Speaker 1: What would you say or the number of photographs in
Speaker 1: your archive that this young man who works for me
Speaker 1: the other days in the act of more than one
Speaker 1: million pitches of my life. Wow. So let me introduce you.
Speaker 1: John Pagotzi, or Johnny as I know him, is a
Speaker 1: world renowned photographer. He's an art collector, a venture capitalist,
Speaker 1: a one time television host. I've been on his show before,
Speaker 1: and he is also a fashion designer. He's also known
Speaker 1: as the father of the selfie and it's an absolute
Speaker 1: pleasure to welcome him to my podcast all the way
Speaker 1: from France. Are you in on Tebe? Johnny? I am
Speaker 1: in on Tebe in the south of France next to
Speaker 1: the scene. It's a beautiful, beautiful day. Well, Johnny Pegotzi
Speaker 1: has been very busy. He changes direction at the at
Speaker 1: the drop of a pin. You do, Johnny. He's a
Speaker 1: shirt designer. One year, he's a boat designer. Another year
Speaker 1: he is a rock contour always uh. He is building
Speaker 1: an amazing home in the hills of Los Angeles. He
Speaker 1: is living high and beautifully on the coast of France
Speaker 1: in on te Uh. He is friends with every single
Speaker 1: movie star. Oh. Probably the most impressive thing that that
Speaker 1: impressed me tremendously. Was your Can Film Festival party, the
Speaker 1: annual party? Did you have one this year? I stopped
Speaker 1: doing my first of all last year it was COVID Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this year I decided not to do it. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why because when I had the last
Speaker 1: time three years ago, there were a lot of people
Speaker 1: at the party had no idea who they were. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give a party people, and I tell
Speaker 1: you this. So this year I got a lot of
Speaker 1: email saying, oh, Jean, at what time is your party
Speaker 1: on Saturday? But the best email I got is that
Speaker 1: guy says, hello, my name is George. You don't know me.
Speaker 1: I came to your party three years ago with my
Speaker 1: girlfriend Stephanie, who's not my girlfriend anymore, but I would
Speaker 1: like to come anyway. I have no idea who Stephanie was.
Speaker 1: I annoying it, so I said, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give a partical people I don't know.
Speaker 1: The only way you can give a party is when
Speaker 1: you know people. Okay, I'm not gonna invite people I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, but you're in your books legendary photographs
Speaker 1: of all the guests that your parties for the can
Speaker 1: Film festivals. You had Michael Douglas, you had Sophia La
Speaker 1: and have you had everybody at your party? So I know.
Speaker 1: So so you don't know the current movie stars. I
Speaker 1: don't know know that you know DiCaprio is the youngest
Speaker 1: of the movie stars. I know. Now I'm an old bag. Now.
Speaker 1: Your real passion, I think is photography. Is that? Is that?
Speaker 1: Are you more passionate about photography or about collecting art?
Speaker 1: What's what's what's the what's the thing now? Well, photography,
Speaker 1: I mean collecting that. You know, you don't really you
Speaker 1: need some kind of a talent, but photography is you
Speaker 1: need some kind of a tannel because it's so easy
Speaker 1: now to take pictures. You know, anybody now with an
Speaker 1: iPhone can take a photograph. Okay, but I started a long, long, long,
Speaker 1: long time ago, and the difference between a good photograph
Speaker 1: and a great photograph is very, very small thing. So
Speaker 1: I'm still obsessed every day. I take pictures every day
Speaker 1: of anything, trees, my dogs, myself, people I see in
Speaker 1: the road, you know, anything. And instead I still don't
Speaker 1: understand that at my happy little age of seventy, I'm
Speaker 1: still interested in taking photographs. I'm still obsessed by taking
Speaker 1: photograph and I keep on buying new cameras and new
Speaker 1: things and all that. And I still don't understand where
Speaker 1: this passion comes from, but it's there. You've published several
Speaker 1: books of a charge of photographs. I did a lot
Speaker 1: of books, and I'm working on new books now, and
Speaker 1: it's um I don't know. Last week I went to
Speaker 1: and which I have never done. I went to a careader,
Speaker 1: which is a horrible thing in Madrid, really horrible. But
Speaker 1: I took them quite good pictures, so that was kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. You know, at a bull fight. It's horrible.
Speaker 1: I stayed after two things if I couldn't stand it anymore.
Speaker 1: But what's your new book? What's the focus of your
Speaker 1: new book? The new book. I'm working on a book,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna see if it can work. It's my
Speaker 1: forty five year of friendship with Mick Jagon, so hundreds
Speaker 1: of hundreds of pictures. But we're working on demorously some pictures.
Speaker 1: He said, well, you know, Johnny, this is too intimate.
Speaker 1: We can't put this or this one is fine, you know.
Speaker 1: So we've been working together to see work pictures we
Speaker 1: can put in the book because you know certain pictures,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand, you know he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: you know, they were not There's nothing embarrassing or anything.
Speaker 1: So that's that's a And then you know, I did
Speaker 1: a book about the two hundred and thirteen most important
Speaker 1: men in my life, and you know the business thing.
Speaker 1: I can't remember anything, but I can. I can say, oh,
Speaker 1: I remember the picture I took of MafA with Johnny
Speaker 1: and Yelli is on the left of Johnny on the sailboat.
Speaker 1: Have an incredible visual memory. I couldn't remember what food
Speaker 1: we had at the earth. God, I can remember I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I took that picture that brown dog running after the cat.
Speaker 1: I ken't And what year, well, I can't remember the year,
Speaker 1: but it must have been and they fined the picture.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I can remember millions and millions of photographs
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the name of the street next
Speaker 1: to my house in Los Angeles. But you know, Johnny,
Speaker 1: the camera, the camera is is your brain and your eyes,
Speaker 1: and that's and that happens. I think to visual people
Speaker 1: that that you know once. For me, it's like I
Speaker 1: can remember everything that I ever was filmed in like
Speaker 1: I've done so many TV shows and I can remember
Speaker 1: and I don't have to look at him again because
Speaker 1: I know what I did in the show, and it's
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing. It's like, it's that kind
Speaker 1: of visual, visual, peculiar thing that happens to somebody who's visual,
Speaker 1: and you are so visual, and uh, that's very interesting.
Speaker 1: A million photographs that is that is a lot of
Speaker 1: photo And what about your relationship with the one photographer
Speaker 1: I never got to work with and I always wanted to.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what he would make me do. I
Speaker 1: was frightened to death of Helmett Newton because Helmett Newton
Speaker 1: was very avant garde helmet I met many many years
Speaker 1: ago and passed, and then when he moved to Monaco,
Speaker 1: I used to spend a lot of time with him.
Speaker 1: And actually there's a fantastic film, The June, which was
Speaker 1: his late wife, made of him, and it's if somebody
Speaker 1: wants to become a fashion photographer, they should look at
Speaker 1: this film. And it's incredible how by details he would say, sweetheart,
Speaker 1: move your leg two inches that way. Assistant moved the
Speaker 1: flowers a mile away. They was moved those red flowers
Speaker 1: a bit to the left, uh move, and then he
Speaker 1: would use Then he said, you know all these young
Speaker 1: photographers they used photoshop. Okay, they changed. When I give
Speaker 1: my pictures to Vogue, they can print them the perfect okay.
Speaker 1: But when I think that, and I used to look
Speaker 1: at him work. He was so precise and so incredibly
Speaker 1: obsessed by the most minute detail with the light with
Speaker 1: him And this isn't it When I met Johnny Pegotzi,
Speaker 1: this was in I think the first time I met
Speaker 1: you was maybe in St. Barts. You know, when they
Speaker 1: were there were wild parties, and and you were always
Speaker 1: with your little instematic camera taking selfies and nobody else
Speaker 1: was doing that. Nobody else was was recording themselves with
Speaker 1: everybody they met. You would put your arm over across
Speaker 1: our shoulder and you would have your long arm out,
Speaker 1: your other arms out your camera and with a flash,
Speaker 1: always with a flash, and you would get the most
Speaker 1: beautiful pictures of us. And and I could only think
Speaker 1: one picture, yes, right, I could only think one picture
Speaker 1: because the flashing those they took a long time to recycle,
Speaker 1: the fifteen seconds. Let's say you take a picture of them,
Speaker 1: there's a goodbye, and they would walk away, so you
Speaker 1: better get it right, Okay. So the first one I did,
Speaker 1: I think, was in nineteen seventies three of Faith Underway.
Speaker 1: So Faith Underway was at Harvard. She was the Lampoon
Speaker 1: Lady of the Year or something like that, and it's
Speaker 1: the first time I took a picture of that. And
Speaker 1: after that I had worked out and I had a
Speaker 1: little like with a little flash, and because I had
Speaker 1: a long arm, I could take these pictures and I
Speaker 1: took hundreds and hundreds and then I did the book
Speaker 1: that's called Me and Co which has been published many,
Speaker 1: many times. And I think I really invented the selfie.
Speaker 1: I think, what is it? Yeah, well, what is a secret?
Speaker 1: And nobody knows that I am one of the richest
Speaker 1: people in the world because every time somebody takes a
Speaker 1: selfie I get one cent. Oh I wish, don't you wish?
Speaker 1: I wish? I wish to. Let's give our listeners a
Speaker 1: little bit of background into who the heck is Johnny Pegozzi.
Speaker 1: Where were you born? Johnny? I was born in Paris, France,
Speaker 1: from Italian parents who my father immigrated from Italy and
Speaker 1: started a car company in France that was called Simca,
Speaker 1: and my mother was also Italian, but they lived in Paris,
Speaker 1: and that's where I was born. Where were the car factories?
Speaker 1: Embarrassed Paris? And then in ninety yeah, yeah, And then
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two Chrysler what you know about, bought
Speaker 1: the company from my father, so it became an American company.
Speaker 1: Did they continue to make the little Simkers? They make
Speaker 1: it and managed to screw it up in two years
Speaker 1: and three years they completely screwed it up. They changed
Speaker 1: their name to Talbot, and they completely screwed it up.
Speaker 1: And it's gone very sadly. And if the listeners have
Speaker 1: any idea of what a Simca car looked like, can
Speaker 1: you describe the Simka? You have your driveway at duren
Speaker 1: Is lined with little Simkers. I have plenty of them.
Speaker 1: So Simca was a popular car, not a very expensive car,
Speaker 1: but they were very good looking. And my father was
Speaker 1: intervened in by design, so usually they were very good
Speaker 1: and they had great colors and other So I have
Speaker 1: a beautiful norn and I just had it restored now
Speaker 1: and I drive into the hotel decup of it, and
Speaker 1: they're so proud of it that they always leave it
Speaker 1: in the front door. And then I also have a
Speaker 1: station where you come now then, actually my mother's cook
Speaker 1: used to use but I just had it redone now
Speaker 1: and then I have another one that's going to be
Speaker 1: be done next winter. That's the same one that the
Speaker 1: president shout the goal used to drive around it. So
Speaker 1: it went from from a very simple car to the
Speaker 1: car that the president drove. So they made every kind
Speaker 1: of car. When my father was like one car out
Speaker 1: of three in France was as simpler one out of three.
Speaker 1: Now this is this is a small car. No, they
Speaker 1: had big ones and smaller than everything. Oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: know they were large, because I always described them as
Speaker 1: a small car, like like almost like even smaller than
Speaker 1: a beetle of Volkswagen Beetle. No, no, no, no. They
Speaker 1: had every size the no, no, everything, and what the
Speaker 1: most famous one was called a ronde, which is like
Speaker 1: a bird, and they were the same. It's an anagram
Speaker 1: of my house. Yet it's called the run the house.
Speaker 1: He's called the run. It's an anagram of a hold.
Speaker 1: And then he had an called P sixty when he
Speaker 1: was sixty years old, PIGOUSI sixty years old. He had
Speaker 1: when I was called P sixty, you had no interest
Speaker 1: in becoming a car manufacturer. But I was very saday
Speaker 1: I was. I was twelve years old when my father died,
Speaker 1: so you know when I became older after I went
Speaker 1: to Harvard. Uh no, I'm not that interested in cars. No, okay,
Speaker 1: how did you How did you find your way to
Speaker 1: Harvard from Paris? I found my way from a miracle.
Speaker 1: I knew nothing about American universities, so I applied to Harvard, Yale,
Speaker 1: and a couple of other ones. They all rejected me.
Speaker 1: And then in the middle of August, I got a
Speaker 1: telegram from Harvard says, well, if you go and do
Speaker 1: this interview in Paris next week, you might get in.
Speaker 1: So I went to do an interview in this big office.
Speaker 1: I had them a little suit and a little time.
Speaker 1: It was a big bank and the gentleman sitting behind
Speaker 1: the desk, what kind of serious guy said the way
Speaker 1: you're from? Originally? I said, well, I was born in Paris,
Speaker 1: but my family is from Torino. He said, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask you two questions, and if you get
Speaker 1: them right, you'll get into Harvard. So the first question
Speaker 1: is what is the best restaurant? Areno? So I said
Speaker 1: captain there the black cat. He said, okay, and he said,
Speaker 1: next question, he says, when is the season for white truffles?
Speaker 1: I said October November. He said, young man, you'll go
Speaker 1: to Harvard And I went to Do you remember who
Speaker 1: that was interviewing you. No. He was a very very
Speaker 1: obviously very nice man, a genius because he sent me
Speaker 1: to Harvard. Uh. He he was. He was the European
Speaker 1: president for a bank. It's called the Irving Trust. You
Speaker 1: remember the Irving Trust. Of course I don't think they
Speaker 1: kiss any more, but it was a big bank in
Speaker 1: those days. It was incorporated into some other bank and
Speaker 1: then into some other bank. So after Harvard, did you
Speaker 1: go get a job someplace? Or did you you were rich?
Speaker 1: You were you were the heiror you were the heir
Speaker 1: to the Simca fortune. Right. I had some money, but
Speaker 1: I never I didn't use it for a long time. Now.
Speaker 1: My first job, I went to work for an uncle
Speaker 1: of mine who made supermarket cuts. So I know everything
Speaker 1: about the wheels, how they stack into each other. I
Speaker 1: saw supermarket cuts all around the world. So about for
Speaker 1: a year I did that, and then I went to
Speaker 1: work for a French film company. It's called Gaumont and
Speaker 1: they sent me to a Fox they were going to
Speaker 1: try to merge. So so I spent like like six
Speaker 1: months at Fox in Los Angeles, and I stayed at
Speaker 1: the Bevel, his hotelian room five twelve, and I had
Speaker 1: at this time until when they at the pool, I
Speaker 1: met this character Armad Ottagon and we became incredibly good friends.
Speaker 1: And I quit Fox and I started traveling with him
Speaker 1: and I had the best time of my life, and
Speaker 1: he had He taught me three very important things, the
Speaker 1: rules of his life, and then I applied them to
Speaker 1: my life. Okay, business should be fun, never go to
Speaker 1: the office with before twelve, and women like to have sex. Okay,
Speaker 1: those are the three things. Ahmed er again, I found
Speaker 1: him a very attractive man, and I'm Ert again. Iman
Speaker 1: Ert again was it was a very very successful entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: He was in music business. Describe, Describe what you did
Speaker 1: with him. So Ahmed was the sun of the Turkish
Speaker 1: embassador in Washington and obviously stiff familyine him and his
Speaker 1: brother next week loved black music. So and in those
Speaker 1: days that's been in the fifties, black music you had
Speaker 1: to go like into the ghetto to hear it and
Speaker 1: they started going to then they started recording it, and
Speaker 1: then they started this company, Atlantic Records, and they had
Speaker 1: all the you know, from Arita flank Gren to Ray Charles,
Speaker 1: and then they had the rolling Stones that Zeppelin, all
Speaker 1: the greatest acts in the world. And he was fabulous
Speaker 1: because he had on one side he had this very elegant,
Speaker 1: you know, the beautiful house with a very elegant wife,
Speaker 1: and on the other side he had his completely rock
Speaker 1: and roll life where you know, everything would go, stay
Speaker 1: up all night and on that. So it was it
Speaker 1: was a I spent so much time with him and
Speaker 1: then we laughed so much. It was absolutely he was
Speaker 1: an incredible, incredible, incredible I was sorry that I never
Speaker 1: got to see his beautiful house, his villa in in
Speaker 1: Turkey and Bowdroom. Didn't he have a been amazing house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had an amazing house in bod Room that was
Speaker 1: made out of the stones of a famous temple that
Speaker 1: was there. But I went there past forty years ago,
Speaker 1: I wasn't gored. Now it's in the middle of the
Speaker 1: On the left, there's a discotheque. On the right there's
Speaker 1: another discotheque. Now it's a little bit different and I
Speaker 1: did the first time it was there was, you know,
Speaker 1: three old dogs on the harbor walking around, so it's very,
Speaker 1: very different, but it's a beautiful and his wife, Mika,
Speaker 1: having has very old had incredible taste, so she she
Speaker 1: decorated her well you too. You took me to dinner
Speaker 1: at their house in New York City. In New York
Speaker 1: remember taking me to dinner, and we were served the
Speaker 1: strangest meal. We had potato pirogui, which are stuffed potato
Speaker 1: dumplings um and served with great gobs of caviare on
Speaker 1: the potato dumplings. Do you remember, No, I remember all
Speaker 1: these things. And then we had we had roast leg
Speaker 1: of lamb with mint jelly, very very American, and I
Speaker 1: was just I was just sort of taken aback by
Speaker 1: the combination. It was so like, oh my gosh, mint
Speaker 1: jelly with leg of lamp. I mean, that's an American thing.
Speaker 1: But I had no idea that a sophisticated woman like
Speaker 1: Miko would be serving that. But she liked really really
Speaker 1: good food and nice combinations of food. And uh. And
Speaker 1: as you said, she was one of the She was
Speaker 1: and is one of the most elegant women that ever lived. Um,
Speaker 1: and she had this rock and roll husband, sort of
Speaker 1: like your your friend, uh, your friend from Fiat, your
Speaker 1: uncle Johnny and Jellie. You know, I learned I was,
Speaker 1: you know, sadly my father died when I was very young.
Speaker 1: But I had this fabulous older men in my life
Speaker 1: who were like ten or twenty years older than me,
Speaker 1: who took me under their wing, and and nearly was
Speaker 1: one of them was by father, most elegant men in
Speaker 1: the in the world. I think he was a real prince.
Speaker 1: And he also had the kind of a double life. Okay,
Speaker 1: you had a very elegant wife and then and then
Speaker 1: he could be the funniest and the craziest person on
Speaker 1: the other side. And I used to go we used
Speaker 1: to go sing together, and we traveled and I used
Speaker 1: to He was very interested by contemporary art and all then,
Speaker 1: and also by girls and all that he was. And
Speaker 1: then you would go to his house and then there
Speaker 1: was the ye not the buttons with white gloves and
Speaker 1: all that. So it was it was really he was fabulous.
Speaker 1: And then I had another friend of mine was called
Speaker 1: Jimmy Goldsmith, who was also an English guy, Sir James Goldsmith,
Speaker 1: who also was also had a double life of a
Speaker 1: big businessman of that but also incredibly funny and know that.
Speaker 1: And then my other friend was Henwood Newton, the photographer,
Speaker 1: who was also an older gentleman. Uh. And then I
Speaker 1: had or SATs was a famous Italian architect who did
Speaker 1: all my life, all my houses, so I was there.
Speaker 1: And then another one, incredible his book just came out
Speaker 1: now and you should interview him, Chris Blackwell, who discovered uh,
Speaker 1: Bob Marley and you too, you know that. And he
Speaker 1: is the most the freest man I ever met in
Speaker 1: my life. He's from Jamaica. Do you know I was
Speaker 1: madly in love with Chris Blackwell. I'm not I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: I never told you that I actually slept in his
Speaker 1: bed in the House of Mary and the House of
Speaker 1: Bob Marley down in Jamaica. But I loved him. He
Speaker 1: was one of the most most creative men I've ever
Speaker 1: met and nicest to Chris Blackwell when I knew him
Speaker 1: really well, he was living in Jamaica most of the time.
Speaker 1: And uh, but what a handsome, elegant man. But you
Speaker 1: had those are very fantastic men to have as mentors,
Speaker 1: really really fabulous and and Johnny Peggotti actually took me
Speaker 1: on Stealth, which was the racing yacht of Mr an
Speaker 1: Yelli with Mr an Yelli, and he let me steer
Speaker 1: that boat. Remember, and you have a picture of me
Speaker 1: yes in Corsica, and I want that picture desperately, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to known that loan that picture to
Speaker 1: me for for my doctor, my documentary. Johnny, I'm coming
Speaker 1: after you for some photos. But but what what incredib
Speaker 1: what incredible mentor? And a toris so Sace your architect,
Speaker 1: tell us about your relationship with him, because your whole,
Speaker 1: your whole sort of esthetic centered around a modern Italian
Speaker 1: idiom that was so different from anybody else's. Even your boot,
Speaker 1: your big freighter turned into a stas creation with Johnny
Speaker 1: Peggotti touches everywhere. So I was very lucky. I bought
Speaker 1: this big apartment in New York, and I had an
Speaker 1: American architect and I was not really happy with him.
Speaker 1: It was very traditional and not not interesting. So I
Speaker 1: had a friend in California was from Max Peleski, who
Speaker 1: was a high tech guy, very interesting, and he said,
Speaker 1: why don't you ask actor Sutas said, he's never Gonna.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't even know who he is. So
Speaker 1: in those days there was no internet. So I went
Speaker 1: to the reach Solid bookstore, you remember the Resultive and
Speaker 1: I bought three books on subcess and I said, I
Speaker 1: love this guy. So I called that Troy up and that.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'll come and see you next week
Speaker 1: in New York. Okay. So he came and immediately we
Speaker 1: became friends. And he looked at you. I had a
Speaker 1: coat on, and he said, you like your coat. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like my coat. He said, would you be wearing
Speaker 1: the same coat in two years time? I said, be up?
Speaker 1: He said, well wrong. What you should do is when
Speaker 1: you have a house, every two or for years, you
Speaker 1: should change everything in your house. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: well that's interesting. So any case, we started doing by
Speaker 1: in partular New York, and I loved it. Is that
Speaker 1: the one in the Cafe dres Ar Chiefs building at
Speaker 1: the Big Triplex. And Johnny has one of the most beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful villas in the south of France. Um, if you
Speaker 1: think you've seen it all when you go to the
Speaker 1: Hotel de cap well you haven't seen anything until you
Speaker 1: visit Johnny at Villa Doraine, his gorgeous ancestral home in
Speaker 1: the south of France and so beautiful. So what have
Speaker 1: you been up to lately? I haven't. I have not
Speaker 1: visited you or been with you, except for your be
Speaker 1: in New York, which was very interesting. I se you
Speaker 1: for several years. Yeah, so you know, an exhibit at
Speaker 1: a moment, it just it just like rolls off his tongue.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely no accomplishment whatsoever. A very extensive exhibit. What
Speaker 1: don't you tell us about that exhibit, Johnny, because I
Speaker 1: was surprised at it. I have been collecting contemporary Africa
Speaker 1: not for the last thirty two of the three years,
Speaker 1: and I think I have the largest and I hope
Speaker 1: the best collection of contemporary African nut in the world.
Speaker 1: And we had many many shows at the Google Hummet Bilbao,
Speaker 1: at the Fontaction, we to in Paris, in many many places. Okay,
Speaker 1: and about three years ago I was approached by the
Speaker 1: Moment and they said, will you give us something? I said, okay,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting museum and we I gave them forty
Speaker 1: five pieces, which is by enough, but the biggest number
Speaker 1: they've never got nothing value because obviously give them a Picasso.
Speaker 1: That's we're fifteen million dollars of Mark. But I started
Speaker 1: the African collection, and two years ago we had a
Speaker 1: show with a very great artist from Zai from Congo
Speaker 1: that's called Bodisquins who makes these crazy cities. And now
Speaker 1: we just have I showed it on until us in
Speaker 1: mid August of a fabulous artist from Ivory Coast, it's
Speaker 1: called brule Bare who there's this wonderful little who did
Speaker 1: it passed away? Said, who does his wonderful little drawings
Speaker 1: of everything in the world? That because he there's a
Speaker 1: language is called by which is not a written language.
Speaker 1: So one day he got a message from God and
Speaker 1: he said, you have to do a drawing for everything.
Speaker 1: So the dog, the poodle, the woman, the boat, the airplane.
Speaker 1: He did that drawing for everything. So I gave this
Speaker 1: I think it's seventeen hundred dollars seven seven hundred drawings
Speaker 1: that I gave them all to the moment, and that's
Speaker 1: what they're showing now. And I think you saw the
Speaker 1: show and it's it's from Mark. But he was like
Speaker 1: a he's remarkable. It is remarkable, and and the detail
Speaker 1: of these little tiny drawings, and you explained to me
Speaker 1: that the drawings are all the same size, and they
Speaker 1: were all painted on the reverse side of a shampoo
Speaker 1: bottle label exactly because he was a very modest man
Speaker 1: and he lived next to a lady's head dresser, and
Speaker 1: the head dresser would throw away the boxes and he
Speaker 1: the inside of the box was not printed, so they
Speaker 1: are about the size of a postcard. So he started
Speaker 1: using these things and with pencils like children's pencil but
Speaker 1: he started doing these fantastic drawings with words around them.
Speaker 1: And that's that's indate thousands and thousands of them on
Speaker 1: these wonderful and it says, you know, this shampoo is
Speaker 1: a special shampoo for black ladies. Straightened up your hair
Speaker 1: in the reverse. But they were all beautifully framed in
Speaker 1: Chinese little frames, and they're all lined up very precisely
Speaker 1: on the walls of moment and uh, and you had
Speaker 1: quite a crowd did that exhibit. Very famous artists came.
Speaker 1: Tell us about some of the guests, or you have
Speaker 1: so many friends everywhere. I'm just astonished all the time
Speaker 1: the the incredibly interesting and diverse friends that you have.
Speaker 1: So who was there that night? One of the very
Speaker 1: interesting person was married to Catalan, who was a famous
Speaker 1: Italian they like a kind of surrealist man. He's a
Speaker 1: great he's a friend of mine and he does really like.
Speaker 1: One of the pieces I owned by him is that
Speaker 1: giant supermarket cart which is like four times the size
Speaker 1: of her and it's called five Items or Less, and
Speaker 1: I have it in my house in Los Angeles. Giant.
Speaker 1: He said you should go to the the supermarket and use it.
Speaker 1: But he does very very interesting strangers. So he was there,
Speaker 1: and then there was my friend and Duan was a
Speaker 1: fabulous painter who was the used to be married to
Speaker 1: Julian Schnabel, right Schnabel, and she never went to art
Speaker 1: school and she has become an incredible, very very successful painter,
Speaker 1: which is which is amazing, and she does very well.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people can. All my friends came
Speaker 1: and I tell you why they all came because the
Speaker 1: first time we did an opening, uh, the invitation came
Speaker 1: from the museum mo or not. So people said, I
Speaker 1: one more invitation for the mother. So the second time
Speaker 1: I sent it on my email and then people came. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now I understood something. When you invite people have
Speaker 1: to put your own name and not the name of
Speaker 1: an institutional and that's that's for sure, even even if
Speaker 1: it's the Museum of Modern Art. Yeah, people, one one
Speaker 1: more opening, you know, or one more one more fundraiser,
Speaker 1: one more fundraiser, yeah panic, you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to give my money, so now and can sit the
Speaker 1: famous for the film festival. I am doing a preview
Speaker 1: for the museum that I'm building in can We're going
Speaker 1: to do with the mayor and I think the Minister
Speaker 1: of Culture and France. We're going to inaugurate the new
Speaker 1: museum that I'm building in Khan from my African collection.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting. It's um it's a it's a
Speaker 1: church with two buildings next to it. And it was
Speaker 1: a Russian church, and but I went there on Sunday.
Speaker 1: They had two or three people there. All the Russians,
Speaker 1: I guess are gone or they don't go to church.
Speaker 1: So with something that I didn't know in France, the
Speaker 1: churches are owned by the government and not by the church. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when the mayor of con said let's do a museum,
Speaker 1: I said where So he said the first one, he said,
Speaker 1: he gave me a glass factory. And the problem it
Speaker 1: was in a difficult but then he said, what about
Speaker 1: the Church's okay, let's go see it. And I really
Speaker 1: like the church, but I said, it's the church. He said, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to give a different We have another church
Speaker 1: we can give to the Russian community. So they gave
Speaker 1: me the church with two little buildings and it's really
Speaker 1: it's about six thousand square feet and it's very charming.
Speaker 1: Was built in or something like that. So when next
Speaker 1: time you come, I will show you the church. I
Speaker 1: can't wait. And so you have to you have to
Speaker 1: construct walls within the church because there's no walls church. Oh,
Speaker 1: and I think you The interesting thing is because it's
Speaker 1: owned by the government, we are going to have to
Speaker 1: have a competition, open competition for any architect in the world.
Speaker 1: So you know, like when they built Bauboo in Paris,
Speaker 1: you know, Renzo Piano arrived, nobody knew who this young
Speaker 1: guy was, okay, and this amazing vineg So we're going
Speaker 1: to have a competition. Perhaps you're going to find the
Speaker 1: next uh, you know, the next Frank Lot right or
Speaker 1: the next genius to do this. Oh, that is very exciting.
Speaker 1: And when do you think you'll start construction or or
Speaker 1: at least start the contest. The contest should sometimes in
Speaker 1: the fall. They are already all the papers already, so
Speaker 1: sometime in the fall, and I will be one of
Speaker 1: the members of the jury. So it's very exciting. And
Speaker 1: so about you know, less than a year we know
Speaker 1: the who the architect will be. Yes, what what's it?
Speaker 1: What's it going to be called? It's gonna be called
Speaker 1: music p GTZI. How great? Well, I want to come
Speaker 1: to the opening. Okay, well that's what that's that. I
Speaker 1: can't give you a day to put the New Canada,
Speaker 1: but it would mean about wow, how fantastic yea? And
Speaker 1: what about you here? You are seventy years old. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get into your birthday zoom call, by the way,
Speaker 1: and I'm still fretting about that, because you had too
Speaker 1: many friends and by the time I tried to zoom in,
Speaker 1: it was closed to your friends. So so at seventy
Speaker 1: years old, here's Johnny Pegozzi, one of the most attractive
Speaker 1: men in the whole world for his entire life, and
Speaker 1: he is unmarried, childless that we don't I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: you have children that we don't know about. Do you
Speaker 1: have any children that we don't know about you, don't
Speaker 1: I've dread every year Father's Day. I think somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: come and ring my dog back and say, Hi, this
Speaker 1: is Stephanie. I'm your thought. I'm thirty five years old though, Hi,
Speaker 1: Georgia night. Well up to now it hasn't happened. But
Speaker 1: I think I do not regret being married. Okay, because
Speaker 1: if you look, you and I can look at Let's
Speaker 1: say eight of the people around us are divorced. Oh,
Speaker 1: they live horrible marriages, that they hate each other. Okay,
Speaker 1: is that true? Yes, yes, that's true. Okay, So then
Speaker 1: I do miss not having children. But on the other side,
Speaker 1: as her, friends of mine who have children were so difficult,
Speaker 1: so difficult, they're screwed up. They do nothing. On the
Speaker 1: other side, I have friends who have great children. So
Speaker 1: I might have been lucky and having good I don't know.
Speaker 1: But also have zero patients. You know, when my parents
Speaker 1: chose me, they said, he has to be tall, he
Speaker 1: has to be a good swimmer, he doesn't have to cook,
Speaker 1: he has to be a good driver. But they forgot
Speaker 1: to put across the patients. I have no patient for
Speaker 1: So to be good parents parents, you have to be
Speaker 1: you have to have you have to have patience and
Speaker 1: that I'm not man zero. So who are you still
Speaker 1: dying to take a selfie with? Is there any who
Speaker 1: are the Who are five people you have not been
Speaker 1: able to get a picture with. I don't think I
Speaker 1: have a picture of Elon with Elon Mosque and I
Speaker 1: had dinner Vilon Mosque three years ago and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day I said, Elon, you didn't really
Speaker 1: listen to me, said no, Johnny, I'm sorry. Um, I
Speaker 1: was inventing and I resolved the problem, had to make
Speaker 1: flying cars, okay, So that's when I would like I
Speaker 1: like it. You know, basically, I don't know. There's people
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I don't even know who they are.
Speaker 1: I'm most impressed not my movie stars and on that
Speaker 1: that doesn't you know not. I'm most interested by incredible scientists,
Speaker 1: like people who you know, who could have the next
Speaker 1: you know, a cure for cancer. Uh even somebody who
Speaker 1: can invent an injection so you won't have a cold anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, that would be right, you know, you just
Speaker 1: take a pill and your poll goes away. I'm most interested,
Speaker 1: now bye, by scientists who who can resolve big problems
Speaker 1: that those are the people and most of it. But
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sadly it's not really world I know anything about,
Speaker 1: but i'd like to those are the people are most impressed.
Speaker 1: But but if you say you know the next supermodel,
Speaker 1: and you know I'm not that. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: that intreat So the scientists, are you interested in longevity?
Speaker 1: I mean you are? We know that you're seventy years
Speaker 1: old going on seventy one, yes, huh, when you're when
Speaker 1: your birthday I forgot in January? In January? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, sad enough, when you're old, you discover how
Speaker 1: many paths can go wrong in your body. Okay, It's
Speaker 1: like in a car, you know, they say the break
Speaker 1: the mufflet to this, and you say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're fifties, so well, you know, my elbow hurts
Speaker 1: a little bit. But when you're old, it's your elbow,
Speaker 1: it's your back, it's your liver, it's it's your eyes,
Speaker 1: and there's so many things that you know. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was young with my friends, we used to
Speaker 1: talk about girls and hedge funds. Okay, now when I
Speaker 1: meet people in my agent, who's your hot doctor? How
Speaker 1: many pills are you taking? You know, I mean it's
Speaker 1: completely different investing. Okay, but you're looking good, You're looking good.
Speaker 1: Health you look, you look, you look robust. I look okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I look okay. But when I go to the doctors,
Speaker 1: so your heart is going to fast, your liver? Is
Speaker 1: this your I don't know what I think this pilitic
Speaker 1: that pill and you know, you know, I feel okay.
Speaker 1: I just swim now for an hour at full speed.
Speaker 1: But who knows, you know, I don't know. So I
Speaker 1: think you're I think you're doing just fine. And what
Speaker 1: about what about hedge funds? What? What have you? What
Speaker 1: are you investing in these days? Because you've always been
Speaker 1: sort of at the forefront of technology, uh, interested in
Speaker 1: uh And as you say science, did you invest in
Speaker 1: Tesla early on? No? I did not, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you a very embarrassing story about
Speaker 1: thirty years ago. I was at this high tech conference
Speaker 1: in a small room. There must have been fifteen people
Speaker 1: in the room, and there was this guy. He said
Speaker 1: it was a public company, by the way, And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: I drove with my wife and my two dogs from
Speaker 1: New York to Seattle, and we started this company that
Speaker 1: sells books, okay, and the adventure we sell some other things.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting on the last one said as
Speaker 1: this guy knows about bunds and nobles, as you heard
Speaker 1: of dumb bunds and noble. So then I became friends,
Speaker 1: uh with Jeff Jesus and Jeff, I feel terrible. It
Speaker 1: was a public company. It was a tent that stopped
Speaker 1: and moved at ten. You could buy as many shares
Speaker 1: as you want, and I said, I feel He said, Johnny,
Speaker 1: let me tell you a story. When I started Amazon,
Speaker 1: I needed money, so I sold a quarter of Amazon
Speaker 1: for a million dollars to my dent, to my uncle,
Speaker 1: to my friend who had a bit of Okay, you
Speaker 1: want to know something, None of made any money when
Speaker 1: the stock went from ten to fifteen. They all sold
Speaker 1: Now will be worth like six hundred billion dollars, okay,
Speaker 1: So don't feel so any case. I invest a lot
Speaker 1: with new high tech companies, and then you know what
Speaker 1: I find fascinated. I speak to kids who are between
Speaker 1: the age of twenty five and thirty five, okay, and
Speaker 1: they say, we can cure cancer, we can feed Africa,
Speaker 1: We have a way of doing this new blood analyzer.
Speaker 1: We can do this. And I make a lot of investments,
Speaker 1: and some of them I do. I've been to many
Speaker 1: many high tech funerals. Okay, I look at this baseball
Speaker 1: cap cost me two hundred dollars. This T shirt cost
Speaker 1: me a hundred. But sometimes you know, I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to invest in Facebook. Well, and now my most
Speaker 1: interesting I have two very interesting one or two many more.
Speaker 1: But one of them is called Goodible, which I invested
Speaker 1: last year. And this is a guy who is called
Speaker 1: Mohammed Lillah. He was a war report at CNN, so
Speaker 1: he reported on people getting murdered, building exploding, another and
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, I'm going to start the
Speaker 1: channel that only has good news. Okay, And he's done it,
Speaker 1: and he's doing quite well. It's called Goodiball. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting thing. What's he writing about nowadays?
Speaker 1: I I don't see too much good good news in
Speaker 1: the newspapers that I read every day, exactly, but there
Speaker 1: is hidden So he has a very interesting AI system
Speaker 1: that looks at thousands of news feeds, and out of
Speaker 1: the fousands every day, you find let's say some women
Speaker 1: started at school for young women in Iran. Uh. This
Speaker 1: guy there was a fire. This fireman went in and
Speaker 1: save five dogs. Uh. There's always there's always somewhere in
Speaker 1: this horrible disaster. Uh. This kid had cancer and he survived.
Speaker 1: There's always some good news, you know. So I feel that,
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps of the people around the world don't
Speaker 1: want to hear about horrible things. Anybody want to hear
Speaker 1: about uplifting good thing, people doing good things. So that's
Speaker 1: the idea of this, of this program. So that that's
Speaker 1: one thing. The other one I invested at this about
Speaker 1: four years ago. It's a company that's called Diamond Foundry
Speaker 1: and they make diamonds. So they make man made diamonds, okay,
Speaker 1: and it has been it's a big successful you know,
Speaker 1: rings and all that. So that has been a big success.
Speaker 1: So that's another one that I have. And then I'm
Speaker 1: always looking at you know, always looking at new companies.
Speaker 1: And I love talking to these young entrepreneurs. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not I can see negative things about everything, but
Speaker 1: these young people who in the twenties, they don't see
Speaker 1: anything negative about anything they which is really fun. So
Speaker 1: that keeps me young and interested. So that's one of
Speaker 1: those you know that. Another one is you know, the
Speaker 1: EpiPen when you get bitten by So these guys invented
Speaker 1: and it's much much easier and much much cheaper to
Speaker 1: make it. Just it's around thing you just press one,
Speaker 1: but a much easier to deliver the thing. Another one
Speaker 1: which you would like is the thing you use your
Speaker 1: iPhone and you take a picture of what you're eating
Speaker 1: and it tells exactly how many calories it is. That's good,
Speaker 1: it's good enough. So they took thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: photographs of different food from Chinese food to salad to steak,
Speaker 1: to this and that and then and and then they
Speaker 1: have this system. Okay, so and and because it's it
Speaker 1: has machine learning, the more data it is, the better
Speaker 1: it gets. Okay, So that's kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Those are some of the companies I'm interested in. So
Speaker 1: here's a curious man. Has curiosity played the biggest part
Speaker 1: of your in your life? Of all of all senses.
Speaker 1: There's two things that kept me going. When it's creativity, okay,
Speaker 1: in anything it could be from taking a photograph to
Speaker 1: redoing a house to doing I don't know, something different
Speaker 1: to being curious every day when I go to bed.
Speaker 1: I said, what did I learn today? And there's Saturn days.
Speaker 1: I learned nothing, and I feel terrible. I said, this
Speaker 1: was a stupid wasted day. But today I learned about
Speaker 1: you know, how whales communicate to each other or how whatever. Okay,
Speaker 1: that for me is the most interesting thing that that
Speaker 1: you can do. That's what keeps you going. If you're
Speaker 1: not curious, you better close down, you can close. I
Speaker 1: know you're immensely curious, and it's the most important to
Speaker 1: be curious. I have a motto. I was going to
Speaker 1: say that learns learn something new every day. I completely agree.
Speaker 1: You know what I find strange You meet young people
Speaker 1: in the thirties. They are like on the train, they
Speaker 1: go to the office, they come all but they're not
Speaker 1: curious about anything. It's so terrible. And then you meet
Speaker 1: people in ninety years old who are learning a new language,
Speaker 1: who are learning a new science, who are reading incredible
Speaker 1: books and all that, and their mind is much more
Speaker 1: agile and interesting that some young deep squeaks who have
Speaker 1: you know, gave up. I completely agree with you, completely agree.
Speaker 1: And it can be how to bake a new thing,
Speaker 1: a new kind of vegetables, uh, something of how birds
Speaker 1: talk to each other, actually, how to drive a motorcycle, whatever, Okay,
Speaker 1: but it's all every day. There's something to learn, and
Speaker 1: I find it really interesting, really important. So I have
Speaker 1: some questions. I just want quick answers to before we
Speaker 1: close this very very interesting talk. Um. Which city do
Speaker 1: you enjoy living in the most in the world. Well,
Speaker 1: for years and years it was New York, and now
Speaker 1: I find New York the noise and the activity. I
Speaker 1: was in New York two weeks ago. I don't want
Speaker 1: to live in New York anymore. But that didn't answer
Speaker 1: my question. Which city do you find do I find interesting?
Speaker 1: I find the center is kind of interesting because even
Speaker 1: if it's very widespread, its people doing very interesting things.
Speaker 1: The wet is terrific and interesting people. So now it's
Speaker 1: I'm interested a better centers. So where are you the
Speaker 1: most comfortable in any of your houses? Which house are
Speaker 1: you most comfortable in? Well, in my house here in
Speaker 1: the south of France, because I love swimming and I
Speaker 1: have a big forest and I have a big comfortable
Speaker 1: house of the house in France. Yes, Of all art
Speaker 1: forms that you have been exposed to, which is your favorite?
Speaker 1: When my favorite is the most complicated one is movies,
Speaker 1: because I think making movies has to be the most
Speaker 1: complicated art form have ever made in the world, have invented.
Speaker 1: And your favorite movi V of all time, you know,
Speaker 1: like everybod needed, like everybody. Citizen Kane. When you think
Speaker 1: when it when it was done by this young man,
Speaker 1: it's incredible, Citizen Kane. And your favorite piece of art
Speaker 1: that you have ever bought. Well, I discovered this photographer
Speaker 1: that's called Suketa who was a potent photographer Maley in
Speaker 1: the sixties and and he's been an incredible revelation. And
Speaker 1: the amazing thing he would only take one picture. You
Speaker 1: know now photographers take a hundred pittures. He would think one.
Speaker 1: He was very, very cheap, so he would take one picture.
Speaker 1: That's it. And those are those those large photographs of
Speaker 1: like couples or person that you have in your home. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love the fabulas. We're going to have a show
Speaker 1: next year at the Brooklyn Museum, so good. I certainly will.
Speaker 1: And the most beautiful woman you have ever seen, I
Speaker 1: think it's in a movie, Sophia Lauren when she was
Speaker 1: two years old. Incredible. She was also actress and funny.
Speaker 1: I I probably saw the same movies you saw. And
Speaker 1: I always thought when I looked at Sophia A. Wren
Speaker 1: that Martha, you will never grow up to be anything
Speaker 1: like Sophia Loren. How could any woman ever equals Sophia Alan?
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny? I always used her as that example.
Speaker 1: And uh, what's the best piece of advice you've ever
Speaker 1: been given? Well? Would I talk you before that armada?
Speaker 1: Those three things? And talking about that you have a
Speaker 1: girlfriend right now that I don't know about. Uh No,
Speaker 1: I don't well on that sad note, because you should
Speaker 1: always have a girlfriend. Thank you so much, Johnny. It's
Speaker 1: all I love talking to you, and you always reveal
Speaker 1: something new about yourself that I hadn't heard before. And
Speaker 1: uh and it's just a pleasure to talk to you
Speaker 1: and have have a nice few weeks in the south
Speaker 1: of France. Enjoy yourself.