never made a move on me for so long. It was a rather bizarre courtship. We had plenty to talk about, but that’s all we ever did. He liked conversation and would talk endlessly to me on the telephone. When we got together, we’d have supper and talk into the small hours. There was no deep urge, particularly on his part, to make a permanent relationship.”

Birbeck was 24 years old at the time and a stunning woman. Her beauty was always understated because she usually dressed like a tomboy. But when she got dressed up, she was a very impressive woman indeed. Hunt’s friend John Richardson described her as “a very cool, a very English, ice maiden.”

Hunt quickly nicknamed her “Hot loins,” which got shortened to “Hottie.” The nickname was picked up by the British media, and she never shook it off. Richardson remembers: “The name stuck, and the press picked it up and ran with it.” Gerald Donaldson described her as “adventurous and fun-loving … with very obvious feminine charms.”