Japan’s First Lady of Color Commentary

After securing a quiet nook in the lounge of a plush hotel, Madame Dewi spreads out a portfolio of personal photographs on the coffee table.

There she is with the Gorbachevs. With the actor Omar Sharif. Yachting with the Kennedys. In one photo, she smiles brilliantly between her late husband, Indonesian President Sukarno, and the legendary Chinese communist Chou En-lai. In another, she poses at a royal palace with Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk.

Like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or perhaps Imelda Marcos, Ratna Sari Dewi Sukarno is one of those rare people whose lives are, well, larger than life. She knows everyone. She has been everywhere.

And, to the chagrin of many, she loves to talk about it.

“I speak too directly,” she says, her modest tone balanced against pearls the size of gumballs that adorn her ears and ring finger and a glittering golden butterfly that is pinned to the lapel of her red Hanae Mori suit. “I can’t speak diplomatically. I think people are afraid of what I am going to say.”

Even so, back in her native Japan after 40 years abroad, Dewi has settled into what might be her highest-profile role yet -- as an outspoken, and often feared, social critic and television personality.

In a country where directly criticizing others in public is frowned on, she is unusually frank.

She dedicated whole chapters of her book, “Allow Me to Say a Few Things,” published in 2000, to celebrities she deemed deserving of scathing critiques. The tabloids and TV gossip shows loved it. Dewi soon had a sequel out and, always ready to slam-dunk a well-known entertainer, she became a darling of the talk show circuit.

“I left Japan when I was 19, so my mentality was still a very classic Japanese mentality. When I came back to Japan I was so angry,” she says. “The Japanese morality, education, the way children think -- it all made me so angry.

“I think millions of Japanese shared my views, but they were too afraid to speak out,” Dewi says.

But Dewi’s appeal is more than just her sharp tongue. It is equally the mystique of her life itself.

Dewi -- short for “Essence of the Jewel” -- wasn’t born into high society. She was reared in the poverty of post-World War II Japan.

But Dewi was living the lavish lifestyle of Indonesia’s first lady by the time she was 20. Known then as Naoko Nemoto, she won the heart of the 57-year-old Sukarno when he passed through Japan in 1959 -- she says they met at a tea party -- and she became his third wife just months later.

Before long, her husband was fighting off a revolt.

“From 1966 to 1969, over 1 million people were killed, all Sukarno followers,” she says. “In those days I was sleeping in my trousers every night and I counted how long it would take me to jump out of the window in the palace and run across the garden and climb the fence to escape.”

Sukarno was overthrown in 1967, and died three years later.

Dewi took exile in Paris, where she soon emerged as the toast of the international jet set.

“Parisian society loves exotic figures,” she says. “I was young, beautiful, I had a name, a certain wealth. People were so eager to invite me here and there.”

One highlight, she happily recalls, was a ball thrown by a Bolivian tin magnate at his chateau in Portugal at which guests were greeted by two elaborately decorated elephants. A red carpet to the entrance was lined by black men wearing turbans and dressed as Persian genies.

“Back then, people would spend a million dollars a night on parties,” Dewi says. “But the whole world has changed. You cannot show off your wealth like that anymore.”

With the high life becoming tiresome, Dewi switched her attentions to rearing her daughter, and then to becoming a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.

She moved back to Jakarta only to find that her old palace had been confiscated -- it’s now a museum.

So she found another place, put her daughter in an Indonesian school and worked as an agent representing major international corporations.

“It was very difficult to work there because I had to deal with many of the government officials who used to work for us,” Dewi says. “The first lesson of business was to swallow my pride.”

After 10 years, confident that her daughter had acquired an identity as an Indonesian, Dewi moved to New York, where she worked with the U.N. Environmental Program and became chairwoman of the Ibla Foundation, which helps promote young classical musicians and vocalists.

Increasingly, she was sought out by the Japanese media for interviews.

“There were so many that I was going back and forth between the two countries, and I finally decided to move back to Japan,” she says.

Dewi acknowledges that there have been some touchy moments in the three years since, among them her highly publicized skirmish with tax authorities that began last year regarding $1.1 million in income they say she failed to report.

Her career as a celebrity whizzes on, though.

She has been filmed wrapped in a towel to critique hot springs resorts, and featured on a panel of celebrity “referees” who watched troubled couples trade verbal attacks in a mock boxing ring on one particularly bizarre -- and short-lived -- TV program.

She has even done commercials for cockroach spray.

“If you want to buy that kind of exposure on television, it would cost you $150,000 for a few seconds,” Dewi says, acknowledging that she is a bit worried about her public image.

“But in a global way, I think it’s a good idea to get the exposure. Fame makes it easier to raise money for charity. Plus, I have seven staff to support.”