9781569801505

Chapter One

SETTING THE STAGE

The phones simply stopped ringing. It doesn't really matter as I am forbidden to answer them anyway. My servants have been turned into jailers. They monitor my actions ensuring that I communicate with no one and most of all that I do not leave the apartment. I am under house arrest in my home in Rome. It is a pleasant enough prison as prisons go. I live across from the Roman Colosseum. From my window box, I sit and stare endlessly at the ravaged ruin. I count the columns. Eighty-six across, three rows high. The sun sets over the arch of Constantine, and I know I have survived another day of captivity--now I must survive the night.

I await the daily visits of my lawyer with enormous expectation. He comes with both the typically tentative hope of the legal world as well as the latest press clippings of my fall from the current headlines. Hundreds of stories, each filled with partial truths and sensational speculation. Yet despite their individual inaccuracies, together they form a strangely accurate mosaic. As I look down at the pile of clippings a picture forms of my life and of the strange history of the Jet Set in which I have lived. A pantheon of famous faces from my past stare at me in black and white, each a chapter and a milestone in my journey through forty years of life within the world elite.

The headlines are full of their normal combination of trite alliteration combined with misleading sensationalism:

All his life in the Jet Set

Two hundred stars plucked

The secret of Mozzarella, friend of the Divine

Rien ne va plus, For the Great Playboy

The Party Lion roars no more

It is a field day for the yellow press. Names and families that still carry magic and had only appeared in the society pages have finally made their way to the scandal sheets. The loves of my life, my closest friends, and even the people I have launched into society are neatly listed and put on parade. The press has accused me of using my role as a leader and organizer of the Jet Set to become their pied piper of financial ruin. I had allegedly lured scores of trusting socialites and movie stars to a casino which attracted heavy surveillance from federal law enforcement for its questionable ownership and rigged games, in Morocco. It seems I had the odd sense of judgment to jeopardize my freedom, vast network of friends, and social position to assist such a hairbrained scheme.

The days pass slowly, and the future seems rather empty and uncertain now. I am drawn to a past that was not so much a continuous party as an almost infinite collection of individual parties in diverse locations that painted the picture of the world that I have watched from its infancy to the present.

I would like to tell that story now. It is a story of my life, but also the history of my world--a history that is often misunderstood and perhaps never clearly defined. There seems to be so much uncertainty over what the Jet Set really is that one cannot be certain even how the term is spelled. Is JET SET one word or two--or perhaps it's hyphenated. Should it be placed in quotations or capitalized? A quick perusal of a telephone book from any international capital will reveal Jet Set used as the name of various businesses ranging from travel agents and ladies apparel, to escort agencies; yet try to find it in a library, and you will be disappointed. The Internet has seen fit to allow the existence of a Website that chronicles the parties of a Lhasa apso and famous Jet Setter named Lady Gizmo LeBratt. Yet perhaps these clues do not lead us closer to a clear definition.

Maybe it is easier to begin with describing what the Jet Set is not. The Jet Set is not comprised of people who travel in airplanes. A frequent-flyer card does not guarantee membership nor is the first-class lounge the meeting point. The Jet Set follows a fairly regimented travel circuit primarily dictated' by particular events in a prescribed series of locations each year. Yet were one to follow this itinerary and even to stay in the obligatory hotels, one would sadly still not be counted among the members of this group. The Jet Set is simply another term for a mobile segment of high society, recently augmented with entertainment and fashion luminaries. Neither extensive traveling nor enormous wealth guarantee acceptance within this society. Entry is very restricted, but possible. My story illustrates how this can be accomplished and perhaps even answers the question of why one would want to be.

The Jet Set as a recognized element of society began shortly after the Second World War. The early Jet Set of the fifties was called café society and was essentially a subset of the international high-society families who had existed in their segregated sphere for generations. It was comprised of roughly 200 titled families mixed with the fresher blood of industrial giants. The industrialists had been able to thus upgrade their social status and sophistication, and the old families had acquired new wealth. An excellent example of this is the Rothschilds. This enormously powerful industrial and banking family had begun to develop in the early 1800s from very bourgeois origins. By the turn of the century, they had become not only one of the richest and most powerful international financiers, but also aristocrats. Another example is the fabulously wealthy owners of Fiat, the Agnellis. For the last two generations, the Agnelli men have married princesses, thus, adding nobility to wealth.

It was my good fortune to be adopted socially by senior members of both these families. During the sixties, I thus had the opportunity to watch the early Jet Set as it began its evolution to the socially more multifaceted constellation it enjoys today. But more than just being a participant in this world, I was able to benefit from the social education that I received from these two families.

As I mentioned, physical mobility and wealth certainly do not connote acceptance within the Jet Set. Nevertheless, wealth is certainly an asset in attempting entry. If one wishes to be accepted in this circle and is not born with great family wealth, then other talents are required to compensate for this liability. It is not enough to be good looking, although it certainly is an enormous asset in such an aesthetic-oriented world.

What is required is a cultivated charm and an understanding of the rules of engagement on the social battlefield upon which the life of the Jet Set is played. I was fortunate to be blessed with good looks and truly lucky to have been chosen by members of two such great families to be the recipient of a complex social education that has enabled me to survive in this precarious world for more than three decades.

By the time I entered the world of the Jet Set in the early sixties, the habits of the social elite were undergoing the initial changes that would earn them that title. Formerly the great families exchanged visits to each other's palaces, summer homes, and yachts. With the inception of commercial air-travel, distances were naturally less prohibitive, and the younger socialites began to develop a jet-oriented travel circuit. What evolved was a group whose self-definition was linked to an uninterrupted participation in this annual circuit. It is this prerequisite and the life-style and values that are required to fulfill it that form the ultimate definition of the Jet Set. It requires a total time commitment that does not allow for the interruptions of business or career. When I entered this group in the early sixties, an almost formal travel schedule had been developed in a de-facto way that resulted from participation in particular events.

Christmas and New Year's Eve was always a choice between sun and snow. The winter sport enthusiasts had either Gstaad or St. Moritz. For those who selected St. Moritz, the key event was the formal New Year's Eve party thrown by the great shipping magnate, Stavros Niarchos, at the Chesa Veglia Club. It was a wonderful party, but did carry a great risk should you not receive an invitation for some reason. This would mean facing the socially devastating prospect of simply having nowhere to go.

In general St. Moritz had the reputation of being the snootiest place in the world. There was simply one "A" group and nothing else. Princess Milana Furstenberg to this day leads this social segment. If she did not like you, St. Moritz was clearly out. During the day, Princess Furstenberg's group dominated the beautiful Corviglia Club on the mountaintop, which was the only "in" place to break from your ski runs. At night her tightly controlled social circuit required invitations to the various chalet parties. Without them, you became a member of the lonely occupants of the dining room of the Palace Hotel--as if you were exiled to a leper colony. Clearly St. Moritz is a dangerous choice.

That left Gstaad for the slightly less-courageous winter enthusiasts. Gstaad social life offered at least a selection of nationality groups. The Greek group was led by the Greek tycoon, Basil Goulandris, and featured the frequent appearance of King Constantine and his family. The German group was led by the Mercedes heirs, Mick and Muck Flick, with their respective wives. There were some smaller segmented groups, but they were a little unsure socially. Even in Gstaad, one risked not being invited to the major event, the New Year's Eve party of the Prince and Princess of Savoy, hereditary King and Queen of Italy.

The Savoys have long enjoyed an elevated status among the Jet Set for a somewhat romantic reason. After the Second World War, Italy became a republic and forbade the Savoys to return. They were essentially an exiled royal house. This is, of course, very intriguing. Were they to be demoted to simple princes of a once-royal family (like the Bourbons), they could have enjoyed an acceptable, but unremarkable existence in Italy. But exiling them implied that their mere presence was a danger to the republic. It made one think of the exiled Napoleon planning his return from Elba or perhaps of Charles II staring across the Channel at an England he would soon reconquer. Such images intrigued and impressed the other members of the Jet Set. The very fact that the Savoys were exiled resulted in their unobstructed participation in the Jet Set's intricate travel circuit. To this day, the Savoys are prohibited from returning to Italy and consequentially remain very involved in the Jet Set.

For those who preferred the sun, Acapulco was the destination of choice. Here, too, there was only one group. Their exclusive villas were all built together in a large complex on the hill of Las Brisas, by the sea. The complex felt almost like a prison in that it was enclosed and constantly patrolled by police. One needed special permission even to visit. Although there was only one group, at least one had three chances to be invited to a New Year's party. Lowell and Gloria Guinness (of the beer empire) hosted the most restrictive party with a microscopic guest list, which included Frank Sinatra and Henry Kissinger. The most outrageous party was at the home of Baron and Baroness Rick and Sandra Portanova. There one could mingle with a more avant-garde guest list, which included actresses such as Joan Collins and Linda Christian, as well as grand aristocrats like Prince Michael of Kent with his German wife, Christina. The third party was for a younger, but nevertheless socially prominent crowd hosted by the French millionaire Tony Murray.

Usually the daytime was dominated by Warren and Yanna Avis, of the rent-a-car company. Margaux Hemingway, George Hamilton, and other Hollywood people could be found at the Avis's palatial hilltop home. I particularly relished the exercise value of their long stone stairway down to the sea.

In early March, we would migrate to the warm elegance of Palm Beach. Palm Beach has a culture and social world of its own. The international Jet Set simply visits with Palm Beach society, and for that matter, very few members of the Palm Beach elite actually are members of the Jet Set. It is an insular society made up of the Old Guard families, generously mixed with the nouveau riche. It tends to overcompensate a little for that fact in ways that Europeans often find to be quite cute. For example, Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband sells European aristocratic titles to the newly wealthy. Nevertheless, for spectacles of sheer extravagance, Palm Beach cannot be beat.

April brought us back to Europe for the Feria of Seville. The Feria is a week-long, uninterrupted party, which takes place in very diverse locations. There is constant partying along the street in small wooden stands where one drinks and dances the flamenco throughout the day. Frequent bullfights attract the sporty, while wonderful parties are thrown in the old palace for the elite. There is one hotel frequented by the Jet Set, the Alfonso XIII. However, it is more chic to arrive by yacht and return to it each night in the harbor. The Duchess of Alba presides over the social portion of this festival and throws lavish parties for the visiting elite.

The great summer migration generally begins in July when the move is to St. Tropez. The chic section of St. Tropez is les Parcs, where most of the private villas are located. The harbor is dominated by the assembly of yachts. The enormous yachts of Hollywood producers such as Sam Spiegel and Darryl Zanuck were moored next to the vessels of Greek tycoons and old socialites. Brigitte Bardot could be seen at the in-vogue clubs, and a slightly less discreet Rock Hudson could often be spotted with a handsome escort like the Italian actor, Fabrizio Miani. The fabulous yachts were used to host the daily beach parties.

Here a truly odd phenomenon would occur. The massive boats would go through the elaborate and costly process of pulling anchor, starting their powerful engines, or even hoisting their sails simply to cruise a couple of hundred yards out of the harbor to stop in front of the adjacent beach. The guests would then disembark from the immense luxury and fantastic cuisine offered by these pleasure craft to partake of the poor food of the tiny beachfront restaurants. This sacrifice was made for the compensation of admiring the many topless beauties sunning themselves on the beach.

I often would select a restaurant adjacent to the beachfront home of the ultimate 1960s vintage playboy, Gunter Sachs, who single-handedly defended the honor of German playboys against the then-dominant Italians. This one-time husband of Brigitte Bardot had outfitted his home with a Moroccan-style tent by the beach. I would enjoy watching the stream of beautiful women who walked in and out of his house. The nights were filled with wonderful parties at the various villas. A great hostess of that period was the Italian actress, Elsa Martinelli, who starred with Kirk Douglas in The Indian Fighter .

Of course, the quintessential Riviera destination was Monte Carlo in August. The Red Cross Ball held the first Saturday in August kicked off the season. Prince Rainier and Princess Grace held court over the most complete assortment of Jet Setters imaginable. Monte Carlo life is much more elegant that St. Tropez. The sun is superfluous to the scene. Bathing suits are not required. Even at lunch, one wears a jacket, and beginning at 7:00 P.M., one finds oneself already in black tie in an endless progression through various cocktail parties until one reaches the dinner location. Dinner takes place either at a private villa or on the terrace of the exclusive rooftop Winston Churchill room of the Hotel de Paris. The roof opens so one can eat under the stars and enjoy the panoramic view of the harbor filled with beautiful yachts, which were illuminated at night.

The newest discovery made by no less a personage than His Highness Karim Aga Khan was the Costa Smeralda of Sardinia. The natural beauty of this island made it very appealing. Although lacking in natural beaches, it offered majestic, granite cliffs that dropped dramatically into a clear, blue sea. Porto Cervo offered adequate facilities to accommodate the yachts that began to follow the Aga Khan's discovery. Soon Sardinia was to be the choice resort for the end of August. Before long, magnificent villas sprung up along the coast, built of the natural stone and blending subtly into the landscape. It was in these homes that the closed social life of the Costa Smeralda was acted out. During the day, the yachts carried us to islands that offered better beaches. It was here through my friendship with Amyn Aga Khan that I first met Princess Margaret of England and Crown Prince Carl Gustav of Sweden. And it was to be here that I would spend some of my fondest days with Gianni Versace.

Capri had been a longtime favorite of the Jet Set. September always brought us back to the beautiful island with its eccentric assortment of characters. For some reason, the island of Capri brought out the strangest behavior in some of Italy's most aristocratic families. The Prince Dado Ruspoli was generally to be found walking about with a red parrot on his shoulder. He usually took these strolls wearing specially made trousers that had legs of different and often clashing colors.

On the other hand, the Princess Pignatelli was an elegant lady of sixty who insisted on constantly wearing the same black funeral shroud with a black shawl worn as a hood over her head. She would encrust her face with white powder and took to sleeping in a coffin in her ancient villa. This bizarre scene was presided over by the uncrowned social Queen of Capri, Duchess Elena Serra Di Cassano, who in addition to being a duchess, boasted the dubious title of the Queen of the Italian DDT Industry. This, of course, is nothing less than the aerosol poison used to kill cockroaches. The duchess lived in a beautiful villa that is today owned by the designer Valentino. She would make her nightly after-dinner appearance on the terrace of the Hotel Quisisana, which was the meeting point at that time. Upon sighting her, everyone present would rise and holding up their goblets, shout "Viva Elena, Queen of Capri"--they were dead serious, too. It was exactly like watching a Cecil B. DeMille film about Tiberius Caesar during his years in Capri.

Although an angry Italy executed Mussolini, his daughter, Edda Ciano, for some reason, was admired and loved by the simple inhabitants of Capri, who enthusiastically shouted out her name when she passed. She somewhat devalued the Mussolini mystique by choosing as a boyfriend a jeweler sporting the name of Chanteclair (which, of course, means morning cock in French). I dated her daughter, Dindina, who struck up a great friendship with the daughter of Generalissimo Franco.

Eccentric Capri was a lucky place for me. It was here in 1965, as a very young man, that I broke into the ranks of the Jet Set. In fact, one might say that I was discovered. The designer Pierre Cardin took a liking to me, and we became friends. While visiting him in Paris some time thereafter, I had the great fortune to begin my relationship with Countess Cristiana Brandolini, née Agnelli, heiress to the Fiat empire. As I mentioned earlier, acceptance in the Jet Set requires a carefully cultivated charm. Cristiana was to become my first tutor.

Our life-style was an upscale gypsylike existence that seemed almost a social reaction to the postwar, conservative values, as well as disgust with the nuclear age. In a sense, it was a similar reaction to that of the "Lost Generation" following the First World War, in which characters like Hemingway traveled extensively, orienting his life around the running of the bulls at Pamplona and other such events. The early development of the Jet Set was met with as much scorn as it was with fascination. Perhaps the first article about this phenomenon, and credited with coining the term "Jet Set," was written in 1965 by the Italian intellectual and author, Alberto Moravia. He defined the Jet Set as "a group of parasites who should all be placed on an island and uniformly annihilated with the exception of one young man from Naples named Massimo." Although I was grateful that Alberto saw fit to spare my life, I was disturbed by the hatred that the Jet Set seemed to generate from some spheres.

Although the early 1960s brought the development of an extensive travel itinerary, the Jet Set was at this time still very homogeneous in its social structure. The guest list of most parties contained the same names one might have found in a prewar social register or the first-class lounge of the Titanic . There were, of course, exceptions to this. The most notable non-aristocratic/non-industrialist member was Greta Garbo. Strangely, her acceptance into the Jet Set was not because she was a great movie star, but because she was Greta Garbo. Her very eccentric behavior not only appealed to the Jet Set, it even intimidated it. Although completely disinterested in her own influence, Garbo was a trendsetter. She was adopted by Cécile de Rothschild, as was I, and became an unpredictable and sporadic member of the Jet Set. Garbo's inherent behavior greatly influenced the style of the group. She naturally embodied characteristics that were admired and often copied. I was lucky to witness these qualities firsthand as a result of my great fortune to have enjoyed a relationship with this truly unique lady.

Vulgar displays of wealth were never encouraged within European high society, but Garbo carried her notions of minimalism to a new extreme. She wore absolutely no jewelry, no makeup, and an androgynous uniform consisting of gray trousers and a simple blouse or turtleneck sweater. It was a very poignant statement. In addition to her understated wardrobe, Garbo was essentially rather stingy. Her frugal existence was construed to imply a distaste for ostentatious wealth, a scorn for showiness. Her contemporaries began to become apologetic of any show of splendor and either toned down their appearance or tried to understate their possessions. Those like Marella Agnelli, who sent teams of jewelers around the globe to search for matching rubies, pretended to have "picked up the little things in a bazaar in India." Collections of Picassos were described as "a couple of modern paintings," while Marie-Héléne de Rothschild's palatial country mansion would be depicted as a "little cottage."

The repercussions were widespread. The most chic hostesses began to serve the fewest courses and the smallest servings. Smaller parties with more exclusive guests were preferred. Understated quality instead of lavishness was the ideal. Less was definitely more.

Garbo pretended to neither know nor remember anyone. When trying to describe to her where we were going or whom we would see, regardless of the person's notoriety, Garbo would invariably ask, "who is he?" in her lyrical, mystified way. If you responded with surprise, she would simply add, "I know nobody. I only know three or four people." Whether real or contrived, this translated to the ultimate degree of chic snobbery. The most pretentious people were simply destroyed by her innocent question of "who are you?" It implied that one is so important that one really does not have the time or interest to keep track of anyone else. This, too, would set a trend. Dropping names was now decidedly gauche. On the contrary, one had to feign nonrecognition of the most famous names.

Finally, Garbo went out of her way to discourage the use of even her own name. Except in our most intimate moments, Garbo, who truly disliked the name Greta, would insist on being called Miss. G. Coming from the ultrasnob, this, too, set a trend. It was understood that the really important people were to be called something else or be given an abbreviated nickname. For example, His Royal Highness Karim Aga Khan was known as "K," while Gianni Agnelli went by the nickname of "L'Avvocato" (the lawyer). The most significant person in the next step of the evolution of the Jet Set was therefore to be known simply as Ari.

Aristotle Socrates Onassis was peculiar in a number of ways. Unlike the former industrial members of the Jet Set, he was a self-made tycoon of very recent vintage. Onassis is the most prominent of a number of the Greek tycoons known as "the Golden Greeks" who began to infiltrate the Jet Set in the mid-1950s and actually achieved social acceptance and prominence in the 1960s. By the mid-1960s when I became acquainted with Onassis and his girlfriend, the opera star Maria Callas, he had achieved a level of personal sophistication and social respectability that left no question that he belonged in the center of the most exclusive society. But in the early days, Onassis lacked the sophistication that was generally required and compensated with a degree of lavishness that was previously unknown.

Perhaps the best example of his extravagant imagination was the creation of the definitive luxury yacht, the Christina . The ship was a sixteen-hundred-ton Canadian frigate called the Stormont when Onassis bought her for $ 45,000. He sent her to the finest German architects and designers in 1954, and $6 million later, picked up the most decadently beautiful yacht in the world. A crew of fifty served the needs of this floating pleasure palace, which featured a swimming pool that could be raised to create a dance floor, an English-style paneled study with a lapis-lazuli fireplace, solid-gold faucets in the bathrooms, and old-master paintings on every wall. In honor of Onassis's whale-fishing fleet, he had the bar stools constructed from various whale parts. The footrests were massive whale teeth, while the enormous mammals were encouraged to sacrifice their foreskins for the honor of upholstering the stools. This allowed the eccentric Greek to enjoy his joke of asking elegant socialites if they knew they were sitting on the largest penis in the world.

In addition to filling the yacht with every imaginable luxury, Onassis was equally extravagant with his choice of guests. Soon Greta Garbo became a frequent passenger. What could it mean? The Queen of Minimalism befriended by the King of Ostentation? Such a riddle was not to be ignored by the astonished Jet Set. Cautiously other members began to visit Onassis, as secretly as they could manage it. There they discovered bizarre spectacles such as Garbo playing cards with Winston Churchill and Cécile de Rothschild. If this were not amazing enough, it seemed that the Christina was the venue of an increasing number of historic introductions. Among the more memorable meetings was that of the young Senator John Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, who came for a short visit to meet Churchill. Noticing Churchill's lack of enthusiasm, Jackie told her husband that perhaps the great prime minister had thought he was a waiter. In 1952, Onassis made a decision that set a chain of events in motion that was to forever alter the structure of the Jet Set as well as Onassis's position within it.

As a young refugee, Onassis had passed the magical port of Monte Carlo on his journey to freedom. It was a place that held great sentimental value for him, and he wished to restore it to its former splendor. In the early 1950s, he began to quietly buy an interest in the rather unprofitable Societé des Bains de Mer. He arranged to meet the recently crowned Prince Rainier III, a descendant of the original Grimaldi princes who, disguised as monks, had captured the Rock of Monte Carlo in 1291. The two men hit it off, and with Rainier's consent, Onassis obtained controlling interests in the SBM by 1952.

Onassis had great plans for the rebirth of Monte Carlo. Yet by 1954, he was still dissatisfied with the profitability of the SBM. Onassis decided that what Rainier needed was a charismatic American movie star to be his wife and the princess of their fairytale land. Aboard the Christina , Onassis hatched his plan and confided it to Greta Garbo and her boyfriend, George Schlee.

Accepting this as an Onassis commission, Schlee returned to America and began searching for the appropriate bride. Amusingly, one of his ports of call was Marilyn Monroe, who was visiting friends in Connecticut. Monroe was intrigued and dubbing the monarch "Prince Reindeer," suggested that a romantic weekend be scheduled prior to matrimonial decisions.

Also in 1954 two events were occurring in parallel. Alfred Hitchcock was conducting on-location filming of his Jet Set tale To Catch a Thief , starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Concurrently the formerly staid and somewhat unnoticed Cannes Film Festival heated up when the French actress Simone Sylva removed her bikini top and startled actor Robert Mitchum. The south of France was finally being noticed by the American public. During the filming of To Catch a Thief, Paris Match was cooperative enough to persuade Grace Kelly to pose for a photo shoot at Grimaldi Palace with Prince Rainier. Were Onassis to have drawn up specifications for the requirements he had defined for Prince Rainier's bride, he could not have met them any closer than with Grace Kelly. Gorgeous in an elegant, cool way, she possessed breeding, charm, intelligence, and an ice-queen sensuality. It was small wonder that Rainier became enchanted, and a correspondence developed that resulted in their engagement.

Now the newly discovered south of France was the topic of American attention. The final stages of the courtship, the cruise from New York to Monaco, and the ensuing wedding were the most highly covered news events of the day. The wedding itself received the largest television coverage up to that time. MGM even got permission to have the civil ceremony done a second time for their cameras. Fashion magazines competed to define the Grace Kelly look. NBC added Monte Carlo time to their studio clocks. Grace's mother, Margaret Kelly, wrote a series of articles that ended with her encouraging belief that any nice American girl could find her prince.

America was enthralled, the world was charmed, and the Jet Set now had its first family.

As Onassis cleverly predicted, the selection of an American movie star changed the complexion of Monte Carlo. Changes were swift and significant. Tourism increased dramatically, and the revenues of the SBM grew steadily. Prince Rainier was so delighted with his wife's success that in 1958 he appointed her chairman of the Monte Carlo Red Cross. This was significant in the world of the Jet Set.

Grace turned the Red Cross Ball into the premier social event of the Riviera. She invited swarms of Hollywood stars like David Niven, Sammy Davis, Jr., Cary Grant, and Frank Sinatra. It was truly the direct result of this event that movie stars became regarded as members of the Jet Set. Before this, Garbo was the exception. Grace Kelly altered the closed society of the Jet Set as effectively as if she had called out the Monte Carlo National Guard (if one had existed) to desegregate the pompous Hotel de Paris. She created a trend that would continue and eventually completely alter the configuration of the Jet Set.

One of Grace's best friends was Countess Donina Cicogna. I had the privilege of living for many years with Donina during which time we spent a great part of each year in Monte Carlo. By virtue of this relationship, I was able to watch the evolutionary process that Grace Kelly had begun in 1958 as it continued on its own steam. By the midsixties, it would have been unusual not to find at least one movie star at a Jet Set party. In fact this trend was to continue throughout the next decade until the overall mixture at the parties began to reflect an acceptance of outstanding people (or as some put it, of "international protagonists.")

The social changes precipitated by Grace Kelly were not simply limited to the constellation of the Jet Set. After having to deal with six thousand journalists during their 1956 wedding, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace decided that they would control the future press coverage of their children. They naively believed that if they granted two intimate personal interviews each year regarding the development of their family, they would be able to accommodate the public's curiosity while still maintaining privacy. This proved to be a fallacy. The public wanted intimate details of the Grimaldi family life and royal life in general. Teased by the biyearly interviews, they hungered for more.

In the past, most European countries that still maintained royal families controlled press coverage. A prime example was the Duke of Windsor's relationship with the American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, when he was the Prince of Wales. Although the world press was writing voluminous stories about the affair and even managed to publish a picture of the two in Villa D'Este on Lake Como, the English press staunchly remained silent. Even today, countries like Holland and Sweden try to control the press invasions into the lives of their royal families. The trend to increase the degree of observation that now borders on espionage was begun by the Grimaldi attempt to control the media.

What began innocently enough in 1957 with the birth of Princess Caroline of Monaco would continue to the point where the press would become the battlefield on which royal families would act out their personal wars. Charles and Diana--the Prince and Princess of Wales--were the most extreme example. Granting a number of private interviews and even individually appearing on national television, both the prince and princess individually appealed to the world to pardon their errors, excuse their infidelities, and side with one against the other. This "War of the Tabloids" was won by the Princess of Wales. The extreme accessibility of the private lives of the royals added to the popularization of high society and Jet Set life.

Nothing was off limits. The public hungered for and received transcripts of private telephone conversations, confessions of the royal wish to be used as a tampon, and even photos of untimely death. The world of the Jet Set was to become a global soap opera. Far from the discreet aristocrats and industrialists who had initially dominated the Jet Set, the players of the developing Jet Set were to become an increasingly diverse group of protagonists on an obsessively watched world stage.

The road to the desegregation of the Jet Set that resulted in the culturally multifaceted group of today might have begun with the acceptance of particularly sophisticated movie stars, but other groups were soon to challenge the restrictions of the socialites. Outstanding intellectuals were historically sprinkled in the parties of the Jet Set. They were chic to have around, perhaps as a reminder of the café society days. But one very special intellectual was to go one step further than allowing herself to be the token genius. Françoise Sagan, the woman who shocked the world by writing Bonjour Tristesse at the age of eighteen, attacked and changed the configuration of the Jet Set with a subtle, yet militant intellectualism. She simply created an alternative social structure, which was to subtly taunt and eventually alter the Jet Set. It was called la bande Sagan.

La bande Sagan was composed of a diverse group, which included Yves St. Laurent, Bettina Graziani (girlfriend of Ali Khan), movie director Roger Vadim (who discovered and married Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, and Jane Fonda), the dashing playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, Helene Rochas (owner of the cosmetics house), Genevieve Fath (wife of the famous designer), Juliette Greco (girlfriend of Darryl F. Zanuck), and the famous model Annabelle. For a time, this group of socialites, intellectuals, and artists was virtually inseparable and spent their evenings in Paris at the entrance of Regine's Jet Set hangout called Jimmy's--apparently too chic to actually enter.

This movement predated the social acceptance of the majority of the groups represented by its members and constituted an avant-garde movement. The ability to create social change should come as no surprise to those like myself who had the privilege of enjoying a relationship with Sagan. A woman who as a teenager was able to paint the definitive picture of Parisian life while directly influencing the evolution of the novel was not a person who necessarily had great patience for social pretensions. By creating a stylish group with even more restrictive entry than the Jet Set, she mocked the socialites with an intellectual and artistic snobbery that at once threatened and fascinated them. For many years, la bande Sagan was to be seen at many of the haunts of the Jet Set, never really entering the room, but waiting tauntingly at the entrance content with their own company. In a sense, it was gang warfare. It predated, but foreshadowed the next step in the development and integration of the Jet Set.

By the late 1960s, the once homogenous Jet Set had been outsnobbed by Garbo, inundated with Hollywood stars transplanted by Grace Kelly, reluctantly wined and dined by Onassis, and pursued by a more invasive press. They had faced the nightly tauntings by la bande Sagan and now were shell shocked enough for even further liberalization.

In the past, fashion designers had been the people who simply made one's clothes. But by the midsixties, the great fashion designers were becoming stars on the world stage. And perhaps even more significantly, they were becoming very rich. Of course, there were always some exceptions. Oleg Cassini boasted an aristocratic background, and as a former fiancée of Grace Kelly and confidant to Jackie Kennedy, certainly was accepted in the highest circles as early as the midfifties. Givenchy was very sophisticated and through his friendships with important people including Audrey Hepburn, was often seen at elegant parties. And we could devote an entire book to the social and amorous exploits of Coco Chanel. But they were notable exceptions. For the most part, future fashion icons like Valentino were sewing their own creations in the sitting rooms of their two-room walk-up apartments and not mingling socially with the Jet Set.

Slowly, this began to change. In addition to a now-wealthy, famous, more-glamorous image, the designers (and finally even their models) began to participate in a newly emerging social phenomenon. A number of after-hours clubs had opened that provided a mixing ground for a variety of formerly isolated groups. The most famous among the clubs of the 1970s was Studio 54 in New York. Here one would find a truly bizarre mixture. The club was a social blender. Debutantes and society people mixed with movie stars, designers, and the newest cult hero, the supermodel.

It was not easy to get in, so it still allowed a certain necessary feeling of exclusivity. Once inside, the next hurdle was to be admitted into the VIP area. Inside the enormous space of Studio 54, a new wave of Jet Setters was cross-pollinating--literally. In the dark mezzanine, many sexual trysts were consummated in this pre-AIDS era, while the Metropolis -like basement was the chosen location for partaking of the new flavor of the month--cocaine. Drug use reduced the social barriers to an even-greater degree. The combination of sex, drugs, and alcohol with every form of celebrity created a carnival-like atmosphere that had gotten out of hand by the late 1970s.

(Continues...)

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Jet Set

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