NEW YORK, Nov 30 — The best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford had 40 pieces from her jewellery collection auctioned in 2013.
“People who don’t know me think I’ve sold all my jewellery, but I haven’t,” she said in a recent telephone interview from her New York apartment. “I only sold about a third. I still had more than 80 pieces. That’s enough for anybody. And it’s grown since.”
She said she now has 103 pieces. They tell the story of her 52-year marriage to the US film producer Robert Bradford, who gave her most of the glittering cornucopia. There are haute pieces from Tiffany, Cartier and Harry Winston, as well as from David Morris in London, Verdura, Claire Richter and Tambetti designed by Dvora. More dazzling creations were discovered in Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul and on Capri.
“He’s got very good taste and a very good eye,” Taylor Bradford said, “because he’s been a movie producer all his life.”
Gifts appear on birthdays and wedding anniversaries, to celebrate her finishing a book or his making a movie (he has filmed 10 of her novels, some for television) or just because something catches his eye.
A pair of emerald earrings with aquamarine drops from Verdura appeared on May 10, her birthday. “They were a total surprise,” she said. “We just loved the extraordinary combination of green and blue.”
Another favourite gem is her blue sapphire and diamond engagement ring from Richter’s Fifth Avenue boutique in New York, which specialised in estate jewellery. “It looks identical to the ring Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, wears now that belonged to Princess Diana,” she said. “But Bob bought mine almost 40 years ago, because I had another one he thought was too small.”
Taylor Bradford is 82, but her flawless skin, blondish coif and sparkling blue-green eyes belie her age. “I love my pieces and I enjoy wearing them,” she said. “Since I like rather plain, tailored clothes, I like to dress up an outfit with a pin, some beads or pearls.”
Taylor Bradford’s affection for jewellery goes back to her childhood in Yorkshire, England.
“When I was about 18, my father, Winston Taylor, gave me my first string of good pearls from a jeweller in Leeds, where I was growing up,” she said. “Later he gave me an opal pinkie ring. When I was about 21, he gave me some delicate earrings with a tiny diamond, a chain and a small pear-shaped opal.”
Taylor Bradford, who went into journalism at — as she always specifies — age 15½, was by then working in Fleet Street. “Unfortunately, I had a robbery and they were all stolen,” she said. “Since then I’ve been very careful with jewellery. I have safes and a bank vault. If I need something important, I get it from the bank.”
She also bought a few things for herself: “silver bangles and some very pretty blue beads because I wear a lot of pale blue.”
Soon Bradford stepped in. “The first thing Bob bought me was a string of pearls,” she said, noting that men have always bought her jewellery — though there have been “only two, my father and Bob.”
Her pearl jewellery includes a multi-strand pearl and diamond bracelet from Capri; a pink pearl necklace with a rose kunzite clip-on pendant that matches a pearl and diamond ring; golden pearls; and a Verdura Lily of the Valley brooch, which has articulated pearl blossoms that jiggle on an enamel green leaf.
“Pearls have become my trademark,” she said. “When I do an event like a book and author lunch or tea, I always wear a string of pearls Bob bought from Claire years ago. If I don’t, the fans say, ‘Where are the pearls?’”
Since A Woman of Substance in 1979, Taylor Bradford’s books have sold about 88 million copies worldwide. They are published in 40 languages and in 90 countries.
Inspired by a passage in her 1986 Act of Will, when the heroine is advised to buy a parrot because “you don’t have to walk it,” her husband bought a cherished sapphire, diamond, ruby and gold parrot brooch. He gave it to her joking that it didn’t have to be walked, either.
“Bob has a wonderful sense of humour,” she said. “He makes me laugh every day.” When he gave her a Tiffany blue enamel bracelet, she teased: “Thank you, I love it, Bob darling, but Jackie Kennedy always wore two. He laughed, and the next birthday, the yellow one showed up.” (They are enamel on 18-karat gold.)
Equally fond of watches, the author has amassed a large collection, including multiple examples by Cartier, Tiffany and Patek Philippe. One favourite is the Cartier Tank with diamonds and a black satin strap that she bought for herself after her first novel became a best-seller.
Another is the all-gold Piaget with diamonds encircling the face, an anniversary present from her husband. “The queen has the same one. Every time I wear it, I smile, thinking of when she gave me my OBE at Buckingham Palace in 2007,” she said, referring to the Order of the British Empire.
For that occasion, Taylor Bradford wore a cream jacket and pearls and carried a black handbag. So did the queen. “In the photos, we looked to be wearing identical clothing,” she said.
When she decided to auction some pieces, statement jewels that she no longer wore, at Bonhams in London, “they sold in 38 minutes,” she said. “I made just under £1 million (RM6.4 million).” (The proceeds, including buyers’ premiums, actually were £1.2 million pounds, or nearly US$2 million (RM8.5 million) at the time.)
Quite a few of Taylor Bradford’s jewels turn up in her fiction. One sapphire bead and diamond bracelet inspired Lady Daphne’s engagement present from Hugo in Cavendon Hall. A similar ruby bead and diamond bracelet was stolen by Felicity, the countess in The Cavendon Women, Taylor Bradford’s most recent book, where the family jewels, many inspired by her own, are major plot features.
Her diamond and topaz Bird on a Rock from Tiffany, and an ebony and diamond butterfly brooch from Alberto e Lina, will appear in The Cavendon Luck, the third volume of the saga she is now writing. “I’ve learned a lot about jewellery over the years,” she said. “Women love to read about it — that and my love scenes.”
“Jewellery is emotional,” she said. “I think women love a piece because of who gave it to them, how long they have had it, the love and the memories of somebody caring. The little Cartier watch, the blue sapphire ring, the pearls and my parrot: Those are pieces I would never sell.” — The New York Times
