Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry (10 page)

At the time Marlene was Jurgens’s regular girlfriend, but then Jurgens had a girl in every port, and it was far from a serious committed deep relationship. Jurgens was also twice Marlene’s age, and she was just having fun.

It so happened that Lauda and Mariella were invited to a party at Jurgens’s home, but fate dictated that Lauda went on his own.

Marlene was hosting the party, but as soon as they saw each other, she and Lauda got together straightaway. They were soon closeted in earnest conversation, and the rest of the guests were forgotten. Jurgens observed what was happening, but he didn’t seem to mind at all.

Almost immediately they knew they would see each other again, even though Lauda knew about Jurgens, and Marlene was fully aware of Mariella. Lauda described that first meeting simply: “She spoke to me and a spark flew between us.”

After the party they enjoyed two intimate dinners together. And then Marlene contracted pneumonia and fell very ill. Lauda visited her constantly in the hospital, sometimes running into Curt Jurgens coming down the hospital corridor the other way.

Gradually, after a few weeks, Marlene got better and discharged herself. Although still in a very weak state, she flew to the island of Ibiza to recuperate. Her parents owned a holiday home on the island, and Ibiza was her favorite place. Between races, Lauda flew there as often as he could in his airplane see her. He told Mariella a pack of lies to cover up his absences.

In fact, Lauda hardly saw Mariella during that period. Mariella, who was so busy with the construction of the house, didn’t seem to notice his absence or question where he was spending his time.

This went on all summer and until early autumn, when Lauda had to leave for North America for the US and Canadian Grand Prix. He was away for three weeks and found he spent the entire time thinking about Marlene, and with that he finally realized the relationship with Mariella was over.

Marlene became the catalyst for change, and Lauda decided to end it with Mariella. As he said, “I went away more in the summer of 1975—I had to have a change.”

But the relationship between Mariella and Lauda was not the work of a moment; it was a lifetime’s work for both of them. Ending it was far from easy. But he was a very practical person. He had fallen out of love with Mariella and fallen in love with Marlene. For him it was black and white.

Despite the granite exterior, Lauda cared what people thought, and exiting the relationship with honor became very important to him. In pursuing that goal, however, he ended up riding roughshod over Mariella’s feelings.

Lauda concocted a plan to make the split appear mutual and to reduce the impression that there was anyone else involved. He wanted it to be known that the relationship had run its course and that both parties sought an exit. He certainly did not want anyone to know he had left Mariella for another woman. So loved was Mariella that he feared the whole of Europe would turn against him if that became known.

After he arrived back in Salzburg from New York, he decided he had to end it at the first appropriate moment. According to him, the opportunity came when he returned to the apartment they shared. He went through the front door and was overwhelmed by a feeling of not wanting to be there. As he later revealed, “I draped my jacket over the back of a chair and looked at Mariella and suddenly it hit me: This won’t work.” He turned tail and walked out with next to no explanation. He drove away that night into Marlene’s arms, never again to return, leaving behind a very confused Mariella.

Lauda proposed to Marlene that night. He told her he would not see Mariella again, and they went away to Ibiza on Lauda’s airplane the following morning.

Mariella was left completely bemused as she confided to her closest friends that she had no idea what had happened. When he finally returned from Ibiza to Salzburg, Lauda saw Mariella and told her another pack of lies. He told her he was stressed and, because of that, demanded they end their eight-year relationship. He told her that he “no longer had time for emotional nonsense.”

It was completely untrue. Mariella had become a burden, and after almost eight years together, he coldly dumped her in a few minutes’ conversation.

As soon as he proposed, Lauda tried to marry Marlene straightaway. But he wanted it kept a secret, as he was desperately concerned that Mariella and her friends did not discover that he already had a new girlfriend.

So in November of 1975, he flew to England and met secretly with John Hogan.

Although Hogan was principally the boss of James Hunt’s title sponsor, Marlboro, he was also very close to Lauda. Marlboro was also a personal sponsor of Lauda’s, and the Austrian was every bit as important to Marlboro as was Hunt. Hogan was probably Lauda’s best friend and closest confidant in Formula One, as well as being the man whom he completely trusted, despite his obvious closeness to his chief rival. Hogan was the man with whom Lauda thought he could discuss any problem without holding back—be it business or pleasure.

So almost from the very moment Lauda split from Mariella and took up with Marlene, Hogan was in on it. Lauda could trust Hogan because he was not judgmental. Hogan was his guru and had enormous understanding of human emotions. Hogan was also very discreet. Lauda knew instinctively he could be trusted with his biggest secret, which is what had brought him to England in the first place.

Lauda suddenly arrived at Hogan’s home in Reading. Hogan remembers it well 36 years later and takes up the story: “Niki said, ‘You know what I’m missing? A wife. Where can I get married in England?’ It was almost comical.”

But Hogan went along with it, and because Lauda had said nothing to the contrary, he presumed he was referring to getting married to Mariella. And then he brought Marlene in, who had been waiting in the car.

Hogan, momentarily stunned, knew Lauda well enough to know to not ask any questions. As he remembered: “I was living out in Reading in those days, so I said, ‘Let’s try Reading registry office to see what happens.’”

Lauda said there was no time to waste, so Hogan got into his car and they drove off to the center of Reading. As Hogan recalls, “So we drove up to the Reading registry office: Niki, myself, and Marlene. And this very nice gentleman said, ‘I’m terribly sorry. I’d love to, but I can’t.’”

The registrar told them that any marriage he performed in England would not be legal and that he would not do it. It had been a wasted mission.”

So Lauda’s plans were thwarted. With that, he gave up the idea of an immediate marriage and instead flew to Ibiza with Marlene, where they lived together in total secrecy over the winter. That is, until three months later, when they turned up in Kyalami.

CHAPTER
5

James’s Women Problems

A Hasty Marriage Unravels

January 1976

A
s 1976 dawned, James Hunt’s marriage to Suzy Miller was well and truly over. Barely two years after he had rethought his life and decided he needed a wife, he had rethought it again and decided he didn’t. As he flew to South America for the first Grand Prix of the season in January 1976, he was just waiting for Suzy to find a new beau. And finally, much to his relief, it seemed that she had. It would end a 24-month saga in James Hunt’s personal life, a period that defied any sensible logic at all.

Before he married, Hunt had given his views on matrimony and described it as a “stupid myth” that drivers had to have a stable home life in order to cope with the stresses and strains of racing. With those sorts of views, there seemed little chance he would succumb to marriage in the foreseeable future.

Hunt was certainly not ideal husband material. He had a giant appetite for sex and looked to feed it wherever he could, as frequently as he could. On a physical level, he was unequaled. Emotionally, however, he was an amateur. According to his friends, he would often suggest that he was not sure what love was. Gerald Donaldson, his biographer, confirmed: “The emotional component of a relationship for James was still virgin territory.”

But when he moved from England to Spain at the beginning of 1974, Hunt dramatically and suddenly changed his mind. Seemingly out of the blue, he decided he wanted a wife to “help my career and ease my life in exile.” Hunt had moved to Marbella for tax reasons, and it had nothing to do with marriage.

In fact, the last thing Hunt needed was a wife. He had never found a woman who could keep up with him. But for a brief moment, he cast aside those thoughts.

He found Suzy Miller playing tennis at the Lew Hoad club in Fuengirola, Spain. Like Hunt, Suzy had just moved to Spain for a lifestyle change and was lonely. She was a striking woman who made money modeling, and a few extraordinary months later, she became Mrs. James Hunt.

Barely 24, a year younger than Hunt, she had spent much of her childhood in Southern Rhodesia with her expatriate parents as well as her twin sister, Vivienne, and a brother, John. As a child she took piano lessons and became a concert standard pianist. She also was an excellent cook. Her father, Frederick Miller, had been a high-ranking officer in the British army and then a lawyer and barrister employed in the British colonies. Her childhood had been spent in a number of different countries. But it was under the African sun, with her father working as a judge in Kenya, that Suzy developed into a truly attractive young woman—a real “head turner,” as Hunt would later describe her to his friends back in London.

Like many women approaching their mid-20s, Suzy was desperate to find a husband. As soon as she met him, she saw Hunt as perfect husband material. The fact that he was a famous racing driver held no appeal for her at all.

Content to devote her life to one man, Suzy imagined a partner who would provide her with security and whom, in return, she could look after. Somehow she envisaged that in Hunt. In Marbella, Hunt and Suzy began seeing a lot of each other, and their mutual isolation initially drew them together.

Hunt was still living out of a suitcase in a hotel, and she had an apartment on the coast overlooking the sea. He quickly moved out of his hotel and into her apartment.

Miller was very different from Hunt’s previous girlfriends. Undemanding, she was quiet and had a thoughtful manner. At first Hunt attempted to treat her like all his previous flings—in a casual manner—but she bridled against it. And the more she bridled, the more Hunt wanted her. She was not prepared to be his casual girlfriend.

Initially, however, Hunt just didn’t get it. And when Suzy quickly threw him out and he moved back to the hotel, it was a serious shock to his system. For the first time, he found himself feeling hurt and lovesick. Realizing that he actually might be in love with her, he said, “I talked myself back into her affections.”

But Hunt had learned little and soon ended up thrown out once again and back for the third time in the hotel. The relationship continued with its ups and downs, and the more she rejected him, the more he desired her. It was an old trap, and Hunt fell right into it.

Finally in midsummer of 1974, after a three-week separation that included the weekend of the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, he found himself intensely missing her. All he could think of that weekend was about being next to her in bed—and this time his thoughts were not of lust but of love. Over the three days, he found he became more and more obsessive in his thoughts.

On the evening of the July 20, 1974, he arrived back in Marbella. He had flown in from London after retiring halfway through the race. He drove straight from the airport to her apartment and proposed marriage. As he remembered: “Knowing that the prospect of marriage would swing Suzy around, I went back to her and proposed.” It was a desperate measure and reflected the extent of his infatuation. He had truly lost his senses. Suzy was delighted and accepted without hesitation. She immediately telephoned her parents and her sister, Vivienne, with the good news. She then watched as a sheepish Hunt also telephoned his astonished parents.

The engagement was properly announced a week later and a wedding date set for the end of the Formula One season, in October. The roller coaster had started, and there would be no getting off. An engagement party was held at his brother Peter’s apartment in central London.

Lord Hesketh was delighted and offered to pay for the wedding. He appointed himself organizer of the event and transformed the wedding into one big party for himself and his friends. Although Hunt had known Hesketh for a little over 18 months, he was named as best man.

The prospect of a wedding had been haunting Hunt since the engagement party. It had also been dominating his thoughts during the closing races of the 1974 season. Hunt was well into having second and third thoughts about the marriage by the time the season ended. According to Gerald Donaldson, he wanted desperately to cut and run and get out of the whole situation but was too scared to do it. Seeing no way out of the wedding, Hunt turned to binge drinking.

Suzy was Catholic, which dictated a Catholic church, and Hunt converted to Catholicism for the ceremony. The wedding was held at the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, better known as the Brompton Oratory, in Kensington. The grand setting was entirely appropriate for the society wedding of the year. The invitations stressed that nothing short of full morning suits were required. More or less every racing driver of distinction was invited, including Graham Hill, Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, John Watson, and Ronnie Peterson. Hesketh arranged an orchestra to play the music.