l
ill
HOLLY
WOOD IN THE
HT
Sophia Loren's untamed beauty contrasts vividly with the serenity
of Lake Lucerne, seen rom the window o the star's Swiss chalet.
By GEOFFREY BOCCA
(Switzerland has become an inter
national refuge for the tax-oppressed
celebrities of the world. American,
British, and German movie stars, pro
ducers, and writers have learned it is
possible to work out painless individ
ual tax programs with Swiss cantons
(states). Because the countries in-;
volved recognize each other's tax laws,
celebrities are legally free of the far
heavier taxation in their home lands.
But there is a rotten apple in this para
dise, as you'll see in this concluding
installment of a two-part series.)
SHORTLY after he moved into the
Villa les Avants, near Montreux,
Noel Coward was observed filling his
lungs with Swiss mountain air and
thumping his chest. "Ah !" he cried.
"Aahh! This is the life for me."
Coward was primed for his new life
in the almost: tax-free paradise that
American and British stars have found
in Switzerland. He had decided to leave
England after discovering that despite
a lifetime of work and having earned
a fortune, he was thousands of pounds
overdrawn, thanks to the crushing bur
den of English income tax. In Switzer
land, all he paid was 5 percent of the
rentable value of his chalet.
Something, however, went wrong. A
few months after he arrived, he was
seen in his villa playing solitaire with
his secretary. Heaven had not arrived on
earth, after all. Coward was bored to the
top of his immaculate and receding hair
line. To stave off loneliness, he desper
ately filled the house with friends. When
tfiey ceased to come, he himself escaped
to London, Jamaica, or New York.
Coward had come face to face with
the problem found by most Hollywood
stars who have decided to move to
Switzerland : once you get there, what
do you do with your time?
Switzerland, after all, is not the
most exciting country in the world.
As Orson Welles said : after centuries
of peace, prosperity,' and democracy,
Switzerland 'is principally famous for
inventing the cuckoo clock.
Switzerland also has a rainy, misty
climate, a solid, bourgeois people, in
different restaurants, and an almost
nonexistent theater. It is obvious why
this is not a country an actor would
live in if he did not have to find
tax relief particularly as Hollywood
stars, since World War II, have ex
plored beyond Beverly Hills and dis
covered the more sophisticated delights
of New York, Paris, and Rome.
Some, of course, have learned to like
Switzerland, notably Yul Brynner, who
has a strong civic conscience and has
always interested himself in the affairs
of the United Nations. Switzerland,
the home of dozens of international
agencies, was just right for him. As
soon as he arrived, he offered his ser
vices at a dollar a year to the World
Refugee Organization, which has its
headquarters in Geneva.
He told the directors: "I can't write,
I can't organize, but I can take pic
tures." They sent him to the Middle
East, where he photographed the -plight
of refugees; then, returning to Swit
zerland, he called on Anatole Litvak
to help him produce a documentary
movie, also without fee.
As a result, Brynner , has become
perhaps the most popular of all the
movie stars in Switzerland. When his
small son was run over and seriously
hurt by a street car in Lausanne, the
Swiss felt they had let Brynner down,
and he received telegrams of sympathy
and best wishes from people all over
the country.
Zither STARS have adjusted them
selves to Switzerland by deliber
ately adopting the simple life. Audrey
Hepburn and Mel Ferrer, who have
lived at Burgenstock since 1955, return
faithfully after each picture.
"We just love the mountain country
side and the sound of cowbells in the
morning,". they say.
Thejr have no telephone and make
and receive their calls at the village
inn. This is not necessarily an indica
tion that the Ferrers are going primi
tive. The country which offers secret
number bank accounts will not permit
secret-number telephones. All numbers
are listed, and the stars have to adopt
various devices to avoid being pestered
by cranks, of whom Switzerland has
more than her share. Other stars man
age it by listing the names of their
villas, or apartment addresses, instead
of their own names. t :
Burgenstock has another notable
couple Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren,
who were lured to the remote area by
the Ferrers.
Paulette Goddard and Erich Maria
Remarque lead a simple life in the
Italian-Swiss village of Porto Ronco,
near Ascona. When the Nazis kicked
Movie stars can legally escape heavy, taxes by living
it
family Wttkly, May 14. Ml