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LAST
Sunday evening in his Chelsea home Nick Rhodes, the Duran Duran
star, sat tearfully at a kitchen table covered in legal documents.
'I won't allow her do it,' he told a small group of friends who
stood anxiously at his shoulder. 'She's trying to ruin my life.'
Less than a mile away the 'she' - Julie Anne, his ex-wife - was
on the phone to a film producer friend, who was exhorting her not
to back down.
Upstairs at the former Mrs Rhodes's large Earl's Court flat Tatjana,
their ten-year-old daughter, slept soundly. The lines of battle
in this, the latest and most bitter outbreak of her parents' post-marital
feud were being drawn around her.
Next month in the High Court Rhodes will attempt to gain custody
of Tatjana from Julie Anne, who wants to move to Los Angeles and
take the child with her. It promises to be a bloody affair, an indecorous
and protracted denouement to a golden story.
That the shambling Liam Gallagher and his new bride Patsy Kensit
are pop's latest most glamorous couple shows how little mores have
changed in more than a decade.
When Nicholas Bates (Rhodes's real name) married Julie Anne Friedman
at the same Westminster register office used by the Gallaghers 13
years later they were self-consciously iconic.
Rhodes, the 22-year-old keyboard player in the world's most successful
pop group of the time (and Princess Diana's favourite), wore a pastel
pink suit. Underneath the topper perched on his bleached locks his
make-up was identical to that of the bride, a 21-year-old American
model who looked gorgeous in an Anthony Price dress.
While wry comment was passed that at 6ft tall the bride towered
a full 5in over the groom, it was hard to say who was the more pretty.
The reception took place at the Savoy Hotel, where live flamingos
emphasised the pink theme.
There could be few better examples of the metamorphic qualities
of the pop industry. Only a few years earlier Rhodes was an unemployed
working-class Birmingham youth, who shunned the menial work offered
by the local Jobcentre.
Fortunately Duran Duran, the band he played in with fellow Brummies
Simon Le Bon and Andy, John and Roger Taylor, found themselves in
the vanguard of the New Romantic movement. Suddenly it was fashionable
for boys to look like girls, resplendent in heavy makeup (Yves St
Laurent No 30 lipstick was a particular Rhodes favourite) and dandyish
silk suits.
Duran Duran happened to be the prettiest and most talented of the
bands associated with the fad and the extremes of hysteria they
attracted from young female fans around the world hadn't been experienced
since The Beatles.
Of course every male, heterosexual pop icon requires a supermodel
girlfriend. Rhodes met his at a party in Los Angeles, while the
band were touring America in 1982. Julie Anne left with him at the
end of the evening and was on the band's plane when it flew to Kansas
the following day. Within a year they were engaged.
Friedman's background was quite different from that of her husband.
She grew up on a vast estate in Des Moines, Iowa; her father William
Friedman was a millionaire who owned a chain of 30 stores. Unlike
Rhodes, the good life was Julie Anne's birthright.
Tatjana, their only child, was born in the summer of 1986. She grew
up in the $1.5 million marital home in South Kensington and summers
were spent in the Rhodes villa on the Cote d'Azur.
If Duran Duran's popularity was on the wane as the Nineties approached
then there were signs that the Rhodes marriage was also experiencing
problems.
While Nick spent much of his time away touring and in the studio
until the early hours Julie Anne had thrown herself wholeheartedly
into the London party scene and was a well-known figure at celebrity
nightspots like Tramp and Annabel's. She harboured ambitions of
becoming an actress and took a series of courses at the Lee Strasberg
schools in London and New York.
Her husband, by whom she'd been persuaded to give up her full-time
modelling career, had explained in one interview that Julie Anne
was not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. In hindsight his statement
was open to more than one interpretation and an extraordinary incident
in February 1989 suggested the widening gulf between pop's glamour
couple.
It occured while Rhodes was touring with Duran Duran in the Far
East.
Julie Anne took Tatjana and her nanny to stay in New York for the
duration and while there socialised regularly with Jack Nicholson
and his set.
According to friends, when the musician learned about this state
of affairs through a telephone conversation with the nanny he ordered
the young woman to take Tatjana and leave immediately for the family
home in London.
On finding that her daughter was missing Julie Anne assumed that
a kidnap had taken place and the FBI were called in. When Tatjana's
mother discovered the truth she began divorce proceedings.
Eventually this was dropped for the sake of their daughter and the
marriage limped on until early 1992, when it ground to an irredeemable
halt.
Later that year they agreed an official separation and Julie Anne
moved out of the family home and into a specially prepared annexe
next door so both parents could be close to Tatjana.
The couple were also plagued by financial problems, thanks in part
to a failed business venture. In June 1994 the South Kensington
mansion was repossessed by Coutts bank, forcing Julie Anne and Tatjana
to move into a rented flat. Nick was by then living on his own in
the French villa.
Battle was renewed later in the year at the divorce courts. According
to friends it became an unpleasant slog, with allegations of infidelity
and even of bugging.
Duran Duran's new album was delayed for several months while the
legal arguments dragged on. Rhodes finally agreed to a generous
pay-off to his wife. Julie Anne reportedly received a $400,000 lump
sum with which to buy a new home and $60,000-a-year alimony. She
celebrated the result at Brown's nightclub, reportedly announcing:
'I've done it!'
The uneasy peace between the Rhodes (Julie Anne kept her married
name) was preserved until a few months ago when she made the bombshell
anouncement to her ex-husband that she wanted to be a filmstar and
would therefore have to move to Hollywood. Tatjana would be going
with her.
'Nick is absolutely distraught,' says a friend. 'He's travelled
the world and Los Angeles is one of his least favourite places.
'Certainly it's not where he wants his child to be raised. Aside
from the fact that she would be 6,000 miles away from him, Tatjana
is very settled in London and is going to a good school.
'He doesn't mind at all that Julie Anne has got acting ambitions
but doesn't want them to be pursued at Tatjana's expense.'
Julie Anne's acting experience is limited. She appeared in a fringe
play in Chelsea in 1990, which was backed by her husband. A previous
foray into movies had ended on the cutting room floor.
Nevertheless her new enthusiasm has been fired, according to friends,
by a bit part in the forthcoming Paramount picture Prince Valiant.
Friends say she plays a buxom wench who gets her bottom pinched.
Hardly a role to die for, but Julie Anne feels it's her big break.
She knew her ex-husband would be an obstacle and that he would question
the realism of her film ambitions. She flew out to Los Angeles,
where she stayed for a time last year while Tatjana was at school,
to be with a (now former) boyfriend.
She presented several friends with individual letters to sign, each
letter attempting to show that Julie Anne Rhodes had what it took
to be a hit in Tinseltown.
Among those approached by Julie Anne were the peroxide-blond British
horror film director Anthony Hickox, a former beau of Naomi Campbell
and producer Julia Verdin, who both signed.
'They believed that they were merely helping her in her new career,'
said a Hollywood friend. 'They were surprised and upset when they
learned that the letters might be used to fight the custody battle.'
Hickox has already withdrawn his letter as a result of his concerns.
Verdin, former flatmate of Elizabeth Hurley, is feeling increasingly
uncomfortable. She doesn't want to be drawn into the dispute but
loyalty demands that she support one of her closest friends. 'It's
something I don't want to get involved in,' she said when asked
to comment last night. A letter of retraction may be on its way
to Julie Anne's solicitors at this very moment.
Meanwhile Nick Rhodes is confident that he can use the Verdin letter
to discredit Julie Anne because of some of the things it says.
'Julie Anne has always revelled in the reflected glory of being
with Nick,' says one of the latter's friends. 'Now she thinks that
Duran Duran are not the force they were she's moving out.'
He adds: 'She's taken him to the cleaners once and now she's going
to do it again because the case will cost thousands. Nick's been
a very good father and loves Tatjana. Unlike his ex-wife he's had
one steady partner, Madelaine Farley, for the past few years.
'To be blunt Julie Anne's 35, she's not a supermodel and she's not
an actress. Nick will have to support her when she moves to LA.'
Simon and Yasmin Le Bon have apparently viewed Nick's situation
with great sympathy, although they are also friendly with Julie.
There is also frustration, as Duran Duran's new album faces delays
similar to those experienced at the time of the divorce in 1992.
Last Saturday Julie Anne was partying with friends at L'Equipe Anglais
nightclub in London's West End. It's perhaps not the image that
will win her friends in court when the latest and messiest war of
the Rhodes begins on June 23. What Tatjana wants or feels remains
to be seen.
GRAPHIC: NICK,JULIE ANNE AND DAUGHTER TATJANA IN HAPPIER TIMES.NOW
THEY HAVE A DATE IN THE HIGH COURT
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