Product Description

At seventeen, Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos began a job at Olympic Airways that would change her life. She worked in the office of the most renowned man in Greece, and within a year she was Aristotle Onassis's personal secretary. For the next nine years, the last of his life, Moutsatsos was a key player in Onassis's professional and private worlds. She spent her days in his office, assisting him with important business matters, and her evenings at his sister Artemis's villa, mingling with his family and their world-famous guests. She was witness to his personal relationships with the most significant people in his life. She worked side by side with his children, Alexander and Christina, planned his travels with mistress Maria Callas, and even managed the details of his wedding to Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968. The Onassis Women is Moutsatsos's privileged insider's account of this larger-than-life figure and the grand objects of his love. Moutsatsos greatly admired Jackie, and the two women developed a close relationship, extending beyond their ties to the Onassis family. Moutsatsos visited Jackie in New York, staying in her Fifth Avenue apartment, and kept in touch with her throughout her life, even in the weeks before her death. Moutsatsos also became an intimate friend to Aristotle's daughter, Christina. Though often rebellious, Christina was always desperate for her father's love. Moutsatsos observed their volatile relationship as well as the push-pull element between Onassis and the women in his life. With the possible exception of Jackie, all these women--his mistress, his sisters, and his daughter--needed Aristotle's approval and suffered to gain it at almost any cost. It is through understanding the importance of these relationships, and their interconnectedness, that we begin to truly perceive the charmed and haunted lives of Jackie, Maria, Christina, and Aristotle Onassis. Index.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #236675 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From Library Journal
Tales of Jackie and Maria from a personal secretary of Onassis.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Judy Kaye has starred on Broadway in Grease, On the Twentieth Century, and Ragtime, and won the Tony® Award for her performance in The Phantom of the Opera.

From AudioFile
Moutsatsos was employed by the Onassis family for almost thirty extraordinary years. As an insider, she mingled with Aristotle during his affair with Maria Callas and, later, his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy. Judy Kaye is a dynamic performer who adds zest and charisma to this reading. Her ability to recount the volatile life this family led is paramount to truly understanding their complicated and tormented relationships. Kaye provides touching moments as she describes Christina's anguish and Jackie's strength. This is a revealing story of a powerful and wealthy tycoon whose need to control everything in his life destroyed valuable relationships with the women he loved. B.J.P. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

MONEY CAN'T BUY HAPPINESS AFTER ALL


The cliche "Money can't buy happiness" and its waggish footnote "but there are plenty of other selections" are both proven true in The Onassis Women by Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos,
former secretary to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

As reverential as it is revelatory, this chatty discourse begins in 1966. Thus, one misses much of the mogul's early years, such as his days hawking neckties on Buenos Aires streets.

Nonetheless, the slice of life the author did share with Onassis and his women is juicy enough to sate the hungriest curiosity. Is there anyone extant who doesn't know that
the aforementioned women included Jackie Kennedy Onassis and tempestuous diva Maria Callas? That these iconic ladies shared him makes the story even more intriguing. At center stage is, of course, Aristotle Onassis, "part god, part mortal" - a modern day Croesus, albeit a mercurial one, small in stature yet larger than life. Oft described as a cunning, predatory wheeler-dealer, he is presented here as an energetic, intelligent man whose craggy face could blacken with anger or soften with compassion.

Equally adept at dictating and doting was his older sister, Artemis, who adored and feared the titan, as did his two half-sisters Merope and Kalliroi. However, it was 90-pound, fashionably dressed, vodka sipping Artemis who played a major role in this contemporary Greek tragedy. Although married to an eminent surgeon, she saw herself as an Onassis first, hosting celebrity studded dinners in her 100-year old villa, and becoming confidante/advisor to her brother's famous American bride.

Tina Livanos, Onassis's first wife, whom he married when she was 17, receives scant attention. Blond, tall and beautiful, she gave him two children, Alexander and Christina. Of his marriage to Tina, Onassis said it was as if he'd had three children rather than two.

A 3-week 1959 cruise on the Christina, Onassis's sumptuous yacht, with Tina, Sir Winston and Lady Churchill, Artemis, Maria Callas and their respective husbands made waves and headlines. Following that voyage Tina sued Onassis for divorce citing adultery, and Maria Callas left her husband declaring she loved Onassis.

Disembarking the ship Maria wore a bracelet engraved TMWL (To Maria With Love). "Tina already owned a bracelet with the initials TTWL, and Jackie would receive her TJWL a few years later."

The nine -year Callas/Onassis liaison was a vesuvian match notable for vitriolic quarrels followed by passionate reconciliations. Artemis disapproved of this pairing, deeming "the Tigress," as she called Maria, "of peasant stock." Apparently, Onassis also considered Maria unmarriageable. Refusing to let her rearrange furniture in her shipboard suite, he said, "Never forget, my darling, you are not the housewife here. You are only a guest."

Despite his sometimes public disparagement, it is said that Maria truly loved Onassis, giving up her career and suffering two abortions to please him. In 1968, when Onassis left Maria for Jackie Kennedy, the bereft diva commented sadly, "I have lived the most beautiful years of my life next to Aristo, and I have lived the worst."

Although Christina and Alexander disliked Jackie and violently opposed their father's remarriage, Onassis sealed his vows with a $1.25 million heart-shaped ruby ring, only one of many lavish gifts for Jackie. He delighted in hiding a diamond bracelet in her dinner napkin or wrapping her breakfast roll in a strand of priceless pearls.

Yet, they had not been married a month before Onassis visited Maria in her Paris apartment. Whether or not the new Mrs. Onassis was aware that he had resumed his former affair is not known. One of the magnate's greatest coups may have been keeping the two women apart for over six years.

It is in reference to the Kennedy/Onassis marriage that the author puts many persistent rumors to rest. Citing the eye-witness accounts of servants, Ms. Moutsatsos insists that the pair enjoyed each other sexually as well as intellectually, and were truly devoted.

A life marked by luxuries that few of us can imagine was shattered by Alexander's untimely death. More than a father's pride and joy, Alexander was Onassis's raison d'etre. Heedless of his deteriorating health, the man whose hero was Odysseus turned into a pathetic shadow, scarcely existing until his death in 1975.

This was a loss so debilitating to the fragile Christina "that she attempted suicide within minutes of her father's death."

Of all the Onassis women, Christina's story is surely the most heartbreaking. Born into a life of ostentatious privilege, she ran second to Alexander in their father's eyes. Longing for friends yet unable to win them, she bought company with trips on her Learjet and extravagant house parties on Skorpios, the family's private island.

Desperately afraid of being alone, she paid an Argentinean polo player $30,000 a month to be at her beck and call. He was her favorite paid companion, "Even though he was always accompanied by his young girlfriend, Clare." Violent mood swings tested those around her; an uncontrollable appetite for chocolate and Coca-Cola pushed her weight to over 200 pounds.

Happiness in her fourth marriage was found with the birth of her daughter, Athina, whom she worshipped. When her husband, Thierry Roussel, asked for a divorce to marry his longtime mistress and the mother of two of his children, Christina offered him $10 million to impregnate her again. He refused.

Christina died at the age of 38. Official cause? Pulmonary edema.

The remaining Onassis woman, Athina, is now of age. In the year 2003 she inherited a $3 billion shipping fortune, the legatee of a grandfather she never knew and a mother she may not remember.

Nothing new. Too much author's self-importance!
Although Kiki admired and grew to love her employers, I think she sugar coated many of her observations. She also made quite a few mistakes, so I wonder how much is true. The anecdotes she narrates are mostly known, she could have made up the whole thing. In all, a good account of a family who despite their wealth -or maybe on account of it- had many failures. But she does present them as human beings, with their good and bad qualities. Easy reading, but not much content.

A refreshing and truthful account of love and tragedy.
Usually, when reading biographies, you get an author's version, romanticized or warped, raving or critical. But this author has an innocent voice, one of a young person who simply allowed each of the Onassis family their own role, without analyzing, criticizing, or eulogizing. I could sense the real life of each person, the heart life, as Kiki describes their words and manners, the tones of voice when speaking to each other. The book implies much more than it puts into words, with its honesty and open-heartedness. The tears and tragedies were real,too. The Greeks live life fully, and draw the spirit of each scene in. Jackie O. was given a true portrait. Kiki didn't miss much as she escorts the reader through many encounters and shares what no one was ever allowed to know. From inside the walls around wealthy, powerful people, we see their vulnerability in love and in death. My heart was greatly moved. Makes me glad my life is simple!