My knockout encounter – An Irishwoman’s Diary on Muhammad Ali, Dolly Parton and me

We knew something was up when the supervisor from the hotel’s housekeeping section appeared on our floor. “Go up to the penthouse suite immediately,” she instructed us. “You’re to get your photograph taken with a guest.”

In the lift we straightened our aprons and pulled up our knee socks.

Fabulous

As lowly chambermaids at Copenhagen’s swish Hotel Scandinavia, we wondered why would anyone possibly want to have their photo taken with us when they were rich and fabulous enough to stay in the penthouse suite.

And who was it? A whole gush of celebrities had stayed in the top-floor penthouse suite those months in 1980. I had been dispatched there one evening to take Dolly Parton’s dinner tray away.

Dolly herself had answered the door, almost unrecognisable without her trademark wig. (She never pretended those big blond wigs were anything but fake; when asked by a reporter how long it usually took to get her hair done, the effervescent country singer had replied, “Couldn’t tell you, honey. I’m never there.”)

Uniforms

The lift stopped off on various floors, and a handful of us rose to the 26th together. Someone had heard that David Bowie was in town and we concluded it was him. We cursed our frumpy uniforms.

On the top floor a few staff from reception were already gathered. In all there were 16 of us. The new hotel manager wanted a photo of a top-drawer guest hob-nobbing with employees for the in-house magazine.

A Danish receptionist said it was Muhammad Ali, who was staying there with his wife, Veronica.

We were thrilled. Muhammad Ali, on the verge of retirement but still a supernova sportsman of intergalactic magnitude and one of the most recognisable faces on the planet. In your face, David Bowie!

DJ

The door opened and we were beckoned into the suite. Oh my giddy heart, there he was. Not 10 feet away stood the bubble-permed hotel DJ, whom I’d met at a work party and had since been keen to fascinate some more. He’d put Earth, Wind on Fire on repeat play so we could stay out on the dancefloor. And there he stood now, talking to the manager, blanking me. Ali was in the room too, further back, talking to Veronica.

The photographer, prodded by the night manager, began arranging us in a group, and I made sure I was standing in front of the DJ.

He took no notice of me whatsoever and I took no notice of Ali, now seated, who the others later said was sweet-natured, relaxed and very friendly. They also said, again and again, that he was breath-takingly handsome, and witty, and seemed delighted by the invasion of below-stairs staff.

Chat

Ali had then asked who present was from Ireland. The four or five other Irish put up their hands and he chatted away to them.

I was barely aware of the chatter, though – to my delight, Bubble Perm was now trying to undo the bow on the back on my apron. Progress!

The photo session was over in a few clicks; so photogenic was Ali that a couple of shots were enough.

We all shook his hand and trooped out. The shoot had taken just minutes.

I hurried into the lift and placed myself beside the DJ, now busy chatting up one of the receptionists. He left for pastures new shortly afterwards and I never saw him again.

The photo duly appeared in the hotel magazine. In it I am looking down, smiling but disengaged, probably wondering if my undone apron is going to fall off.

Photo

I only showed the photo to my brother after I heard the news that Ali had died. I sent it electronically and braced myself. He was aghast. “Of all the famous people on the planet during the past 55 years Ali had to be the most interesting to meet,” he texted back. “You’re not even looking at him! Why, oh why?”

The accelerated throbbing of the heart is a subjective thing, that’s why.

For some reason a boy with silly hair had made my heart beat faster than the man US president Barack Obama is calling “The Greatest. Period.” For the millionth-billionth time, I wished this week I could go back in time and fix this. Too late now, missy.