July 19: Slavica Ecclestone, wife of Bernie Ecclestone, the man behind Formula One racing, stands to become one of the richest women in the world, if her husband's plans to float his Formula One holdings on the stock market go ahead. Ecclestone is reputed to have a personal fortune of Pound 200 million and an annual salary of Pound 30 million. It has emerged that Slavica owns 80 per cent of her husband's company and if it is floated, she will net an instant Pound 1.2 billion, making her richer than the Queen of England, whose wealth is estimated at a mere Pound 450 million.

The irony of the story is that Slavica, a former Armani model, who stands a striking 6ft 2in tall beside her 5ft 4 in tall husband, cannot bear motor racing. The trappings of wealth also seem to matter little to her. ``I know I can put a Pound 200,000 ring on my finger but it doesn't make any difference to me if I go somewhere in worn-out jeans.'' Her life today is far removed from that in Croatia where she had to wait till she was 10 years old for her first pair of shoes. ``I will never forget my first pair of shoes,'' she says. ``I slept with them by my bed so they would be the first thing I saw when I woke up.''

Literary scandal

Wilbur Smith, Africa's most famous author, whose tales of adventure and death in the bush have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, would be hard-pressed to churn out a plot as scandalous as the one he is currently involved in. More than three decades after he shot to international prominence with When the Lion Feeds, his first book, Smith is facing legal action for calling his estranged children ``biological freaks'' and their mother ``somebody whose name I can't remember''. Shaun and Christian, his two children by Anne, his second wife, on whom he walked out in 1966, to marry his present wife Danielle, are incensed by his comments in an interview to a South African magazine. Legal experts believe the family could retaliate in two ways: they could sue for damages and try to take out an injunction banning him from speaking about them.

The controversy has shocked the staid African literary world and could be the final chapter in a bizarre feud between Smith and his children spanning almost 20 years. Smith, for the moment, seems unperturbed. He has hinted that his children and their mother are ``birds of prey'' -- the title of his latest book -- and are after his money. ``They're over,'' he said. ``It's a closed book.''

Tarantino's namesakes

Quentin Tarantino, the highly acclaimed director of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, has unknowingly lent his name to something he can hardly be proud of. In Britain, a group of muggers, who have been spreading terror by the ferocity of their attacks on wealthy victims, in a spate of street attacks and burglaries across Britain, have been named the `Tarantino thugs'. This is so because psychologists and victims feel that the level of violence used in the attacks have been influenced by Hollywood movies, particularly Tarantino's, which feature scenes of torture and humiliation. The wealthy victims are Ben Holland-Martin, a London financier, an Arab banker, Michael Green, chairman of Carlton television, and Caprice Bourret, the 23-year-old Wonderbra model, who was robbed of her Rolex watch and handbag in north London. As she describes it: ``They hit my friend so hard he had to have a blood clot removed from his leg. It was a terrible shock and a horrific ordeal to be mugged in a quiet London street.''

Talking portraits

The National Portrait Gallery, London has come up with a unique idea. In a series of revealing interviews by celebrities.The taped comments of the artists and their subjects will form part of a new sound guide to the gallery's collection.

While the artists give unique insights into the business of portrait painting, it is the sitters who seem to have had their self- delusions punctured. While novelist P.D. James enjoyed it because it allowed her to plot her next book, John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole, found it ``absolute agony'' because he still fondly believes he looks 19 years old.

He says: ``I imagine I look 19 and very thin and handsome, so the picture came as a bit of a shock to me.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.