We don't get to wonder where the kids we were at school with ended up anymore. We're in the era of Facebook and Friends Reunited, and that means we have to know. Which just isn't as fun as imagining that Helen the weirdo ended up as a quantum physicist or in the loony bin. Now we find out that she's working in the finance department of a shipping company with offices in glamorous Staines. What a let down. But then sometimes the reality is, literally, beyond our wildest imaginings.
This week while doing research for a project at work, I was looking through a website at all the stars who attended Edinburgh's Film Festival this year (yes it does have one, and don't ask), when I came across the name Georgina Chapman. Hey, I thought to myself, I knew a Georgina Chapman at school, and I clicked on the link to her photo. She was in the year below me. A nice, pretty girl, bit of a jolly hockey sticks, Malory Towers-type rather than St Trinian's, you know, she was a good sort who didn't really stand out too much but at the same time you still noticed her. That's all that went through my mind in the seconds that it took for the photo to come on screen. And, oh! It's Georgina Chapman from my school with make-up on! Now what's she doing at a Film Festival? So of course I just had to investigate further. And where's the first place a contemporary Angela Lansbury would look? Good old wikipedia. And guess what? Georgina Chapman from my school has a page on wikipedia! Well, in my eyes that was enough in itself. But there's more.
Turns out she's an actress and a fashion designer with her own label, Marchesa. Well I never. I do remember though that she was good at art. She painted this huge portrait of an old geezer for her end of year exam, which she was very pleased with, and then some jealous person went and painted all over it in thick, black strokes. I don't remember ever finding out who that was, but it was the big scandal of the year. Now you may think that the revelations end there, but oh no. The biggie is yet to come. Wait for it.
So I look further down the page, past the words 'finalist' and 'Vogue', to the name Harvey Weinstein. The Harvey Weinstein who co-founded Miramax, the HUGE film production company which made Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love. And she's married to him. Apparently they "split their time between a West Village townhouse, a seafront home in Westport, Connecticut and a mansion in Los Angeles". Don't think little Georgie has to worry too much about the credit crunch then. The girl who tried to go 6 months without washing her hair for an experiment (I'll always remember that smell) has come a long way. Good for her. But for all that money and luxury, I still wouldn't want to have to go to bed with Harvey Weinstein every night. Or any night.
I reread the page again, to take in all the details, and discovered that Georgina Chapman from my school is the daughter of Brian Chapman, millionaire businessman. Now my school was a private girl's one, but it was in Ashford, Middlesex near Staines, not London or Windsor, and although most of the girls were well spoken, the majority had working class Dads who'd done well for themselves, not posh, rich Daddies. And all these years I never knew she was a rich kid. Funny that. I'm still toying with the idea of whether I should say 'Hi, how's it going?' to her on Facebook. I mean I reckon we've got so much in common after all, and I bet she's dying to find out what happened to me.
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