She was France’s ultimate erotic myth, the woman who personified the wild freedom of the sixties; he, the multi-millionaire German heir, photographer, and playboy who famously bombarded Bardot’s Saint-Tropez villa with thousands of red roses from a helicopter just to court her. They married in Las Vegas in 1966, a wedding that wedded European high society with cinema royalty. Their relationship was a head-on collision of two colossal egos, a whirlwind of luxury, passion, and a chronic aristocratic boredom that drove them from absolute love to sheer tedium in the span of two martinis.
The chronicle that follows narrates one of those ideal, perfect, and undocumented episodes of their mythology: the summer Mallorca almost separated them forever... and brought them back together.
Two Hotels for Two Egos
July, 1968. Gunter Sachs’s private jet touched down at Son Bonet under a scorching sun. Inside the cabin, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. They hadn't spoken a single word to each other since flying over Marseille. They were, quite simply, sick to death of one another.
The moment they stepped onto the tarmac, they made an unprecedented decision for a newlywed couple: they would separate. Not just into different rooms, but different hotels, different companies—emotionally distant, they decided.
Gunter, a lover of classical, understated luxury, ordered his chauffeur to take him to the iconic Hotel Formentor, the legendary refuge of poets and Hollywood stars. Brigitte, looking for something more rustic yet equally exclusive, drove north in a convertible, taking shelter in a small boutique hotel hidden among the pine trees of the Tramuntana coast. The pact was clear: seven days of absolute independence. Seven days without the crushing weight of being "Gunter and Bardot."
The Miracle of Cala Sant Vicenç
For the first two days, the plan worked.
Gunter sipped gin and tonics facing the Mediterranean, trying to convince himself that bachelorhood was marvelous; Brigitte sunbathed naked on private terraces, swearing she didn't miss her husband's parties. But boredom—that old enemy of the jet-set—was quick to rear its head.
On the third day, seeking to escape the paparazzi who were beginning to smell the blood of a breakup, both sought refuge, completely separately, in the most isolated corner they could find on the map: the quiet, unexplored Cala Sant Vicenç in Pollença.
Brigitte arrived in the early afternoon, hidden behind gigantic sunglasses and a straw hat. She sat on the fine sand of Cala Barques, gazing at the breathtaking cliffs of Cavall Bernat plunging into the turquoise sea. Ten minutes later, a man with an open linen shirt and the casual stride of a perpetual hangover settled in just fifty meters away from her.
It was the Mallorcan wind that did the trick. A treacherous gust lifted Brigitte's hat, sending it rolling across the sand. The gentleman in linen rushed to retrieve it. When he leaned down and his eyes locked with the most famous feline gaze in the world, time stood still.
"Gunter?" she whispered, half-angry, half-amused.
"Brigitte?" he replied, letting out a clean, loud laugh that echoed off the cliffs.
The Return
The pride of the "Sachs-Bardot" duo was immense, but their sense of showmanship was even greater. Discovering that they had chosen the exact same hidden cove to flee from one another struck them as a cosmic joke far too good to ignore.
There were no recriminations, no apologies. Sitting on the shore of Cala Sant Vicenç, sharing a bottle of cheap wine Gunter had bought at a nearby shop, they rediscovered exactly why they had married. The resentment evaporated under the Pollença sun, beneath the shadow of Cavall Bernat, replaced by the adrenaline of the momentum.
As evening fell, Brigitte's convertible was left abandoned by the beach. Both climbed into Gunter’s car and headed back to the Hotel Formentor. That night, the hotel staff could hardly believe their eyes when they saw the couple of the year walk in arm-in-arm, laughing like teenagers, demanding that one of their reservations be canceled. Mallorca had separated them out of boredom, but their savage magnetism had pulled them back together.
That is why we love hotels; that is why we fall in love with vacations, with secluded corners, with strolls along the shore, with the wild rocks of the Mediterranean where goats usurp our best shade. That is why summers exist: to test that luck, that magic always willing to place us in a spot we never intended to visit, but which, upon arrival, we love and accept like a sinful sacrament.
That is why, when a guest—a visitor, as I like to call them—crosses our threshold, I can tell by their attitude, their face, their way of walking, their gestures while unpacking, their sideways glance at the terrace, whether they are among those who will get lucky in this crazy roulette wheel that is the Mediterranean summer, or if, on the contrary, they will spend their holidays remembering old battles and loves already expired and mutually forgotten. Ah... what a drag laziness is, a poorly understood cowardice...
How many years do we have left in this casino? How many spins of the wheel? How many more bets will we place? One never knows, but no one can take away our desire to try again every single year. No one can take away the feeling of being Bardot-Gunter for just a few days.
Enjoy The Silence.
Miss Ann Standin.
"Bardot by Gunter" from our private collection.
