I had a couple of contacts in the fashion industry, so I decided to strike while the iron was hot and try to arrange an interview with her for the Italian weekly Panorama . It was certainly no cakewalk, but after dozens of phone calls and protracted negotiations with her obstructive agent, my persistence was rewarded in August 1993, when I was invited to interview Claudia on a family holiday in the Balearics.
This was a genuine scoop. Claudia had never previously spoken to the Italian press and I was the first journalist to be invited into the intimate family surroundings of her holiday home. This was the very place where the photos at the centre of the scandal had been taken: Port dâAndratx, an exclusive resort west of Palma on the island of Majorca, and the location for many years of a holiday home belonging to the Schiffer family.
In 1993, Claudia had a particularly good reason for heading down there to relax. She had just finished playing herself in a long film / documentary entitled Around Claudia Schiffer, directed by Claude Lelouch's former assistant director Daniel Ziskind and filmed in France, Germany and the United States. Filming had just ended, and TV stations the world over were scrambling to acquire the rights.
Just before I set off, I let it slip (probably not entirely by accident, if Iâm honest) to a rather wealthy friend whose family owned a renowned tool company that I was going to Palma de Majorca to meet Claudia. At which point my friend assured me I wouldnât need to book a hotel: âI've got a [magnificent hundred-foot sailing] yacht down there. There are five sailors and a cook swanning round Palma right now at my expense with nothing to do. At least if you head down there, theyâll have to work for their money! And youâll get to enjoy a nice little cruise from Palma down to Port dâAndratx!â
I didnât need a second invitation, and so on the day of the interview I stepped down off my buddy's yacht on to the marina at Port dâAndratx after a two-hour journey from Palma. Giving a cheery wave to the crew, I headed for Café de la Vista, a nice little spot opposite the throng of moored yachts, where I was scheduled to meet Claudia at three-thirty.
I didnât need a second invitation, and so on the day of the interview I stepped down off my buddy's yacht on to the marina at Port dâAndratx after a two-hour journey from Palma. Giving a cheery wave to the crew, I headed for Café de la Vista, a nice little spot opposite the throng of moored yachts, where I was scheduled to meet Claudia at three-thirty.
Surely no journalist had ever arrived for an interview in such style!
*****
I donât have to wait long before an Audi 100 with a Düsseldorf plate rolls up. Theyâre here. Two men are in the front, and on the back seat I can see her ever-present agent Aline Soulier. âWhere is she?â I wonder anxiously. Iâm not disappointed for long. A wavy-haired blonde appears from behind Aline and leans forward in her seat. âHi, Iâm Claudia,â she says, extending her hand and flashing me a smile. She's astoundingly beautiful, a mesmerising mix of Lolita and the Virgin Mary.
No one gets out of the car. âThere are paparazzi everywhere,â whispers Aline as we make the short journey to the family holiday home, a brick-red, single-storey villa. Leading the way, Claudia tells me I am the first reporter she has ever invited here, before introducing me to her family: âThis is my little brother, my sister Carolin, my mother.â Claudiaâs mother has a typically German look: short blonde hair, very refined and standing even taller than her five-foot-eleven daughter. Her father, a lawyer practising in Düsseldorf, is not here. Those in the know say he is the one who has orchestrated her success from the shadows, the man responsible for her fame as one of the worldâs most beautiful women.
It all started for you in a Düsseldorf night club, didnât it?
I was so young. One night, I was approached by the head of the Metropolitan agency, who asked me to work for him.
How did you react?
I said to him: âIf youâre being serious, you can talk to my parents tomorrow.â I mean, people try all sorts of different chat-up lines in clubs. That could easily have been another, and not a very original one at that...
Are you close to your family?
Very. As a family, we have our feet on the ground. My father is a lawyer and my mother helps him with the admin side of things. They haven't been changed by my success; it takes a lot to impress them. Of course, theyâre very proud of me, but to them it's just my job and they expect me to do it to the best of my ability.
Aren't your siblings jealous?
Of course not! Theyâre just proud of me, particularly my twelve-year-old brother. I have a sister whoâs 19 and goes to university, so there's no competition between her and me, and finally I have a twenty-year-old brother and we get on great.
Do you always come on holiday with them to Majorca?
I have done ever since I was very young. I love this place.