Swede Charity

The Sunday Age

Sunday November 3, 1996

Charles Laurence

The pouting sex kitten of the '60s, Britt Ekland, is remaking herself again. She's started by selling her past. Charles Laurence spoke to her in Hollywood.

BRITT EKLAND has just spent three weeks lost in the raptures of the most intensive shopping spree of her life. And she is glowing.

Her latest obsession is with new things, and through them the prospect of a new life.

Virtually every possession she has accumulated over the years is to be sold by Christie's in December, setting her free to refurnish a flat in west Hollywood. It is already filling up nicely, with a modern sofa occupying the space that would otherwise have been taken by a Victorian antique.

Actress Ekland, 54, icon of all things to do with Swedish fantasy and pouty blondes since Peter Sellers married her in 1964, is starting all over again, AGAIN. Only this time there is no man involved.

"I have discovered I like to live alone," she says, her voice low and mysteriously accented. The echo of the fabled line of Greta Garbo, Swedish sex symbol of an earlier generation, appears to be entirely unconscious.

She has also discovered she enjoys living without the accumulated treasures and mementoes of 32 years in the fast lane of celebrity, on the arm of a man of the moment.

There was Sellers, then record producer Lou Adler, with marriage and a child from each. There was Lord Lichfield, Warren Beatty and Ryan O'Neal, and a long 1970s live-in affair with Rod Stewart. Then came a four-year marriage to her rock'n'roll "toy boy", Slim Jim McDonald of the Stray Cats, and a third child at the age of 46: Thomas Jefferson, or T. J.

He is eight now, a tow-headed, handsome little Viking lounging on the sofa, watching television. Britt has just collected him from school and will have him for the weekend, her share of the custody deal with Slim Jim.

"Everything must be new," she declares, pulling off her sunglasses to fix me with a stare from famous cobalt-blue eyes. "Not necessarily modern, but new. Everything here I have just bought. In less than three weeks! See: not antiques so I worry if they break, but blond, simple furniture. Things I am comfortable with for the person I am today."

And who is the woman she is today? She likes this question.

"I like to think of myself as amazingly liberated, in every sense of the word. I have no responsibility now except to myself and to my children. It feels so good."

Is there a new man? Not yet, and when there is, things will be different. "If I find a new relationship, he will have to have his own living quarters."

For four years, Ekland has lived alone in London, demonstrating an ability to survive that has endeared her to her adopted Britain.

After 40 films in a career that never got her much beyond "starlet" status, an autobiography, a beauty book, a novel (it bombed), an exercise video and a Swedish television chat show, she has found a niche in basic British repertory theatre. She toured in 'Run for Your Wife' and appeared in 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. This Christmas she will be back as the Red Queen in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. It pays the rent.

In the meantime she has moved back to California. After a lifetime on the hoof, she found she could not face packing up all her possessions and sending them on yet another trip across the Atlantic.

To a dedicated shopper and a compulsive collector, it was a cathartic moment. "I thought, how can I create more space? Where is the room in the closet for the stuff I already have? I know. Get rid of it all! Start again! I'll call this man at Christie's . . ."

The auction house is very excited. Her sale comes with a glossy catalogue and full-color public relations kit. She was pleasantly surprised to discover her knick-knacks were being billed as The Britt Ekland Collection - "just like Jackie Onassis", she says, giggling.

She had planned to sell just the furniture, art-nouveau posters, the Galle glass and lamps, some of the jewellery, the things she didn't wear. But the man from Christie's shuffled around the house, approving of everything and congratulating her on her taste. "I have," she says, "a very good eye."

Then he asked whether she happened to have any movie memorabilia or personal souvenirs she wanted to include. "Oh," she remembers saying, "I think I do. I have a few things by Zandra Rhodes, and the wedding dress from my marriage to Sellers."

At this point, according to Ekland, everything changed. They went through the trunks, the bookshelves, the attic - and The Britt Ekland Collection was born. Among the finds were letters to her from Sellers, a Polaroid taken of her on the first night she met him, eternity rings he bought her.

And then, she seems to have decided a material clean-out could also be a psychic cleansing.

"I wanted to get rid of it all," she says. "I am so tired of that sexy, cute little sex kitten; the youthful Britt. I can't look at that person a second longer. I'm so far removed from what she was. I feel no sentimental attachment to these things whatsoever."

Does this mean that, all along, the sale wasn't just clearing closet space for a new start in California but a repudiation of her old loves and tumultuous life? No, she doesn't think so. In the past, she always found it harder to leave her possessions behind than her men.

"Maybe some psychiatrist could come up with something . . . like the only thing that has lasted in my life is my possessions," she says.

"I'm no intellectual, but I have my philosophy: you take what you want, and don't let the rest drain your energy."

In some ways she hasn't changed a bit. She even dresses like an habitue of the London rock scene circa 1975: tight leopard-print trousers and black top, a skinny little black leather jacket and a large gold cross around her neck.

Her eyes have been submitted to the cosmetic surgeon, and years ago she had her ears pinned back; otherwise, her face is as the Lord and time intended. There are only a few fine lines and a little loosening of the skin - testament to the idea that if you don't care too much, you won't get careworn.

If there has been care, it has been over the children. Motherhood has been an intermittent experience, with the divorces and life on the road.

Her role as a mother reached a low point with the difficulties of Victoria, her 30-year-old daughter by Sellers, who is struggling to find a life after serving more than six months in jail, first for receiving stolen goods, then for drugs.

Britt had the worst press of her life when tabloids discovered her partying in New York as Victoria was jailed by a judge in Los Angeles. Her response is the same now as it was then - Victoria is an adult, responsible for her own affairs.

But it was the children, she says, who prompted her return to LA. They are all in different households, their own or their fathers', but at least they are now all in the same city as their mother. It was sending T. J. across the ocean six times a year that prompted her move.

She will not go quite so far as to say her new life is to be devoted to childcare and family nurture; she is too honest for that, and it would be against her nature. She has projects - the stage, a new, still-secret "product line" for Europe, and maybe a movie. But even the word "planning" is a little too strong for her.

"Me, I never have goals. I just roll along with life. It's not a problem."