John James Publications www.johnjamespublications.com	Rue de la Rouvenettaz 3 CH-1820 Montreux 1 Switzerland	P.O. Box Phone E-mail	1432 +41 21 963 18 36 admin@johnjamespublications.com
Fame and Fortune in Switzerland
When the beautiful French actress, Capucine, jumped from the eighth floor of her apartment building on the Swiss Riviera, it wasn't her taxes she was protesting about; it had more to do with the film world, and ageing, in particular. In Switzerland, you didn't complain about income tax: you celebrated it. Quietly, of course. If you were a foreigner, and an extremely rich one at that, you could negotiate your tax bill and pay up front, and that could be useful at times. It didn't matter if you were a world-famous actor like Richard Burton or Yul Brynner, or an international actress like Audrey Hepburn, or a thriller writer such as Alistair MacLean, or the haute couturier, Coco Chanel; you could rely on the Swiss authorities to leave you in peace to get on with your job. And you could rely on the Swiss press, too, to be very discreet. This was not only useful, it could be a downright necessity. Especially when a scandal broke around you, as often it did.
A number of well-known people were attracted to the shores of Lake Geneva in the years following the Second World War. They could live quietly among the hillside vineyards and look out across the crystal clear water to the Alps and Mont Blanc or shop for luxury goods in Geneva. It was this unique combination of breathtaking scenery and fiscal leniency that attracted so many celebrities. Even the bon vivant and creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, thought of settling there before the war, although he found the country a little too clean and orderly for his adventurous taste. Fleming loved thriller novels and, in particular, the stories of Georges Simenon, and he would return to Vaud in later years to meet the master when Simenon moved to Lausanne. He would also get to know other residents of the Swiss Riviera, such as Graham Greene, Noel Coward and Charlie Chaplin.
In this peaceful, democratic, scenic country, these celebrities practised their craft and lived their lives away from the public's gaze. They bought homes in Switzerland for aesthetic and practical reasons; the most pressing of those being tax avoidance. In the late 1950's and 1960's in Britain and America, the top rate of tax reached over ninety per cent of income. A number of artists in the world of entertainment felt they had little choice but to move abroad to one of several tax havens, and Switzerland was the perfect base for working in Europe. Mostly, their careers blossomed. It was their private lives that were often rocky. Each dealt with life's dramas in their own way, with varying results. Very few of them found peace and happiness, and several died tragically young. One or two fell deeply in love, then out of love again. Others came to blows; several were wife-beaters. What they all had in common was their fame and their self-imposed tax exile, and good reasons to make their home on the Swiss Riviera.
Paperback 15 x 23 cm 183 pages ISBN 978-2-8399-0509-1 Download PDF © 2009 John James Publications

John James Publications www.johnjamespublications.com	Rue de la Rouvenettaz 3 CH-1820 Montreux 1 Switzerland	P.O. Box Phone E-mail	1432 +41 21 963 18 36 admin@johnjamespublications.com
The Alpine Set in Switzerland
Darling, we're known as The Alpine Set! wrote the actress Benita Hume to a Hollywood friend in the late Sixties. She had just moved to the picturesque tax haven of Lausanne on Lake Geneva with her husband, matinée idol George Sanders. George had many reasons for wanting to enjoy the clean air and mountain views of Switzerland: he could keep most of the money he earned from various and unusual sources and enjoy the highest standard of living; he was only an hour by air from the major European movie capitals and he would avoid being hounded by Hollywood gossip columnists who wanted to know more about his past and present. Most of all, he could continue to build a financial scam that stretched from Italy to Los Angeles and would take in the British government and a good number of famous Swiss residents.
If you want peace, come to Switzerland, the rock singer and Montreux resident Freddie Mercury was to tell the world a decade or so after George Sanders was obliged to leave the country. Peace was certainly what Belgian thriller writer Georges Simenon sought when he moved to Lausanne from the United States at the end of the 1950's. There, he would build a magnificent ranch-style house on a hillside above Lake Geneva where his neighbour Charlie Chaplin would visit him. The two men would often compare begging letters they had received and be amused to find they were getting requests for money from the same individual. It could have been the kidnapping of Charlie Chaplin's body, not long after the world-famous comedian had been laid to rest, that influenced Simenon's decision to be cremated. The writer Graham Greene was sure he'd found a brilliant lawyer in Lausanne who would take care of the fortune his books and films were generating. The lawyer was a business associate of the actor George Sanders. Greene would be a lot poorer as a result of the lawyer's arrest, but not as poor as Sanders, who would be found dead in a hotel room, not many years afterwards. When singer Freddie Mercury first stayed at the Montreux Palace Hotel, he was exuberant enough to swing from one of the hotel chandeliers. He would eventually buy his own home on the waterfront and record his last songs with his group, Queen, in their Mountain Studios, where other names in rock, such as David Bowie, Status Quo, Iggy Pop and The Rolling Stones would also record their hits. Freddie Mercury composed his famous music hall pastiche Killer Queen with Montreux resident Noel Coward's style of melody and lyrics in mind. Like Freddie, Noel experienced setbacks before he became rich and famous and moved to Switzerland. There, he entertained many members of the Alpine Set, including Hollywood actor George Sanders. George, like Freddie Mercury, was a singer of songs and lover of life. But his life, like that of so many of Switzerland's Alpine Set, didn't work out exactly as planned.
Paperback 15 x 23 cm 217 pages ISBN 978-2-8399-0660-9 Download PDF © 2010 John James Publications