Anouska Hempel

Anouska Hempel, Lady Weinberg (born 13 December 1941 as Anne Geissler; sometimes credited as Anoushka Hempel) is a film and television actress turned hotelier and interior designer. She is a noted figure in London society.

Hempel is of Russian and Swiss German ancestry and has mused that she was born on a boat en route from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand. Her father emigrated to New Zealand where she was born. Her family later moved to Cronulla, south of Sydney in Australia, where he owned a garage. As a teenager in the mid-1950s, Hempel attended Sutherland High School. In 1962 she moved to England carrying only £10.

Hempel's first film appearance was in the Hammer Horror film The Kiss of the Vampire (1963). In 1969, she appeared in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service as one of the "angels of death". Thereafter she appeared in several filmsincluding Scars of Dracula (1970), The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), Go for a Take (1972), Tiffany Jones (1973), Russ Meyer's controversial, soft pornographic film Black Snake (1973), Double Exposure (1977), and Lady Oscar (1979). In the 1970s, Hempel appeared in one episode of the BBC series The Lotus Eaters and she also auditioned for the part of Jo Grant in Doctor Who and appeared in the science-fiction TV series' UFO ("Mindbender" 1970) and Space: 1999 ("The Metamorph" 1976).

Partial filmography

• On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) – The Australian Girl
• The Breaking of Bumbo (1970) – Debutante
• Scars of Dracula (1970) – Tania
• The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971) – Blonde (segment "Lust")
• Carry on at Your Convenience (1971) – New Canteen Girl (uncredited)
• Go for a Take (1972) – Suzi Eckmann
• Black Snake (1973) – Lady Susan Walker
• Tiffany Jones (1973) – Tiffany Jones
• Double Exposure (1977) – Simone
• Lady Oscar (1979) – Jeanne Vallois / Jeanne de la Motte

After finishing acting, Hempel has embarked in a career as a hotelier and interior designer. In 2002, she was ranked by Architectural Digest as one of the top 100 interior designers and architects in the world.

Hotels

Hempel has established four hotels. Blakes Hotel was created in 1978 as one of the world's first luxury boutique hotels. Based in South Kensington, it is well known for its design, quality of service and privacy. The hotel's restaurant has become a destination in its own right, featuring a fusion of Hempel's own favourite cuisines – Japanese and Italian. Her second hotel, the Hempel Hotel, was noted as a minimalist hotel. Blakes Amsterdam was opened in 1999, drawing inspiration from Amsterdam's historic Dutch East India Company.

Hempel currently works as a silent adviser in her hotel company and is working on other hotels in Beirut, Santiago Chile, Lisbon, Istanbul and a new hotel for Baccarat in Rabat. Her showcase hotel "Warapuru" is set in the Brazilian rainforest overlooking the ocean, but opening has been delayed several years. Other recent openings include The Grosvenor House Apartments, on Park Lane and La Suite West in Bayswater, both in London. Blakes Hotel was recently sold to investors, following a renovation by the Anouska Hempel Design there are plans to expand the brand with Blakes Shoreditch. Anouska Hempel Design's projects that opened recently include Six Senses Duxton, Singapore, and Monsieur George, Paris.

Other designs

Hempel's restaurant designs range from modern minimalist to theatrical. Her restaurant projects include Shy in Jakarta and Tom Aikens in London. She has designed retail stores for Van Cleef & Arpels (in London, Paris, Monaco, Beverly Hills, Osaka and Geneva) and Louis Vuitton, for whom she designed their flagship Paris store and items such as luxury fountain pens and ballpoint pens with leather and lacquer surface ("doc leather"). Other stores include Henry Cottons in Milan and Lokum in London.

Hempel has also designed two yachts: "Beluga", her own yacht, a renovated 10 berth Turkish Gulet which has black sails; and San Lorenzo, a sleek minimal design for a private commission.

Hempel has taken private commissions for homes and landscapes, most recently a garden in honour of Princess Margaret in Oxford. Her own homes, Cole Park near Malmesbury, Wiltshire and a large house in Ennismore Gardens, London, regularly appear in design magazines. Through a boutique in South Kensington, she has designed haute couture clothes for many famous women, including Princess Diana and Princess Margaret of the Royal Family.

In 1964, she married Constantine Hempel, with whom she had a son and daughter.He was a journalist and property developer who was killed in 1973, crashing his car into a basement in Pimlico. Hempel and her second husband, theatrical producer Bill Kenwright, divorced after two years of marriage in 1980. Later that year, Hempel married financier Sir Mark Weinberg, with whom she has a son, Jonathan. She appears in a photographic portrait by Bryan Wharton on display in the National Portrait Gallery.