Reality
Hard work
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN
food, I like fine paintings, cars, boats, a nice house. I'm all for that
kind of thing. But that doesn't make you a playboy."
One of the most colourful and most successful entrepreneurs in
The Netherlands in fact seldom featured in the media - apart from
the odd society gossip column. His abduction on November 9th,
1983, however, brought him worldwide notoriety. After his release,
three weeks later on November 30th, Alfred Heineken restricted
his public appearances even more. From then on, he was always
surrounded by bodyguards. "You get used to it, like anything else,"
he once said. "The advantage is you don't have to look for your
own parking places anymore". Why did Alfred Heineken shun
publicity to such an extent? He explained it like this: "You see,
with a name like mine, it's perhaps not too difficult to rise to the
top, but staying there, being accepted, that's a different matter.
I can't allow myself to make too many mistakes. Everything you do
is blown out of all proportion." His efforts to lead an undisturbed
private life were very important to him. Moreover, quite early on,
he came to an interesting conclusion: the less you tell the media,
the more important they make you. As he appeared less frequently
in the news, the myth surrounding him grew stronger.
Alfred Heineken did not understand the media attention and the
media, for their part, did not understand either. When he retired
