Hirst in a pickle: what to do with another $40m?
By Oliver Duff
Published: 06 March 2007
Damien Hirst is not short of a bob or two: estimates of his wealth reach £100m.
He may wish to spend a little on a bottle of something fizzy. A source close to Hirst, right, tells Pandora that the artist has netted a stunning $40m in the past fortnight, from sales at an Oscar-week exhibition in Los Angeles' fancy Gagosian Gallery.
Hummers packed with the cheese of Beverly Hills, including the California state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, visited the artist's Superstition show, hosted by superdealer Larry "Go-Go" Gagosian, the mastermind behind the $12m sale of the formaldehyde shark.
Hirst sold 28 enormous butterfly paintings - based on his latest motif, the Gothic splendour of medieval stained-glass windows - to private collectors for astonishing prices, with "one or two" stars also waving their Black AmEx cards. Individual prices exceeded $2.5m. The former Friends actress Courteney Cox apparently bought a piece for $750,000.
"He could have sold it all at least twice over, the demand was so great," claims the source. "He sold about 40 paintings, for between $40m and $50m, and they went to great homes. Even Schwarzenegger turned up, and he's on a walking stick after a skiing accident."
Fellow Brit artists Jake and Dinos Chapman are making two films: their first project is a horror movie.
Mr Hirst?
'Cocky' McAvoy takes on Annie's English rose
Out on Friday: the fruity Jane Austen biopic Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) and James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) as her rogue love interest, Tom Lefroy.
In place of a boozy after-party at Sunday night's UK premiere, distributors held an afternoon champagne and tea reception on Piccadilly. McAvoy, pictured, was accosted by the weathered English character actor John Hurt, who asked the Scot to join his new film project. McAvoy told him: "I hope you enjoy the film, but if you don't, keep your opinions to yourself!"
McAvoy told Pandora: "Tom Lefroy is a prick. He's cocky and not half as sexy as he thinks he is. It's fun playing that kind of character, he's not like me. He spurned her and ran off with another woman."
He and Hathaway "clashed" on set: "Annie is a proper Austenite - she studied her at university and has read all her novels. We both had really strong ideas on how we wanted things to be, but eventually that was a good thing.
"Annie is exceptional and beautiful. Gwyneth Paltrow's days of playing English women are over!"
Home truths
Pandora overheard Jeffrey Archer talking to the BBC's Andrew Marr at the theatre about a future general election.
Archer: "So when do you think he [Gordon] will call it, then?"
Marr: "Oh, as late as possible."
Archer: "Really? You think he'll drag it out and out and on and on, like Major did?" It was John Major who awarded a peerage to the novelist and liar. Uncharitable Archer!
* Behold Ming the Merciless! Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell was criticised for lacking the punch to escape a paper bag. He finally stands accused of strong-arming a vote about not replacing Trident nukes. Fumes Lord Tony Greaves: "The way it was done is a disgrace to a supposedly democratic party."
Farah has a brand new bag
Colourful fraudster Farah Damji's stint at Her Majesty's pleasure has spawned an unlikely career move.
Damji, you may recall, went on the run last year while on day release from HMP Downview, Surrey, where she was banged up for £50,000 theft, some on stolen credit cards. Police caught up with her at a hotel in Plymouth after she inadvertently gave her location away on her MySpace page.
Damji is launching her own clothing line. The range, called Moksa, and emblazoned with hand-painted images of Frida Kahlo, Kate Moss and Shilpa Shetty, is inspired by "Bollywood and Hindu deities, iconic women and current affairs and the letters of Kabbalah".
"I learnt to paint and draw in prison, which was hugely satisfying," she says. "So much positive has come out of being incarcerated."
Damji, the daughter of a property tycoon, appears to have lost none of her taste for expense. Prices start at a cool £170.
Brown nosing
Good news for Gordon Brown and his pasty-faced abacus-wielders in the bowels of the Treasury. They are under siege from the high street retailers Superdrug, unhappy that the Chancellor refuses to drop the VAT on children's suncare products (particularly when items such as chocolate body paint and marshmallow teacakes are exempt).
The company's enterprising public relations team deliver daily consignments of sun cream to the Treasury. Yesterday, Brown received a vat of fake tan. "Superdrug hopes that the self-tan lotion will give Mr Brown a healthy glow, and remind him of the rising incidences of skin cancer in the UK: 70,000 new cases diagnosed each year, and 2,000 deaths from melanoma," says a spokeswoman.
She adds: "We have sent him enough for an all-over tan."
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