8 thoughts on “More Sunshine from Sandoval”

  1. Wow Doug, thanks for sharing all the Prue stories! Sad to hear that Prue and Pattie had a falling out. I didn’t know that. – Lynn

  2. Thanks Lynn. I don’t know exactly what Prue has in her scrapbooks, and what’s missing. We go through idle stretches, then there will be a flurry of messages back and forth. You happened to catch us in a relative hot spot.

    Oh, the things I know about the doings of Swinging London! The casino sequence in AHDN is historically significant, because casinos had only recently been legalized in England. When Prue met Terry, he was a croupier in what was technically an illegal operation that was run by, yes, mobsters. One time there was the little matter of a debt being owed by Terry, and tiny Prue got tough and stared down a couple of thugs!

    Then there was the time she was eating in a restaurant with someone very well known whose name I cannot divulge (sorry), when the maître d came over and said, “Miss Leigh has requested the pleasure of your company.” As in Vivien Leigh. “Oh, my dear! You are so lovely! You remind me of myself years ago. Please, sit and join us.” This was Prue’s world. Dame Judi Dench is a friend, she saw Diana at the tennis club, the whole bit.

    I had dinner with Prue in New York with two of her closest friends, and Mike said, “Bob came to closing night at the restaurant like he promised.” Bob is Robert DeNiro. I made a crack about Yoko’s reputation as the Dragon Lady, and Mike’s wife, a real estate agent, exclaimed, “Don’t say that! Yoko’s my best customer!” That was how I found out that John and Yoko had hired away Mike’s own maître d from his restaurant, back in its heyday. Prue’s best friend, Mike’s sister-in-law, lived across the courtyard from John and Yoko at the Dakota, and the night he was shot remains a sad and bitter memory.

    When Mary Quant set up Prue and Terry in New York, shortly after they were married in London, with Vidal soon to join them, Prue immediately connected with the then-new Lincoln Center and the ballet scene. She was at a party of ballet people, but she didn’t know anybody, then she spotted Rudolf Nureyev. She ran over to him as if in a ballet, she leaped, and Nureyev caught her with a delighted cry of, “My Prue!”

    Mike’s restaurant was near Lincoln Center, and that was how she met them. At that time Andy Warhol was a regular, as was Dylan, but Prue’s crowd was the ballet set and Leonard Bernstein. Sassoon was an enigma to me, being a hairdresser and, well, the cliche about men in that business. Prue said, “I assure you, Douglas, that Sassoon was very definitely not gay!” Take that for what you will, because I didn’t press her for any details on that count.

    Oh, and about Pattie, I don’t know the whole story. There was a falling out somewhere along the way. The last time Prue saw Pattie and Jenny was shortly before she moved to France, which was quite a few years ago.

  3. I agree Doug, I think it is Prue Bury in the photo and have added an update with the tumblr post. Maybe Prue will remember something more…

  4. Hi Doug, So surprised that Prue isn’t sure either! I did a quick search on google for images but didn’t find any alternate shots of same girl with Sassoon. I guess it will remain a mystery!

  5. Prue’s unexpected answer is, “Honestly I don’t know !!!We all had soooooo many pics taken and we all had those hair cuts and sort of looked alike in a 60-ties way!”

  6. Thanks Lynn. I’ll take a look… and gosh, that’s a tough call, even for me! I’ll give a tentative yes, but I’ll ask Prue to be sure. The size of the girl in the picture is certainly right. Prue is very petite, which meant that she wasn’t suited to be a runway model.

    Prue was very close to Vidal, having first met him and Mary Quant in 1958, when she was just seventeen (you know what I mean), and she was understandably upset when Sassoon passed away. There’s a fun story about the time Vidal called Prue when she was living in New York, and he asked her to rush down to the CBS-TV studios and pretend to be his (second) wife on the game show, “To Tell the Truth.” The only copy of the show that I have been able to locate is in the UCLA TV archives, and the only way to see it is to go there and request a viewing.

  7. Hi Doug, I just reblogged a photo on my tumblr page that is of Vidal Sassoon and a client who I’m wondering if she could be Prue Bury? Would like to know if you think it is Prue? If it is Prue I thought you would be interested in the photo! – Lynn

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