By Susan Daly
Saturday Nov 8 2008

Still chic at 61, self-made Jackie Lavin knows the value of a buck and while she dotes on partner Bill, she has no intention of tying the knot again. She invites Susan Daly into her stunning 43-room mansion and imparts some home truths into the bargain...

Former model, entrepreneur and now TV star Jackie Lavin is flashing a fabulous diamond on the ring finger of her left hand. Should we be bracing ourselves for an engagement announc-ement? "Not at all!" she laughs throatily. "I bought that myself."

It's a typical remark from the entirely self-made Lavin. The glamorous sidekick of Bill Cullen on TV3's The Apprentice, she is also his life partner of the past 30 years. "We have no need to get married, there's not a chance," she insists. "If we had wanted a family together, then obviously we would have got married. But both of us had our families before we met. I'm very happy the way we are."

For a woman who never knowingly cracks a smile as one of the judges on the show -- "the producers had clear rules that we had to be very tough" -- Jackie is warm and welcoming when Weekend calls to the home she shares with Bill in Osberstown, Kildare.

She is well used to playing the hostess in the 18th-century Palladian mansion, which she says is very much a "party house". The great and the good of Ireland's business and social elite gather for elegant soirées there several times a year. The ballroom alone seats 150 for dinner.

Scrunching up the tree-lined gravel driveway, through electronic gates, the approach to the house breathes opulence. Matching urns and a pair of fiercesome stone dogs guard the entrance to the 43-room house. On this morning, a sleek, black four-wheel drive sits in the forecourt. On another day, you might expect to see the couple's Bentley, Aston Martin or private helicopter in the grounds.

Beyond the hall door, a gas fire is crackling cheerfully in a grate in the entrance lobby and crystal chandeliers throw pools of light on expensive paintings and objets d'art from contemporary Irish sculptors, such as Orla de Bri and Rowan Gillespie. One small staircase that leads to the basement kitchen is lined with four large artworks by Pauline Bewick. It's a sobering thought to realise that the contents of that one wall are probably worth more than the entirety of one's own life possessions.

This is Lavin's main domicile, but she and businessman Cullen also own a house in the mountains in Kerry -- near their five-star Muckross Park Hotel -- and another home in the lake district outside Orlando in the US. Such is the fabulous life of Jackie and Bill.

It might be easy to resent such riches were it not for the fact that, as Jackie points out, the Lavin-Cullen empire is built on sheer hard graft. Cullen's rag-to-riches tale has been well documented, not least in his best-selling Penny Apples memoir.

"It's bloody hard work," says Jackie. "Nobody gave us the Bentley, nobody gave us this house. You do what you have to do. The Apprentice thing was very tough, very early starts, come rain, hail or shine. But we just ran with it because we absolutely love everything that we do."

In some ways, Jackie's story echoes that of Bill's. She came to Dublin as the teenage Jackie Purcell, straight off the bus from the tiny Co Kerry town of Ballyduff. She worked in the civil service for six months, until her burning ambition told her to get out and taste more of life.

"We were always taught in the country that when you went to Dublin, you couldn't just do your job -- you had to do night classes. I did design at the Grafton Academy, and I did modelling and joined a choir. That was very much the culture; you had to further yourself," she says.

She married young and had two boys, Troy and Gary, with publican David Lavin. Jackie continued modelling part-time until she reached 30, becoming one of Ireland's best-known faces, advertising everything from Guinness and Harp to car dealerships. "I must have advertised every washing machine and every car in the city!" she laughs. Hers was the face that announced the launch of the Sunday World in 1973 under the saucy banner: 'Are you getting it every Sunday?'

"The posters were huge all over the city, for God's sake. Lots of people thought I had a new job at CIE because the poster was all over the bus stations!"

David, meanwhile, worked "all the hours" in his two Orchard pubs in Stillorgan and Rathfarnham. Ask Jackie if it was a difficult arrangement for family life, and for once the smile fades. "It was a juggle, for sure," she says. "I feel sorry for parents these days who have to drag their children out of bed at 6am to take them to a crèche; it's no life for anybody. But you do what you have to do at the time."

Troy and Gary have emulated their parents' business success. Troy is an oil broker married to best-selling novelist, Sinead Moriarty and they are expecting their third child, making 61-year-old Jackie a very glamorous granny indeed. Gary's Vitz vitamin drinks company has taken off, and he is now promoting a new range of organic drinks. Jackie was involved in Gary's company at the beginning, when he was selling vitamins to pharmacies, but "he's a mature guy, he's doing it by himself. He has a good head on his shoulders".

When she neared 30, Jackie pulled the plug on modelling and threw her energies into running a very successful boutique in Stillorgan, and later in Blackrock. "The landlord in Stillorgan had to be persuaded to take a chance on me and give me a lease," she recalls.

Employing only a part-time shop assistant, Jackie took everything on herself, going to London and Paris to buy in new collections. She introduced the Monsoon label to Ireland, and now wishes she had snapped up the franchise here. That small regret aside, she was so successful that she was able to sell coats for £1,200 a pop. It's a little glimpse of the hard-nosed saleswoman in Lavin. She had her last more than 10 years ago, after all -- well before the designer-label frenzy at the height of the Celtic Tiger.

"If the product was good enough, there was no problem, they would sell," she says firmly. Her philosophy that the high-end market is "product-led" applies also to the Muckross Park Hotel that she and Bill bought in 1991, and which she lovingly renovated to five-star status. She admits that business has fallen off this year in the face of the global downturn, but adds that her method of cultivating individual Irish clients is to give them "add-on" value: ie, dinner included or a complimentary spa treatment, instead of being seen to cut prices.

She has just finished a show apartment for a new development beside the hotel. "It's not a great time for them, but what can you do. These things are in the pipeline for years. Everything comes in cycles. You just have to sit and wait and have strong fingernails to hold on," she says. That glint of Lavin steel again.

She is clever about money in even the small things. When she and Bill travel, she tends to root out her Gucci shoes in factory outlets outside Milan, or take advantage of the weak dollar to shop when they are in the States. In her hallway is a bag from Dunnes Stores, where she has just bought "the most gorgeous" glassware that will sit easily with her cabinets of antique crystal. She's in good frugal company. "If Bill goes to buy a glass of water, he wants to know if he's getting the family discount," she remarks drily.

In the event of an economic meltdown, she insists that she would have no problems scaling back. "I don't get a sentimental attachment to places or houses or things. Nothing's forever."

It is this strength and self-confidence that one can imagine attracted Bill Cullen to that enterprising young boutique owner some 30-odd years ago. "He actually likes strong women," says Jackie. "He admires women greatly, thinks they have a can-do attitude." The couple "sort of morphed" into doing business together, but Jackie says they tend to work separately on different projects within the Glencullen business empire.

"We clash all the time -- of course we do! The means to the end can be completely different for us. But at the end of the day, there is a decision made and everyone goes with it." Jackie tends to be heavily involved in the building side of projects. "And dare he interfere? No, it wouldn't be tolerated. He knows when to butt out, that's for sure."

This reminds me of the preview press publicity for The Apprentice, in which it was touted that cool blonde Jackie might be the real boss to Bill's nice-guy routine in the boardroom.

"We know what our relationship is about," says Jackie, waving away the idea. "I definitely do wear the pants in certain areas, but then I don't in others. There is give and take. You can't get your own way all of the time." One can only try.

As it turns out, all three of the judges in The Apprentice -- Jackie, Bill and Jackie's nephew Brian Purcell -- have turned out to be hard-headed taskmasters. Jackie admits that she is a tough "but fair" boss off-screen, largely because she feels she demands the same exacting standards from others that she does of herself.

"Going into The Apprentice, we were told our personas had to be tough. This Bill Cullen nice-guy thing... forget about that. I think we did it too well in some cases; we don't do smiles!" Bill's natural instinct would be to mentor people, she says, and hers would be to talk to people. "But we weren't even allowed to fraternise with the competitors at all, to have a cup of coffee with them, nothing, in case we got favourites."

It was also a return to the camera for Jackie who, despite regularly gracing the social pages, has spent the majority of the past three decades toiling away on her business interests in the background.

"I'm very critical of myself on television and if I'd seen a lot of the stuff beforehand, I would have changed some things," she laughs. She acknowledges the wisdom of the show's executive producer, Larry Bass, when he refused to let them see any footage before it was aired. Getting Jackie and Bill to cede absolute control of their image was no mean feat.

The neat figure she displays on-screen is a result of Pilates and "general maintenance". So she wouldn't be an advocate of cosmetic surgery? "You have to look after yourself," says Jackie. "You can't smoke your head off and eat chocolate forever and expect everything to be fine and then get a tummy tuck or a band on your stomach. They are extreme measures which come about as a result of other extremes. I'd hate to do anything like that," she says.

Bill apparently used to laugh at her practising Pilates, but now he too has incorporated it into his fitness regime. "He works out every single morning in his bathroom," says Jackie. The image of Dr Bill Cullen strengthening his 'inner core' in his en suite never quite leaves me for the rest of the day.

Does Ireland's power couple ever stop moving, even for a second? Jackie throws up her hands in delight. "We're always so busy, we always have projects on. We will never retire -- never, ever. We will drop dead working, because that's what we enjoy."

- Susan Daly

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