By Sebastian Shakespeare for the Daily Mail
Published: 17:39 EST, 5 January 2018 | Updated: 03:28 EST, 6 January 2018
Tessa Dahl's life has been scarred by tragedy, alcoholism and drug addiction. She is seen here in a police mugshot
Her father, Roald Dahl, author of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, was one of the 20th century’s most brilliant children’s writers while her American mother, Patricia Neal, was an Oscar-winning actress.
And, at times, Tessa Dahl has seemed to have it all, being named one of the five most beautiful women in the world by Time Magazine, as well as being the mother of voluptuous supermodel Sophie Dahl.
Yet Tessa’s life has been scarred by tragedy, alcoholism and drug addiction. But, even in her darkest hour, the 60-year-old Dahl has eluded the shame that has now enveloped her.
I can reveal that she has been arrested in Connecticut and will appear in a U.S. courtroom next week on a charge of larceny (theft). If convicted, she could face from one to five years in prison.
The police mugshot of Tessa graphically strips bare the vestiges of her once radiant glamour.
The squalid episode began when Tessa checked into a Connecticut hotel, the Interlaken Inn, where rooms start at £140-a-night, on October 27 last year, signing in as ‘Chantal Dahl’ – Chantal being the Christian name which appears on her birth certificate.
Tessa Dahl has seemed to have it all, being named one of the five most beautiful women in the world by Time Magazine, as well as being the mother of voluptuous supermodel Sophie Dahl(pictured together in London, 2001)
Tessa is pictured at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory premiere in London in 2005
By the time she departed on November 3, she had run up a bill of £3,970 — which she left without paying, prompting the hotel’s management to call the state police at about 6.30pm.
Later that evening, the Interlaken called the police again, to alert them that Tessa had contacted them from a nearby hotel, the White Hart Inn, allegedly announcing that she would not be paying her bill and informing the Interlaken staff that ‘they would never see her again’.
Shortly before 11pm that evening, police arrived at the White Hart, arrested Tessa, took her into custody and charged her with third degree larceny. After giving a home address in Massachusetts, she was released on payment of a £3,970 bond.
It is the latest incident in Tessa’s unconventional life. She has recalled how her father doped her with tranquillisers from an early age to cope with a series of family tragedies.
Tessa with her father, the legendary writer Roald Dahl
She was aged just three-and-a-half when, in 1960, she saw her brother Theo’s pram hit by a taxi, leaving him with brain damage. Traumatised, she began wetting the bed and author Roald found a doctor to prescribe drugs.
Tragedy struck again in 1962, when her sister Olivia died of measles aged seven. Tessa later described herself as a ‘train wreck waiting to happen’.
She dated a succession of older men including Peter Sellers, Bryan Ferry, and actor David Hemmings and had four children by three different fathers.
She became pregnant with Sophie by actor Julian Holloway when she was 19.
She married James Kelly, a businessman 18 years her senior, and gave birth to Clover and Luke but the relationship broke down. She then married financier Patrick Donovan and had a son, Ned.
Her father said of Tessa before he died in 1990: ‘She’s by far the most complicated of my children, but she’s the most interesting.’
The squalid episode began when Tessa checked into a Connecticut hotel, the Interlaken Inn, where rooms start at £140-a-night
Seven years ago she began living at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut, in preparation for life as a nun. She may now become familiar with a quite different kind of American institution — the state prison.
Mark Sherman, Dahl’s U.S. lawyer, said the case arose from a misunderstanding. ‘The hotel has been paid in full and we expect a quick resolution in court.’
McMafia? Nyet, insist Russians
The BBC cast Russian actors in McMafia, its gritty thriller starring James Norton, because producers felt audiences wouldn’t believe fake Russian accents. But the world of dirty money, people-trafficking and forgery is not true to life — according to the Russian Embassy, at least.
It is outraged that the big-budget drama depicts Britain as ‘a playground for Russian gangsters’, and is taking pains to point out that most Russians are law-abiding citizens. ‘Do you know how many Russian offenders there are actually in UK jails?’ asked the Embassy in an online poll.
The BBC cast Russian actors in McMafia, its gritty thriller starring James Norton, because producers felt audiences wouldn’t believe fake Russian accents
The result — fewer than ten — was revealed yesterday, but not everyone is convinced.
Broadcaster Andrew Marr noted yesterday that McMafia reflects reality, because Moscow’s criminal class ‘has become embedded here’.
‘Dangerous men who made suspicious fortunes after the break-up of the Soviet Union stride the streets of Mayfair,’ he said.
Curse of Ewan McGregor…
It’s the curse of Ewan McGregor. After the love rat Star Wars actor left his 51-year-old wife Eve Mavrakis for 32-year-old actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead last year he appeared in a Christmas TV ad campaign for Debenhams in a bid to boost sales.
Results out this week from the department store are woeful, with analysts labelling it the High Street loser over the festive season.
Sales fell 2.6 per cent in the 17 weeks to December 30 compared with the same period in 2016.
Not only that, ten of the group’s 165 UK stores are now earmarked for closure.
Whatever Debenhams paid multi-millionaire McGregor, it probably wasn’t worth it.
[contf] [contfnew] 
Daily Mail
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
