George Hamilton’s Rules for Timeless Style
So riveting was my chat last week with George Hamilton and his tailor, Paolo Martorano, that I decided to continue my conversation with the actor in a second installment this week. Despite the gray sky and steady drizzle falling outside the windows of my New England home, Hamilton’s sunny demeanor had me feeling more like I was in Palm Beach, cool drink in hand and clad in a coral linen ensemble. And almost two hours later, it was apparent why he has earned the icon status he enjoys.
Hamilton is, by all standards, larger than life: a charming gentleman and a style legend who epitomizes Hollywood at its most glamorous. Generously candid, his humor is rivaled only by his sincerity. Amid stories from his childhood, of his A-list costars and insights he’s gleaned throughout his life, Hamilton offers a masterclass in true masculinity, with a sharply attuned acuity for what women want and a practiced understanding of what makes a gentleman—with or without a bespoke tailor at one’s service.
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“A man should look confident and capable, and those two things reside between the waist and the shoulder. Because if the waist is nipped in a little, it means he’s in good shape. If the shoulder is robust, he can handle the problem.”
George Hamilton
The Language of Suiting
The question is an all too common one: how does one define “gentleman?” It’s an elusive proposition and fodder for countless think pieces, none of which can rival Hamilton’s estimation: “I think a man should always look as though he’s able to handle the problem, if need be,” he says, though his mind can’t resist turning to tailoring.
“A man should look confident and capable, and those two things reside between the waist and the shoulder. Because if the waist is nipped in a little, it means he’s in good shape. If the shoulder is robust, he can handle the problem,” says Hamilton
We joke about the scourge of skinny suits and discuss the value of a good tailor, though he was adamant that a man does not need a bespoke bank account to pull off bespoke style, suggesting that young men look to the prep aesthetic and pair a smart made-to-measure sport coat with a gray flannel trouser. “It makes a young man look incredibly well dressed and without too much study.” It’s the prerogative of an older man, too, he says to keep yourself looking good. “When you finally get your head together, your ass is falling apart,” he says with a warm laugh.
No matter the age, he insists the principles of good dressing remain the same. In addition to proper jacket proportions, pants should serve to elongate the leg and be complemented by well made shoes. “What is it you’re selling? You’re selling you,” he says. “Not the suit. Not the shoes. Not the socks. A great tailor doesn’t make you look like you’re wearing a costume. It blends into you, it makes you look great. That’s the whole trick. They have to subordinate their ego a little bit to make you look better. But when they do it right, it makes everyone want to look like that. And then the tailor becomes the one who’s the architect.”
“When you finally get your head together, your ass is falling apart.”
-George Hamilton
Well Groomed
Grooming is also paramount, a show of respect for yourself and the people around you. The cologne Hamilton wears is one he’s spent sixty years getting just right. From taxi drivers to female companions, everyone is completely intrigued by it—and its name is the one thing in our conversation he demurs on. According to Hamilton, a man’s grooming routine should fit in a dopp kit and tend toward restraint. “Whether it be a manicure, a pedicure, or the right haircut, it must be simple and to the point,” he says. “We’re meant to be out killing dragons while the woman’s getting ready. But it doesn’t mean that it needn’t be sophisticated.”
Therein lies the other critical element of the equation: a lack of pretense and fuss which does not forsake sophistication. “If you’re too fastidious to a point where you don’t have the human quality, [your outfit] becomes something you look at rather than participate in or with,” he says. “You have to be able to break the rules but at the same time you have to understand what they are before you do so—and how to break them with a sense of humor to it. Because in the end, all of this is just, it’s window dressing, but it’s indicative of who you are.”
He credits his mother with much of his style instinct and one story in particular illustrates the precarious balance of intentional elegance and ease. “I remember the first time I was going out to dinner at a debutante thing in New York, and I got all dressed up. I stood at the door and she said, “What are you doing? You’re standing there like you’re a waiter.” You should get on the floor and play with the dog, with your tuxedo, with your dinner clothes.” So I got on and played with the dog. When I got up, she said, ‘Now, that’s the way you should stand. That’s the way you go.” I never forgot that.”
Manners Maketh the Man
It’s not just Hamilton’s style sense that hinges on balance. “Men can’t give up kindness to be strong,” he says. “Strength without kindness or kindness without strength—it won’t work. There’s a balance to it.”
Again, he attributes his upbringing for these values. “I was raised in an era that had manners, and those manners were the lubricant for all problems,” he says. “If you live long enough and you travel enough, and if you churn in the right company, civility is the ability to keep everything oiled and proper so that you don’t bump up against things.”
For Hamilton, manners are defined by what all people you encounter have to say about you once you’ve left their company: the compliments you pay people when you have nothing to gain, nothing transactional to incentivize you. “The way you treat people that the world might not deem important? That denotes or connotes who a person really is.”
Hamilton also says humor is imperative. “I don’t take myself seriously, or any of it seriously. And most people do,” he says. “But life is over so fast – and it’s hard to have a sense of humor, but if you have that, it saves you. It’s the shock absorber for everything.”
And critically, despite a man’s station in life, humility is a defining mark of character. Put simply: no one likes a show off. “You don’t have to flaunt it,” he emphasizes. “We all have to learn the basic rules of life and you don’t have to go around explaining to everyone that you know and you are better. I don’t think that’s attractive for a man or a woman really.
But I think a woman appreciates a kind of quiet confidence.”
What Women Want
Those glints of humanity, of fallibility, are imperative when it comes to romance and seduction. “You have to have a human touch to it all, I think. Not always being perfect, it’s sometimes the imperfect that makes it a human quality that makes it. And sometimes, you can’t display it, you have to betray it,” Hamilton says.
Just ask Elizabeth Taylor.
When Taylor was playing Cleopatra, Hamilton says, they were in England shooting. The weather was horrible and the studio had already sunk millions of dollars into the production. Finally, they cast Richard Burton to play opposite Elizabeth Taylor as Mark Antony. “They were working on a scene where she’s supposed to say, “I haven’t dismissed you,” Hamilton recounts. “And Richard had been drinking for two or three days, and was exhausted. He had no sleep.” He told Taylor he needed coffee. They brought it to him, but he couldn’t bring the cup to his mouth. “So he asked her if she would lift the cup to his mouth so he could drink. And she said that’s when she fell in love with him.”
Taylor sought security her whole life—a product of growing up a child actress with others always reliant on her. “She wanted someone to take charge, because she never had that as a child,” he says, noting that it was Mike Todd, who he believes was her most compatible match in that regard.
But not to be outdone, Hamilton and his gentlemanly ways left their own imprint on Taylor’s life. “Elizabeth was extraordinary,” he says. “But she was like a little girl, kind of lost. And she always had a list of things she needed, ten or twelve things.” The two were staying together at a hotel in New York when George asked her to write down her list of “necessities” for him. “She sat down and lingered over the list for an hour, getting it together and worrying about it. And I took it downstairs to the manager of the hotel, Bernard Lackner. And I asked Bernard, “Can you take this list of things that Elizabeth Taylor needs and get them done?’ “Of course,” Lackner said. “15 minutes later, everything would be done.”
Very modestly, George tells me he didn’t so much manage the list himself, but he knew how to delegate. Still, it impressed Taylor all the same. Hamilton returned to their room, list completed and delivered the good news to Taylor.
“I’ve never met a man like you who incredibly took charge and handled everything,” Taylor said. Here’s to men who can get the job done.
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