Haresh Shah
Eat Your Heart Out!
Imagine this! Puerto Vallarta. Chicago is in deep of the winter of 1986. It’s bone chilling cold as the city has a reputation of being every February. And here we are, the sun is shining bright, the sky is blue as can be and the waves of Bahia de Banderas off the Pacific Ocean are rushing towards the shore breaking and splashing. Wandering around in our shorts and t-shirts and the girls frolicking au naturell most of the day, Pompeo (Posar), Jan (Heemskerk) and I are conferring by the poolside, deciding on the next dramatic but a fun shot, with eight of the world’s most beautiful women lined up in the water by the edge of the pool, holding on to the railing and ready to lift their bare butts in action, their faces turned sideways to their left, bursting with laughters and their legs and feet elevated, kicking the surface of the water in a choreographed harmony of synchronized swimming.
Right now we are on the lunch break. We have just availed ourselves of the sumptuous buffet and are sipping on our chilled to perfection Pacifico beers while the girls have retracted under the shade of the arch separating the private pool and the villa made available to us by Hotel Krystal for our exclusive use. A little earlier, the girls have emerged out of the pool and while waiting for the next shot, have not bothered to dry themselves nor cover up. Instead they are sitting and standing around a low table swarming with exotic drinks. They are an animated bunch, gossiping and in general making a ruckus despite language barriers.
We are in Mexico to produce this incredible pictorial as the warming up act for the Football World Cup – Mundial 1986, to be hosted by this land of the mystical Aztecs. Brainchild of Jan, I am the one in charge of bringing it all together with Playboy’s then existing twelve international editions. I am able to get only nine to participate. Missing most notably are Italy and Spain, and sadly Holland, which didn’t even qualify. Quite an emotional blow for Jan to contain, while cheering everyone else. He brings instead Chantal Aarts of Belgium, because the Dutch edition is also distributed in Belgium. Bebe Martinez of Argentina either couldn’t afford to or wasn’t able to find an appropriate candidate, or both to send a girl of his own. I find one for him from our files, the beautiful Evelyn Escalante from Costa Rica and put her in the Argentine blue and white stripes. It would have been devastating, had we not been able to include Argentina, as they went on to win the Cup 3:2 against West Germany. This wasn’t an international cricket tournament, so Australia obviously wasn’t enthused. But Japan’s Emi Kojo, Turkey’s Sumer Ilken and America’s Andrea Huber came along for the fun of it and in the spirit of cooperation to partake in what Jan calls Playboyesque World Cup happening. The logistics are abominable. But we don’t think about the difficulties we may encounter, we just take a plunge, because the exotic scenario I have described above is all in a day’s work for us.
Jan and I arrive in Mexico City on Sunday, February 24th. Meet with our Mexican publisher Irina Schwartzman, and the editor-in-chief Eduardo Velazquez. On Monday, the rest begin to trickle in and check into Hotel Krystal Rosa – the meeting point from where we would begin.
The first one to arrive is Sumer (Ilken) from Istanbul. She has picked up a wrong suitcase and has walked through the customs without realizing it. Those friendly Mexicans!! They don’t care what you walk out with from the airport as long as you spend your tourists $$££¥¥€€ in their country. How dumb can you have to be? She is only twenty one. Only? But this is not the time to ask questions. However, Sumer seems to have a thing about forgetting things. A few days later, she loses her sun glasses and then she arrives without her uniform to the stadium in Querétaro . This follows the last minute rush for someone to run down to her hotel room and bring the uniform to the stadium where we are preparing to shoot various mock tableaus to give the upcoming World Cup some real sex appeal. Sumer gets away with everything with disarming smiles and cuddles.
The shoot goes swell with the girls playing like a team of the friendly rivals and we stage various soccer situations such as dueling for and heading the ball, kicking a penalty shot, which results in Luiza shooting the ball so hard that it lands on the face of the West German goalie, Michaela Probst, knocking her down flat. There is a tender shot of Luiza bending over and comforting Michaela in pain, lying on the ground. Sweet! The sexiest shot is that of all the girls taking off their shirts at the end of the game and swapping them with each other in good old football tradition of leaving the field with no hard feelings.
All goes well and without a hitch, that is; until at the last minute Jan comes up with the idea of perhaps do some sexy shots of the girls showering, getting out of their uniform, sitting around on the benches – sort of doing post game unwinding. Even though we have official permission to shoot in the stadium, soon as the maintenance staff realizes that we are photographing the girls in the locker room, with their uniforms serving as mere props, something triggers in them and they rush to get a sideway glances at the bare bodies and then promptly and unceremoniously throwing us out with, Señor, eso no se puede ser .
Déjà vu of the couple of days earlier when we had gone to the Pyramids to do some group shots of the girls playing tourists, fully draped of course, albeit short shorts and tight fitting tops. Along the way, Luiza decides to make those tops sexier. As it turns out. she is very handy with the pair of scissors and t-shirts are slashed up this way and that to selectively reveal what the Pyramid authorities deem to be a bit much for the innocent eyes of the watching Mayan Gods. So off we’re sent on our way back to the hotel.
But mostly we’re welcomed all over with a lot of enthusiasm. Our press conference attracts 300 print and television journalists and the limelight shines on all of our girls with their elegantly dressed glamour shots flickering on television screens and on the society pages of most prestigious of the newspapers. Sumer of course is the most popular with her full head of floating blonde tresses and her sweet and seductive smiles and according to Jan, also because of her extravagant décolleté. They also love the French, Nathalie Galan, whom the prominent daily El Universal calls despampanante rubia – a stunning blonde.
Luiza Brunet from Brazil is stunningly beautiful and yet the Mexican press doesn’t pay her much attention probably because she is a mulatta, dime a dozen with the Mexican streets filled with their own pretty morenas. But Luiza is already a super model in her country and the official mascot of the Brazilian team. She considers Pele to be her friend, with whom she is to make a movie in the near future. She is low key, unpretentious and soft spoken, but when she first appears, she is accompanied by her boyfriend Armando. To have boyfriends and husbands around is always pain in the butt. She is a professional so she is there when we need her, but then she has “him” waiting for her. But he stays in the background and I don’t remember any major disruption. Except that Armando is robbed of US$ 2400.- in cash. You can’t completely ignore it. You have to try to help him – one more thing to worry about.
One evening when our group walks into the restaurant El Refugio, Jan observes the look on the faces of the crowd gazing at us as them having witnessed a bunch of Martians having landed in their valley. We begin shooting in little Venice, that is the remote town center of Mexico City and goes by an exotic name, Xochimilco – literally soft milk. Once a lake, it has evolved into various canals filled with flower bedecked gondolas called trajineros, They are actually built flat like pontoons. We hire two of them. The girls in one and the crew in another one. We let the girls loose sans script and let Pompeo and his assistant Steve Conway just point and shoot. The girls are getting into the spirit, some on the deck even taking off their tops. The poor gondola drivers and the young onlookers on the canal banks. Only if the girls know what they are doing to those poor bastards!! Fortunately there are no keepers of the morality around in this little paradise of Mexico City to throw us overboard.
But if only everything would go that smooth. That night we witness the Japanese candidate Emi Kojo and her chaperone/interpreter, Yuko Kato suddenly break out in a violent cat and dog fight. No idea about what, because it is obviously all in the Japanese. We are sitting in a café and everyone gets to experience the war of two beautiful roses. I butt-in like a thorn in the middle and play referee. Détente comes with hugs and me taking them to San Angel Grill, where Mexican edition’s top executive, Alfred Amescua is hosting dinner to welcome the group. But the peace is short lived. Two nights later, we are in Hotel Real de Minas in Santiago de Querétaro, one of the World Cup venues. In middle of the night, Jan calls my room informing me that Emi is complaining about a serious stomach ache. She is hysterical and wants us to call a doctor for her. We are practically in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I am not convinced of how serious her ache is. So I sit her down on the bed and reason. Ask her a few questions and tell her to drink a glass of warm milk, which we promptly order from the room service. I tell her that is what my mother would have done. But she continues to squirm. To which I respond probably a bit sternly that I want her to try it and go to bed. Should it not work, I promise her we would get a doctor for her. She doesn’t call during the night but continues to complain about her stomach and refuses to join the other girls at the stadium in the morning. So we go ahead and shoot with the remaining eight. The individual nudes are to be shot in Puerto Vallarta, and it becomes clear to me that Emi would be more trouble than she would be worth. I have her to be the first to be photographed soon as we begin in the morning and ship her back to Tokyo on the first available flight. A month or two later, I receive a sweetest little letter from her:
Dear Mr. Shah,
I send my apologies for having been behaving like that.
Recalling the time when you gave me a scolding, I thing(k) of what father is. Having grown up without my real father, when you gave me hugs, I learned the warmth of father.
Sincerely Emi
●●●
One afternoon while I am strolling the properties of Krystal in Vallarta and enjoying bit of solitude, I run into Michaela. She is in tears. I feel like a cow! She cries out. Apparently one of the poses Pompeo had requested in the huge bathtub was for her to get down on all four. While we are still standing on the path, I notice Nathalie walking towards us, she too is in tears. I will talk to Pompeo. I don’t want any of you to do what you are not comfortable with. I appease them with hugs, put my arms around the both and we stop for a glass of wine.
On our first evening in Puerto Vallarta, we are all sitting around a long table at Krystal’s Japanese restaurant Kama Kura, enjoying the dinner hosted by the Alfonso Vasquez M., the corporate manager . I am sitting either right next to Nathalie or close enough. We are all animated and getting into the spirit of things when suddenly we hear Nathalie making bird like squeaking sounds. Both of her hands are wrapped around her neck and the horror on her face conveys that she is choking on something. Her face is turning white and contorted and she is certainly in pain. She kicks off the chair and stands up. I grab her by the waist. She is pointing her finger at the partially bitten piece of chicken she has thrown back on her plate and then to her mouth. Fortunately, all it takes is for her to bend over my arm and me slapping her back a couple of times. Out comes a chicken bone, her face smeared with tears, her nose running. But after a glass of water and a sip of wine, our despampanante rubia is back to life, her face once again radiating.
On any project away from home, the entire group becomes your sole responsibility. You want to make everyone feel comfortable, well fed and motivated. Build a team. Even though when you get a group of the most beautiful women together, its hard sometimes, because each one of them thinks that she is the most beautiful of the bunch. Thus there is always a bit of competitive edge to such groups. In this case, enter also the nationalistic pride because they are representing the fierce game of the world soccer. But by and large they behave phenomenally well, even helping each other. During a couple of small crisis, the 23 year old Andrea Huber has established herself as the pleasant and cajoling peace maker. Mexico’s own Belén Balmori at 28, plays caring mother, They are big help.
The thing the producer has to worry most about is that all girls get a good night’s sleep and are rested and relaxed the next morning. Keep them together, never giving them or one of their admirers a chance to get closer and sneak away. Because you don’t want to have those elements interfere with work. Seems ironic coming from Playboy executive, but when you are involved in such a project you have to constantly strive for the balance which tilts heavily towards work.
But how do you keep the Cupid away from trying? Alfonso, (not the hotel manager) tall, suave and handsome is one of the people brought along Irina – the social director of sorts – who is assigned to help us with anything and everything. Pat Tomlinson is a part of our Chicago team and is the most efficient and able stylist/make-up artist. Jan is a big golf aficionado and Alfonso has organized a t-off at the nearby Flamingo course and is to join Jan and Michaela for a round of golf that morning. While the two have already arranged a cab and are waiting for Alfonso to join them, he is nowhere to be found. Not in his room, nor in any of the likely resort restaurants where he could have been having breakfast. Where do they finally locate him? In Pat’s roomJ
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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