ROBIN LEACH is best known as the presenter of that ripe slice of television voyeurism Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. If you are unaware of this remarkable programme then you are almost certainly British: the UK was one of the few countries in the developed world which declined to air it. I'd seen it a couple of times on American television and was dazzled, not so much by the vulgarity - considerable though that was - but by Leach's peculiar voice. This printed page cannot do justice to the strangulated bellow with which he greeted each spectacular bauble, so try to imagine a cluster bomb of capital letters, vowels and exclamation marks, wrapped in what was once an English accent, ricocheting round the world's gilded salons. Then take it, like the programme, to excess.
I was hoping to be blasted by this vocal miracle when we met in the lobby of The Peninsula. But, alas, Leach turns out to be a soft-spoken man, who is considerably smarter than the piffle that was Lifestyles might lead you to expect. Moreover, he gives the strong impression of not being one to suffer fools gladly. Indeed, for the first two minutes of this interview, he teetered on the brink of tetchiness. Cigar in hand, he marched to a table, told me that I'd have a drink but he wouldn't because he was about to have his photograph taken, sat down and, as I hesitated, cried: 'Well, go on then.' Er, right. Why are you in Hong Kong? 'We're filming a one-hour television special for Gourmet Getaway which is part of The Food Network. That's the second fastest growing cable network ...' But just then, someone signalled to Leach, and he stood up and announced, 'I'll be two seconds.' Twelve seconds later, he returned, sat down and continued '... growing cable network in United States television history.' And that, I said jovially, must have been the fastest photograph ever taken. Leach shrugged and kept talking.
'It's part of a three-country swing. We've done Malaysia, we've done Thailand, and for a long time I wanted to come back to Hong Kong and see what happened after the takeover.' Please, I murmured, handover. Leach, whose eyes had been wandering round The Pen's lobby, paused. We regarded one another through the cigar smoke. Then he laughed and said, 'I'm aware of the difference.' After that, things went much better.
He's an old-school British tabloid hack who fell into American television. 'I was the youngest page-one writer in Fleet Street at 21, which is when I was being paid the maximum allowed by the National Union of Journalists.' Unfortunately, the NUJ wouldn't allow him a pay increase because of his age so he took himself off to America on the Queen Mary, with US$133 (HK$1,030) in his pocket, supposedly for a two-year leave of absence. He arrived in New York on November 27, 1963, having missed the greatest news story of the 20th century. 'The ship hove to for 24 hours because of Kennedy's death. It bobbed around in the middle of the ocean like a cork, with everyone weeping.' He insisted that the minute he arrived, traumatised nation notwithstanding, he knew that the United States was for him. 'England was a country that held you back. Class, envy, all that - I didn't belong. I lived in Harrow, but I went to the school at the bottom of the hill, I couldn't go to the school at the top.' You don't need to be wildly perceptive to see how that sort of resentment might nurture a bizarre concept such as Lifestyles; how doubly piquant is the fact that no one in England ever saw it.
'Snobbishness,' grumbled Leach. 'But it sold pretty sharpish to Hong Kong.' It was Rupert Murdoch who introduced him to television. By the 1970s, Leach was show-business editor for a Murdoch tabloid called The National Star and used to appear on local stations in Los Angeles and New York to promote sales. Then, in 1980, a little cable network called CNN was launched. 'And they cast about for a showbiz reporter and I did their first telecast from the Oscars, which was hysterical.' I'm going to ask a rude question, I said nervously. 'Go ahead,' replied Leach. Was this, by any chance, the moment when that Voice emerged? 'Yes!' he grinned. 'CNN had no facilities then. We used to edit packages in the back of moving trucks and, you know in New York there are sirens all the time in the background, so I'd go under a blanket with a microphone and flashlight and shout above the noise. And I remembered this when we started Lifestyles and I said I'll SHOUT, it will be 96-point headlines. I wanted it to stand out.' Which, naturally, it did. 'That whole time began with Nancy Reagan in the White House, and Dallas and Dynasty. Real life was larger than what those scriptwriters were writing about, they didn't know what it was like. No one wanted the show to end except me but I sensed early that there was a backlash, there was too much noxious wealth thrown in the face.' Was he worried about becoming a parody (emphasised, surely, by the parasitic aptness of his surname)? 'No, because I was a parody of myself. I got on with those people because I didn't want their money, I didn't want their jets. I wanted to fly first class, yes, but I didn't want a private jet. Too much trouble.' Five years ago, he 'put the show to sleep'. Are we talking permanent demise of much-loved family pet or Sleeping Beauty? 'Sleeping Beauty. It will be born again.' Meanwhile, it still lives through the miracle of syndication, while he went on to launch The Food Network. 'No one would believe, excuse the pun, that there was a real hunger out there for quality television. It's the only network with no bad language, no violence, no deaths.' So it's vegetarian then? Leach laughed. 'Well, there'll be pressed Peking duck on it after this trip.' At this point, an American man at the next table stood up, said 'Hello Robin' and thrust a piece of paper at him. Leach signed it with the busy gravitas of a Roman emperor, scarcely pausing in mid-sentence. Being a good hack, however, he couldn't resist muttering to me, helpfully, 'Good colour for you.' Does that happen often? 'Every day. That's why I live on an island in the Caribbean.' Lord Sainsbury, of the British supermarket chain, lives next door and brings him pork pies from the UK - a volunteered insight which was intended either to prove homesickness for class-ridden old Blighty or the fact that the boy from the bottom of the hill now gets his shopping done by the nobility.
Incidentally, he doesn't have a Rolls-Royce. 'But I'll never forget that couple with the gold Rolls-Royce out here,' he remarked with a meaningful chuckle. Kai-bong and Brenda Chau? 'That's them,' cried Leach. 'Still here?' Oh yes, I said, they're still going strong.
