Actress Maureen O'Hara's nephew pays damages to Carolyn Murphy

Image caption Hollywood actress Maureen O'Hara, 94, was recently awarded an honorary Oscar

A nephew of Irish-born actress Maureen O'Hara has apologised and paid undisclosed damages to her former personal assistant over allegations about the handling of her financial affairs.

Carolyn Murphy developed a 30-year friendship with the actress during her time living in Ireland.
She sued for defamation over emails sent by Charlie Fitzsimons.

The High Court in Dublin has been told the action has been settled.

Ms Murphy said she was still extremely upset by the allegations, the exact nature or detail of which has not been revealed.

In a statement issued on her behalf by solicitor Paul Tweed, she said the dispute had contributed to the breakdown of her friendship with the Hollywood film star.

"My client is very satisfied with this categorical and comprehensive retraction and apology of what were totally unfounded allegations relating to my client's work and support for the actress Maureen O'Hara and the Maureen O'Hara Foundation over a number of years," Mr Tweed said.

"However, Carolyn Murphy remains extremely upset that these allegations were made in the first place and contributed to the breakdown of her lengthy personal and professional relationship with Maureen O'Hara."

Honorary Oscar

Ms O'Hara, who lived in the picturesque west Cork village of Glengarriff on and off since 1970, has returned to the US to be close to her family since a dispute over her financial affairs and legacy broke out.

The star was awarded an honorary Oscar earlier this month - her first academy award at the age of 94.

Mr Fitzsimons' allegations against her former personal assistant date from between August 2012 and July 2013. They were contained in four emails, the High Court in Dublin heard.

Ms Murphy worked for several years as Ms O'Hara's assistant and also had power of attorney until 2012, when family members stepped in.

In a statement read to the court, Mr Fitzsimons accepted that he made false claims that questioned Ms Murphy's integrity and honesty.

"The defendant accepts that such allegations are totally without foundation," Rossa Fanning, junior counsel for Mr Fitzsimons, said.

"The defendant unreservedly withdraws any imputations to the contrary and apologises to Carolyn Murphy for the distress and anxiety that these false allegations have caused to her.

"The defendant also undertakes not to repeat these false allegations in the future."

Maureen O'Hara made more than 60 films in a career that began in 1938.

She starred opposite John Wayne in several films. One of her personal favourites was The Quiet Man, filmed in Cong, County Mayo, in the Republic of Ireland.

Other credits include Miracle On 34th Street and Sitting Pretty.

Before her departure from Ireland and the dispute between her former PA and her relatives, there were ambitious plans for Ms O'Hara's legacy in Glengarriff.

Among them was a proposed theatre school and museum in the village, part of which would house the large collection of film memorabilia the star built up during her life.

Ms O'Hara's scenic coastal home, Lugdine estate, on 35 acres outside the village was put up for sale last month for 2.3m euros (£1.8m).

The actress bought it with her late husband, Charles Blair, more than 40 years ago and spent several months living there each year before taking up permanent residence in 2005.

Ms Murphy lives near Bantry in Cork and first met Maureen O'Hara in the late 1970s.

Carolyn's model role

It's plain to see: Carolyn Murphy's simple look is in big demand, writes Nikki Goldstein.

There's more, or rather less, to US supermodel Carolyn Murphy than meets the eye. This isn't meant to be a riddle but it's hard to explain how someone as gloriously beautiful as Murphy can be so plain and simple.

She's far from being a dumb model and she appears unaffected by her fame or her beauty. Given that she is famous the world over for her looks and rumoured to earn $4.4 million a year from the cosmetics giant Estee Lauder unblocked school, it would be easy for Murphy to be as precious as a princess. It turns out she's less supermodel and more girl-next-door than we might imagine.

"I've always been somewhat of an anachronism in the fashion industry," she says. "I never courted the big contracts and I'm not that interested in the limelight."

It wasn't that she disliked the industry - she says she loved the creative aspect of working with top photographers and stylists - but Murphy always felt there was more to life than being a model or, indeed, a celebrity.

"I'd rather stay home and cook and look after my daughter than go to a party," she insists.
When the Estee Lauder contract was offered to her, she says it came as a shock. "I hadn't been modelling for 18 months and I was overweight after my pregnancy. As far as I was concerned, I was out of the fashion loop and I was surprised that Estee Lauder wanted someone who was not a household name to take on the role."

It turns out that Murphy was just what the company wanted - and needed. "Over the past few years we realised that we had to broaden the appeal of the brand globally," says Brett Riddington, general manager of Estee Lauder Australia. "To that end we invested a huge amount of money into new product and packaging design, updating and modernising our counters and re-imaging the brand with new faces."

Despite the fact that Estee Lauder has one of the highest recognition factors of all prestige brands in Australia, its sales have been hit over the past decade by the introduction of new niche and boutique brands.

As a result of the success of the cooler and sexier MAC, Stila and La Mer brands, Estee Lauder has been perceived as an over-40s brand.

"We love our older customers," says Riddington. "But we recognise that the brand needs broader appeal and Carolyn Murphy is a key part of the re-imaging."

One of the fastest ways to attract new customers to a brand is to launch a fragrance. In the case of Beyond Paradise, the perfume Murphy was in Australia to promote last week, the cosmetics giant is picking up on a few notable trends. The fragrance is a fresh, fruity floral, not unlike J.Lo's Glow, arguably one of the most successful fragrance launches in the past five years.

Its advertising depicts Murphy suspended in a Garden of Eden, far from the craziness of the world. It has been designed to appeal to our collective desire to escape the rat race and live in a simpler, more natural way.

Murphy describes the fragrance as "spiritual and organic", words that may appeal to women who have discovered there's more to life than a new couch and a mortgage.

After the pouty siren-style of Elizabeth Hurley, the company was looking for a younger, fresher spokeswoman who smacked of simple beauty unblocked games online. Her own take on it is: "I am not a celebrity or a movie star; I'm a real woman. I'm a working mother who is just as stressed by the pressures of modern living as anyone else."

Riddington says that since Murphy's introduction as the new face of Estee Lauder in September 2001, the brand has started to appeal to a younger, hipper consumer, yet at the same time it has maintained its core customer base. "The figures are there to prove it but we know anecdotally from counter staff that Murphy's face is bringing women of all ages to our brand."

Murphy's lore 

Despite the fact that Carolyn Murphy says she looks like everyone else in the morning before she's slapped on her make-up, she was born with spun-gold looks that need little grooming to make them flawless. She does, however, have a few can't-live-without products that she carts from one end of the globe to the other and a couple of tips that she lives by.

The Untapped Asset: Your Guests

Hoteliers traditionally consider room inventory to be their primary assets. However, in other industries, companies look at their customers as assets. Where a hotel might say, "We're a full-service resort with 200 rooms," a consumer-goods company might say, "We have 10,000 customers." When you think about your business, are you thinking about the right assets? Are you thinking about your property, or are you thinking about your hotel's best asset -- your guests?

Among growing numbers of millennials and other technology-savvy travelers, guest expectations are evolving. Hotels are finding that general marketing is failing to cut through the noise and build loyalty with repeat guests. But, with more advanced marketing techniques and an increased level of personalized communication, hoteliers can drive higher revenue per guest and do so through the entire guest lifecycle.

Revenue is more than a single booking

To take this concept a step further, hoteliers typically look at revenue as derived from a single booking. If a guest books a room at $150/night for three nights, that's $450 in revenue. But in this way of thinking, hoteliers are missing the chance to drive additional revenue. Instead of analyzing revenue only from discrete room bookings, there is an opportunity to consider the entire guest experience, from search, to bookings, the on-property experience, and even after the stay when guests provide feedback.

If you invite your guests to return for additional stays, you can begin to look at the lifetime value of a guest as a cyclical experience.

Personalization is the #1 priority

So, how should marketers engage guests throughout the guest lifecycle? A 2014 study of marketing trends by Adobe discovered that personalization is the most important need of marketers today. This is not a huge surprise. The evolution of technology has resulted in marketing tools that didn't exist before. The emergence of more personalized marketing has also shifted consumer expectations and the way your guests react to your messaging.

The accelerated need for CRM in hospitality

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not new in the hospitality space. But, the need for CRM in hospitality has accelerated and intensified in recent years as a result of changing technology and consumer expectations.

In the past, hotel marketers focused on database management. That is not what today's CRM is all about. Hotels now have access to a huge amount of guest data, and with the right CRM system, they can use that data to deliver personally relevant messaging to each guest. CRM today has truly evolved to focus on developing long-term, one-to-one guest relationships using advanced technology.

Arming your hotel with the right data

The problem is, it's very hard for an hotelier to deliver a personalized experience without the right tools. Typically, the average hotelier only sees very basic information about its guests, such as name, check in date, stay length, and daily rate. Often times, there is no access to email, phone contact information, or stay history. But, with modern technology, there's a ton of information on your guests that is available in your systems. There is also a huge amount of data to draw from public domains like social media and TripAdvisor. When you combine all the tools available to hoteliers, it is possible to use specific, personal data about each guest, from demographic information, to past stay data, to previous reviews they've written, and whether they're active on social media. This is all valuable information that can help hoteliers personalize a guest experience and drive guest loyalty.

It is also important to note that consumers today are very savvy. They know that their data is valuable, and they expect it to be used for their own benefit, not exploited for the hotel's benefit. That means that hoteliers must approach the collection of this data as an opportunity to engage with guests individually and deliver value to them through every stage of the relationship.

CRM enables Guest Lifecycle Management

The consolidation of this guest data is what enables you and your staff to focus on a guest-centric marketing strategy. Once you have an understanding of the data at your disposal, the next step is to think about guest communications through the lens of the customer lifecycle by identifying each interaction point. Say you have a complete profile on a guest named Rob Smith. Rob's profile tells you, at a glance, about his stay history, average spend, and interests, as well as social data and previous hotel reviews. With this kind of profile you could tell that someone like Rob is an avid golfer and big spender. In this case, the marketing team could send a series of targeted messages to Rob, guiding him through his experience with your hotel.

Rob can also be included in one of many different segments of customers you track and communicate with. One segment might be guests who are interested in golf and weekend escapes, who live within two hours of the hotel. Once Rob has booked his stay, you can then deliver customized service while he is on property. For example, you could book him for the golf simulator, and perhaps offer him a wine special at the bar based on his previous orders. Finally, once the guest has checked out, build loyalty with targeted messaging. Getting email addresses from guests and marketing to them personally can drive direct bookings, allowing you to eliminate middlemen like OTAs from the process.

Exploiting the Facebook Paradox

Analyzing the Social Network's Success Helps Hotels Find the Balance between Intimate and Invasive

By Carolyn Murphy, Marketing Specialist, Revinate

It's clear that today's consumers expect relevancy in their interactions with brands, and hotel guests are no exception. In fact, a lack of relevancy in communications can hurt the relationship between a brand and its customers. According to a 2014 Gigya report, after receiving irrelevant information or products from a company, 43% of consumers ignored all future communications from the brand. Twenty percent stopped buying products from the company altogether.

At the same time, there's an increase in consumer concerns about the security of their personal data, and this complicates the issue. TRUSTe recently found that 42% of consumers are more concerned about data privacy than they were one year ago.

The question is, how can hoteliers collect the data they need to deliver relevancy and develop personal relationships with their guests without being invasive?

Consumer Trust as a Cost-Benefit Analysis

Fortunately, there appears to be a way to navigate the consumer trust minefield. One clue lies in the use of social media, specifically, in Facebook's history of privacy policy updates, and in its users' resulting behavior.

According to a study published by Naveen Awad and M.S. Krishnan in MIS Quarterly, "Few [consumers] actually take note of the [privacy] policy when visiting a site." This becomes clear every time Facebook updates its privacy policy. If you're on Facebook, you've probably seen more than one or two of your friends complain that Facebook is getting too big, that the company is taking their content and data and using it for its own profit. Some of them threaten to close their Facebook accounts.

These consumers are not wrong. Facebook has come under fire in the past for privacy concerns, including a 2013 incident with the Federal Trade Commission for sharing users' likes in "Sponsored Stories" without permission. It has made an effort in recent years to improve transparency and user control over what data gets shared by implementing customizable privacy control settings. But in general, many users are still wary of the implications of Facebook's data collection and use.

Nevertheless, Facebook is more popular than ever. As of April 2015, it had 1.44 billion active users , which accounts for almost half of the world's internet users.

What could be the explanation for this? Awad and Krishnan have an answer for this phenomenon. In their study, they performed a cost-benefit analysis, "where benefit is derived through the degree of personalization received, and cost is a function of consumer privacy concerns, previous privacy invasion experience, and consumer-rated importance of information transparency and privacy policies."

Their findings? "The perceived benefit of an outcome, such as useful personalization, can motivate consumers to partake in online profiling despite privacy concerns," Awad and Krishnan write.

In other words? Facebook continues to be popular because, for the vast majority of consumers, the benefits of using the social network outweigh the risks. Overall, consumers find that the ability to stay in touch with friends in a convenient, personalized way is worth the price of their data.

Another clue is the rising popularity of social login features on web apps. Social login gives consumers a faster way to log in to an increasing number of websites. In exchange, they give those websites the power to access the data points in their social media profiles.

According to the 2014 Gigya survey mentioned above, "Seventy seven percent of US consumers claim to have logged into websites and mobile apps using their existing social media accounts." Additionally, usage of social login has increased by 45% since Gigya's 2012 survey.

Convenience is the clear reason for this increase in social login popularity. Over 60% of US and UK respondents say they are likely to choose social login when using mobile devices, where traditional login is particularly cumbersome.

There are risks associated with putting personal information on Facebook and then sharing that information with other websites via social login. For example, if consumers aren't careful, employers, law firms, and identity thieves can take advantage of any information that is public on the network. People have been fired, sued, and more in their real lives because of what they chose to make public on the internet.

But the human desire to stay connected and sharing life events is as old as cave paintings and letter writing. It's a huge part of communication and living in a globally connected world. Facebook has enabled people to do this faster and more easily than ever before. And, the content available there is increasingly personalized, based on users' actions on the social network. The fact that 1.44 billion people continue to use Facebook tells us that when consumers weigh the costs and benefits of Facebook use and social login, the benefits outweigh the costs.

The same principle applies to trading data for personalization. Consumers know they can't have it all. They understand that it is impossible for total data privacy and total personalization to exist at the same time. These consumer behaviors provide insight into how hoteliers can navigate this personalization/privacy paradox. But it's important for hoteliers to understand that consumers won't give up their data without brand trust and without understanding the benefits of doing so.

Five Ways to Establish Trust

Your guests have expectations with regard to personalized experiences and data privacy. To deliver on the personalization they expect, there are a few things you can do to make them more comfortable with sharing their information.

1. Let them opt in.

You should be sure that any guest you email has agreed to receive communications from you. You should be transparent about what you intend to offer. You should also reassure your guests that you won't sell their data to third parties.

2. Establish a clear privacy policy.

Taking the time to craft a thorough privacy policy is one way to reassure your guests that data privacy is a priority for your hotel. Awad and Krishnan found that consumers rated privacy policies as highly important. But they also noted, "It is possible that consumers have no interest in knowing the details of what information is being stored and how it is used; rather, they may only be interested in knowing that the company has a privacy policy."

The lesson here is even though the majority of your guests won't actually read it, you should create a privacy policy that is clear, easy to read and easy to understand. Some guests may be interested in knowing the details. But, most will just be content that you have a privacy policy, and that you're taking their data privacy seriously.

3. Emphasize the value to guests.

If we learned anything from the Facebook example, it's that your guests need to see the value of opting in to your services before they share data with you. So why not emphasize the value? Let them know that by opting in to your email communications, you will start to personalize their stays and show them services and activities that are relevant to their specific interests.

4. Use progressive profiling.

One way to assuage any concerns your guests might have about sharing their data is to collect information gradually. Don't ask for too much information up front. Request only the necessary data points at registration. Then, collect more information over time, as your guests interact with your hotel, and you start to build trust. For example, when a guest signs up to receive email communications, offer him or her the opportunity to provide a zip code or check off special interests.

5. Take advantage of the data you already own.

Chances are you already have a good amount of data on each of the guests who books with your hotel. You should absolutely use a CRM system to take advantage of this data to deliver more personalized service and targeted marketing.

For example, say you have a segment of guests in your database who live within a few hours' drive of your hotel and booked with your spa the last time they stayed at with you. When your spa has openings for the upcoming weekend, you could invite those guests back and offer a massage discount. With the right CRM solution, you can specifically target guests who are more likely to be interested in your offer, ultimately delivering more effective marketing campaigns.

It's important to note that you won't convince every guest to opt in to communications and share data with you. Awad and Krishnan conclude, "We speculate that these results reveal that there is a segment of consumers, the privacy fundamentalists, that are unwilling to participate in online personalization regardless of the privacy features implemented by the firm." In this situation, you should concentrate on those who do see the value in what you have to offer. Others will come around over time.

Value is the Key

Overall, this study of the personalization-privacy paradox highlights one overarching theme: To develop intimate relationships with your guests, your hotel needs to earn their trust by proving its value. If your communications are generic or irrelevant to your guests, that relationship is likely to deteriorate. But, if you can deliver communications and experiences that are personally relevant to each guest, you will be happily surprised by the value you get in return.

Carolyn & Dylan Murphy

Carolyn: Since I was a little bit younger than Dylan, every Sunday was beauty day: my mom and I would do masks, and we would do our nails. I have a cool mom. So, Dylan took off her three-week-old nail polish today, and when she was sitting on the bathroom floor, we realized that today is Sunday beauty day!

Dylan: I had on Essie Turquoise and Caicos. My favorite colors are turquoise, aquamarine, and purple.

Carolyn: Dylan is more fashion-forward than I am. She has a lot more style. She really wants a pair of wedge sneakers, and I said, ‘Dylan, you’re already 5’4” at eleven years old. You don’t need to have any more height.’ She’s very opinionated, about her products as well.

Dylan: I like my banana-scented detangler [Circle of Friends Bonita’s Banana Detangler]. It takes out knots. You do it when you get out of the shower; you let it sit for like five minutes and then you brush it. My mom got it for me. We went to the store together and she said, ‘Oh, you need any of this?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and then I picked out that. They had chocolate and raspberry and banana. I love banana.

Carolyn: For Dylan, most of the things I want her to use are natural or kid-friendly. I gave her that Bigelow lip balm [C.O. Bigelow Merry Mentha lip balm] last week. But it’s all about a balance. You know, there are these things that are geared toward children, like the detangler, and it smells yummy. But then, she loves the Bumble and bumble Seaweed Shampoo.

Dylan: I like it because it smells good and I love seaweed.

[Emily: Really? That’s like saying ‘I love broccoli.’]

Dylan: I love broccoli!

Carolyn: She does. [Laughs] She’s a green baby!

Dylan: I wear makeup sometimes.

Carolyn: Be honest about that. When are you allowed to wear makeup?

Dylan: I’m not allowed to wear makeup out unless it’s a really really really really special occasion.
Carolyn: And then, only lip gloss.

Dylan: And sometimes sparkly eye shadow, but not too sparkly. When we went to New York, my mom bought me this palette thing-y—I’m wearing the pink one. It has purple and blue and white. It was gift from the lady at the makeup counter.

Carolyn: I was buying Estée Lauder, which is funny because the woman then recognized me and said, ‘…Why are you buying this cream?’ and I said, ‘Because I’m so dehydrated!’ Where were we coming from?

Dylan: Australia!

Carolyn: I bought Re-Nutriv Crème. She kind of looked at me after a minute and said, ‘Aren’t you…?’ There was a picture of me in there. Most of the time, people don’t recognize me, but then they think that they know me from somewhere, and then all of sudden they see the credit card and they go, ‘Oh, no, wait a minute!’ But for Dylan, when we’ve gone into duty-free, she gravitates more towards the lip glosses.

Dylan: I just love lip gloss and lipstick. I have one in my purse that I stole from my mom a few years ago. It’s Nude Rose by Estée Lauder. And my uncle Ivan bought this for me—Stila Sparkle Waterproof liquid eyeliner.

Carolyn: I don’t think she’ll be allowed to wear makeup out of the house until she is sixteen. I wasn’t allowed until I was sixteen.

Dylan: I always wear stuff in my hair. Whenever I go to J.Crew, I usually get a new headband. I love wearing headbands, especially the big poufy ones. I guess I was inspired by Lady Gaga. At Zitomer, they have this whole section where they have headbands that are really big.

Carolyn: We love Zitomer pharmacy and Bigelow Pharmacy. Zitomer’s is in New York, uptown, around 79th. It’s just so easy to get lost in there. She got a wide-tooth comb from there that she uses to comb through conditioner.

Dylan: And I use the Tangle Teezer with sparkles.

Carolyn: I brought it home from the salon and knew she would love it. You’re supposed to start from the bottom and work your way up. Tracey Cunningham does my hair, from Byron & Tracey—but this was a gift from Michael Canalé. I see Tracey for color. I love her; she is such a character. I was there last week and she said, ‘You have to be more blonde because blonde sells!’ But I saw Charlize Theron in there the other day, who was just drop-dead beautiful. So beautiful.

Dylan: These are some of my chapsticks. I have a Skittles chapstick [Tropical Skittles Strawberry Starfruit], I have a vanilla chapstick [Carmex Vanilla], I have a Fun Dip chapstick [Fun Dip Razz Apple Magic], and I have a watermelon chapstick [OraLabs Watermelon Lip Rageous]. I keep them next to my bed, with my lavender oil. It helps you go to sleep.

Carolyn: I swear, every time we go into a pharmacy or a grocery store, she’s like, ‘Can I get a chapstick?’ I mean, that’s the fun part about representing a company like Estée Lauder—they send me all the goodies. You know, I grew up with the brand—my Nana, who’s quite chic and still around, had a blue and white vanity area, and she wore White Linen, she had the Youth-Dew, so I had this nostalgia. Working with them has truly been an honor. I knew by the summer of 2001 that they were signing me, and it was huge. It’s like the Holy Grail of the industry. I get to play and I get to be a guinea pig for their products; I’m just always trying new stuff. When the company said they were bringing Tom Pecheux on, I was so excited. He’s modern, and he’s creative. I think you’re always trying to separate yourself from the pack. When it comes to the beauty industry, there is so much out there, there is so much for us to choose from. They’re an iconic brand, and I think that they’re just getting better and better.

In general, I try to keep my skincare routine simple. I’ve been using Cetaphil for years, and I’ve also been using the Weleda Almond Soothing Cleansing Lotion, which works really well. I have to use a cream cleanser because I have super sensitive and dry skin. Cetaphil is definitely not natural, but I’ve gotten used to certain things, and I believe everything in moderation. I also really believe in keeping everything super hydrated. I sleep with a humidifier by the bed; I think it makes a big difference. But, you know, I didn’t always take care of my skin. Surfing killed it—I’ve had to spend the last two years trying to repair that damage. I believe in Estée Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair. If I had to choose one product that I think is my number one, can't-live-without item, it would be that. I swear to God, it’s the best. After thirty-five—and I’m almost thirty-nine—I think it’s about being aware and paying attention. Not that I was careless before, but I definitely had other things on my mind. Skincare wasn’t a priority because I had great skin; I maybe took it for granted a little bit, too. So now I wash my face at night, and in the morning, I splash it with cold water and that’s it. Then I put on the Advanced Night Repair—morning and night—and Re-Nutriv or, sometimes, Olio Lusso. And what Dylan and I are using right now in our hair and on our skin is this: Spectrum Coconut Oil, unrefined.

We just finished a tub of it. I swear by coconut oil, and even raw olive oil. I’ve even been known to take it on the plane with me and slather it on, and people think I’m weird, but who cares? I slather it on my body, and on the tips of my hair. I’m also really into the Oribe hair mask, because my hair is bleached, and it’s curly, so every Sunday I sleep with this on. But more than anything, I believe that beauty comes from the inside out, so I’m very diligent about supplements. I travel with this kit, and I take the Omega-3s, I take Biotin and BioSil for skin and hair. I take vitamin D, which I think is super important if you can’t get 15-20 minutes a day in the sun. I take magnesium at night, which is also really great for the skin. But, you know, I’m debaucherous. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t debaucherous from time to time—I have a drink every now and then—but I just think it’s a balance.

I’m realistic; I don’t want to be extreme on anything. If I’m eating well and basically supporting my body 99/98% of the time, when Friday night comes, or Saturday, or whatever, I don’t feel so bad about it.

I don’t usually wear makeup during the day, but I always want to have blush. I like the Estée Lauder Signature blush because it’s creamy; I’m not a huge fan of powder. I’m not a huge fan of foundation or even concealer, but I want a creamy blush, and I always travel with Clinique Black Honey lipstick because I think if you put that on and just have really clean skin, it’s beautiful. I use the Sumptuous Extreme Mascara. For night, the smoky eye thing is kind of new to me. It’s something that I think looks good in photographs—you know, for shoots—but I don’t know about it in real life. I feel like it makes my eyes look super small. Blazing Bronze eye shadow is the one I love; it’s my go-to. I’ve worn it for years. Or sometimes, for fun, I’ll wear Coral Chic lip gloss for a pop of color. But the most beautiful I felt was when I was pregnant. Literally the most beautiful I felt in my life. I was big—I went from 118-120 to 183—but I was glowing. The only picture I have of myself, a fashion picture of myself, hanging in the house is from when I was pregnant. Anna Wintour from Vogue was really curious about my living in Costa Rica at the time, and said, ‘I want to do an article on Carolyn, and Mario Testino is going to photograph it.’ So I show up, and Camilla and Mario, or I guess Mario, who I adore, had this bright idea that he would have me in a bikini coming out of a limousine. I said, ‘No. You’re not going to have me getting out of a limousine in a bikini and I’m seven-and-a-half months pregnant. I wouldn’t even want to get out of a limousine in a bikini anyway, even if I wasn’t.’

 So, you know, leave it to Mario—foregoing the bikini was one thing, but I end up naked, just completely naked, in his room at the Mercer Hotel, in Manolo heels and Harry Winston diamonds and that’s the shot. It’s not your conventional pregnancy portrait—it’s not like I have the romantic long hair whisping over my breasts, and cradling my belly. I like that it’s rock and roll.