The first date designer Diane von Furstenberg had with now-husband Barry Diller, they both took Valium and went to sleep, the designer reveals in her new book, "The Woman I Wanted to Be."
The next day they had sex and, she writes, it "was major passion ... something very special and major had happened."
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The dress designer also adds that Diller's pals were incredulous. "No one had known him with a woman before," she says, which made her feel like the world's most special woman.
Von Furstenberg, at the time a 28-year-old divorced mother of two, met Diller, 33, at a party he threw for Hollywood powerhouse agent Sue Mengers. He was then a Paramount studio head.
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The power couple would wed in 2001, but before that they weathered ups and downs. In 1980, von Furstenberg left Diller for a bearded Brazilian named Paulo whom she met in Bali. That relationship lasted four years.
Next was Alain Elkann, an Italian novelist and journalist. Eventually he had an affair, von Furstenberg writes, and their relationship fizzled. Finally she fell in love with Mark Peploe, a screenwriter who won an Oscar for "The Last Emperor."
She says that Diller and Peploe were aware they were romantic rivals, but she could not give either of them up. That was no longer a choice when Peploe eventually left her. He was the only man who would break up with von Furstenberg, causing her immense heartache. After that, Diller began spending more time with her and "we found a new serenity."
The memoir not only chronicles her romantic life but delves into von Furstenberg's business history, her bout with tongue cancer and being the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor. The tome hits bookstores at the end of the month.
