The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 40

4 Monday March 27 2000 The Guardian The Sabine Durrantx Interview Greg Rflairttiiini DHL? DCSWD Off 3D e3DGQ George Martin's eldest son is more famous for his philandering than his acting career. And his new memoir isn't likely to change that. Portrait by Eamonn McCabe "Greg," he says coldly. We go back to his flat so he can give me some information about his new film company, Independence Films, and a tape of his appearance on Ellen. On the way, he talks about the recent story in the Express claiming his mother's house has been put in his name with a mortgage taken out on it.

"She did that of her own volition," he says. Though, he admits, his sister now isn't talking to him. He seems to have a habit of making enemies close to home. There are other family members out to get him, he says, "including someone who's a prominent silk. Put that in.

I want him to know I'm on to him." These are his real enemies he says. Not "Tara, who is a bit player in a drama that is nothing to do with her, a spear And what's the motive? "I'm sorry to say, absolute malice and jealousy. Jealousy. Jealousy. Jealousy." Jealousy of what? "My apparent prodigious success with women." He chuckles.

Martin's flat is plain and featureless. It is brightened by two things: lots of photographs of his son, Connor, who lives in New Hampshire with his ex-wife, with whom he is on good terms. (His other marriage was arranged to secure a green card.) And a 24-year-old Italian girl called Vit-toria, who is curled up on a chair saying "Good Morning. Good Afternoon" into a tape recorder. They are getting married in Rome later this year, though Martin must first convert to Catholicism.

He is in the process of getting his two previous marriages annulled. Can you get two marriages annulled? "Yeah," he says shortly. Then adds, "Hey. I hope so." his relationship is going tolast.hesays.Nomore I I philandering. No more I I screwing around.

Does II he worry at all about tmJ the age difference? "You think she's too young? For me? In your opinion?" he barks. "Look at Salman Rushdie. Look at Michael Douglas. Look at John Paul Getty. Vittoria is amazing.

She's got the mind of a businesswoman. She thinks the book's hysterical. She's proud of my past. I bet someone will say he's only with this girl to clean up his image, but I feel in all honesty she is my reward for last year. The secret of a good relationship is that the person is your best friend and I've never had that.

Until now." He pauses. "Obviously a good sex life helps," he says. "Personally, I couldn't have a good relationship without that." If in any doubt about their future together, about the laying of his past, he has the stars to help him. Martin is a firm believer in astrology. He says, looking at his chart, he should have seen what he was getting into last summer.

"It's as clear as daylight. Aquarius with Scorpio rising. Public crisis." As for the future, he's got a dodgy few days this week, but the beginning of April, when his book is published, is going to be good for him and a "lousy time" for his enemies. "So I'm looking forward to that." He also believes in reincarnation. Who does he think hell come back as next time? "Ha ha ha ha," he laughs.

"The Dalai Lama?" quite enough money in the bank. Palmer-Tomkinson retreated to the bosom of her royally connected family. The portcullis came down. Society turned its back. And Martin, an ordinary red-blooded bachelor all the names, I honestly, honestly, honestly, from my heart, thought I was pretty normal.

I've always loved women, I adore the little darlings, and I thought most men were the found himself, alone, in his rented flat in Knights-bridge, with certain "business ventures" in ruins, branded Love Rat, the James Hewitt of the Tatler-meets-Hello! reading classes. He's written a book now, a memoir called Dirty Rotten Scoundrel. As an attempt to re-establish his reputation it's a disaster. A diary of his years at Rada and in the film and TV business in the US (among other things, he starred in Ellis Island, and co-starred in Ellen) as well as the events of last year, it is full of "birds" and "horny little stoppers" of "sexy young blueblood and "gorgeous, sweet, hot-as-a-chilli-pepper-rid-den-chicken-vindaloo There is the time he slept with Madonna. The night he couldn't get it up with Sharon Stone.

Tara and her G-string. But he has his defences ready. He said Tara stormed round recently and said, "'How dare you exploit our relationship for your own publicity and I said, 'Excuse me, isn't that the way you've lived your When I told him I found some of it a bit dubious, he said, "Come on Sabrina, it's witty, it's humorous, it's tongue in cheek. I'm sending myself up. You know that." I got off lightly.

Further down the bottle of wine, he tells mc a female reviewer who didn't like it "is probably a lonely middle-aged woman who can't get laid" So why does one feel sorry for him? Is it because he looks identical Ttoice in the Daily Mail Tara called me a con man. I'd like to see her prove that in court' to his father, the same stooping, lopsided gait, the same flop of hair, though the son dyes his I do. So what? I've got bits of like silver in it and I'm too young. David Beckham dyes the same prominent cheekbones and Adam's apple? The same charm: walking down the street, he greets the flower-stall man and the Evening Standard vendor by name; he introduces me to the bloke who sells him cigarettes; when he smiles at the waitress in the wine bar, she giggles. Or is it because this resemblance is his downfall? Greg Martin may not have been what he appeared to be to the Palmer-Tomkinsons, but then he appears to be his father, whom he certainly isn't.

George Martin: the English icon, the man who produced the Beatles in the maelstrom of the 60s and yet remained the embodiment of gentlemanliness and restraint. Just what an It Girl needs. "He's a god," says his son simply. Or perhaps it's because he seems so isolated from the man he talks about all the time. Later, when we go back to his flat, there is one CD out on top of the stereo.

The Beatles: 1967-70. Greg is from George Martin's first marriage, which finished when he was five. There is another son, the good son, who works with his dad, from the second. Did he feel usurped? He suddenly forgets he's being interviewed, stops posturing. He says he was "over-sensitive" as a young man, "never felt he was good He talks about how "wounded" his old mum was.

"Maybe that's why I'm drawn to slightly off kilter women. Ha. Ha. Ha." He talks about his stepmother with the rawness of a teenager. He can't believe his father didn't speak up for him last year.

"He could have said something and he didn't," says Martin. "It wasn't simply because he chose to maintain a distance. I think he was frightened. He was made frightened by those around him. All I'll say about my dad," he says, "is that if anybody appears to be pure as the driven snow don't believe it.

If anyone appears to be the devil don't believe that either. Nobody is one or the other." His family nickname is Poggy. What does his father call him? have a weakness for Latin I I women savs Oreer Martin. halfway through my glass of wine. "I love Latin women.

I'm engaged now to an Italian girl. I just love people like that. And I mean, I'm a man. Like Zorba the Greek said, 'Aren't I a man? Aren't I You know, I've got a libido. And when Tara walked in with Elton John that night, in that bikini and white sarong, she looked incredible.

And she was really funny. She said Mick Jagger had said, "Wanna come to Reykjavik with and she'd said, '111 come if you can spell And he said: 'I dunno. There's an in there I thought that's very witty. She's witty." He drinks the other half of my wine. "Oh, sorry," he says and returns to his own.

He puffs his lips out in a noisy sigh. He rolls his denim-blue eyes. "But I had no idea what I was gettinginto. I wish I'd known she was straight out of rehab. She's sweet but she's loopy, an overindulged, spoilt brat Two weeks later I'm knocked for six.

I'm a scumbag, serial-philandering pig. I'm a creepy Casanova. I'm a con man. Twice in the Daily Mail Tara called mc a con man. I'd like to sec her prove that in court" Greg Martin, 43, the eldest son of the record producer Sir George Martin, is the "failed actor" is a failed actor? Is afailed actor someone who's starred in a mini-series with Richard Burton and Faye Dunaway, who's done over 60 plays all over the who didn't marry Tara Palmcr-Tomkinson last summer.

They met at Jaggcr's 56th birthday party in the south of France. Martin was with another socialite, Sabrina Guinness (he calls mc Sab-rina a couple of times and winces). But minutes later, Palmer-Tomkin-son, who had been making an It of herself, had scrawled "Tara's getting married" in lipstick on her handbag and the papers were full of their whirlwind romance. It was all over with the summer sales. Too many Latin women in the woodwork, not to mention American, Russian and Chinese, willing to sell their stories for the right price.

Too many former marriages (one more than he had admitted to, anyway). Too many enemies. Maybe not.