Almost exactly three months after the death of ebullient Michael Winner, a buyer has been found for his magnificent 46-room Kensington mansion, which he originally wanted to leave to the nation.
The film director who spent millions renovating Woodland House — once the home of the pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Luke Fieldes who painted Edward VII there — put the pile discreetly on the market via his lawyers when he knew he was dying so as not to complicate matters for his widow, Geraldine.
The house was originally three flats, which were bought by Winner's property magnate father, George, and it remains leasehold. The freeholder is Charlotte Townsend, one of Britain's richest women.
The buyer, who is expected to have to part with £50 million, will also have to pay at least another £15 million to extend the lease, which runs out in 32 years.
I understand that lawyers acting for the late bon viveur have sealed a deal with a new owner, but are remaining discreet about his identity.
There has been speculation that rocker Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitarist who lives next door, put in a bid, but this can be discounted — though the food critic several times tried to buy Page's Gothic castellated house.
Winner took possession of the house in 1978 when it was still flats and spent millions creating an opulent home, complete with swimming pool, cinema and extensive gardens, which he loved.
It was originally his wish that it be taken over by the local council and become a museum, but it declined, saying it couldn't afford to run it.
Meanwhile, his widow Geraldine has had the heart-breaking task of putting many of her late husband's possessions up for sale.
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His celebrated collection of illustrative children's art, including Winnie The Pooh and Beatrix Potter, have already been auctioned at Sotheby's for £1 million.
Of course, no sale can be completed until probate is granted on the estate.
However, any new owner is certainly buying a house with great history, but is likely to switch off the illuminations that bathe the house at night in so much light Winner joked that it was visible from space.
Theatre director Patrick Garland, who died over the weekend, kept a candid diary of all the tears and tantrums of the stars he worked with — Lord Olivier, Sir Rex Harrison and Richard Harris among them.
These memoirs of half a century at the centre of the British stage were carefully recorded in longhand in his journals. Garland’s widow, the actress Alexandra Bastedo, says: ‘Every time Patrick went to a party or was involved in a production and something funny happened, or something dramatic, or something terrible, he wrote it down.’
Patrick Garland- one of British theatre's most influential directors- died aged 78 after a long illness
She expects his friend Simon Callow, with whom he often collaborated, to collate the diaries for a book that promises to be a publishing sensation.
Says a close friend: ‘Patrick was wonderfully funny. I’ve seen him have a table in stitches with his stories of backstage dramas and impersonations of the great and the good.’
A memorial will be held at Chichester Cathedral, where he wed The Champions star Alexandra in 1980 when he was at the city’s Festival Theatre.
After an horrific crash that shattered her leg two years ago and another bad fall two months ago, skiing pin-up Chemmy Alcott could be forgiven for giving up the sport altogether.
But tenacious Chemmy still plans to race at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, next year.
Chemmy Alcott is to defy the odds by competing at the next Winter Olympics
Recovering from a second career-saving operation to her right leg, she admits: ‘It’s my one last hurrah to get healthy before the Olympics.’
Following her most recent accident at the World Championships in Austria this year, Chemmy, 30, decided to have all the metalwork pinning her leg since her 2010 Canada smash removed.
‘Since coming back after that first horrible accident I was skiing in pain, so this operation has given me a chance to ski again and reach my potential,’ she says.
Now recuperating at the Hampton Court home she shares with her boyfriend, fellow skier Dougie Crawford, Chemmy tells me she is also on a strict new diet.
She has had to cut out dairy products and most meat and fish.
She is drinking a special herbal tea and soaking her feet in a foot bath for an hour a day.
‘I hope to start skiing again in July,’ she says. ‘And when I do finally return, there will be no excuse not to ski fast.’ That’s the spirit.
Having just got the all-clear from cancer doctors, Sally Farmiloe is looking forward to her first acting role since her diagnosis a year ago.
‘Ironically, it’s a short film called Dead In Bed,’ says Sally, who has just become a patron of the Against Breast Cancer charity. ‘It’s about a couple who are killing each other. She has poisoned him and he’s shot her. But we haven’t cast him yet.’
Adds Sally, who is alleged to have had an extramarital encounter with Lord Archer in the back of a Mini: ‘I hope he will be personable because it all takes place in a double bed.’
Loud: Sophia Sassoon was brought in by producers to play diamond-mining heir Francis Boulle¿s love interest
She was only in faux reality TV show Made In Chelsea for one season, but aspiring actress Sophia Sassoon has no regrets about quitting the programme.
In fact, pouting Sophia, 22, a former model brought in by producers to play diamond-mining heir Francis Boulle’s love interest, is more worried her appearances have scuppered her chances of an acting career.
‘I did the show because I want to act, but I think it was the wrong decision and it may hamper me in the future,’ she tells me at a party for social-networking app Wugo at the Park Plaza hotel in Westminster.
‘Francis isn’t my type and actually has lots of girlfriends.’
Sophia was educated at St George’s, Ascot, and moved to New York when she was 19 to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute.
‘As an actress I really had to put my training to good use . . . I had to portray a very innocent, shy girl when actually I’m not like that at all,’ she says.
‘In reality I’m quite loud and crazy.’ Fancy.
P.S. Not everyone is dismayed the Marquess of Bath’s erotic art collection is being dismantled by his son, Ceawlin. Heidi-Jo Laine, the daughter of rock chick and wifelet Jo-Jo, is certainly pleased.
‘I’m not into that kind of thing and, to be honest, I wasn’t happy about my mother being a wifelet. I thought she was better than that,’ she says.
Jo-Jo, who died in 2006, was the former wife of Wings star Denny Laine. ‘She was proud of being part of that artwork, she didn’t see it as sleazy.’
Of her mother’s friendship with Bath, Heidi-Jo says: ‘Lord Bath was like a father figure to her. I never saw them being intimate. I saw her sit on his lap — but she did that to a lot of people.’