Let me set the scene for you. We are in the South of France, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, in the garden of a marvelous pink villa, just across the road from the Villa Mauresque, where Somerset Maugham used to live—a throwaway bit of information to indicate that we are in a very smart neighborhood. A very smart party is in progress. Candles in plastic tulips float in the swimming pool.

Grand ladies are wearing chiffon dresses and summer jewels. Men are wearing blazers and white trousers, velvet slippers and no socks. There is present a royal-highness prince and his royal-highness princess, who was born a royal highness in her own right. There is the head of a couture house.

There is the head of an airline. There is the head of an advertising agency.

There is a television star who married rich. There are assorted socialites from several countries, speaking in several languages. And there is a famous hostess, Lynn Wyatt from Texas, known for her eclectic guest lists, whose house it is. What I'm trying to say is, the A Group was there that night on the Riviera. It was the place to be.

"Oh my God," said someone, maybe the prince, interrupting his own conversation to look up. Everyone's eyes followed his. Above, on the villa's terrace, an apparition appeared, a creature from outer space, of astonishing height and extraordinary beauty. Painted, dyed, shorn, siliconed, she seemed not quite real, like a magnificent transvestite, or an android, her short platinum-white hair slicked back on her head, her lips wet red, her legs the longest pair in captivity. She was dressed in black with a very short skirt and very high heels, and her immense and perfect breasts were exposed to her nipples. For a moment or two, she stood leaning against the balustrade of the terrace, staring back at the people staring up at her, before she descended the stairs to the party. Right behind her was another woman, pretty too, it would turn out, with marvelous breasts too, it would turn out, but during that entrance she was merely an insignificant acolyte in the wake of the gorgeous giantess.

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They were, those ladies, Brigitte Nielsen and Kelly Sahnger, and high society is not their usual beat. If the names don't ring a bell, it may be because you have heard of twenty-four-year-old Brigitte Nielsen under her other name, Mrs. Sylvester Stallone, or, to be perfectly accurate, the about-to-be-ex-Mrs. Sylvester Stallone. Her 548-day credit-card spree of a marriage to the immensely rich superstar had just come to a screeching halt, without explanation, without regret, without sadness, without apparent sense of loss, and she was left with nothing more than storerooms of clothes, jewels, and furs and $6 million in settlement.

She acted like Promethea unbound, a freed creature, savoring her freedom after having lived for twenty months a sequestered existence surrounded by five full-time bodyguards, who even dined at the same table with her and her husband—just the way her husband wanted it, in his California mansion in the Pacific Palisades, around which he had built, to the fury of his neighbors, an eight-foot-high wall with a security system that rivaled Sing Sing's. On joining the party, the towering Brigitte immediately became the focus of attention. Led around by her hostess, followed by her acolyte, she leaned down and gave people she knew the Riviera greeting, a kiss on first one cheek and then the other, with the elegance of a six-foot woman used to stooping to kiss a short man.

"Do your Alien imitation,'' said Kelly to Brigitte, after they had been introduced all around.

Brigitte threw her head and neck forward in a grotesque pose that did resemble some extraterrestrial creature, and when she concluded her act she and her friend let out screams of laughter. She told the fascinated guests that she was already six feet tall at thirteen, when she was still a redhead, and that she became the class clown to compensate for feelings of ugliness.

"If I'd had the Beatles at my party, I couldn't have had better entertainment,'' said Lynn Wyatt, who seated the two ladies side by side at one of her place-carded tables, a placement that did not displease them.

Kelly Sahnger, who is Brigitte Nielsen's secretary and traveling companion, was her physical-fitness instructor when they met, and her breasts, already remarked upon, were a silicone gift from Brigitte. So was her nose job, and Kelly herself will happily tell you about all the other gifts Brigitte has been heaping on her of late. "Do you want to see my cashmere coat she got me at Yves Saint Laurent?" she asked, in her Louisiana drawl, a drawl that the Danish-born Brigitte has picked up in her own speech, from which all traces of Denmark have been deleted. Just that day the wildly extravagant Brigitte had charged $10,000 on her American Express card in one half-hour stop at the Yves Saint Laurent boutique in Monte Carlo and had been disappointed to find that a $30,000 bracelet in the window of Bulgari had been sold by the time she had Kelly call to inquire about it.

You cannot take your eyes off Mrs. Stallone, and neither can she.

Is there anyone who doesn't know that Sylvester Stallone is the highest-paid star in the history of the movies? Well, he is. Forbes magazine says he makes $16 million a picture, plus a percentage of profits. Is there anyone who doesn't know that he used to be married to a very nice woman called Sasha, who loved him when he was a nobody? That he had two children by her, one of them autistic? That he had a series of romances with actresses, among them the very tall Susan Anton, who before him had had a romance with the very short Dudley Moore? That his marriage to Sasha broke up? That Sasha received $20 million in the settlement? That's his background.

Is there anyone who doesn't know by now that Brigitte Nielsen was in Rocky IV, Cobra, and Beverly Hills Cop II? That she is the daughter of a librarian mother and an engineer father? That she left her husband and child back in Denmark when she set out to conquer the world? That her ambition in life was to meet Sylvester Stallone? That she sent him her photograph and he liked it and wanted to meet her? That, in the ultimate groupie fantasy, they met and, yes, married? Make no mistake about it: Brigitte is a very determined lady, who goes after what she wants and usually gets it. Several years ago, before their marriage, Brigitte and Stallone arrived at a White House dinner for Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore to find that Stallone was seated at Mrs. Reagan's table but Brigitte was not. A fuss was made, by her to him, by him to whomever, and at the last minute place cards were moved and Brigitte wound up next to Stallone at the First Lady's table, while the rightful occupant was reseated next to the secretary of state. That's her background.

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As a couple they looked great together, although nothing so coy as romance seemed to be involved. In photographs, you never would have realized that she was taller than he was. When they went out, they appeared to be perpetually costumed, in outfits, if not matching, at least coordinated by a stylist. When they were married, his best man was one of his bodyguards and his wedding reception was given by his agent. He is obsessed with security. Once, when he was dining in the Jockey Club in the Ritz-Carlton in New York, a distinguished couple who approached his table to speak to a guest were grabbed by his bodyguards as if they were assassins.

A little bit of scintillation can help keep a marriage going, but Sylvester Stallone, known as Sly, is said to be short on scintillation. He and Brigitte had different ideas about fun friends. His were his bodyguards, his agent, his lawyer, his business manager, his publicist, and his physical-fitness instructor, and that group kept at bay all outsiders who might have injected a laugh or two into a young bride's life. He gave her $1,000 a day for pin money, but she is one of the world's great shoppers, and she found it very hard to stay within her budget. They say she charged close to $1 million on his credit cards, not just for herself, but for gifts for her friends, and that really upset him. Not that he can't afford it. His worth was recently estimated to be at least $100 million. But they say he has a morbid fear of dying poor.

They also say he is deeply suspicious of most people, believing that everyone is trying to get something out of him. He has no close friends. Friendships with John Travolta, whom he directed in the disastrous flop Staying Alive, and with Eddie Murphy, whom he courted to land Brigitte her part in Beverly Hills Cop II, fizzled quickly and ended badly. One night when Stallone and Murphy dined at Spago in West Hollywood, they had so many bodyguards between them that it took several choice tables to accommodate them, and other celebrity diners had to be relegated to the Siberian section.

Stallone, who is forty-one, liked to stay home and work out in one of his two exercise rooms, or play with his collection of daggers and swords, or run movies in his projection room. Brigitte wanted to go out to the discos and boogie. She also wanted to keep up her modeling career, because she loves to have her picture taken, but he didn't want her to model anymore. It was the old macho bit. His woman was his possession. The only person in the whole house who was any laughs was Kelly, her physical-fitness instructor. The two of them started hitting the Hollywood discos, like the Flaming Colossus, where Brigitte's shimmying caused a sensation.

Hers is a face that only a mother-in-law could hate.

You cannot take your eyes off Mrs. Stallone, and neither can she. In every mirror she passes or holds in her hands, she devours her own beauty. And beautiful she is. And nice too. And funny. Not to mention fun-loving. Hers is a face that only a mother-in-law could hate, and her mother-in-law, or, rather, her about-to-be-ex-mother-in-law, Jacqueline Stallone, an astrologer who promotes lady-wrestling events in Las Vegas, hates it, and her, deeply, as she will tell anyone. It was she who told Sly not to marry her. And it was she who reputedly found Brigitte with Kelly. But it was Kelly's husband who told the London Sun that he had been a happily married man until his wife met Gitte.

In the face of flagrant rumors of a romantic liaison between the two women, which appeared in People, Paris Match, and on down from there, Brigitte Nielsen Stallone seemed to revel in her scandalous reputation. Sending out mixed signals, she and Kelly concurrently denied and exploited the stories about them, all amid roars of laughter, winks, and pats on the buns as they paraded around their Monte Carlo hotel suite and the Monte Carlo beaches in matching bikinis. "We may look like a husband and wife, but we want separate newspapers," said Brigitte. "Those English papers said the worst things about us," drawled Kelly. "I couldn't believe the stuff. They said Sylvester liked to watch us. None of that's true. God, I'm not a lesbian. And neither's Gitte. We like guys." Flowers arrived constantly in great profusion, massive bouquets of lilies, or long-stemmed roses, forty to a bunch, at ten dollars per rose, from guys—guys they had met on the beach, or guys from L.A., or Tony. Tony, it turned out, was Tony Scott, who directed Brigitte in Beverly Hills Cop II.

The papers reported stories that Brigitte had had an affair with Tony Scott, and that Stallone's goons were going to break Scott's legs if he returned to Hollywood. Scott, who after Paramount Pictures' Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II is one of the hottest directors in the business today, was recently replaced as director on Paramount's Presidio by Peter Hyams. Lo and behold, he showed up in Monte Carlo, and took both girls out to dinner, and later took them gambling at the Sporting Club, while his wife contacted Marvin Mitchelson about filing for divorce in Hollywood. When I asked Scott what he was doing next, he hesitated and then replied, "I may do a picture in Indianapolis about the Indy 500."

The papers also said Brigitte had had an affair with Eddie Murphy, and they continued to hint darkly at threesomes and voyeurism in the Stallone household. To further confuse the issuette, in Saint-Tropez two days later she was cavorting with an Italian playboy named Lucas Rossi. So who knows?

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When I called Sylvester Stallone's publicist in Hollywood and asked if I could interview Stallone, he told me, with extreme politeness, "I will present the idea to Sly in four months' time, when he finishes Rambo III in Israel."

"Is he in Israel now?" I asked.

"No."

"Is he in Hollywood?"

"Yes."

"Could I talk to him before he goes?"

"He's much too busy."

Later, en route to Israel, he was photographed conspicuously in Paris with blonde U.S. model Kathy Lyn Davis.

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"I'm going to order some coffee from room service," said Kelly, calling in to Brigitte, who was posing nude for photographer Helmut Newton.

"See if they have any cake," called back Brigitte. "Strawberry cake with whipped cream."

"This hotel is so expensive," said Kelly. "In one day my telephone bill was one thousand dollars."

"I don't want to do too many nudes," Brigitte could be heard saying. "I have so many nudes coming out everywhere."

"This is different," Helmut Newton could be heard answering. "No pussy. No breasts. Smoking a cigarette. Legs crossed. Very much like a lady. A society portrait."

Brigitte quickly becomes bored when she is not the center of attention or when the conversation becomes general. One day when Newton and I were lunching with her at the Monte Carlo Beach Club, she was at the point of becoming restless when a man came up to our table with a copy of an Italian magazine with her picture on the cover and asked her to autograph it. She took the magazine, rose from the table, and went to the bar to sign it, standing with her back to the restaurant. Her bikini gave the impression from the rear that her buns were completely bare, which they were, and immediately most of the customers in the restaurant pushed aside their salade niçoise to watch her. Her boredom evaporated, and she became animated again.

Brigitte Nielsen at twenty-four, if that is her age, and there is some question, deals with the press like a seasoned star. When asked a question that is displeasing to her, especially one concerning Stallone, she simply does not reply. Whatever explosion finally ended their marriage remains speculation only; she has not commented, nor has he, although the split, long rumored, finally came a few days after a birthday party Elton John gave for him at Magic Mountain, the California amusement park. Her only mention of her husband to me was in reference to a powdered mixture of vitamins E and C that she takes. "Sylvester uses that," she said, watching the mixture fizzle in a glass of water.

For the moment, at least, Hollywood is a long ways away, and is going to stay a long ways away. Stallone was quoted as saying that Brigitte "was a dark cloud that is finally passing over my head," and that he had asked her to leave town. The feeling is that Mrs. Stallone is keeping her distance so as not to embarrass her husband any more than she has already embarrassed him. The next months will be spent in Italy, where she is going to be the singing and dancing hostess of a variety show on Italian television. In the kindest assessment of her career growth, an Italian variety show can hardly be considered a step forward to the movie stardom she craves, particularly in view of her personal success in the hugely successful Beverly Hills Cop II.

Some beach towels were delivered to her suite as a gift from the Monte Carlo Beach Club. On the towels were pictures of beautiful girls—life-size. "You should pose for a towel, Gitte," said Kelly.

"After Christmas we should do some merchandising," said Brigitte as this new idea for self-promotion sank in. "We'll talk about that later." She left an imprint of her wet red lips on a white linen napkin. "Give it to the waiter," she said. "He's so nice."