The Romance of a Yellow Rolls-Royce

Anne Crawford suffers no shortage of diamonds. But her next best friend is her butter-colored 1967 Rolls-Royce convertible.

How she came into possession of the automobile plays like a Lifetime Romance movie, but it’s all true. “It was originally my mother-in-law’s,” Crawford says. “They used to go driving past the Rolls-Royce dealership in Beverly Hills, and my mother-in-law would say to my father-in-law, ‘If you really loved me . . . ‘ It became a running joke between the two of them. Well, it was Valentine’s Day, and she was playing bridge with her girlfriends. A [delivery] man came to the door and asked her to come outside, and lo and behold. She drove it for 25 years.” Later, the car made the rounds to various relatives, finally coming to Crawford’s future husband, truck body maker Dudley deZonia.

Enter Anne Crawford. “We had been dating about a year. It was right before we got engaged--and we were coming home from an event. I was tired and cranky and my now-husband said, ‘We have to make one more stop.’ I thought, ‘Oh, Lord.’ So we pull up to this place where they restore cars, and the car is parked outside and I say, ‘Oh, look at that car. Isn’t that gorgeous?’ And he hands me the keys.” On their honeymoon, “we drove it up to Yosemite and the wine country. We felt like Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.”

So, 18 months later, does the car wear Crawford or does she wear the car? “I try not to be completely unkempt,” says the Hancock Park resident, a onetime fashion director and writer in her early 40s who now handles public relations for Martin Katz, Alberta Ferretti and Tod’s. She needn’t worry. The Rolls, with its tan leather and burled wood interior, complements Crawford’s style, which you might call conservative with a sex bomb twist--coiffed wavy blond hair, va-va-voom figure, soft colors (think pink and brown rather than red and black), high-fashion labels (YSL, Prada, Hermes) and, of course, the aforementioned diamonds (friend Katz designed Crawford’s wedding ring). It’s also a roomy ride for favorite passengers such as Crawford’s 8-year-old stepson, Philip, and her cocker spaniel, Bailey. “It’s the world’s poshest Yellow Cab,” she jokes. “Passes everything but a gas station.”