Hollywood, sex and the Surrealist

The genius who was also a voyeur fantasies

The impending publication of the intimate memoirs of a close friend of Salvador Dali will reveal details of the sexual transgressions of Hollywood stars and royalty at the Spanish painter's home.

The confessional book, Sex, Surrealism, Dali and Me , due to be published in April, tells the story of the artist's young lover, Carlos Lozano, for the first time and will answer, among other puzzles, the unlikely question: What do Yul Brynner, Marcel Duchamp and a former King of Spain have in common?

The book discloses that they were all involved in the sex games Dali orchestrated for his celebrity guests and which the publishers of the book describe as 'warped'.

Lozano's memoirs, written in collaboration with British writer Clifford Thurlow, portray his one-time mentor as a man obsessed with humiliating his friends, both for his own amusement and for sexual gratification. He regularly urged visitors to degrade themselves by committing minor acts of theft or by stripping. Once naked, they were often paired off by Dali and told to carry out intimate acts.

Dali referred to this proudly as the 'cretinising' of his guests and Lozano, who was a struggling actor at the time, claims the artist was particularly pleased when he managed to persuade strangers to have sex in front of him on the floor.

The eccentric painter, who died in 1989, was the pivotal figure in the Surrealist movement of the early twentieth century and he drew around him a clique of extravagant and unconventional artists and bon viveurs. Known to his set as 'The Divine One' or 'The Master', his house near Cadaqués in northern Spain became an international magnet for wealthy bohemians.

His technically brilliant paintings, full of dreamlike images of melting clocks, bones and deserts, gained status during his lifetime as icons of the modern era. Since his death the man himself, with his studied pantomime appearance and thin, twisted moustache, has also become a cult figure.

The museum dedicated to his work above the hills in Torre Galatea is now one of the most visited in Spain.

Razor Books, the British publisher of the memoirs, predict that Lozano's story will upset many of the artist's fans. 'This manuscript is really extraordinary,' said Anita Mathieson, the novice publisher who secured the rights after eight months of negotiation with Lozano and Thurlow. 'It really is very explicit and revealing. This was such a big opportunity to bring out a fascinating book that it could easily have gone to a much bigger publisher, so I had to pursue it.'

Mathieson believes that the book will confirm the worst fears about the infamous Surrealist's damaged personality. Lozano, she says, recounts in detail how Dali would undermine acquaintances with his 'uncanny knack' of getting to their essential selves.

Elsewhere, he describes how Yul Brynner tested himself to find out whether it was young girls, or young boys, that he really preferred. Other walk-on - or rather lie-down - parts in the memoir are taken by a former King of Spain, the conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp, and Prince Dado Ruspoli, the man who was reputed to have the largest penis in Europe.

A famous Hollywood actress is also accused of entering what Dali dubbed as his 'Divine madness'. Lozano remembers the actress stripping naked and then crawling through a plastic 'uterus', which was Dali's way of allowing guests to re-experience birth.

Dali himself, although he was a consummate voyeur, did not like to be touched. He preferred to watch from the sidelines and masturbate while his friends entertained him, and he was not bashful about this side of his personality. One of his best known works is entitled The Great Masturbator.

Lozano, who now runs an exclusive art gallery in Cadaqués, first met Dali 20 years before his death and the relationship changed his life completely. He became a regular nude model for the painter and explains in the book how, after becoming aroused, he once contributed his own seminal fluid to the canvas of a painting that is now regarded as a masterpiece.

Although largely interested in men, Dali was married to a Russian aristocrat called Gala, whose sexual appetite was at least as voracious as her husband's.

She was also very interested in the financial side of Dali's career and brokered some of his more nefarious commercial deals.


Lozano's book is now set to bring the voice of an eye-witness to the Salvador Dali myth - and to all the orgiastic gossip about the past.