Taki Theodoracopulos

Panagiotis "Taki" Theodoracopulos (/ˌθiːədɔːrəˈkɒpələs/; Greek: Παναγιώτης "Τάκης" Θεοδωρακόπουλος [panaˈʝotis ˈtacis θeoðoraˈkopulos]; born 11 August 1936) is a Greek journalist and writer usually known as Taki. He has lived in New York City, London, and Gstaad and was the 'High Life' columnist for The Spectator magazine from 1977 to 2023.

Quotes

• Marc Rich, however, has done us a favour. By bribing everyone and sundry, he managed to expose the side of Clinton so many leftists and liberals refused to see. He also proved what we, soi-disant anti-Semites for daring to protest about soldiers shooting at kids, always knew. The way to Uncle Sam's heart runs through Tel Aviv and Israeli-occupied territory.
  • "Rich Rewards", The Spectator (24 February 2001), p. 55

• The ghost of Harry Lime, Graham Greene's infamous anti-hero, inspires me to see a drizzle-in-lamp-light Vienna, yet the times I've been to the Austrian capital it’s always been sunny and hot. But I saw The Third Man when I was 12 years old and Vienna has been dark and drizzly ever since. Ditto the Wehrmacht uniform. I saw it as a child being worn by tall, blond German officers who were billeted in our house in Kolonaki. It has remained in my mind as the perfect military ensemble. And speaking of the Wehrmacht, if I couldn’t have been a German officer in Paris 1940, being an expatriate American there would have suited me fine.
• I am old enough to have had many friends who spent the war years in Paris under German occupation, and now I read what I always knew to be true: for many, Paris 1940 to 1944 was a non-stop party.
  • "High Life: Give me nostalgia", The Spectator (4 July 2009)

• A very silly Englishman — I think Cottrell was his name — once asked me whether deep in my heart I wished to be English. I laughed out loud. If I could have been someone other than who I am, I told him, I would have chosen to have been an officer of Rommel's 25th Panzer Regiment of 7th Panzer Division, the greatest fighting unit ever, and one that beat the frogs cleanly and honorably. With Paris literally at my feet, and in that incredibly dashing uniform, the Fräuleins would have come running.
  • "High Life", The Spectator (25 August 2012)

• Like that stupid woman writing in the IHT and warning against a fascist takeover of Greece; no such luck, I'm afraid.
• Golden Dawn members might need some lessons in social etiquette, but what the bien pensant need much more is to get off the pot and their double standards. Golden Dawn members are mostly labourers, martial artists, cops, security personnel and good old-fashioned patriotic Greeks.
• So the next time you read some leftie old hag banging on about the fascist evils ready to take over in Greece, use their newspaper writings in the smallest room in your house.
  • "Taki: High life", The Spectator (20 July 2013). The archived version used is as for the Australian edition; the version on the main British Spectator website omits a passage mentioning two female journalists.
  • The article's original headline was: "A fascist takeover of Greece? We should be so lucky". Golden Dawn, in a major trial, was ruled to be a criminal organisation in 2020. Former party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and six others, including former MPs, were convicted of running such an organisation.

• I was 23 when I went over to her place with Rubirosa [...] It was the late 50s, and she was already a legend.
• Going to a hooker was not looked down upon then. It was before the pill; girls weren't giving it away.
  • From an interview, as cited in William Stadiem "Behind Claude’s Doors", Vanity Fair (September 2014; online: 22 September 2014)
  • On being a client of Madame Claude, the French brothel keeper, in the 1950s and 1960s.

• [A]s strange as it may sound, he and I are buddies. ... I really like him. He comes to my parties and I go to his. Last Christmas, at my New York bash, I introduced Harvey [Weinstein] to around 20 women, and he hit on all of them. Good for him.
• In Harvey's case, there is a lot to hang him with, and now that it's out in the open, they are all creeping out of the woodwork. Even an ugly waitress has suddenly recalled that she served the 'pig' while he hit on women. It's funny how feelings of anxiety and degradation suddenly appear when these kinds of revelations hit the papers.
  • "High Life", The Spectator (14 October 2017)
  • The earliest accounts of Weinstein's long-term behaviour had begun to appear in the American press during the month. Ultimately it led, in October 2023, to Taki's conviction for attempted rape (in 2009) for which he received a year's suspended sentence.

• Omaha Beach, Normandy
  I am standing in a German cement bunker having walked through a large gaping hole caused by an incoming shell that must have instantly killed the handful of defenders. The bunker is on the beach, about 50 yards from the sea at high tide, and an afternoon mist is rolling in from the north. The scene is eerie and chilling, and 74 years on my heart goes out to those defenders.
  There are ghosts all around us. I try to put myself in the place of the very young, or old, Wehrmacht soldiers inside the bunker as they face the 6,700 or so ships that loom suddenly on the horizon. There is no time to think as naval heavy guns unleash projectiles weighing as much as two tonnes, and let up only as the landing boats are approaching. The odds are overwhelming; the defenders have been caught by surprise. They have a couple of heavy machine guns and, most likely, a Panzerfaust — bazooka — and limited ammunition. In no time the beach has been blasted to smithereens, and now landing boats are hitting the shoreline and men are charging, knee-high in water. Overhead, Allied planes are attacking the German rear. There are no Luftwaffe airplanes anywhere in sight. The soon-to-be-entombed small band fire their weapons and stand their ground, until their pillbox is blasted open and they fall to a man.
  It might sound strange me writing in The Spectator from a German perspective, but fair’s fair. I asked my companions which side they'd choose, and all of them agreed that the attacking forces had a better chance of survival than the defenders. Spielberg and his ilk have shown the landing parties to be sitting ducks, but this is real history, not Hollywood bullshit.
  • "The Other Side of D-Day", The Spectator (19 May 2018)
  • The article's original headline was "In praise of Wehrmacht: The real story of D-Day is the heroism of the German soldiers who were vastly outnumbered but fought nobly and to the death".