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