![]() “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do, was turn off his machines.” ![]() But you know as well as we do that the idea of Mark as a vegetable-just no way.’ And she said straightaway, ‘Done.’ She’s tough, Ayesha.” Annabel Elliot adds, “She was adamant and she was right.” It was left to Annabel, the rock of the family, to call the neurologist at Bellevue. Tom Parker Bowles told me that the immediate family hurriedly gathered at his cousin Kate Elliot’s house: “We said to Ayesha, ‘This is your father. Legally, Shand’s 19-year-old daughter, Ayesha, was his next of kin. They’re saying he’s not going to make it.” Shand’s other sister, Annabel Elliot, who was between Camilla and Mark in age, spoke to the neurologist who had examined him: “He said, ‘Your brother is 99 1/2 percent brain dead.’ ” She immediately called her son, Tom Parker Bowles, and in a voice full of anguish told him, “Mark’s hit his head on the pavement. His sister Camilla was with Prince Charles in Scotland, at Birkhall, their retreat on the royal family’s Balmoral estate. “In a blur,” Powys said, they started calling Shand’s family with the terrible news. Within minutes Powys and the other Elephant Family women had joined Bowes-Lyon in the waiting room. Shand was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was rushed into the Intensive Care Unit and put on life support. Even when an ambulance arrived, eight minutes later, and his body was lifted onto a gurney, there wasn’t the slightest twitch. And there he lay, motionless and unconscious. And Mark fell, the back of his head hitting the sidewalk first. Lexi reached to grab his hands, but she missed by a few inches. A second later, he seemed to lose his balance, then tottered backward, with his arms outstretched in front of him. As they approached the door to re-enter the building, according to persons who have seen the hotel’s surveillance video, Mark motioned for Lexi to go ahead. “Lexi” Bowes-Lyon, a striking brunette of 28, was Mark’s latest recruit to Elephant Family’s 90 percent female staff.Īfter about a half-hour, Lexi and Mark stepped outside for a cigarette. Powys, a lissome 36-year-old blonde, had been Shand’s on-and-off girlfriend for a few years, but they had ended their relationship a year earlier. Ruth Powys and creative director Alexandra Bowes-Lyon, walked over to J. ![]() (Those items would bring in another $1 million.)Īfter the auction, an elated Shand and about a dozen pals, including Elephant Family C.E.O. The total take for the night was $1.7 million, with some 250 eggs remaining to be sold during the following days by the online auction house Paddle8. It went for $900,000 and the crowd exploded into applause as friends rushed to congratulate Shand in his moment of triumph. But his countenance brightened as the eggs went for higher and higher prices: Peter Beard, $21,000 Marc Quinn, $34,000 Tracey Emin, $56,000. ![]() Shand, looking a bit haggard, stood a few feet away from the auctioneer, Jamie Niven. collectors and Shand’s New York friends, including his co-chairs philanthropists Agnes Gund and Sydie Lansing, Knopf publisher Sonny Mehta, Lee Radziwill, and Diane von Furstenberg (who had herself contributed an egg). Sotheby’s main auction room was packed with V.I.P. Now, on the evening of April 22, 2014, three dozen of these eggs were being auctioned at Sotheby’s to benefit Elephant Family, the nonprofit founded by Shand in 2002 to save Asian elephants and their habitats in India and 12 other countries. Nearly 300 artists, architects, photographers, and designers, including Julian Schnabel, Zaha Hadid, Ralph Lauren, and Carolina Herrera, had decorated three-foot-high fiberglass eggs provided by Fabergé, which were then placed throughout the five boroughs in the weeks preceding Easter. The wildly charismatic 62-year-old explorer, author, conservationist, semi-retired playboy, and adored younger brother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the wife of Prince Charles, had spent six months in New York putting together the Fabergé Big Egg Hunt, a huge public-art and charity event. ![]()
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