WHISTLER, B.C. -- Andy Warhol used to call him his "Polaroid prince," because he looked good in Polaroid pictures. Plus, he really was a prince, a German prince. His official title is Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe, though nobody refers to him that way unless another prince he knows, Prince Charles, invites him to dinner at Windsor Castle.
"You see your whole name on the table card because they have the protocol completely right, and then when you get presented to Camilla the guy beside her will call your name," von Hohenlohe says.
"Prince Charles, he's cool. Every time I see him he says to me, very proper [imitating Prince Charles' voice], 'Don't ski again. Believe me, it's too dangerous. I stopped polo, you should stop skiing, you're mother is very concerned.'"
Princess Ira von Furstenberg should be concerned about her son, the Polaroid prince. Whistler has been chewing up ski racers for almost two weeks now. The courses are steep, icy, and fast, and von Hohenlohe is old enough to be Lindsey Vonn's father.
"Another racer told me he wasn't born when I skied in Sarajevo," the 51-year-old says. "But that's kind of funky, that's a long spell of time."
Von Hohenlohe's English is perfect. He is also fluent in German, Italian, French and Spanish, which is crucial for his current purposes. The German prince is representing Mexico at the Winter Olympics for the fifth time. Sarajevo was the first in 1984, and the 1994 Lillehammer Games were his last before now.
"When you are young you think you are indestructible, that nothing can happen to you, and you go out there like a young Alexander the Great," he says. "It's completely different now. I used to think, 'Cool: I can do this.' Now I am thinking: 'How can I come down this course?'"
To even get on the course, the prince had to use his Mexican passport. His grandmother is from a distinguished Mexican family and his father, Prince Alfonso, was a racecar driver who established the first Volkswagen plant in Mexico City where the young, and now not so young, Hubertus was born in 1959. The family still keeps a house in Cabo San Lucas. The prince gets there when he can.
"I don't feel 100% Mexican because I lived always in Spain, and in Italy and around Europe," he says. "Let's say I am a citizen of the world, with Latin roots."
Educated in Austria, he currently lives in Vienna. And he might be the most interesting man alive. He is just not the fastest ski racer alive. von Hohenlohe finished 78th in Tuesday's giant slalom, 34 seconds back of gold medalist Carlo Janka, but 15 seconds ahead of Jamyang Namgial, the Indian skier who rounded out the field in 81st place.
Gold, silver, 78th place, none of it matters much to the 51-year-old prince. Life is for living, and looking good definitely counts as good living. The prince's skintight racing suit was the fashion statement of the men's GS, decorated as it was by bandoliers, six guns and Aztec motifs.
"The inspiration was to be like a Mexican desperado who had all the ammunition, all the guns, all the dynamite to kill the hill," he says.
It did not exactly work out that way. But like Warhol, the Polaroid prince is an artist, a photographer and a sometime pop star on the Austrian music scene. He has had three top 20 hits, including Andy, a song honouring the late American artist he views as his mentor. He also recently shot a nude calendar featuring ski instructors striking seductively artistic poses, alongside some cleverly placed skis.
Kicking back at a coffee shop in Whistler's athletes' village, von Hohenlohe, with his shaggy brown hair, high top sneakers and multi-coloured socks, looks like a hipster Euro-dad.
He is 51, but imagines himself as being more like 39, or maybe even 37, although he was several years younger than that when he was hanging out at Warhol's place in New York City with the rest of the fabulous people.
"It was very New York at its best, before the Eighties decay, and the AIDs and all the stuff that killed it. It was the height of wonderful decadence. It was the orgasm of freedom for America," von Hohenlohe says.
It was a damn good place for a young prince to party. The older version of the same prince was on the prowl after Tuesday's race, popping by a few hotspots in Whistler Village. He gets recognized everywhere he goes. Mexicans, especially, want to shake his hand and take his picture. He is a citizen of the world, with Latin roots, and a reputation to live up to.
Von Hohenlohe was racing in Slovenia a few years back, trying to climb his way back to the Olympic stage. An official in the starter's hut tapped him on the shoulder.
"He says to me, 'Can you help me? Are you the son of the famous Hubertus von Hohenlohe who raced in the '80s? " says the Polaroid prince, cackling with glee. "I said, 'No, I am not the son. I am Hubertus von Hohenlohe.
"And he said, 'Still the original?'"
Indeed, the one and only.
