At 75, celebrity agent and confessed philanderer Harry M. Miller looks back on the women he has loved.
"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it", Oscar Wilder, .
Standing by her man ... Harry M Miller and Simmone Logue.
Oscar Wilde captured a sentiment dear to my own heart, I'm afraid to say.
My weaknesses have always been women and sweet things like cakes and chocolate. These days, I struggle more with the latter, although that hasn't always been the case. When it came to sleeping with women, I often found myself in two minds - yes or yes. Did I oblige on occasions? Yes but only when pressed. Did I hurt a lot of people? Yes. Do I continue making the same mistakes? Yes.
I'm not one to hold back by nature when it comes to sex, business or anything. I do know my infidelities hurt some people but I am what I am and, try as I might on occasion, very little changes. Perhaps it's a constant craving for pampering. I'm not sure. It's still very much an unresolved part of my life and, though a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, a man of my age can perhaps get away with revealing a little.
ZOE VON UHT
The First Mrs Miller
Zoe and I were a relationship of opposites. She was Protestant and I was Jewish. Her childhood had been relatively easy compared to the harsh one I knew. Her interests were limited but cultivated, whereas mine were from the gut and all over the place. What we shared was a zest to succeed and broaden ourselves. She opened what would become one of Auckland's first boutiques. She was Wendy to my Peter Pan. Naturally, I took the reins of promotion and marketing, plastering the windows in paper and scrawling countdown teasers for passers-by. Zoe's clever designs - a safari look with interchangeable pieces - were a virtual sell-out and the orders came rushing in. But our success was short-lived. Zoe's father - who was estranged from her mother - was not a fan of our business or our romance and the fact I was Jewish did not help one bit. His antagonism towards us killed the business but not our resolve to tie the knot. Two days after her first marriage officially ended, Zoe and I married, on December 14, 1957. Our one and only child, Simon, was born a year later and, with him in mind, Zoe - who now lives in country NSW - keeps in touch and we remain on very good terms.
PATRICIA MITCHELL
The Second Mrs Miller
During a business trip to the US in 1962, I was invited to Mickey Rooney's Thanksgiving party in his New York apartment. It was there I spotted and later spoke to a lively and beautiful girl called Patricia Mitchell.
She was a real firecracker. We hit it off, one thing more or less led to another and before we knew it we were engaged.
But the thing is, I never felt quite right about Trish in the way I did about Zoe, or later most certainly did about Wendy or Deborah Hutton or Simmone Logue.
Even when I went to America to marry her I remember standing at the top step of the plane and looking down at the gate where she was waiting, thinking, "I just shouldn't be doing this."
I was certainly right about that. Trish was a spoilt brat - a very self-centred, non-giving person: always on the take and volatile if things didn't go her way. Everything had to be this instant. If my office phone rang at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, my stomach would instantly go into a knot, because I knew it would be Trish wanting to know - demanding to know - when I would be home. In the end, I worked even harder than I needed to, to avoid going home.
When it all came to an end, she took everything. I remember coming back from a trip and standing in our empty house. I think the kitchen sink was still there but very little else.
SHIRLEY BASSEY
Shirley Bassey was a wonderful girl - a great talent I toured many times to Australia and New Zealand but also a great friend and a joy to be with, in any social capacity.
Shirley often toured with a "manager/boyfriend" but on one tour she was romantically free as a bird. Once late in the evening at a Wellington motel I got a call from Shirley complaining about a moth in her room.
"Harry, I hate moths, just hate them," she said. "You must come and kill it - if you don't, I just won't get any rest."
Being the valiant man I was, and remain, I headed to Shirley's room. After much jumping around and laughter from Shirley (who, I noticed, was wearing very little), I killed the bloody moth. Almost an hour later, the moth wasn't the only spent creature in the room.
The next morning, Shirley and I awoke to bright daylight and the motel staff peering through the window.
"Harry, get the curtain," Shirley said matter-of-factly, referring to the curtains I had opened in my mad pursuit of the moth.
WENDY LAPOINTE
The Third Mrs Miller
In 1971, there were three significant events in my life: my mother, Sadie, passed away; I purchased a property called Dunmore at Manilla, a town near Tamworth in NSW; and I met and fell in love with a beautiful young woman by the name of Wendy Paul.
Sadie's death was a strange experience for me - I can't say I was saddened by it, because I didn't like the woman. It was impossible to please her and she showed no pride in anything I had achieved at that point. If anything, she had more reason to complain, from me adding the initial M to my name ("Isn't the name I gave you good enough?" she'd say) to my decision to leave New Zealand ("Ashamed of your homeland, are you?").
Nevertheless, her death was a symbolic closure to what had always been a sad and somewhat miserable part of my life. I was 37 years old and ready for change.
Wendy Paul was 23 and had just graduated from Sydney University Veterinary School. We met at a riding school - I distinctly remember looking up and seeing this beautiful woman riding towards me on a big black horse. Living with me cannot have been easy. I played around. My ego was also out of control. In those years I was flying higher than I had before or have since.
When the fall came with Computicket and the subsequent prison sentence, no one did it tougher than Wendy. Yes, I did it tough - really tough - in prison but think about what Wendy had to do: she was raising our two very young daughters, Brook and Lauren; she was running a cattle property in Dunmore which was making great inroads in artificial insemination and cross-breeding; and she was running the Harry M. Miller Group. Talk about standing by your man.
The 15 years I spent with Wendy were incredible - full of unbelievable highs and unconscionable lows. We remain not only the proud parents of Brook and Lauren, but good friends. I am lucky that is the case.
JILL HICKSON
One of the many theories as to why I ended up in prison longer than I deserved was that the-then NSW premier, Neville Wran, used his powers in an act of revenge for my alleged affair with his wife, the one-time publicist turned literary agent Jill Hickson.
I have no doubt members of Wran's Labor government had it in for me, mainly because of my close ties to the monarchy and for attending barbecues on the conservative side but Neville Wran wasn't that sort of guy. His only failing was allowing some of the grubbier elements of his party to take positions in his ministry.
The Harry Miller-Jill Hickson story had a life of its own in the 1980s and, even today, there are people who swear blind it was the root cause of my undoing.
I never had an affair with Jill Hickson. Now that's not to say I didn't fancy her or never made a pass at her. I did. It just never went beyond that. In some ways, I think the reason it never happened was that she didn't think I was good enough for her. I was, after all, more closely associated with the National Party than the bourgeois Left. When I was the MC at the David Jones Fashion Awards in 1976 I raised the subject with the premier, who was sitting at my table.
"I can't believe the stories I'm hearing about me sleeping with your wife ... because I certainly can't recall sleeping with her and I doubt she can with me."
It was an icebreaker, of sorts. But only of sorts. I don't think Nifty was too crazy about me or my attempt to skittle the rumours but, as I said, he wasn't the type who'd corruptly twist the law to send me inside.
DEBORAH HUTTON
When I first met Deborah I recall being struck by her beauty and her potential.
As Deborah liked to remind me for many years, when she turned up for her first appointment with me, I wasn't there. Totally forgot about it. It's something that I don't normally do and, in Deborah's case, I don't think I've missed a meeting with her since. It took me so long to live down that initial indiscretion.
Very quickly, the Harry M. Miller Group helped Deborah realise that potential - expanding it far beyond the Grace Bros spokeswoman role. She proved to be a big hit in the corporate world.
Now I can't recall when we started to see each other romantically. I was definitely interested in her - apart from her unbelievably good looks, she was bright and very funny.
As our relationship grew, I knew there were people in Deb's ear telling her she was mad to get involved with me. There was the age difference of 28 years - which never bothered me and if it did bother Deb, she never gave me the impression it was a big issue. Then, of course, there were those who had preconceived ideas of my character, courtesy of Computicket and my conviction on fraud charges. It would take a bit of time for me to prove I wasn't some evil svengali.
Both from a business and personal point of view, Deborah was a breath of fresh air. All of my kids loved her and she would often berate me for being hard on them. I think she really triggered the softening of Harry M. Miller. I would joke that I had become Deborah Hutton's handbag - admittedly, a Louis Vuitton handbag - but she walked into a relationship with a man who brought with him a shitload of baggage.
Eventually, the romantic side of our relationship died down but Deborah and I had 11 wonderful years together. The fact that she never properly lived with me is a reason, she thinks, we lasted so long. I think she's right.
She would challenge me when the ego was getting out of control; she could always make me accountable for my actions.
SIMMONE LOGUE
Simmone Logue is just one of those beautiful people - very loyal, nurturing and kind. I should also throw "patient" into that mix. I first met Simmone about 10 years ago and when we started seeing each other, I thought she was simply too good to be true and immediately suspected an ulterior, gold-digging motive. I could not have been more wrong. I behaved terribly towards her and did nothing to conceal the fact that she was part of a seven-woman roster I was keeping at the time. Often Simmone would leave my apartment in tears.
If there's one thing that continually aggravates Simmone, other than my occasional lapses into philandering, it's that her business success is assumed to have everything to do with me. It doesn't. Simmone's catering and food-production business was around long before I came on the scene and the success she has achieved comes down to her passion for good food, her vision and her drive.
My wandering eye is something I have struggled to control all my adult life and even now I'm 75 it causes plenty of heartache for those who are close to me, none more so than Simmone.
In the last few years, the dynamic in our relationship has really shifted. I have no doubt who wears the trousers in this relationship - and it certainly ain't the silver-haired gent with poor hearing and a weakness for sticky date pudding and other women. What I love about Simmone is she won't let me get away with anything - she's on my case about my roguish behaviour; she's on my case about being nicer to people, especially my kids; and she's on my case about keeping fit, watching my health and living longer. Living longer is the least I could do for her.