Changing Lives Press
PO Box 140189
Howard Beach, NY 11414
www.changinglivespress.com
Cover photo by SMP/Globe Photos.
Other photos courtesy of the author.
ISBN: 978-0-99862-313-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress
Copyright © 1998, 2017 by Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, without written permission of the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission from the publisher.
To the memory of my dear friend and boss, Alexander S. Onassis
—Kiki
For my husband, Jack
—Phyllis Karas
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Prologue
One. Meeting Jackie Kennedy in Glyfada
Two. Entering a New World
Three. Megalos
Four. Artemis: The First Onassis Woman
Five. Maria: A Grand Passion
Six. Jackie: The Second Mrs. Onassis
Seven. Alexander: The Love of His Life
Eight. “Christina, Chrysso Mou”
Nine. The Pink House
Ten. Visiting New York with Jackie
Eleven. Jackie and the Three Sisters
Twelve. The End of His Dream
Thirteen. Welcome, Thanatos
Fourteen. The Tragic Onassis
Fifteen. Farewell, Skorpios
Photographs
Acknowledgments
Both Kiki and Phyllis would like to thank their capable, energetic, and much-adored agent, Helen Rees, for believing in their dream and transforming that dream into a book proposal. They also want to thank their brilliant editor, Nanscy Neiman-Legette, who helped shape that book proposal into a magnum opus of which they will always be enormously proud. And they also send special thanks to Arju Parikh, who read and understood, and was always there to make the road an easy and pleasant one to travel. And to Mary Thomseu and Harold Weintraub, who made it all happen, a lifetime of thanks.
Kiki would like to thank Miltos Yiannacopoulos, Roula Strathis, Yianna Papadakos, Jean-Pierre de Vitry, and Grigoris Kouris for the memories they shared with her. She is also appreciative to the Onassis Establishment for their best wishes and to Vassilis Giannitsiotis for his exceptional generosity. Most important, she is deeply grateful for the love and encouragement her husband, George, and two sons, Alexander and John, along with her mother, Petroula Feroudi, constantly provided.
Phyllis thanks her writers group, Nancy Day, Anne Driscoll, Melissa Lutke, Elizabeth Mehren, Carolyn Toll Oppenheim, and Caryl Rivers, for their constant support. She is also grateful to her friends, to Sheila Braun, Merilyn Edelman, Barbara Ellerin, Barbara Gilefsky, Chalese Glennon, Sharda Jain, Arlene Leventhal, Karen Madorsky, and Barbara Schectman, who listened, and understood when she couldn’t listen to them. To her husband, Jack, and two sons, Adam and Josh, as well as to her sister, Toby, and brother-in-law, Larry Bondy, there are no words to express the love and gratitude she feels for them. There would be no joy without their love. For Hy and Mae, and Edna, Mel, and Julie Karas, and Sheryl Perlow, there are endless kisses, for they too listened and cared at every step of the journey. And to her precious mother, Belle Klasky, who still miraculously remains her biggest fan, there are tears and infinite love.
Foreword
The following foreword is written by Miltos Yiannacopoulos, a major Greek ship-owner and Aristotle Onassis’ most trusted adviser. He was also the general inspector of all of Mr. Onassis’ companies, including Springfield Shipping Company, Olympic Maritime Panama S.A., Financiera Panama S.A., Victory Carriers S.A., Olympic Airways S.A., and Olympic Aviation. Today Mr. Yiannacopolous lives with his wife, Ada, in downtown Athens.
Finally, someone has written an honest and perceptive book about Jackie and Aristotle Onassis and the extraordinary Onassis family. The fact that this person is Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos, who was without question an intimate of the family, makes the book all the more valuable. I personally have been waiting for years to have someone present an accurate account of what happened to these exceptional people, and Kiki’s version of their lives is both fascinating and legitimate.
For the last nine years of Aristotle’s life, Kiki was not merely his business secretary, but his invaluable personal assistant, handling everything in his life, from organizing the cleaning of his shirts and suits to paying the bill for a $10,000 piece of jewelry for his wife or mistress. In reality, Kiki not only planned his wedding to Jacqueline Kennedy, she also developed a close and warm relationship with Jackie, with whom she spoke on a daily basis and spent a great deal of time when Mrs. Onassis was in Greece.
All three of Aristotle’s sisters adored Kiki and regarded her as part of their family, keeping her at their sides in both the good times the family celebrated as well as during the tragic times they endured. Yet it was her involvement with his oldest sister, Mrs. Artemis Garofalidis, that was the most remarkable. Those of us who saw the two of them together often commented that they appeared like mother and daughter. After Mr. Onassis’ death, Kjki continued to remain a valuable employee of Olympic Airways for an additional twenty years, maintaining close relations with his daughter and sisters and widow. For the Greek people and the world, it is time we opened the door between the man who controlled the world and the two women he loved the most. Kiki’s voice is at all times an honest and perceptive one, for she was a family insider whose revealing view of the life beyond that door sustains and enriches this most exceptional story.
Prologue
For Jackie and Ari, at the beginning, the world was theirs, to taste its pleasures and revel in its joys. For these two demigods, the sunlight was unfiltered and incessant. But the darkness came. As it always does. But once, before the shadows appeared, oh, what light there was.
On one of those bright, sunny June days, the sounds of laughter from this island ascended into the heavens, where the gods rejoiced, anxious to join the mortals below. For this was an island where both the mortals and the Greek gods played. For when the mortals slept the pure sleep of the blessed, the gods reveled in the treasures of the island. The gods cherished this jewel, content to share it with the unsuspecting mortals. For nowhere was there a more godlike island. Four hundred acres in size, with a view of the mountainous end of Ithaki, in the sinuous shape of a scorpion, the island of Skorpios shone like a flawless jewel in the Ionian Sea.
As the gods watched that June day, the mortals feasted on moussaka, soupa avgolemono, ouzo, dolmades, souvlaki, and octapi, along with eggs of the sea urchins. And then they rode their stallions and sang songs of love. The gods cherished those sung by one voice so beautiful that when the raven-haired Greek woman opened her mouth and the notes rose to the heavens, all in Olympus grew silent.
And then the gods would watch the mortals revel in the beauty around them—gracious white horses, grass so green it seemed a rich velvet carpet, bougainvilleas of hues no god had ever seen. Magnificent olive and almond trees dotted the landscape, surrounded by groves of slender cypresses. Threaded among these trees, the heady scent of jasmine permeated the island. And no mortal on Skorpios dreamed life could be finer anywhere else.
And then one day the gods grew jealous. For no reason they decided the mortals felt too much joy. The island of Skorpios was too precious to belong to them alone. And so they hurled their thunderbolts and waited impatiently for their sharp arrows to find their marks. And when the gods had thrown their final weapon against the hapless mortals of Skorpios, the land had changed irrevocably. Where charming houses had once stood, filled with exquisite furniture and art, one house remained. And the whitewashed walls of the tiny chapel where Jackie and Ari had vowed their love had turned to ruin. Zebras and rare birds no longer dotted the land, and the green grass was parched. And the luxurious ship, whose bright lights had lit up the island, had disappeared. But, saddest of all, gravestones rose from the earth, each bearing a common last name etched into gray granite: ONASSIS.
Today, the gods no longer gaze down with envy on those who called the island of Skorpios their home. As soon as the island became theirs, the gods realized their fatal error. Without these mortals and their demigod, the island was a piece of land surrounded by the sea. Yet if the gods were to return their gaze to Skorpios, they would see the island is peopled with more than the ghosts of the family who once ruled its land.
For today, perhaps once a year, a helicopter drops noisily from the sky and releases a graceful, slim girl, no more than thirteen, with dark eyes and long black hair. The child, whose name is Athina, never comes alone. Sometimes she brings her French father, Thierry, or her three siblings. She visits the graves that cover the island, and strews white flowers beside each one. First she bends at the grave of her mother, Christina Onassis, who loved her dearly for almost four years. Then she kneels at the grave of her uncle, Alexander Onassis, whose plane was ripped out of the sky by the wrath of the jealous gods. Next she bends at the grave of her great-aunt Artemis, the old woman who died when Athina was an infant. And, lastly, she sits down beside the grave of her grandfather, Aristotle Onassis, part god, part mortal, whom she never met.
And for a while she is silent, a child old beyond her years, touched by the landscape of sorrow beside her. Then, suddenly, she becomes a child again, and her laughter rings through the air as she and her friends enter the fading pink house and are greeted by Olga, the elderly housekeeper, who waits anxiously for the day when the last member of this unlucky family returns. For Athina, a few treasures remain, but mostly all that surround her are the memories of a family the gods denied her the chance to know.
If perchance those gods were to look down upon this scene, they would quickly avert their eyes, perhaps sorry for what they have done, perhaps glad that there is no longer any reason to envy the island of Skorpios below.
One. Meeting Jackie Kennedy in Glyfada
It was a warm summer evening in early August 1968 when I first met Jackie. It had been more than two years since I had begun to work for Aristotle Onassis as his private secretary. Mr. Onassis had a home next to and nearly identical to his sister’s villa, yet it was at Artemis Garofalidis’ villa around which the family’s social activities in Athens were centered. Mr. Onassis and his two children, Alexander and Christina, not only ate their meals at Artemis’ house, but spent most of their leisure time there. To the three of them, in Athens, this was home. A large, elegant, two-story home, more than a hundred years old and with an Old World charm, Vassileos Georgiou 35 in Glyfada exuded the grace and glamour of its mistress.
Yet something was sharply different that August night. From the moment Mrs. Artemis’ chauffeur, George Margaritis, delivered me to her door at round seven, I sensed this evening was going to be surprising. The servant who opened the large wooden door of the house appeared nervous and excited as she took my coat and ushered me into the living room. Mrs. Artemis, dressed in a lovely, long evening dress adorned with beautiful and expensive jewelry, a large lace scarf flowing whimsically around her neck and encompassing her small shoulders, greeted me in the living room with her customary kisses on each of my cheeks. A slight woman who weighed no more than ninety pounds, Artemis had large black eyes, which that night were highlighted by a heavy display of eyeliner and mascara. Her thin lips also were accentuated with bright color, artfully and generously applied. I could recognize immediately that my hostess was excited. A romantic woman by nature, Mrs. Artemis loved planning special evenings at her home and would spend an entire day organizing the menu and preparing her wardrobe and home for such an event. That evening, her narrow, dark face was flushed with exuberance, and her long, thin hands were fluttering nervously in front of her chest. She was, I understood, an energetic and excitable woman, but never had I seen her so exhilarated.
“You will meet someone very interesting tonight, Kiki,” she informed me as her butler, Panagiotis, handed me a glass of wine. “You will be the only one to meet her tonight. Do not ask me any more questions. Just sip your wine and let me look at you.”
As always, I did as she asked, for I was only nineteen and used to Mrs. Artemis’ treating me as if she were my mother. While I sipped my wine, however, I wondered who her special guest was.
At that moment, an airplane flew overhead, and the proximity of Vassileos Georgiou 35 to the Athens airport caused an uproar that reverberated throughout the walls of the elegant home. How could such wealthy people tolerate such a constant and noisy distraction? I wondered. After midnight, the number of planes diminished, although they never disappeared for more than a half hour at a time. No members of the Onassis family found that the sound of the roaring engines disturbed their slumber. Even for the relatively fragile Artemis, this sound, rather than keeping any of them awake, instead lulled them all to sleep. Airplanes were part of their lives. Not just because Mr. Onassis owned Olympic Airways, but perhaps because the excitement of moving speedily, faster than ordinary people, whether by luxury ship or supertanker or elegant car or airplane, was in their blood. For Mr. Onassis’ hero, I had already learned, was the mighty Odysseus, whose fabled journey was an inspiration for his own life. Ironically, and tragically, it was that love of ascending, especially on airplanes, that destroyed this family. Yet that is a story to be told much later. This evening in August 1968 was full of promise and vivacity, and the sounds of the indefatigable airplanes overhead intensified that fervor.
The villa, which felt like a fanciful castle to me, was electrified that evening by an aura of excitement. Of one thing, however, I was certain: It was most unusual that I was the only guest at Vassileos Georgiou 35 to be meeting Mrs. Artemis’ special visitor. Mr. Onassis was on business in London, and his children, Christina and Alexander, were on holiday with their mother in Switzerland. But Mrs. Artemis never suffered from a lack of dinner guests. Most evenings, she invited her brother’s business associates and close friends, Professor Georgakis or Costas Gratsos, or his cousin and associate Costas Konialidis and his wife, Ritsa. Her other guests were varied and always interesting, friends such as Prince Stanislas and Lee Radziwill, or American celebrities such as Greta Garbo or Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton. This night, however, there was an air of mystery in the room that captivated my attention.
I had been there nearly an hour, chatting with my hostess about local gossip, when the mystery guest finally appeared on the winding wooden staircase to the right of the living room in which we sat. I knew there were four bedrooms upstairs and that Mrs. Artemis’ husband, Professor Theodore Garofalidis, was away on a hunting trip, so I was surprised that anyone was upstairs. My surprise turned to near shock when I recognized the slender, tall, dark-haired woman who was my hostess’s mystery guest. She was Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of the slain American president.
My shock was not totally justified, I reminded myself quickly, for Mrs. Kennedy’s name had been frequently discussed in the Olympic Airways offices these past few months. Although I had never spoken to the former First Lady, I had made arrangements for her to visit Skorpios several months earlier, when she had gone on a brief cruise on Mr. Onassis’ yacht, the Christina, to the Caribbean. I had also arranged for her brother-in-law, Edward Kennedy, to come to Skorpios to visit Mr. Onassis just this past August. I knew that Mr. Onassis had made at least two trips to the United States involving Jackie Kennedy this past summer: one to Hyannisport to visit some of the Kennedys, including Rose Kennedy; and a second one to Newport, Rhode Island, with his daughter, Christina, to spend time with Jacqueline Kennedy’s family. Also, just a few months earlier, before the horrific assassination of Robert Kennedy, much office discussion had been centered on Mr. Onassis’ generous contributions to Mr. Kennedy’s political campaign for the American presidency. For the past two months, it had seemed as if the name of Jacqueline Kennedy had been mentioned every day in our office. But gossip about famous and glamorous women was not unusual in these offices. There was hardly a famous or glamorous woman whose name hadn’t been linked with Mr. Onassis, if only for a brief moment. Still . . . Mrs. Kennedy herself. In Glyfada. Wearing a simple, short green sheath dress, adorned with a single strand of pearls, her thick hair styled in a soft flip, revealing tasteful gold earrings, the former First Lady of the United States appeared hesitant as she walked into the room.
Despite the conversations I’d had with Mrs. Artemis and the Olympic Airways personnel about this woman, I was overwhelmed and nearly unable to speak when I saw her approach me. At nineteen, I was easily embarrassed under normal circumstances and, in this most unusual occasion, I felt myself flush with chagrin. What right did I have to be in the same room with such a famous woman? What would I possibly say to her? I thought about averting my eyes with respect, but Jackie was looking directly at me. I swallowed my unease and stared back at her.
My first impression was that she was childlike, innocent and gentle. Yet, even in that first moment, I glimpsed a sense of wisdom, of cleverness that was barely hidden in her simplicity. My first impressions remained unchanged and accurate for the following twenty years.
Mrs. Artemis was on her feet the second she saw Jackie, her hand outstretched to welcome her surprise guest into the living room. Despite her cascading long gown, Mrs. Artemis appeared tiny in comparison with the tall, elegant Mrs. Kennedy. I guessed that our hostess was twenty years older than her guest, but I sensed immediately that these two women, despite their age difference, were already becoming good friends. The way they smiled at each other and held hands revealed a sense of comfort and trust that was obvious even to me. I knew that the two women had met before, at least twice when Jackie had cruised on the Christina, but Artemis had never indicated to me that Jackie Kennedy would be visiting her in Glyfada.
“Jackie, this is Kiki,” she informed her guest, speaking in French, as I stood there, trying to absorb the scene around me. I knew that Mrs. Artemis spoke no English and could converse only in Greek and French. “She is like a niece to me. But you will find her to be our girl. She does everything for everybody at Olympic Airways. Especially for Aristo. You will love her the way we all do.”
“Oh, Kiki, it is so good to meet you,” Jackie said warmly, she too responding in perfect French, her large brown eyes staring directly into mine. “I have already heard so many wonderful things about you.”
I was amazed at how natural she appeared, so unlike what I imagined a former First Lady of the United States would be. I was still uncomfortable to be in her presence, but her smile and kind words eased my discomfort. I found that smile honest and sincere, yet I later learned that not everyone who met her agreed with my reaction. Many others thought her smile false and insincere. Perhaps I was naive. Or perhaps I saw a different smile.
“So, tell me, Kiki,” Jackie Kennedy addressed me again, while I studied her smile and tried to think of a suitable response to her generous remarks, “are you married?”
“Oh, no,” I answered, of course, in French, although I spoke English, smiling myself, surprised at her blunt question. “Not yet.”
“But you will be soon, I am sure,” she informed me in her small, breathless voice.
“Oh, yes, she will,” Mrs. Artemis agreed. “As soon as we find her the right man.” She and Jackie shared a knowing smile, as if they each could already see my future husband.
For the next hour, the three of us sat in Mrs. Artemis’ living room, drinking wine and eating the delicious hors d’oeuvres Panagiotis served us. Jackie tasted all the Greek foods she was given. For a slim woman, she had a healthy appetite as she graciously accepted the carrots prepared in Mrs. Artemis’ special sauce, eggplant salad, baked rolls, and mozzarella cheese. She appeared especially to enjoy the small fried zucchini rolls Panagiotis had prepared so perfectly. When she praised him for the delicacies, the usually unflappable Panagiotis blushed with pleasure. This man was accustomed to serving dozens of celebrities in this living room, yet the presence of Jackie Kennedy was unnerving even to him.
I found myself too engrossed in Mrs. Artemis’ guest to eat more than a small bite of cheese, but I was delighted to discover that Jackie loved so many things Greek: literature, art, food, history, philosophy. She brightened visibly when she mentioned that when she had been on the Christina with Mr. Onassis in August 1963, she had visited the famous outdoor theater at Epidaurus on the north shore of the Peloponnesus in southern Greece. “I saw Electra performed at the site of the ancient Greek ruins,” she told me, her face animated at the memory. “Your wonderful actress, Anna Synodinou, played the title role and I was so impressed with her acting. I went up to her after her performance and remarked how amazed I was that someone so young as she could play such a role. She told me that she was not so young, but was the same age as Electra. I was amazed.”
Jackie also recounted how some employees of the Epidaurus theater had offered her embroidery made by young girls from the village of Ligourio in the Peloponnesus. When I promised that I would ask Professor Yiannis Georgakis to introduce her to Niki Goulandris, the vice president of the most famous museum in Athens, so that she could learn much more about the arts and history of Greece, she squeezed my hand with pleasure.
We talked about so many things that night, but a possible marriage to Mr. Onassis was never discussed. I saw a beautiful ring on Mrs. Kennedy’s finger, but I dared not ask about it. I personally knew he had bought an expensive ring in Spain that was supposed to look a great deal like the one she was now wearing. I also knew that Mr. Onassis and Mrs. Kennedy had kept in telephone contact with each other since her first cruise on the Christina, in August 1963, three months before her husband’s assassination. I had actually heard a great deal about that particular cruise. About how Mrs. Kennedy’s sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, had suggested that Jackie join her on the Christina, in order to recover from the death of the Kennedys’ infant son, who had lived only a few days after his birth. About how Mrs. Lee had danced barefoot around the ship many nights and how she had swum in the nude in the ocean during the cruise. And also about the rumors that Lee Radziwill was having an affair with Aristotle Onassis and that she was anxious to help her sister regain her strength and peace of mind. Many years later, when I also heard other rumors suggesting that Mrs. Kennedy slept with Mr. Onassis on that cruise, I could not help but smile at the absurdity of such an accusation. The seeds for a future love affair between Mrs. Kennedy and Mr. Onassis might have been placed in the soil, but Mrs. Artemis had been adamant in telling me the relationship was not consummated during that particular voyage. No way, she had insisted proudly, would her brother sleep with two sisters during the same cruise.
Nearly five years after that memorable cruise, Mr. Onassis had already been divorced from Tina Onassis for nine years, and, even though he appeared to adore his celebrated mistress, opera diva Maria Callas, there was still incessant talk about him and other women. Jackie, however, did explain that she was in Greece for only four or five days. She missed her two children and would return to them in New York soon. Another time, she assured Mrs. Artemis, she would bring them to Greece to meet all of us. “Caroline and John will be so excited to come here,” she said. “I know they will love to get to know you both.”
A few minutes before nine, Jackie excused herself and went back upstairs to retire for the night. She was exhausted from her long flight. When she left the room, she kissed both me and Artemis in the customary Greek way. I still felt uneasy to be with this famous woman, but far less so than I had felt a few hours earlier. Yet, even in that short period of time, I had learned a lot. Already there was a rapport between Jackie and Mrs. Artemis that showed promise of a strong and important relationship. Artemis was, I had learned firsthand these past two years, a teacher, a woman who liked to be in charge, to be listened to and respected. Her relationship with her younger and only brother was equally strong and important.
I was not certain if my employer would marry this charming and famous woman, most probably the most desired woman in the world, yet I could not help being awed by such a possibility. Aristotle Onassis had amazed and fascinated me during the two years I had worked for him. Jackie Kennedy, I thought as I sat on the elegant pink sofa and tried to concentrate on Mrs. Artemis’ words, would be very fortunate to marry this remarkable man. They would be a couple, I was certain, for whom nothing would be impossible. A couple who would shock and fascinate the world. An extraordinary couple, indeed.
Two. Entering a New World
Two years before that August night in 1968 when I was introduced to Jackie Kennedy at the home of her future sister-in-law, I had met the man who would become her second husband. On that day, in the fall of 1966, at the age of seventeen, I had begun a job at Olympic Airways that would change my life, leading me into a world I would find filled with unimaginable wealth, glamour, excitement, and tragedy.
It was just a secretarial job, my father had warned me when I left our house in Athens for my interview. An editor and writer for two Athens newspapers, the News and the Acropolis, my father worked closely with a relative of Amalia Hadjiargyris, Aristotle Onassis’ personal secretary. A well-known and highly respected newspaper writer, my father, George Feroudi, held connections to many influential Greek families and individuals. He had been told it was possible that Amalia could use an assistant, someone to work in her office. It was not an important position. The work itself might not even be interesting; it could be boring or unimportant. But it was with Olympic Airways and in the office of Mr. Onassis.
Just thinking about Aristotle Onassis made me so nervous I could barely sleep the night before my interview. After all, there wasn’t a person living in Greece who didn’t know who Onassis was. Every day, the newspapers would be filled with stories about him and his family, his two children, Alexander and Christina, his ex-wife, Tina Livanos Onassis, his three sisters—Artemis, Merope, and Kalliroi—and, of course, his renowned mistress, the world-famous opera singer Maria Callas.
I had read every story that appeared. I knew it all. I knew how he had begun his affair with Callas during a three-week cruise on the Christina with Winston Churchill in 1959. After the cruise, Tina Onassis, who had married Aristotle Onassis in 1946 in the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Trias in New York, followed by a lavish reception in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel and a month-and-a-half-long honeymoon to Florida, had filed for divorce, as had Maria’s husband, Giovanni Meneghini. For the past eight years, I had seen photographs of the two celebrated Greek lovers, and, like everyone else who was fascinated with them, I wondered if they would ever marry. Tina had married Sonny Blandford five years before. There seemed no reason why these two Greeks would not be joined together forever. He was the richest man in Greece and she was Greece’s leading diva. I had heard about their fights and knew that her opera career appeared to diminish as her love for him expanded. I had also read that Maria was a very moral woman and did not want to be responsible for having destroyed another woman’s marriage, yet she, like all of us, had to have known that there had been problems in Tina Onassis’ marriage before she met and fell in love with Tina’s husband.
It was impossible to deny that Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis belonged together. Most Greeks believed they were two parts of one person, a pair that no one should separate. She was fiery and tall and beautiful. She had made Tosca her own magical part, learning it in an unheard-of twenty-four hours, becoming, at age seventeen, the world’s most devastating Tosca, the woman destroyed by hate, jealousy, and pain. He was rich and exciting and unafraid of anyone or anything. If she was Tosca, he was Zeus, controlling the world beneath him with his thunderbolt of money, intelligence, and audacity. Her voice drew her audience to its feet, tears streaming down their faces in appreciation of her God-given talent. His 315-foot yacht Christina and his private island of Skorpios were the most desired vacation spots of the world’s most intriguing people; his financial acumen won him the respect and fear of businessmen throughout the world.
In 1960, I had heard Maria Callas sing Norma in Epidaurus, in the Peloponnesus. I was only eleven at the time and had gone to the concert with my parents. It was a dress rehearsal, and Maria had been noticeably nervous. Her costume had been too tight and she had pulled at it anxiously during her performance. It was obvious that she was a perfectionist and any small detail that was not correct upset her. Still, from the moment she opened her mouth, I had been spellbound. To me, she was like a woman of God, her intense personality matching her magnificent voice. Her talent was of the same magnitude as that surrounding Mr. Onassis’ wealth and business success. These were no two ordinary human beings.
And I was going to have an interview to work in the company owned by one of them.
The night before my interview at Olympic Airways, I lay in bed, unable to sleep, remembering one particular photograph of the former Tina Onassis. She had been wearing a long shimmering evening gown, with a white fur coat draped softly over her shoulders. Her hair was a warm honey blond color, but her dark eyes looked sad and tired. Perhaps it was the way the camera had caught her. Or perhaps she was a tired and sad woman since the divorce from Aristotle. She was so much smaller and more delicate than Maria Callas. I could not help but wonder what her life had been like since she had stopped being Mrs. Aristotle Onassis. I had read an article about Mr. Onassis in which he had been quoted as saying he had always been attracted to tall, statuesque women. “I guess I should have been a sculptor,” he had told the reporter. There was nothing tall or statuesque about the delicate Tina Livanos Onassis. I wondered how she would have felt if she had read that same article.
I was quite well versed in what Tina’s life had been like before and during her marriage to Aristotle Onassis. I knew that Tina Livanos had been the seventeen-year-old daughter of wealthy shipowner, Stavros Livanos, when Aristotle, forty, had married her on December 29, 1946, in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Trias in New York. She had been born in 1929 in England and moved with her family to Montreal in 1940 and to New York in 1942. She went to boarding school in Connecticut. She spoke mostly French and English and little Greek. Rumors of her infidelity and unhappiness with her marriage had appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, along with attractive pictures of her and Aristotle and their two children, christening ships, traveling on the Christina, and vacationing in exotic locations.
Like so many other Greeks, I was intrigued with the concept of this model-slim, blond, beautiful woman, once married to the richest man in the world, displaced by the tall, elegant, raven-haired opera singer, and now seeking love with other, more ordinary men.
But the former Tina Onassis wasn’t the only Onassis woman filling my brain that sleepless night. I had seen pictures and heard about Aristotle Onassis’ three sisters. The one who appeared most frequently in the press was his older sister, Artemis Garofalidis, the only sister with whom Onassis shared a mother and a father, and with whom he was rumored to be the closest. She was often described as cold, aloof, and forbidding. In her photographs, she appeared to be quite lovely, but painfully thin, adorned with exquisite jewelry, her aristocratic face solemn and unsmiling. I’d seen pictures of her with her niece Christina, and had heard that they, too, were unusually close. Christina, a year or so younger than I was, resembled her aunt Artemis more than her pale and delicate mother Tina, although she was a much larger person than her aunt. Still, in her looks, she was unquestionably Greek.
I also knew that Aristotle had a home beside his older sister’s villa in Glyfada, and that his children were more at home there than at any of their other glamorous homes. I could not remember seeing a picture of Artemis with Maria Callas, and I suspected they were not very close to each other, even though they loved the same man. Even if l did obtain a secretarial position at Olympic Airways, I would not expect to meet the mysterious Artemis.
Just the name Christina Onassis excited me. What was her life really like? I had often wondered. What was it like to have all the money you could possibly want? To live on a huge yacht named after you? To go wherever you wanted whenever you wanted? She didn’t seem very attractive in the photographs I’d seen, with dark circles under her eyes and her large Greek nose. Her hair was often wild and unflattering. I’d heard rumors of Christina considering plastic surgery to correct her cosmetic shortcomings, but I had not seen any indication that it had happened yet. She had been photographed dancing at tavernas with handsome young men. Several pictures had shown her dancing wild Greek dances on the tops of tables at these tavernas. Often she looked heavy, yet there were times when she appeared thinner. I’d read about her weight problems, and had been embarrassed for her when the newspapers exposed her heavy body in a bathing suit or short dress. It must have been hard for her to have been with her petite mother and thin aunt when she was at her heavier weights. From all I’d read and seen, she seemed an emotional young woman who, despite her grand wealth, did not appear to be going through life easily or happily. The few pictures that showed her smiling were rare.
When I thought of Alexander Onassis, however, I could not help but smile. Despite his thick glasses, he was an extremely handsome young man. I had noted the way his nose now appeared shorter than it had a year or so ago and believed the reports that he had undergone plastic surgery. He was only a year older than I was, but dozens of photographs had appeared in the papers showing him in the company of beautiful women, most much older than he. It was a frequent rumor that he was, despite the fact that he was still a teenager, an excellent and skilled lover. I knew he worked at Olympic Airways and I grew weak at the thought of possibly meeting him the next day.
How would I ever walk through the front door of Olympic Airways? I wondered as sleep eluded me that entire night. Aristotle Onassis and his mistress and his entire family were larger than life. Don’t worry, Kiki, I told myself as I watched the sky begin to brighten, you will never even meet the man. Even if you are lucky enough to find a job at Olympic Airways, you will probably never meet Aristotle Onassis or his ex-wife, daughter, son, sisters, or mistress. It simply will not happen.
But it did happen. The next day, I not only met Aristotle Onassis, I began to work for him. And from my first day of employment for Olympic Airways, the work I did there was never boring. Their offices on the fourth floor at 8 Othonos Street in Syntagma Square in Athens were most impressive. There was a doorman on the first floor who ushered visitors to the elevator and another doorman who admitted them to the fourth floor. There were also, I noted somewhat uneasily, several policemen in the building who obviously protected the employees. All four floors of the building belonged to Olympic, and Mr. Onassis’ office was on the top floor. The carpets on the fourth floor were blue and gray and very thick. The large glass windows, I soon learned, were covered by a material that allowed those on the inside to look out, but prevented those on the outside from gazing through them.
Somehow, I ended up sitting at a desk at Olympic Airways, waiting for the woman who would interview me for the job, when Mr. Onassis walked into the office. I knew the moment my eyes met his that this was Aristotle Onassis. He was short, yet he appeared much taller than he actually was. His eyes were dark and serious and his hair thick and beginning to gray. Feature by feature, he was certainly not classically handsome, yet there was something unique about his face and the way he moved that I found riveting. When he noticed me sitting at the desk of another employee, he stared at me, nodded briefly, and walked into another office. He spoke not one word to me, yet I had sensed his power, his intelligence, and his charm. Later that evening, I tried to explain what I had felt to my father, but few words could express my feelings. I knew that I had been in the presence of a great man, and that someday he would be one of the most important people in my life.
Amalia Hadjiargyris was this man’s personal secretary, and had been working for him since 1956, when Aristotle Onassis began Olympic Airways. She needed some help and decided, as soon as she met me, that I would be her assistant. Not only was I thrilled with my new job but I was also young and enthusiastic and most eager to learn. When Amalia took a vacation one year after I had been working for Olympic Airways, I was able to perform all her duties. With Amalia’s patient instruction and my long hours in the office, I assumed added responsibilities and become more invaluable to Megalos, or Big Boss, as most of the employees at Olympic Airways referred to Mr. Onassis, though rarely, if ever, to his face.
Several times in my first year of employment, I was asked to deliver airplane tickets or important papers to Mrs. Artemis in Glyfada. Amalia explained to me how difficult it was to find trustworthy people to do personal errands such as that for the family. Often drivers or messengers ended up taking advantage of the Onassis family, speaking to reporters about their visits or even secretively taking pictures of the house in Glyfada. Amalia was delighted when I suggested I personally deliver the items to Mrs. Artemis. Truthfully, I enjoyed those trips away from the office and found it easy and natural to be kind and considerate to my employer’s family.
“You are an angel,” Mrs. Artemis would tell me when I arrived with the papers or tickets. “How can I ever thank you, my dear?”
“There is no reason to thank me,” I insisted. When I walked into her house with one of her packages, Artemis Garofalidis was always wearing a long flowing dress, even on a hot summer day. Never, in all the years that I knew her, did Mrs. Artemis ever appear in pants. Even when she went for a long walk on the beautiful stretch of beach across the street from her home, she would wear a dress. Perhaps a short dress rather than a long one, but a dress, nevertheless. When I saw her in her home, her makeup was always impeccable and her hair perfectly styled and piled up attractively on top of her head. I also noticed that she favored long, elaborate earrings that could be seen, no matter how her hair was arranged. Even though she was a very small woman, both in height and weight, her feet appeared to be quite large. I learned later that she preferred to wear big, comfortable shoes at all times, always concerned that her feet should have plenty of room and not be squeezed into tightly fitting shoes. By the back door of the house, Artemis always left multiple pairs of large walking shoes for her daily walks to the nearby stretch of beach.
From the first time I walked into the villa, I was enthralled with the elegant old two-storied home, beautifully maintained, and full of original priceless art and aristocratic furnishings. The area carpets were from Persia and Spain, as well as from Greece, and like the furniture and draperies, all bespoke refinement and wealth. It was an honor to be invited into the house even for such a short period of time.
After a year of these telephone calls and visits to the house, Mrs. Artemis decided the way to thank me for my trouble was to invite me to dinner. I found out later that she and her two younger sisters, Merope and Kalliroi, had talked about me before Artemis met me. “We heard from our brother,” Artemis told me, “about this clever young woman—this child, really—who was now working in his office. He told each of us all how bright you were and how you could find solutions to problems quickly. I was curious about this little Kiki and I wanted to get to know you better myself.”
I have never completely understood what it was that made me the Olympic Airways employee whose relationship with Mr. Onassis did not end at the end of the workday. I knew that one major advantage that I had in my new position was that I was young, much younger than Amalia, and filled with energy and a desire to please my new employer and his family. Artemis, I could tell immediately, liked young people, as did her two younger sisters. Also, it did not hurt my position that I was attractive. Always, I worked very hard, whether on the telephone or in person, to show the proper respect to all members of the family. Perhaps, as a result of my attitude toward them all, within less than a year of my employment, unlike Amalia, who had worked for Mr. Onassis for many years, I was developing personal relationships with the members of his family, including sixteen-year-old Christina and eighteen-year-old Alexander.
Even though I was delighted that my position as a secretary for Olympic Airways now involved meeting other members of the Onassis family, at first my parents were concerned that this was not a good idea. They were worried that my becoming personally involved with the family might jeopardize my job. But they agreed I had no choice but to accept Mrs. Artemis Garofalidis’ invitation and be on my best behavior. In truth, I was delighted with the idea of spending an entire evening with Mr. Onassis’ sister. I was certain this one dinner invitation would provide me with an experience to remember for a long time. I never expected, nor did my parents, that this dinner invitation would be merely the first in an endless number of dinner invitations that would connect me solidly and forever with the Onassis family.
Why would they want me at their dinner table? I wondered as I nervously prepared for my first evening in Glyfada. I understood that I was doing a superior job in my role as secretary to Mr. Onassis, but how was I to act in his sister’s luxurious home? Yet Mrs. Artemis made it clear from that first dinner that in her house I was not to be treated as Mr. Onassis’ secretary. Why, at Vassileos Georgiou 35, I was not just her prized guest; here I was fast becoming, despite our thirty-year age difference, her treasured friend as well.
Artemis’ husband was absent from his home frequently in pursuit of his favorite pastime, hunting. The couple had suffered the loss of their only daughter, Popi, at the age of eighteen as a result of polymytosis, several years before I came into their lives. Artemis talked about her daughter only rarely, unable to speak about her for more than a few minutes without tears. From the first evening I was invited for dinner to her home, Artemis always insisted I sit next to her or across from her during our aperitifs, and many times I looked up to find her staring intently at me. Even though she adored both Christina and Alexander, when all of us were together, Artemis spent more time concentrating on me than she did on either of them.
“You remind me of my beautiful Popi,” she told me. “Sometimes I glance at you, Kiki, and for one quick moment I think she is back with me. Forgive me, but I cannot stop staring at you tonight.” I saw the black-and-white pictures of Popi that graced the walls and furniture of Artemis’ home, covering the large antique piano, along with other tastefully framed photographs of the Onassis family, and I did notice a slight resemblance between Popi and me. She seemed to be my height and weight, our eyes were both black and large, and the round shapes of our faces were similar.
It was uncomfortable to have Mrs. Artemis bestow such attention upon me, but I learned early to maintain a distance between her and me like that I had with her brother, never using the familiar “you” when I addressed her. I called her, as I called her two younger sisters and later Jackie, Mrs. Artemis, Mrs. Merope, Mrs. Kalliroi, or Mrs. Jackie.
I kept my gaze downward, never staring directly at any of them unless I was addressed by them, and never speaking to them until I was spoken to. I could understand that my presence reminded Mrs. Artemis of her beloved daughter and that she appeared to be growing fond of me, but I knew my place in all their lives and was careful to do nothing to endanger it.
As I became more involved in the Onassis family, I also allowed Mrs. Artemis some degree of control of my life. For the first year, however, I always returned directly home after work. Since I was so young when I began to work for Olympic Airways, my father insisted on picking me up after work. On the nights when I worked late, sometimes until one or two in the morning, my father was always waiting outside the building. “Tell your father to come upstairs,” Mr. Onassis would tell me on those nights. “There is no reason for him to wait down there while we are up here.” But my father preferred to wait downstairs, alone, no matter how many hours I was occupied upstairs.
After my first year with Mr. Onassis, however, my father began to relax a bit and allowed Mr. Onassis’ driver, George Margaritis, to drive me from the Olympic Airways office on Syngrou Avenue to my home in Athens. While I spent a few minutes talking to my parents about my day and changing my clothes for the upcoming evening, George waited outside my house. When I returned to the black Cadillac, George drove me to Glyfada, about fifteen minutes from my home, where I remained until midnight. One night, knowing I had my driver’s license, George asked me if I wanted to drive the Cadillac myself. I said, ‘“Yes, I would like to try,” and drove a short distance along the road behind the airport. Although it was exciting to be behind the wheel of that sleek car, I much preferred to be the black Cadillac’s passenger rather than its driver.
Nearly every night, after dinner in Glyfada concluded and the other guests prepared to leave, Artemis pleaded with me to spend the night at her home. “It will be like having my Popi back in her bed,” she implored me, but no matter how badly I felt, I steadfastly refused. It was difficult enough to return to my parents’ home after midnight, full of wine and good food, and rouse myself early the next morning to go to work. If I had stayed in Glyfada, I would never have received enough sleep to perform well at my duties the next day. Still, there were a few nights when Artemis simply would not let me go and I knew I would not be able to walk out her front door. Those nights, I slept in the room that had been Popi’s, a bright, warm room decorated with a beautiful pastel satin spread over the bed and matching curtains. The skylights made the room even more open and bright. Still, despite the beauty of the room, I did not sleep as well there as I did in my own bed, for my mind was filled with thoughts of a young girl who had died too young and never had a chance to live her own life.