On September 1, 1957, a pretty French girl by the name of Patricia and an Italo-French couple, Feruccio and Ellen, joined me in the old harbor of Cannes waiting to board the super-new luxury liner Cristoforo Colombo.  Our destination was Capri, and we had decided to go on the spur of the moment.  Capri’s season back then followed the summer months of the French Riviera, and as all four of us had just turned 21, we felt adventurous.  “We’ll buy shirts and pants in Capri,” said Patricia.  “They’re far prettier and cheaper.  Let’s just take our toothbrushes and go.”  Back during those innocent times, travel was easy.  One went on board, bought an overnight ticket, and presto, we would be in Capri at lunchtime the next day.

Just then a dark-haired man wearing wraparound dark glasses came around waiting for his motor launch to take him to his yacht.  He was Aristotle Socrates Onassis, then considered the richest man on earth, and a friendly one at that, as it turned out.  I knew him slightly from El Morocco, the fabled New York nightclub, as he was a friend of my father’s.  “What are you children up to?” asked the great man.  Once we told him, he said to forget the liner—he was on his way to Capri, and we were welcome to have a ride on his fabled Christina.  I remember him laughing when he inquired about our luggage, or rather the lack of it.  So much the better.  The four of us jumped on his launch and were on board his boat in a jiffy.  Once there, we were made to feel welcome by his wife, Tina Livanos, whose brother was and is a close friend of mine.

Ari and Tina were extremely kind and sweet with us, Tina offering blouses to the girls, Ari asking me if I needed any petty cash.  Both were refused, as not having to splash out for tickets had made us feel flush.  Once we dropped anchor at the Piccola Marina the next day, we thanked our hosts, and off we went to find rooms on the fabled isle.  Capri back then was a paradise.  There were no tourists to speak of, no cruise boats, no day-trippers, no backpackers.  Just rich foreigners who owned houses there, and well-to-do Italians.  There were titles galore—Princess Bismarck, ex Mona Williams, Princess Mafalda of Savoy, Prince and Princess Hercolani, Count and Countess Crespi, Countess Ciano, the daughter of Mussolini, and even King Farouk of Egypt, the corpulent sybarite who hung out at the Piazzetta, where the fabled hotel Quisisana was located.  Mind you, the uncrowned king of Capri was an openly gay American by the name of Bob Hornstein, whose house, the Villa Capricorno, was said to hold the best parties in town, and whose invitations no one—except for Graham Greene—ever turned down.

What I remember best after 54 years—I went back this year for the first time—was how elegant everyone was.  Men wore blazers and white-linen suits.  A white silk shirt was de rigueur, as we soon found out, and men also wore rope-soled shoes or linen loafers.  It took Feruccio and myself one morning to get kitted out with Capri’s finest linen trousers and silk shirts at half the price we would have paid back on the French Riviera.  Our hotel was clean and friendly and dirt cheap, and after we were seen in the company of Onassis at the Piazzetta—we asked him for a drink to thank him, but he wouldn’t let us pay—the invitations came raining down.

The daily schedule went something like this: No one in Capri got up before noon, and by 2 P.M. the daily promenade began around the Piazzetta.  After lunch, which was around four, people would swim or play tennis or go for walks along the steep hills surrounding the plaza, and then it would be time for drinks at the square—more like a fashion show—and dinner would not begin before 10:30.  There were no nightclubs, except for “Number Two”—still there today—no sleaze, no loud music, no rock.  But there was gossip galore, and if memory serves there were musical beds played each and every night.  There was magic about the place, and for a 21-year-old, an unforgettable experience.  To this day, I remember the sweet smells of hibiscus, jasmine, and bougainvillea as I found my way home after a long night’s partying away from a furious Patricia.  Feruccio and Ellen got married, had two children, and then he was killed in an automobile accident near Torino.

I returned this year for a regatta, and I made the mistake of going to the Quisisana for a drink.  The crowds were awful and smelly, the waiters rude, the place packed with backpackers, and the shops full of expensive junk.  The sea was all right, just.  Too many stinkpots and too many jet skis.  Thousands upon thousands of tourists.  Most of the great houses are there but no longer belong to those I met that magical September.  It’s the only great thing about getting old.  I saw places such as Capri in their prime, which no one younger than I will ever see.  And that’s a real pity.