Stanislas Klossowski de Rola

About

From The Guardian, September 1, 2023:

He was a friend of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, a flatmate of Paul McCartney and a lover of women including Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg and Nico. He resides between a 1,300-year-old castle in Italy, a mountain residence in Switzerland and a summer home in Malibu. And now at the age of 81, Prince Stanislas Klossowski de Rola – popularly known as Stash – is a TikTok darling. “The audience is all young people and they’re all absolutely fascinated,” he says on a video call in his castle, looking like a particularly dashing wizard as he shows me his “magical grimoire” of tantric paintings and antique Turkish swords.

Born into a long line of ancient nobility (Lord Byron is a distant relative) and the son of the notorious French-Polish artist Balthus, the aristocrat’s life has been a rock’n’roll fairytale full of worldly quests and romances. He was a dandy in swinging 60s London, who acted for Luchino Visconti, drummed for rock’n’rollers Vince Taylor and the Playboys and modelled for actual Playboy; he was pictured in the studio with the Beatles, and also leaving court with Brian Jones after getting busted for drugs. […]

After getting arrested with Jones for possession of marijuana and cocaine [in May 1967], the prince moved into Paul McCartney’s residence in St John’s Wood, where they entertained what Stash has described as “harems of girls”, with Beatles fans camping outside and sometimes bursting in through the gates. […]

From Daily Mail Online, August 16, 2010:

[…] On Friday, January 13, 1967, [Jane Asher, Paul’s girlfriend] flew to the United States with the Bristol Old Vic for a four-and-a-half-month tour. Paul was not at Heathrow to see her off. Even if he’d liked his own company, there was no way he was going to spend all that time alone. He was going to have his mates round, pick girls up, drink, take drugs, leave his clothes where he dropped them and the dishes unwashed.

Two pals moved in to keep him company — the artist Dudley Edwards and Prince Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, the playboy son of the French painter Balthus. Stash — as he was known — had just been charged with possession of cocaine and cannabis, along with his friend, the Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

In St John’s Wood, the three young men entertained what Stash describes as harems of girls, while Beatles fans camped outside, periodically bursting in through the gates ‘sort of like cattle breaking through a fence’.

Then, one night in May 1967, Paul, Dudley and Stash drove over to the Bag o’Nails, one of London’s trendy clubs. It was packed with people, many of whom Paul knew, including Peter Brown who worked for The Beatles.

It was Peter who introduced Paul to an American photographer called Linda Eastman, who was in town shooting pictures of musicians. When Dudley came back from the bar, he found Paul and Linda engrossed in conversation. Dudley paired up with the singer Lulu, and Paul asked everybody back to his place. Half an hour later, Linda found herself inside the home of one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. Memories are hazy about whether she slept with him that night.

Stash and Dudley say it didn’t seem important at the time. ‘You just think, it’s yet another girl, and yet another night,’ says Dudley. […]

A few days after meeting Paul, Linda showed up at the Belgravia home of Beatles manager Brian Epstein for the press launch of their new album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was noted that she made a beeline for Paul, crouching at his feet by the fireplace and looking up into his face.

That weekend, she tried calling him at home and got Stash on the line instead. He told her Paul was in Liverpool. Unfazed, Linda said she wanted to come over anyway. So she did — and promptly fell into bed with Stash. It was a bizarre weekend. While Stash and Linda were rolling around together, Paul phoned to tell his lodger to move out. So Stash took Linda to stay with the musician Graham Nash. And soon their affair was common knowledge in London’s rock community. ‘I was teased extensively by Roger Daltrey and [Jimi] Hendrix and so on, because, you know, Linda had gone around,’ says Stash, ungallantly. ‘But… you’ve got to put these things in context: everybody had very open relationships, and it wasn’t cool to be jealous.’

Yet when Linda flew back to New York shortly afterwards, her conversation was not about Stash, but Paul McCartney. Once again, she informed Nat Weiss, who was on the same flight, that she was going to marry the Beatle.

Howard Sounes – From Daily Mail Online, August 16, 2010

On May 10, 1967, Brian Jones, a member of the Rolling Stones, was arrested for drug possession after authorities found marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine in his flat. Howard Sounes mentioned that Stanislas Klossowski de Rola moved into Paul’s house around that time and was asked to leave shortly after the launch party for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” on May 19, 1967. This suggests that he stayed at Paul’s house for only a couple of weeks. Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher, returned to London soon after, on May 29, 1967. However, this doesn’t really match Dudley Edward’s recollection, who stayed at Paul’s for a longer period of time, to paint a mural:

Paul called and asked if I was free, and would I like to stay at his place and paint a mural for him. Stash was staying there as well, so it was just the three of us. A lot of the time I got the feeling Paul wasn’t really bothered with me doing a mural, really. He just wanted a mate around. So every time I started painting Paul would say, ‘Let’s go off to a studio and lay off some tracks’ or ‘Let’s go to a nightclub’ 

Edward Dudley – From “Electrical Banana: Masters of Psychedelic Art“, February 2012

One of the people often to be found at Paul’s at this time was Stash de Rola, Prince Stanislaus de Rola of Wattesville. A Frenchman from central casting, tall and arrogant, he wore his long black hair fringed in the medieval style and sometimes affected a cape. He had a very haughty air. He loved to discuss alchemy, a subject about which he knew a great deal – always hinting that he knew more than he was telling, that he was an adept, a secret master magician. In fact he was not French but Swiss, but his father, the painter Count Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, or more simply Balthus, was born in Paris. […]

Stash had made an undistinguished single, which went nowhere, but it was enough to give him the authority to call himself a popstar. He was always about to ‘get it together, man’, but seemed never able to. He sometimes sold his father’s drawings of young girls when money was short. His love of luxury, style and fashion seemed so inbred that his lack of money always seemed to be a temporary affair.

He never had a place of his own, but always stayed in the best of lodgings. When I first met him he was at Robert Fraser’s apartment, but Robert somehow managed to pass him on to Paul McCartney, and Paul was unable to get rid of him. One day I visited him to drop off some albums and Paul was beaming with pleasure, ‘He’s gone, man!’

‘Oh. Who?’

‘Why, the Prince of Pop, of course!’ Some money had appeared from somewhere and Stash had gone to Paris or Hollywood, to make a film or write a book. He was soon back, but this time comfortably ensconced with Lord Londonderry. Stash’s twin claims to fame were that he was one of the percussionists on the Beatles’ track ‘You Know My Name, Look Up the Number’, and that he was busted with Brian Jones.

Barry Miles – From “In The Sixties“, 2003

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I played on several Beatles sessions during my stay at Paul McCartney’s house, there was even a talk of me covering ‘A Day In The Life’ before Pepper’s release which would insure one an automatic top ten hit. Unfortunately, the track was banned for alleged drug references (…) It has been alleged that I played on ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ and it is quite possible that I did. What is memorable is that I played on a lot of unreleased material that John and Paul wanted to be the core material for an album of mine. It included a McCartney song called ‘Suicide’. I also sat on the same piano bench rubbing shoulders with John Lennon when he came upon the chords of what would become ‘All You Need Is Love’. Besides John and Paul, I was also very close to George as we both shared a passion for esotericism and mysticism, especially of the Oriental kind.

Stanislas Klossowski de Rola – Interview with Peter Markham, from Ugly Things magazine #31, 2011 – Quoted in A Dandy In Aspic: Prince Stash Klossowski De Rola – 1960’s Peacock Style Icon

It is unknown how much of Stanislas Klossowski de Rola’s recollections are true or fabricated. It is worth noting that few Beatles authors or biographers have mentioned him outside of Howard Sounes.

Last updated on May 9, 2024