RICHARD KAY: Eliza finds life after RocknRoll
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Nearly two years after her estranged husband, Ned RocknRoll, fell in love with Kate Winslet, there is an extra spring in the step of Viscount Cowdray’s daughter, Eliza Pearson.
Eliza, 25, was this week introducing friends to her new man — rugged Californian film producer John Debin, who bears a remarkable resemblance to her ex-husband.
Ned, the nephew of Sir Richard Branson, has since married Winslet and she is expecting his baby.
Viscount Cowdray¿s daughter, Eliza Pearson, with her boyfriend John Debin and his son Jack
Meanwhile, Eliza was demonstrating her own maternal side — her new boyfriend has a five-year-old son, Jack, whom he brought with him to her family’s 16,000-acre Cowdray Park estate in West Sussex.
Debin, who has worked on films including The 51st State starring Samuel L. Jackson, has, I learn, been warmly welcomed by Eliza’s parents. Eliza’s mother, Viscountess Cowdray tells me: ‘John is crazy and a lot of fun, but I think everyone needs some fun in their life.
‘I met him last year when Eliza first started seeing him. I have to admit I really like him and he has this lovely little boy who is so sweet.’
While other guests at the Veuve Clicquot polo event, including model Daisy Lowe, and chef Raymond Blanc, milled around the VIP enclosure, Eliza and her beau laughed and joked with friends at the champagne bar as they enjoyed the Gold Cup championship.
The smile on Eliza’s face was a far cry from the pain she spoke about after Ned — who changed his surname from Abel Smith to RocknRoll by deed poll — informed her that he had fallen for Miss Winslet.
Eliza says their split was her decision, but at the time she said her reaction when Ned told her about Kate ‘was a mixture of feeling pain and the sadness of the loss but also deep happiness that he was happy’.
Adds Lady Cowdray: ‘Eliza and John make a great couple and I think they are very well-suited. It is such a relief to see her with a wonderful guy after everything that has happened.
‘I’d like to see her have a happy ending, or really I should say a happy beginning.’
Roman's very secret garden
As the lid is slowly lifted on Roman Abramovich’s £10million plan to develop a grade II listed mansion he purchased to house girlfriend Dasha Zhukova, their son Aaron and priceless art collection, it has come as no surprise to Chelsea neighbours bitterly opposed to his scheme to find secrecy tops his list of priorities.
The horticulturist behind an ambitious blueprint to re-vamp gardens at the property, next to Sir Mick Jagger’s home, has been revealed as bearded TV gardener Dan Pearson.
TV gardener Dan Pearson will revamp the green space at businessman and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich's mansion
He is famed for having designed gardens for Vladislav Doronin, the billionaire Russian property magnate whose on-off five-year romance with model Naomi Campbell recently hit the rocks.
Pearson held a long-awaited face-to-face meeting last week with the Chelsea residents overlooking a contested party wall between their £1m-plus Beaufort Street flats and Abramovich’s new purchase.
The priority of Abramovich in his garden design for the pile, which I revealed he bought for £25m, is said to be privacy.
The amiable Pearson was unable to say anything of note about the plan beyond its ambition to create ‘an English country garden’.
Officials connected with the scheme explained even Dan only had limited access inside the grounds.
New peak for grandfather Snowdon
As the Queen celebrates yesterday’s happy event, her former brother-in-law the Earl of Snowdon has his own reason to be cheerful — he is about to become a grandfather for the seventh time.
Although the ex-husband of Princess Margaret is rarely seen out these days, Lord Snowdon, 83, was spotted dining at the Poissonnerie restaurant in South Kensington with his very heavily pregnant daughter Lady Frances, whose third baby is due any day.
Lord Snowdon is about to become a grandfather for the seventh time
Frances, 33, married to art gallery owner Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal, is Snowdon’s daughter by his second wife, former film production assistant Lucy Lindsay-Hogg. She already has a daughter, Maud, three, and Rex, five, who joined them at lunch.
The new baby will be a cousin to Snowdon’s other grandchildren — two by his furniture-maker son Viscount Linley, and two by his artist daughter Lady Sarah Chatto. He also has a teenage son by his former mistress, writer Melanie Cable-Alexander.
There may be an unexpected side-effect to the Prime Minister’s crack down on internet pornography, as actress-turned-cakemaker Jane Asher has just discovered.
For her short film on cake decoration has been deemed to include ‘inappropriate’ content by website YouTube.
The icing in question is a figure of a naked woman fashioned out of sugar paste. Jane, 67, was amused to discover that would-be bakers have to confirm they are over the age of consent to view the film. The nude is one of Jane’s most popular decorations at her Chelsea Green shop.
‘My sugar lady is rather voluptuous but she is sitting down demurely with her legs crossed,’ says Jane, who has been making the figures since the Seventies. ‘I was very surprised anyone could find her offensive.’
Jane, married to cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, adds: ‘I suppose we’ll soon have to sign in to view the great nudes in the National Gallery.’
Tory MP Crispin Blunt — uncle of actress Emily Blunt — has been busy accumulating jobs outside Parliament which will no doubt go some way to bringing his bank balance into line with his millionaire niece’s. This month the ex-Prison Minister started as a consultant to businessman Harish Mehta regarding a major road project in the Balkans.
This is the third job he’s taken this year. In June he became a consultant at Ethos Capital Advisors and in January a non-executive director at The Social Investment Business. He’ll have a long way to go to catch Emily, star of The Devil Wears Prada, who is now said to be worth £10million.
Film legend Clint Eastwood’s movie adaptation of Jersey Boys, based on the musical about Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons, could see the London show’s star Ryan Molloy cast in the lead role.
Ryan, the longest serving ‘Frankie’ in the world, met the producers of the film in London and is now being considered to play Valli on screen.
I understand they saw Molloy perform and were so impressed they requested all his acting footage and invited him to secret talks at the Dorchester.
The original Frankie Valli hand-picked Ryan for the West End show and says he is the best ‘Frankie’ he has seen.
PS The Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, is considerably improved since the days when Prince William was born there. Actress Sally Farmiloe — who gave birth to her model daughter, Jade, at the same delivery suite 21 years ago — tells me: ‘Even then it wasn’t the lap of luxury by any means. For a start none of the mothers then had an en-suite bathroom despite having a private bed. I can’t remember how much I paid to have Jade there — probably only a few hundred pounds then — but I do recall having to wander down the corridor in search of the loo.’
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