World: Life of a Lord

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Most of his decisions these days are somewhat less fateful. Harlech is now deciding, for example, just what sort of programming to give the 3.6 million television viewers in Wales and the west of England who are awaiting their first look at what the Harlech Television consortium has in store for them. Recruited a year ago by friends to join the venture and lend it his name, Harlech has invested $120,000 of his money and 80% of his working time into organizing the venture. When normal operations begin, he will commute between company headquarters in London and the twin production centers in Cardiff and Bristol. "I've had a hell of a lot to learn from the beginning," he says. "I've been conscious of not being an expert."

For at least one day a week, TV Boss Harlech switches media to the cinema, fulfilling duties that make his signature mandatory on every film shown in Britain. As a censor, he complains, "You get criticized no matter what you do." In fact, Britain picks as its censors men whose judgments are unlikely to attract criticism, and Harlech has come in for little of it from either the public or the industry. No film buff, he views only the films that his staff screens out as controversial, recently decreed minor cuts in Ulysses and Fanny Hill.

Flippie Brood. Since his wife's death last May in a head-on auto crash, Harlech has led a fairly quiet, solitary life except for a series of jet-age visits with Jackie. He accompanied her on a regal six-day tour of Cambodia in November, joined her in February at the Georgia plantation of former Ambassador to Great Britain John Hay Whitney, and escorted her, hand in hand, to Trader Vic's restaurant in Manhattan. Despite their obvious pleasure in one another's company, both have flatly denied rumors of a romance; Harlech says he has disavowed them "a dozen, no, a hundred times" to friends.

After Lady Harlech's death, Harlech also retired from the deputy Tory leadership in the House of Lords. If the Tories are returned to power in the next election, though, he could well be in line for a Cabinet seat. Meanwhile, besides his new business, there are his three homes to attend to—an apartment in Kensington and country mansions in Shropshire and Wales—and two Shropshire dairy farms to supervise. Harlech commutes among them in a custom-built Gordon-Keeble sports car with a top speed of 140 m.p.h. (he has two warnings on his license; the third means suspension). He spends a good deal of time with his children, who are living, breathing catalogues of where the young are at. Jane, 25, the wife of the owner of a mod boutique named Hung on You, favors garish antique clothes. For her wedding in a Roman Catholic church (Harlech's children were raised in his wife's religion, but he is an Anglican), which she planned without informing her parents until the day ahead, she chose a mid-calf Victorian model. Julian, 27, heir to the title, hires himself out as a male model. "My hands are my specialty," he explains. "Being long and delicate, they're useful for cigarette ads." Victoria, 21, lives with her grandmother, and the two youngest, 16-year-old Alice and 14-year-old Francis, attend school, Alice in Manhattan.