Nick Rhodes

Nick Rhodes is a recurring presence in the diary’s social world: he calls from London, arranges dinners, and appears among musicians, artists, and other guests moving between London and New York. The entries also register a change in his family life, from an expected baby described as a sculpture to the later news that he and Julie Anne had a girl. Rather than building a sustained portrait of his private life, the diary makes him recognizable through these returns: telephone calls, shared meals, and the small negotiations of when and where to meet.

Calls and family news

In an entry shortly before June 17, 1986, Nick called from London and asked to be called when the diarist arrived there. The note couples this invitation with news that Julie Anne was expecting a baby in August. Nick framed the impending birth with a playful turn: they were expecting a piece of sculpture. The diary preserves the remark alongside the practical news, letting its art-world wit and the approaching family change occupy the same few lines.

The later update is more compressed but changes the expectation into an event. Nick called from London to say that he and Julie Anne had had a girl; the diarist thought he seemed disappointed. The entry does not explain that impression, so it remains a brief, explicitly uncertain reading rather than a settled account of Nick’s feelings. It adds that the couple planned to come to New York in September, bringing their news into the diary’s recurring pattern of calls that connect London with the diarist’s New York social calendar.

London visit and dinner with friends

On July 6, the diarist travelled from New York to London by Concorde and was met by Anthony d’Offay. The evening’s arrangements gathered several people around a dinner hosted by Tina Chow. Although the diarist had asked her not to organize a party, she did so anyway; Nick was among the guests at Mr. Chow’s, alongside Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, and Billy Boy. The diary describes the company as welcoming. Nick’s appearance is part of a larger reunion of familiar names, not an isolated formal meeting, and the meal gives his London presence a social setting rather than a separate account of his work or life.

That group context matters to the way Nick is recorded. The diary places him in a list of guests that also includes Tessa Kennedy, Jennifer D’Abo, Ramon, Robert Tracy, Rifat Ozbek, Manolo Blahnik, and Jerry Zipkin. It gives no extended conversation or description of Nick at dinner; his place in the gathering is conveyed instead by the company he shares and the ease with which he is included. The episode establishes a pattern that recurs in New York: contact with Nick is often narrated through the occasion and its participants, with little attempt to turn a social visit into a full character sketch.

New York dinners and the social calendar

On December 12, Nick called wanting to go to dinner. The diarist was already planning to see Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and Ann Magnuson, while Nick and Julie Anne wanted to eat early. They insisted on 7:30, and the group settled on 8:00; Nick and Julie Anne did not arrive until 9:00 or 9:15. The diary’s exact times make the small mismatch the substance of the episode: an early schedule is negotiated, then the guests arrive well after the agreed hour.

The evening continued as a group outing rather than ending with dinner. Julie Anne and Teresa went to Nell’s in one car, aware that their husbands would have to follow; the diarist records their desire to get out after being cooped up. Ann Magnuson agreed to make a four-minute segment about art and fashion for the diarist’s television show. Nick’s call thus sits within several overlapping social and professional arrangements, though the entry does not assign him a role in the television segment. The diary’s attention stays on who wanted to meet, how the timing shifted, and how the group dispersed afterward.

In another entry, Nick again called wanting dinner. The diarist went to II Cantinori, where Nick arrived with Simon Le Bon. The meal also included Elizabeth Saltzman and her new boyfriend, Glenn Dubini, whose public affection for her struck the diarist as surprising. The entry gives much more space to that observation and to the surrounding dinner than to Nick himself, but his presence is consistent: he is among the people whose calls turn into meals and whose social circles overlap with the diarist’s.

A portrait made of returns

Across these entries, Nick is defined less by a narrated biography than by recurrence. A call from London precedes an invitation to call back; a family announcement is followed by news of a daughter; dinners recur in both London and New York. The sequence gives the reader a modest sense of continuity without supplying details about the couple beyond the pregnancy, the birth, and their planned visit. The diarist’s impression that Nick seemed disappointed is the one personal inference recorded, and its uncertainty is left intact.

That fragmentary quality is central to Nick’s role in the diary. He appears amid named companions and specific venues, with travel, telephone calls, and dinner times providing the structure around him. The result is neither a developed plot arc nor a comprehensive portrait, but a social presence repeatedly reintroduced by ordinary arrangements. Family news briefly changes what those arrangements contain; otherwise, Nick’s significance lies in how reliably he re-enters the diarist’s account of an interconnected social life.