A home away from Hollywood

Judy Mided finds houses for shooting stars - and knows how to defuse a tantrum. Helen Nowicka is all ears

Judy Mided's office is discreet. Tucked away in a mews near Buckingham Palace, the plate-glass frontage is free of the usual estate agent's jumbled array. Instead, there are photographs of half a dozen up-market interiors. There are no prices. If you have to ask, you can't afford it - it being around £2,000 a week.

Ms Mided doesn't advertise.She is already a household name among Hollywood's A-list, the person to contact if you need a place while filming your next blockbuster in London.

In the 16 years since she launched herself by finding Jane Fonda a maisonette in Kensington, Ms Mided has worked with Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Richard Gere, Anjelica Huston, Gary Oldman, Uma Thurman ... the list goes on. A native of Chicago, in her early forties, her unflappable nature well equips her to calm celebrity tantrums.

When finding a star a temporary home, she tries to solve problems before they arise. What do they want exactly? Somewhere central so they can party, or further afield so they can relax? Would they prefer "olde English" chintz or a cool modernist penthouse?

Mel Gibson, in Britain to film Hamlet, needed a house big enough for his six children. The answer, says Ms Mided, "was a converted farmhouse near Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, set in 200 acres of parkland". John Malkovich wanted to be in the heart of the West End when he was appearing on stage in Burn This. Ms Mided found him "a Covent Garden flat a few minutes' walk from his theatre". Barbra Streisand's top priorities are "tastefully furnished homes that are scrupulously clean". She has stayed in Kensington and St John's Wood, and is a favoured client - "A pleasure to work with," Ms Mided says.

Most actors want their pied--terre to be as private as possible, and they want plenty of space - a concept that in London is light years away from the expectations of someone used to a rolling Californian ranch. "Some people are in for a rude awakening," Ms Mided says. "I have to educate them."

There are disasters. Ms Mided has cleaned up floods for Mick Jagger and a collapsed ceiling that landed on Pierce Brosnan, and refurnished Harrison Ford's house after his landlord left it virtually empty.

She remembers going to Ford's house in Hampstead, where she found him and his wife, Melissa, drinking tea in the front garden. "Harrison asked if I would like some tea. I said yes. He took his little china cup, gave it to Melissa and said, 'Darling, can you wash this so Judy can have some tea?' They had been left with enough crockery for two people - a nightmare."

Ms Mided refuses to discuss who is now in her properties. "Discretion is important. It's the way we have to operate." Her approach has won her the trust of Streisand and Ford. By contrast, newly famous actors expect more ego-massaging.

The actress Rebecca de Mornay refused to use the towels and sheets bought for her Holland Park home (they were not pure cotton). Then, having agreed to wait two days while net curtains were made for her bedroom, she demanded they be put up at once. The finishing touch came when she was talking to Ms Mided about the woman responsible for the property, Baroness Thyssen, of the family of art collectors. "I don't know why you call her Bernice," said Rebecca. "Her first name is Fiona." Ms Mided giggles. "I laughed and laughed. What could I say?"

Celebrities are conscious that their address says something about them, so they think carefully about their image when choosing a home. Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Mayfair are preferred by mature actors such as Omar Sharif. Anjelica Huston and Dustin Hoffman also like the upper-class ambience, but it is too traditional for young bloods such as Gary Oldman and Matt Dillon. Theycamp out in Kensington, Chelsea, Holland Park and, increasingly, Notting Hill - the Gate end, of course. "They don't want to be in the bit with too much edge," Ms Mided says, lips twitching.

The trendy location of the moment is Hampstead, which to LA dwellers is the epitome of English village life. They adore the area's quaint past, and the heath is just perfect for that early morning jog. Now that NW3 has been "discovered", everyone wants to stay there. For Ms Mided, such one-upmanship is a headache.

"There's very little property of the type people like there.People want to be right in the village or on the heath. If that's what they want, we make ordinary places a bit more special by bringing in different furniture and pictures."

Such reorganisation is small potatoes compared to some stars' domestic requirements: Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman insisted on turning one room of their four-storey mansion in Regent's Park into a fully equipped gym. Ms Mided shrugs - that's show business.