The point of this admission was apparently to show that – for all his
reputation for financial control freakery – Mr Ecclestone, a one-time
Bexleyheath gasman, can’t know where every penny of his fortune ends up. His
interests are held in a web of family trusts and offshore companies that The
Economist has described as “a complex tax avoidance scheme”.
But if he wants to know the location of two substantial wodges of it, Bernie
need only study the pages of London’s glossy magazines or tune into Channel
5’s new series Billion $$ Girl, starring blonde Tamara as a cross between
Paris Hilton and Marie Antoinette.
“People see me as a pointless, really spoilt, empty human being,” she trills
as a beautician works on her feet, a coiffeuse fluffs her hair and an
earnest PA runs through a long list of emails that appear largely to consist
of party invitations.
We quickly arrive at a lively thrash thrown to celebrate the birthday of
Tamara’s stockbroker boyfriend, Omar. Two women, naked but for bodypaint,
are serving as human greeting cards at the entrance, and a third is lying on
a table covered in sushi rolls. “I am aware of the recession,” Tamara gamely
tells the latest issue of Grazia magazine.
The younger Ecclette’s new home is thought to be the largest private residence
in the United States. Set in six acres of prime Holmby Hills and designed to
resemble a 17th-century chateau in the Loire, it makes Hugh Hefner’s
neighbouring Playboy mansion look like a janitor’s hut. “Big…?” said
Spelling shortly before his death five years ago. “I’m still trying to find
the bathroom.”
Aspiring designer Petra apparently sees the house – which has been looking for
a buyer for some years – as a good investment and an even better place to
raise the large family she wants with her husband, smoothie London business
figure James Stunt, 26. She may even be right. For while it is tempting –
perhaps obligatory – to caricature the Ecclestone girls as bubble-brained
space queens with pole-position credit cards, it isn’t just money that
they’ve inherited from daddy. The pair say they mean business, and may yet
surprise us.
For a start, Bernie Ecclestone, the tiddler-sized son of a Lowestoft
trawlerman, isn’t of the type to spoil anybody. In a 50-year career he has
turned Formula One from an enjoyably amateurish pastime pursued by
raffish-looking chaps in silk cravats and oily goggles into one of the
world’s most glamorous and profitable sports franchises.
“Ruthless” and “feared” are two of the words most often used about Bernie. As
a teenager, he had a fondness for things that went fast and noisily, and
found fulfilment of a sort as a car and motorcycle racer.
He showed some promise, but a crash at Brands Hatch in 1951 ended his
competitive career and he moved into race organisation, doing well enough to
buy the Brabham team in 1971. Within a decade he had effectively taken over
Formula One – marketing it as much as a brand as a sport – and by the late
Nineties had amassed a fortune estimated at £2.5 billion.
Divorce from Slavica, a 6ft 2in Croatian former model, put a substantial
dent in it, although the pair are said to remain on good terms, taking a
shared pride in the successes of their daughters. After all, the girls
haven’t had it easy. “When we were children, Dad couldn’t bear it if we
left the lights on,” says Tamara. “If we wanted to buy sweets we would have
to clean up the dog poo first or take the dogs for a walk. There was a real
sense of working for things.” That’s how you get rich.